Wow, I can't believe I had such a bird-shaped, Unicron Trilogy sized brainfart!
Anyhyew, on with the list:
#18: Tanks I should point out two things before I start. Firstly, I use a sliding scale of accuracy that I'm going to employ here. This is how the scale works:
A) Transformers with licensed Alt Modes, or Alt Modes that are slightly modified but look uncannily (but unactionably) similar to actual real vehicles.
B) Alt Modes that are based on no specific real life vehicle, but that look realistic enough that your average Spike on the street wouldn't be able to tell the difference from A
C) Alt Modes that look like they might possibly be a real thing, albeit some kind of experimental model or prototype.
D) Alt Modes that look nothing like a real vehicle at all.
So for example, Bayformer Starscream would be A, G1 Windsweeper would be B, G1 Jetfire (toy version) would be C and G1 Triggerhappy would be D. For the sake of this entry, I will be covering A and B, possibly C, but not D. That means no H-Tanks or Hovertanks. I'm sorry.
The other thing is that I'm aiming to get through the whole entry without any jokes in the "Tanks=Thanks" genre. If you like, you can sponsor me. Let's begin:
"I'm just BOOM going to POW 7/11. Does anyone WHAMMY need anything?"
Warpath is a pretty cool guy (eh shots down Deceptipons and doesn't afraid of anything) even though he sounds like he's suffering from a highly specialised form of coprolalia. He was one of the Minibots, which sadly made him far smaller than many of the carformers that made up his comrades. His toy is pretty neat, with a flip-up hatch/head and a big gun extending from his chest which, according to his bio, he likes to polish whenever he gets a chance. If it gets scratched, he cries a river.
"I found a facebook quiz: "Which Blitzwing are you?". Well, I once made a football coach be my tactical commander, and I threatened Galvatron's life. Hmm, it says I'm "Random"."
Blitzwing is a cool toy, and a cooler character. In the comics he was nothing special, but in the cartoons he was amazing. He, working with Astrotrain, managed to trick Starscream into trapping both himself and Megatron in ice, making them joint leaders of the Decepticons. Blitzwing then proceeded to build a base, cause a reign (and rain) of terror and defeat five Autobots easily. Astrotrain made some trains go back and forth, and accidentally freed Megatron. It ended in a Decepticon battle royale.
Later on, when Megatron became Galvatron and got thrown out of Unicron by Rodimus (nice names, Hasbro), the Quintessons tried to lure the leaderless Decepticons into working for them. Blitzwing was the only one who thought anything was fishy about this. After that, when he discovered the Quintesson's true plan he saved the whole Transformer race by alerting Rodimus who saved the day. When an ungrateful Galvatron turned his cannon on Rodimus, Blitzwing threatened to shoot him in the head. Blitzwing got banished from the Decepticons, refused to joined the Autobots due to his pride and walked out of the cartoon and into fanfic forever.
Hmm...did the writer own only this figure? The figure, incidentally, is great, turning from a cool heavily-armed plane to a tank to a decent robot. Done.
"This cannon was used only once, to stop William Shatner from releasing any more albums."
Blitzwing also got eHobbied into a cool black and white Quintesson drone with the unfortunate name Overcharge.
"YO DAWG I HEARD YOU LIKE SHOOTING SO WE PUT A CANNON ON YOUR CANNON SO YOU CAN SHOOT WHILE YOU SHOOT"
One of the Combaticons, Brawl is noisy and rambunctious. He's a nice enough figure but he loses points for being the only Combaticon who can't use his vehicle mode weapon in robot mode.
"Your head's off!"
"'Tis but a flesh wound."
Iceman's gotta be the stupidest X-man. Why? 'Cos his name's right there, anyone who's gonna fight him knows to bring a flamethrower, some crampons and a lumberjacket. He should call himself Fireman, or Luke Warm, or something. Then he'd have the element of surprise.
Flywheels has the right idea, by not actually having wheels. Well played.
