Stormshot's alternate mode is a jet. As you'd expect from a RID2015 toy, it's a bit stylized/"kiddie-fied", but I think Stormshot goes a bit too far (at least in this mode). He looks like he'd fit in with the Rescue Bots line of toys, honestly. I'm not sure what it is-- the fairly soft curves, the rather primary colors, the wide nosecone-- but it just looks a bit TOO "friendly" for a jet. Anyways, that aside, this jet mode is like a lot of Transformer jet modes in that there's a bit of kibble underneath-- most notably, the robot arms that poke out blatantly underneath the main wings, particularly popping out the front. They're sorta "disguised" as engines due to the mold detailing near the front, but it's not really convincing-- and the turbines don't look nearly "complete" either, as they're a bit open due to the articulation needed to move down those shoulders for the transformation. On a lesser note, the robot feet are fairly obvious on the back end, and the robot head and body poke out a bit more from the underside than they should, though they aren't visible from most normal angles in this mode. Stormshot does have a fold-out landing gear piece that helps keep him level, though. Ignoring these issues, the rest of Stormshot's vehicle mode looks pretty solid, keeping in mind the aforementioned caveat about his overall look. He's got a wide, fairly flat nosecone with cockpit windows detailed in; rather unremarkable but decent wings; and small vertical tailfins and regular-sized horizontal ones. Compared to most RID2015 designs, he's got an above-average amount of mold detailing, with several angled designs on his wings, as well as some horizontal lines and panels on the top of his nosecone and back end. The color scheme is pretty straightforward, being red, white, and blue, for the most part. All of his white is a "pure" white, and his red is painted on, being a fairly neutral shade of the color. The blue, however, is three different shades. All of his blue plastic is a rather dark, flat, almost navy blue, but oddly with some glitter in it, which helps offset some of that dull-ness. Most of the blue paint in this mode is of a metallic dark shade, and looks pretty nice. For just the cockpit, there's some moderately light glossy blue, which is spot-on for a cockpit window color. Stormshot has two weapons, both of them black; a short, sawed-off gun and a larger gun with a longer barrel. Both can be cobined to form a rifle-like gun. There's several storage options; there's a port for the weapons under each wing, as well as a port on the top middle of this mode. You can also store the gun underneath the nosecone, though it looks better if you have them both combined when you plug it in down there.
    Stormshot mostly transforms like a Combiner Wars Aerialbot, but with the combiner aspect obviously removed; the arms fold out from the sides and down, the legs fold and extend out from the back end, and the nosecone fits on his back. The only remotely original aspect of his transformation is that his wings do a little flip for this mode, but otherwise it's very much "been there, done that". Anyways, in robot mode Stormshot looks pretty good overall, and less overly "kiddy" compared to his jet mode. Silhouette-wise, he's not really original, with the wings behind him and the nosecone sticking up a little behind his upper back like a lot of jet TFs, while his wings have the tailfins hanging off them. I would not consider this kibble given that it accentuates the look of the mode; it's just not original. There's several cool details on Stormshot's chest, like some asymmetrical detaiiling on the pecs with two straight lines and an angular one on one side, while the other has his Autobot scan symbol; right below both are what look like intake vents. He's got a somewhat trim stomach, and angular interlocking armor bits around the waist that look like they'd belong on most other RID2015 toys. I also like the high curved spikes to the sides of his head; they make him look a little more unique, at least. His head itself seems like an amalgamation of a lot of Aerialbot TFs' heads, with a a red angular visor, a white angular paint app above said visor, a silver "normal" face, and more red on the center forehead spike, with the rest of his blue head having small side antennae and vents on the sides of his chin. Beyond the aforementioned engine details on his shoulders, Stormshot's appendages don't have much more than the bare minimal mold detailing on them; rather, the paint apps are what help distinguish his limbs. His lower arms have a nice blue/red combo with a white diagonal line separating the colors, while his lower legs switch between white and blue, with red spiky knees and white below said knees. Really, add this to the red and blue on the chest, as well as a bit of metallic black on the abs and the added amount of black on the appendages, and Stormshot really does have quite a lot of paint on him-- this is the best part about the toy, I'd venture to say. There's no large portion that's remotely lacking any real paint. For articulation, he can move at the neck, shoulders (at two points), elbows (at two points), inwards at the wrists, and movement at the hips (at two points) and knees. Although I wish he had waist rotation-- there's nothing in his transformation that would prevent it-- otherwise he's quite articulated, and well-balanced to boot.
    RID2015 Stormshot isn't a BAD toy by any means, he's just rather boring and very unneeded. There's all these amazing Decepticon designs from the show that never got any toys at all, and here one of the Warrior class slots is taken up by a jet Transformer that wasn't in the show and doesn't really have anything unique about his design. He does have an impressive number of paint apps, great robot mode proportions and articulation, and a decent (albeit overly kiddy) jet mode, but I would MUCH have rather his slot have gone to one of the many great Decepticon designs that never got a toy instead.
 

Review by Beastbot

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