War Hawk is Unique Toys homage to Divebomb, the eagle Predacon that forms the left arm and wings of Pradaking. Mastermind Creations is also making a Predaking homage. The main difference between the two is that the Mastermind Creations version is updated and more detailed. The Unique Toys version is based on the G1 look. War Hawk looks very much like Divebombs Box art. In fact, he looks very similar to the original toy, the main difference being the articulation. It also looks similar to the IDW version of the Predacons. While the Mastermind Creations version looks nice, it also looks a little too detailed to me. Predaking especially looks cluttered. I prefer the G1 look, and I like the look of the IDW Transformers, so the aesthetic of the Unique Toys version appeals to me more. The toy itself is fairly basic. The biggest downside to the robot mode is that there is no swivel joint in the upper arms. The way the forearms slide up during transformation would have made putting a swivel joint there tricky, but because a sword is his weapon, I think it should have been done. Without the swivel joint, it is very hard to pose War Hawk with the sword.
It comes in a nice box. In the box is an instruction book, mainly a comic with two pages of very undetailed instructions, a stat card, a sword and the left fist of Predaking. No blasters to go on the wings.
I am not sure if something was lost in translation or what, but this back story does not make a lot of sence to me, even if the “War Hawk” on the first line is changed to “War Lord” as it should be.
The fist is the most impressive part of the toy. It has amazing articulation, a nice shiny finish, and looks all evil and spiky.
The pricing on the Predacon homage’s has been interesting. At first both versions of Divebomb were priced at about $100. But as they were close to being released, a special preorder price brought the price of one down and the other followed with a sale of about the same price. I would speculate that however awesome the TFC Constricticons and Aerialbots are, they have proven a little too expensive, even for most collectors. Also, I would imagine that the sales for these third party toys are mainly online, at least in the US, and that being the case, online preorders can be used to forecast how many people are planning on getting the toy. If that is the case, I would guess that both the Divebomb homage preorders were not doing well, so the price went down. Also, at about the same time more previews of the rest of the set came out. Once the price lowered, I thought seriously about getting one of the sets. The previews of the Predaking homage’s as well as some individual members gave me enough information to make a decision. The next two in the Unique Toys set are a little more expensive, but they are the legs, a bull and a rhino, so they should be much bulkier than the eagle.
Overall, War Hawk is a nice toy and will be a lot of fun when the rest of the Predacons come out. But he does not compare well with other third party toys at his original price. Hopefully we will be seeing some Reprolabels stickers for this guy soon.
Beast mode: 6
Robot mode: 7
Arm mode: 9 (the fist makes this awesome)
Posability: 6
Playability: 8
Durability: 7
True to Cartoon/Comic: 10
Overall: 8 (the combiner aspect raises the score from a 7 for just this toy)
TransformersToyReviews 