Badcube: Wardog

Hello and good day guys and gals, next on my review is a 3rd party transformers Badcube's Wardog (Not Warpath) His alternate mode is a tank and he is one of the more odd looking Autobot you will find, as his most prominent feature is his tank barrel protruding from his chest. He is one of the more loud-mouthed Autobot there is and you can here him shouting " Wham! Bam! Pow! " while charging straight into the battlefield. While not the 'normal' looking robot that you would have expect from the Transformers series, Warpath is indeed quite strong, both in firepower and armor. 

Badcube took the challenge to make an MP-like Warpath design and to me, he is the best looking Warpath so far in the market, while I do have so bad experience with Cubex (now renamed badcube)

I've decided to give it a shot. 

Here are some Warpath pictures I've taken from the internet.

First thing's first. We have a look at Wardog's box design. He has the typical cubex/badcube box design which features 2 main color for the box.

At the back of the box, we have some nice drawings of Wardog in both robot and alternate mode.

I do like the design at the back of the box, looks cool.

Top right corner features his stats. I would say its all accurate, even more accurate than the stats given by MP series sometimes.   ;p 

Here we have Wardog out of the box. He comes in his alternate mode, with his collector's card and instruction manual. He also comes with collector's card for Backland and Brawny, probably as a marketing strategy. Maybe they did not sell as many Brawny and Backland figures as they thought they would. I would have purchase Brawny without fail if not for the fact that you have to purchase the both of them in set, which is a bummer, because most people just want to have the Not Brawn figure. I'm sure their sale for Brawny will be much much higher is they sold it as separate units. For now, I'll have to wait for someone to let go of them 2nd hand or find someone kind enough to sell only Brawny. ( Which is near impossible by the way)

Wardog himself has 2 collector's card. One MP like and the other is Badcube's own design.

Can't complain with that, the more cards, the merrier. I do like collector's cards.

For the MP-like card, you have the bio written in chinese instead of japanese, which is a good thing as I can finally read the bio at the back of the card. The other card's bio is written in English.

He also comes with a poster featuring Wardog in battlefield. It does remind me of X-Transbot Apollyon's box design though. Still, its a cool drawing.

His instructions manual

As he comes in his alternate mode, I will start from this mode.

Here we can see Wardog side by side with MP-14 Red alert.

I think the scale is just about right, probably will be more accurate if he is a little more bigger, but I'm not that fussy, I think the scale is OK.

Here we have him side by side with Badcube Huff

Well you be the judge whether they are in scale or otherwise.

Here we will have a close up on his Tank mode. Looks good as a whole, color is there I guess, but it would look much more accurate if the red is a little darker don't you think? In hand, he feels much lighter than I've expected and he has no die-cast parts.Plastic quality feels average for me, but a BIG improment since their Cubex time.

Top view for his tank mode. The paint job on my figure was good and no paint blemishes on my figure. (thank god) After what Badcube gave us you can't really blame me for checking out for paint blemishes first thing after I've opened him up. 

Side view of the tank looks good as well. I don't have anything to complain about the design. The only nitpick I have is that the tracks don't turn and they are static.

Not a big issue, just a nitpick.

His turret does turn a full 360 degrees on a soft ratchet joint, which I think its a good job.

A little close up on the barrel.

The tank's barrel can be tilt down but not upwards.

The tank's turret does tilt up and down as a whole to about 30 degrees.

Neutral position

Downwards position.

" Boom! Bam! Pow!"

Here we have him next to MP-10 for some size comparison.

A close up on his turret. I do like the commander hatch with the black window around it, nice details.

The back view of the tank

The design for the track is nicely done with good detailing. Too bad it does not roll.

During transformation, you would open up the compartment below the tank and it will reveal some hollowed parts. This feature is important for his mass-shifting everyone is talking about for this figure.

The bottom part of the tank will become his shield and on it, is his gun.

Next we move on to his robot mode. Transformation is moderately difficult, the hardest part being the shoulders. As a whole, in robot mode, he does give you a short and stubby feel. Body ratios are not too bad, looks decent enough, just not perfect.

Side view. Where would Warpath be without his protruding chest barrel. I will give them credit for the accuracy on that. The tracks at the back of his forearm is somewhat cartoon accurate, problem is that it looks a little bigger than I would like. The back of his feet with the extra tracks, while providing extra stability for the figure, also makes the figure lose some aesthetic points. He also has quite a big backpack on his back, but well, all those mass shifting must be stored somewhere. His arms looks a bit short for me and I think he would look much much nicer with slightly longer hands.

From the back we can see the prominent backpack, and tracks from the forearm and feet.

Badcube made a very accurate headsculpt for Wardog and for me the design is spot on for G1 Warpath. No complains there. Well, maybe one, he does not have light-pipping  :)

Side view.

His upper body close up

His head can tilt up very well, about 60 degrees.

But he cannot really look down as his movements are impeded by his chest and turret 

His head can turn around fully.

Shoulders are on a ball and hinge joint allowing him to do a full 360 rotations.

Shoulder abduction is almost 90 degrees.

Elbow flexion is 90 degrees.

He has elbow swivel allowing a full 360 degrees rotation.

There is some outward and inward movements over his shoulder.

His fist does rotate around fully.

No individual articulating fingers. Thumb is fixed and the 4 other fingers move as one unit. Palm does have a groove to hold his gun and shield.

He can rotate his waist 90 degrees to each sides.

The part at the bottom of his backpack stops him form rotating a full 360 degrees at his waist.

Hip flexion is almost 90 degrees.

He can go to about 50 degrees for his hip extension 

He can perform the perfect split.

Knee has a good 90 degrees flexion.

He can tilt his foot internally all the way. Unable to do it externally.

You can extend his ankle to make him look taller if you want to.

Downward tilt for his foot.

Some upward tilting for the foot.

His back pack can store his shield and weapon by allowing them to hand over his back.

Here are his shield and his gun. Well, Warpath need no gun for G1 fans as he has everything he needs in his tank barrel. 

Personally I think the design for his gun is very cool and I really love it. Like the chrome part on top of his rectangular shaped gun barrel.

Nice details.

The handle for the gun can swing from side to side for posing purposes.

You can fold up the shield and put the gun on his back. They do not really have to do this feature because they've made the back pack look even bigger and personally its ugly.

Wardog in all his glory. He does remind me of some mecha I've seen before and after pondering for a while, I think he reminds me of mecha from the "Front Mission" series.

What do they have in common? short and stubby robots LOL

Posing time!

As Spartans would say " Fight in the shed "

" I don't need all that crap! I'm Warpath! Pow! Chew on my explosives Decepticons!"

Here we can see some mass-shifting in action. I think it is the most impressive part for this figure.

Some size comparison pictures.

Warpath:"Bam! Boom! Pow!" 

Megatron:" OK thats enough you show off!"

Such a cute fellow....

PROS: Great alternate mode design, good robot design, close up with some mass-shifting in real life, decent articulations, no loose joints, good paint job. Cool gun. Almost MP scale figure. One of the better looking Warpath figure out there.



CONS: Average plastic, no die-cast, no light pipping, no individual articulating fingers, ugly back pack and heel, pricey ( Got it for about RM390 ~100 USD ) around 80USD would be nice.









Thank you for reading mates!