Review – Mini-Warrior Shafter

A convention exclusive recolor limited to 500 pieces, Shafter from iGear (website, Facebook) fell into my hands when I accidentally stumbled across a good deal on the toy. Those of you following my Transforming Collections project on Kickstarter may find Shafter familiar, but that’s only because I used the original not-Huffer version of the mold, Rager, as the title image in the Kickstarter video.

A Great Repaint of a Fun Toy

When I reviewed Rager way back in January (review here) I had no idea that I’d find myself with a repaint of the toy. The mold is an excellent re-imagining of the 1984 Autobot mini-car, Huffer, but I was never so much of a Huffer fan that I thought I’d need whatever repaints iGear decided to release. But when I saw this toy online I thought it was worth the $60 to snag the exclusive version because the Rager toy was so well done.

What makes me say Rager was well done? Well, something I’ve noticed about Transformers toys — including third party toys — is that the more fun it is to transform the toy the more likely I am to pick it up and play with it when I walk past it. Something like FanProjects’ not-Insecticons look amazing, but they usually just sit on the shelf in robot mode because transforming them is such an annoying process. Rager, though, transforms quick and easy and that makes him fun to play with. There are days when I’m home working and find myself transforming the toy back and forth between modes while on a call; the easy-to-transform toys always get the most attention from me.

Nice Paintwork

Since Shafter is simply a repaint of a toy I already reviewed I’m not going to dive into a lot of details about the basic mold; for all of that you should read my Mini-Warrior Rager review. I do want to touch on Shafter’s paint, though, because iGear actually used just a little more paint on Shafter than they did Rager and it helps set this guy apart.

As you can see by the photos, Shafter’s basic body color is so very close to Rager’s that they almost look identical. In person the yellows are a little more different than they look in the photos, but generally both toys are from the same side of the colorwheel. Inspired by the Generation One Erector toy (see the TFWiki), Shafter is decorated with red windows, a red face, and red piping down the sides of the torso. And to help make the toy look more like the 1990 source the arms and thighs have been cast out of a gray plastic; this difference also helps the toy to stand apart from Rager.

All of the paint apps are tight and clean, with the work even holding up quite well when you click on any of the photos and take a closer look. $60 may seem like a lot for a repaint, but the combination of it being a limited run and the paint neatly applied makes me happy I ordered this when I saw it for sale.

Closing Thoughts

Repaints are a historical side of the Transformers series (dating all of the way back to the first wave of toys in 1984) and it is nice to see the third party manufacturers finding ways to keep repaints alive today. Shafter would have been improved if iGear had gone to the trouble and expense of tooling new weapons and a new head, but at a run of only 500 pieces I can see why they stuck with all of the parts they already had.

So far the two different molds released in the Mini-Warriors line have been fun, and I am looking forward to iGear’s upcoming not-Cosmos and not-Brawn toys. If those two are as cool as the Rager/Shafter design then I can see myself giving iGear money for quite a while.

Philip Reed is expecting the black repaint of this to arrive soonish. How soon? Well, it all depends on the postal system so anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.