BEAST MACHINES: TOY REVIEW

Name: TANKOR
Allegiance: Vehicon
Function: Vehicon General
Machine Mode: Tank
Average Price: 34.95 AUD

MACHINE MODE

This mode is all about gimmicks! Tankor is 14½cm long and 9cm wide. There aren’t many points of meaningful articulation (him being a tank and all) but there’s a few; his tank turret can swivel up and down, (about 200 degrees, due to hitting the ground, or the tank form and stopping) and the turret mounting (sort of looks like a face) can also swivel (360 degrees). The tank rolls very well on four tiny wheels underneath him, and the tank treads look fairly convincing, even if they don’t move. This is about it, when it comes to articulation; but it makes up for any lacking in this department by being PACKED with gimmicks.
First of all is the missile. He only has one which can fire… well, not a considerable distance, but far enough, I suppose. The missile is moulded to resemble some sort of fireball, rather than a missile (take note; it resembles a fireball to the extent that Tankor looks STUPID holding it as a weapon in robot mode). Moving down to his ‘tank head’ we see a kind of nob on the top of the ‘head’, which can be turned to make the single eye in this form scan about.
To make the ‘eye’ glow, open the false entry hatch on the back of the tank head, and it can now glow via light-piping. The entry hatch looks just as good open as closed. Turning a knob on the back of the tank will turn the tank head in either direction, and also makes the eye turn this way and that. While you’re still on the head just open a little hatch on the side to reveal the Vehicon spark crystal.
The tank can also be changed into a kind of harvester mode; just open up the orange panels on the front, and pull the robot hands aside. the gap created contains two blades which spin as you move the tank along the ground. The robot claws can open and grasp enemies to pull them into the blades. A nice little extra.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

The instructions are useless, but probably not necessary anyway. Just pull both sets of tank treads open and do a bit of turning with the robot waist/tank underside. Pull the tank cannon over his shoulder and boom! robot mode.

ROBOT MODE

Height: 15½cm
Points of Articulation: 15
The robot mode is quite impressive. While not as tall as most other Megas (especially his counterpart Cheetor, who’s about as tall as Optimal Optimus when his stilts are deployed), Tankor is bulky enough to make up for it! He’s got a nice range of articulation with shoulder, elbow, waist, neck, knees and hips. He’s also got a articulated jaw, behind which appears to be some sort of mouth-gun (though you can’t open the jaw wide enough to reveal it properly; it’s only visible from the sides and could be a tongue of sorts). His face has a strange appearance because he’s a Cyclops! The same light-piping used in almost all the beast machines toys gives him a glowing eye. But this eye is REALLY cool because if you turn a knob on his back it can look from side to side. The first Transformer ever with an eye you can pose! Did you say armed to the teeth? Tankor surely is! Spinning blades on his arms, a massive cannon on his shoulder, missile launchers on his chest and huge clamping claws make Tankor just as heavily armed as all his Vehicon buddies. Because his hands are opposable, articulated claws, he can also hold his missile as a bludgeoning weapon (which is all the rage amongst Beast Wars toys since the Fuzor Silverbolt started the trend). This looks stupid, though, as his missile is specifically moulded to look like a fireball. The only things hurting this toy in this more are his lack of ankles (which make some poses impossible) and the bulkiness of his forearms; they sometimes get in the way. There’s a small stability issue because his tank-head doesn’t lock fully into place, but this is minor. My version of Tankor has loose hip ball-joints, but this is most likely just a defect in my toy.

SPARK CRYSTAL LOCATION

Hidden behind a red door on his tank-head.

OVERALL

Tankor is easily as good as Jetstorm, if not better. If you have to choose one of the first wave Megas, get Tankor. He’s bulky, sturdy, and had gimmicks up the ying-yang! Spinning blades, articulated eyes (!), big ol' claws… damn he’s cool! Of course, there’s also the fact that I’m rather partial to tanks, for some reason.

This review was written by Andrew Sorohan.

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