Review; Transformers Legacy Red Cog
I am on a bit of a Japanese Transformers wave at the moment and Transformers Legacy is happy to accommodate. We have the recently looked at Minerva, Lio Convoy/Prime, the Diaclone repaints like Lift-Ticket and Burn-Out, Galaxy Shuttle and the recently announced Twincast, Soundblaster & Metalhawk, heck even the last two Haslabs have been Victory Saber and Deathsaurus, two of the biggest hitters in the JG1 continuity, and I am living for it. So Today we look at Red Cog, who is loosely linked to JG1.
Red Cog, as the name may suggest is a red repaint of the War for Cybertron; Siege Cog toy, which is blue. In the War for Cybertron series, Cog was used as an Autobot crowd filler, having many digital repaints, similar to how Refraktor was used with the deceptions. The Red Cog in the show was the Security Officer, possibly a Star Trek reference, especially given they get injured a fair bit.
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Cog though is based on the G1 character of the same name, who is the companion robot of Fortress Maximus, and made up of the two vehicles Casket and Grommet, given this is Red Cog we can assume he is made of Red Casket and Red Grommet, or is he? Going back to my lose JG1 comment, in the Japanese Anime Masterforce, Fortress Maximus was repainted and renamed Grand Maximus, and the Cog companion bit was repainted red, still carried Cog but his two vehicles modes where Onomisu and Koka. Grand Maximus interestingly got a toy out of the repainted Titans Returns Fortress Maximus, so if you have Legends Grand Maximus, Red Cog here would go well with him.
Red cog is a decent feeling toy, has some really nice build quality to it. Articulation is everything you would expect from modern mainline and a bit more due to the transformation and main selling point of the toy. The big thing that surprises me is given how the toy is intended to be used it still has ankle tilt.
Transformation wise, Red Cog is a parts former, which some people don't like, I don't mind, I had a G1 Starscream as a kid, I'm used to have to take apart and bash together to transform, and personally I don't mind it. The torso splits at the back of the torso, leaving the upper torso and the back torso and legs in two parts. on the fron torso, you unplug the arms and plug them into the front of the chest piece, tilt the head back and you have your first vehicle, Onomisu/Red Grommet. As for the other half, you simply fold the legs up and click into the back torso bit and you have Koka/Red Gasket.
Personally I love these two wee vehicle modes, they both roll brilliantly, Onomisu more so than Koka, and they both look the part of the original G1 figures. Onomisu can even loosely seat a Primes Wars Trilogy Headmaster/Primemaster similar to how the G1 toy could seat the large G1 Headmasters, like Cerebros'.
These aren't the actual "official" vehicle modes for Legacy cog, in order to achieve that, you take the guns/arms off Onomisu and clip the back of Onomisu onto the front of Koka using a tab. Then you plug the arm guns into the back part of the combined vehicle, et viola, you have the official vehicle mode.
I quite like this mode, it's like some sort of armoured powertrain. once again it can roll about but the gun arms are kinda stuck facing forward due to there being two pegs holding them in place in this mode. But lets be honest, these aren't Red Cog's main selling points, the main reason you get the toy is because they are a weaponiser.
Yes The War for Cybertron series brought us Weaponisers and Fossilisers and for as little as I own (currently two) I do really love this gimmick. there is something wonderful about being able to pull a toy apart and making it into various accessories or to combining multiple to make cool vehicles or or combiners to go with your toys. Yes Cog isn't a partsformer in order to achieve his transformation as with most partsformers toys, he is a parts former so you can tear him apart and arm up and accessorise your other toys.
In the instructions there are two ways listed to combine with your other Transformers toys. the first is to take the upper torso, take out the arms and you have a large gun formed from the torso, then takin the legs off of the lower body and folding the upper legs into the lower legs you form boots. combining the lower torso with the arms gives you over the shoulder cannons to connect into the back of a Transformer toy you have that has a 5mm peg on their back. The second set up involves folding the shoulders back on the upper torso to form a shield/large gun, and instead of removing the legs, folding them back, and pegging the arms into the bottoms of the feet to form larger over the shoulder cannons. Of course this isn't all this is limited it too, you can use your imagination and come up with some other combinations.
Accessories are another selling point of this toy, because boy does he come with accessories. You have the guns that the original Siege Cog toy came with, very nice sci-fi looking blaster rifles. You also have the repair/welding gun seen in War for Cyberton, used by Ratchet to repair the wounded from the war along with the planted explosives used in the show, which are also a nod back to Transformers Prime, and an Energon Vial as seen also in War for Cybertron. The set also comes with 3 new barrels, for extending or changing the purpose of weapons you may have from the WFC/Legacy toylines, one is a sniper barrel, which is intended to be combined with the scaled down version of Ultra Magnus' Gun included in this set to form a sniper rifle, as used by Elita-1 and Chromia in the WFC series, and a triple barrelled shotgun barrel which combines with the small pistol included to form a shotgun I don't believe seen elsewhere. the last barrel is like that of a small SMG, which can be combined with the last small gun included, which interestingly, while styled as a gun, is included so that Red Cog can be combined with the Earthrise/Kindom Arcee like Cog does in the WFC Series, unfortunately I don't have the Arcee toy to try this out.
All in all this is a great toy, I love the weaponiser gimmick and look forward to getting my hands on more along with the new Junkion ones being released, if you haven't picked this up I recommend it, even for the weapon accessory pack alone.
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