Mason Bait – Takara Diaclone Waruderos
Since Mason is on a little Diaclone trip, I figured I would bait him with my all-time favourite Diaclone toy: Waruderos.
Waruderos is one of the enemy mechs from Diaclone, and has a great vintage robot look to him. The head and indeed the entire robot is very reminiscent of old diecast wind-up toy robots, with the big globular eyes, horns, blocky proportions, claws (sadly missing on mine), and uni-leg:
The color combination is weird, almost garish, but somehow it works on this thing. Quite a few parts are chromed. Diecast however is very limited, and Waruderos is surprisingly light for a toy his size. His chest opens to reveal three seats:
Sadly the middle cockpit cannot open in combined mode. The claws (when present) are spring-loaded and can be fired by pressing on a small button. Articulation is very limited. Essentially only the shoulders and elbows move, and the shoulders lack ratchets, so they don’t hold poses well. But wait, there’s more to this toy (than meets the eye)!
For it is a combination of three animals:
They are:
1) Tarantulas, a weird tank-like scorpion vehicle (so yeah, the name is total garbage):
This guy features four small diecast wheels to roll around on, and some horribly light and fragile feeling diecast. Also, two missile launchers in the very wide tail. The pilot sits all exposed at the top.
2) The oddly named Spider (who indeed doesn’t look like one):
A blocky flying thing with a large two-seat cockpit and missile launchers in the nose. Has only six legs, so certainly not a spider. Translucent red eyes.
3) And finally, a dude who lacks a sticker with a name, but likely would be called ‘Scorpion’ while looking like a stinging flying insect (with 4 legs):
This one has an opening cockpit and actually looks like it could fly. It has a nasty stinger at the front and two missile launchers a bit further back.
But I’ve exposed these poor fellows to too much attention already, and they feel like they must return home now:
