New Age H16, 17, 18 “Conehead” Stormtroopers

New Age’s conehead Stormtroopers have arrived at Junkion HQ!

The Box

I was surprised at how large the box was when it arrived, even though I have no idea how it could have been smaller. It’s features a Multiverse-style artwork cover with the coneheads attacking Unicron‘s head.

Inside the box are two separate trays, one that contains the figures and accessories (see the sections for each character below for the contents), and one holding the 3x Spacebridge stands, 6x blue gradient jet blast effects and 6x red gradient medium blast effects. Packed in separate baggies are the Initial Premium (yellow blast effects, no sticker on the bag this time) and 6x wing bomb shells. The instructions sheet covers all three figures and is huge – the photo below shows only 1/3 of it.

The Initial Premium contains: 3x long yellow blasts and one short yellow blast.

If you ordered in time to get the Initial Premium, this set will add a total of sixteen effects to your collection:

6x jet engine effects – blue to clear gradient
6x medium blasts – clear to red gradient
3x long blasts – yellow
1 short blast – yellow

Overall Observations

Wing Bombs

The new wing bombs are a bit odd – they’re shells that snap onto the standard Stormtrooper blasters:

I don’t understand why they didn’t make the bombs a complete piece. It doesn’t seem like they saved all that much material going with this plan since they now require internal reinforcements to lock onto the original blaster. If amount of materials was a concern, couldn’t it have been hollow with a post?

Heel Spurs

To make use of the hollow calves, New Age has added a flip-out heel spur.

An unfortunate side-effect of these new spurs are the posts they lock into which really stand out in jet mode.

I never had any problems posing Lucifer so I’m not sure that the heel spurs are worth the posts’ negative impact on the jet mode.

New Knees

The coneheads all get bulkier and fully-painted knee pads.

The Heads

The heads in jet mode are awkward at best – they point down and the top of the cone folds backwards.

Unfortunately the head it too large to rotate 180 degrees so that the cone points forward and like the end of a fuel tank or something similar.

Transformation

Something that I should have noted with my Lucifer review: When transforming the arms, always start with the left – it has a post that locks into the right arm (see below). If you try to start with the right it’s much harder to get it started.

H16 Beelzebul

Beelzebul, aka G1 Ramjet, comes packed in jet mode and includes the same Stormtrooper blasters from Lucifer, 2x bomb shells, a set of pointing hands and a set of open hands.

The Robot

The robot mode, like the rest of the Legendary Heroes line, looks like it just stepped out of the cartoon.

It’s hard to see in-hand but each conehead has an unique face.

The Jet

With the exception of the already mentioned head, the jet mode is very nice.

H17 Mammon

Mammon, aka G1 Thrust, includes 2x blasters, 2x bomb shells, a set of pointing hands and a set of open hands.

The Robot

Another great robot mode, clearly I prefer the original Stormtrooper blasters for this one.

Mammon’ sneering face is the most unique, and visible, of the three.

The Jet

The only thing I don’t like about the jet mode is the second set of tail-fins that they’ve added.

Here is a close-up of the o”fin”ding additions.

Like Beelzebul, the back panel hinges do not match the color of the rest of the top of the jet, but here they really stick out as something that shouldn’t be there.

Thrust was the only Decepticon jet that I had “back in the day” so I’m very attached to the toy interpretation. I’m holding out hope that there will be an EX-style version of Thrust with shoulder wings although I don’t really expect it to happen. If it were a simple parts swap that would be one thing, but I’m not sure that the potential Nacelle repaint would be enough to justify the remolding cost.

H18 Mephisto

Mephisto, aka G1 Dirge, includes 2x blasters, 2x bomb shells, a set of pointing hands and a set of open hands all in matching grey.

The Robot

Probably the weakest of the robot modes – the “winglets” do not lock into place so they’re very easy to knock askew. I presume that’s why all of the photos on the box show them pushed to the side instead of pointing up like in the instructions.