"Whenever there's a carboot sale, a second hand store or a thrift shop, I'll be there."
Guzzle was a low-priced figure with the ability to blow sparks from, well, his behind. I guess he can fire both ways. Finding him is easy, finding him in good nick is the hard part.
In your dreams, that carefully-wrapped birthday present was Nightbeat. In truth, it was this guy. Or Ruckus.
Hey, remember Double Targetmasters? I sure don't!
These guys came with two zero-articualtion Nebulans who became guns. Generally they weren't great but Quake had the cool feature where his tank turret gun could be replaced by one of the Targetmasters.
"Remember when you saw me on the shelf and said "Pretenders are dumb"? And then Furman got his hands on me."
Bludgeon was one of the Small Pretenders of 1989. These guys had less obtuse transformations than their brethren of the previous year, and even weirder outer shells. If you were a child at the time, you'd be forgiven for ignoring these guys on the shelves. Now you need to mortage your X-Box just to get one.
I don't have much to say about this guy. He's a little three-tone tank in a ludicrous halloween costume. If only someone would update him...
Because Fort Max likes playing with Transformer toys as much as full size people do.
None of the Battle patrol technically count as tanks but three of them are almost tanks. I won't tell them if you don't.
Able to terrorise your toes.
Bombshock, however,
is a tank. Unfortunately, the later Micromaster sets were difficult to obtain in my neck of the woods so (*sob*) I never owned this guy...
...
...if you want to sponsor me with Micromasters, that's cool.
I won't mention Megatron's brief flirtation with Tankdom in his ActionMaster stage, so let's look at:
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a figure being repainted - forever"
Due to legal issues, Megatron's carefree gun days were behind him. From now on, he'd be a tank. His G2 toys epitomise the nineties with their bright colours and totally X-treme stickers. In the comics he was a badass, in reality he just looked bizarre. He was destined to be repainted as Bludgeon and Megastorm in later serieseses.
Unfortunately, Armada featured only type D tanks, whether it was Megatron's H-Tank, Demolisher's whatever, or that Minicon. Energon had the Bruticus limbs, and Cybertron Unicron? I don't even know what was happening there. Forget the Unicron Trilogy (also a phrase you may hear a lot on this list).
Pictured: Perfectly preserved realism.
Universe Galvatron is a much-maligned figure, fairly reasonably so. He was allegedly supposed to be a voyager but got downsized to deluxe, which not only made him smaller than Megatron but also made him so fiddley that his limbs would often be catapaulted into space mid translation.
The Henkei-verse features Galvatron as a psychotic alter ego that Megatron temporarily becomes if he eats enough energon. Pretty cool.
Too bad "Devastator" died before he got to meet Devastator.
Bayformer Brawl is pretty neat. He didn't exactly have much of a character but he managed to stay in the final battle of the 2007 movie for a while and still has a lot of fans even after dying.
But this has all really been leading up to one guy:
"Hi, I'm Bludgeon. You may have seen me in such works as "End Of The Road" and "Slightly Earlier In This Entry"."
Sometimes, you transform a figure just once and know it's going to be one of the figures of the year, if not
the figure of the year. Universe Cyclonus, Alternity Convoy, ROTF Prime, Universe Onslaught, Universe Jetfire and Masterpiece Convoy have all been in the running in recent years, but ROTF Bludgeon may well be the one of the moment. His tank mode, though unspectacular is heavily-armed and realistic, his robot mode plays around with the whole skeletal samurai theme well, and he has tons of fun features, such as his two swords and his glorious unfolding wakizashi holster/sheath. Done.
That's it for this entry. Please assume that any tanks I missed (eg. Hardhead) get the same amount of love, but weren't quite real enough for this entry.
Next time:
"Arrrrrrrggggh!"
"Arrrrrrrggggh!"
"Arrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggh!"
"...."
"Not joining us in the "aaaaargggggh"s?"
Tanks for reading!
...
GODDAMNIT!!!