Preamble
Firmly cementing my plan of not collecting Legends scale figures, Newage’s H57EX Freyr arrived into the Vault back in early December. Their take on the G1 toy version of Swoop was easy for me to pass on, considering I don’t have any of the other Dinobots from them to date. Sticking to my guns, I fully intend to ignore the eventual releases of both Snarl and Slag, happy in the knowledge that I will then not have a full compliment of Dinobots!
Of course, everything you have just read above is complete cobblers. But like so many promises we collectors make to ourselves, often we find many are broken… I have now broken my Legends scale promise 5 times! My name is Edd and I’m in Legends denial.
Box & Accessories
Freyr (like Ymir and Rhedosaurus before him), continues to be packaged in a style very reminiscent of the old G1 toy boxes. The figure itself housed internally in a two part clam. Accessories consist of two pairs of hands, a sword and two missile launchers with detachable missiles. There is also the instruction sheet which folds out and is printed to just one side. Oh, I almost forgot. There is a display stand too, but I'll talk about that later.
Pterosaur Mode
Out the box and Freyr is in his Pterosaur mode, resembling the awesome Pteranodon (the ‘P’ is silent). The overall finish and tampo’s are of high quality, chromed parts and some paint application all come together to emulate its G1 toy predecessor. Articulation in this mode is fair, the head moves around and the wings flap, but that’s about it. I mean come on, he is a Pterosaur after all… but the wings are impressive!
Transformation
Transformation, for the most part is a step by step emulation of the original toy. However as to be expected there are some differences, but it is changed up a bit and done ever so well. All joints are reasonably tight and everything tabs in where it should and holds well.
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Robot mode is great but not perfect. He’s smaller than his team mates but that does not mean articulation has been skimped on. The articulation is spot on, allowing some dynamic poses… but some require the lines to be broken. These lines I speak of is the beak. Positioned as it is, it locks the upper and lower torso, so to get more out of him the beak needs lifting up. The figure is well balanced with some die-cast content too. Weapons are held well and the swap out hands are exchanged easily. Also of note is how there is no unsightly kibble on view, Newage have done a bang on job of making these Dinobots really tidy visually.
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3 out of 5 releases down and Newage give us another solid figure, an awesome version of Swoop in this smaller scale. The beak in robot mode is a minor issue and not worthy of negatively marking him down. I could also pick at the knees were I inclined to but again, it’s a very minor point and not really worthy of mention. After all, they are not Masterpiece figures…. even if price wise they are getting closer to them. But I promised to mention that display stand didn't I. Well, it's not much use to be honest. The base is too small to counter balance the arm so more exciting angles are off the table. But to be fair that wouldn't really matter as Freyr doesn't stay tabbed onto it very well. The peg hole is not deep enough really to afford good purchase on to it, so he soon come off under nothing but his own weight. And as for using it in robot mode, well forget it. I know I have a picture with him using it in Bot mode but it's down to balance and blu-tac.
So, another short and to the point collection of my thoughts then. Freyr is a small Dinobot that packs a giant sized punch and with lots of personality is sure to make an impact on your display shelf. If you don’t have one yet, stop messing about and go get yourself one, you’ll not regret it… especially if you have decided to absolutely not collect all the Dinobots in this Legends scale, just like me!
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