Fans Toys FT-31 Marauder (Masterpiece Menasor)
To get everything ready, here’s how everyone should look.
Marauder’s knees have a unique locking design. Depending on how you want the visual style to be for the lower legs (Stunticons in front for “toy style”, or in the back for “toon style”), you’ll have to shift the knees to the front or the back. Unclasping these metal pins is the key to doing that.
IMPORTANT NOTE!
If you’re having trouble closing up Marauder’s front chest panels to merge it with Road King, remember to make sure these pieces are folded up correctly! Particularly if you transformed it from expanded trailer mode back to combination mode.
I got one of the folds wrong and it gave me an hour of grief, as the chest panel wouldn’t collapse flush and affected the entire thing. So remember to double check that these are in proper order before forcing any connections.
Created to be the ultimate Decepticon weapon, Menasor’s merged psyche is comprised of the minds of five psychotic Stunticons that make up its components. With each member secretly harboring deep resentment for their team leader, Motormaster, the result is a highly mentally unstable gesalt combiner. Large, powerful and extremely dangerous, Menasor is the personification of uncontrollable insane rage when released into a battlefield.
Marauder stands roughly 20.5 inches tall and weighs 4,395 Grams (!).
The set comes with five different face plates for Marauder, three for the cartoon head, and two for the toy design head.
The head features a light up gimmick for the eyes, you will need LR66 batteries to make it work. It will work for both sides of the head (toy and toon versions).
Just like Ethereaon (Superion), Marauder’s hands feature joints for each finger.
Naturally, Menasor comes with Motormaster’s upsized Cyclone Gun, which can fire gale-force wind clocked upwards of around 400 MPH or more
He also comes with his iconic Ionizer Sword, capable of discharging 50,000 volts when it strikes its target.
G1 Toy mode.
Adjusting the knees and ankle joints’ positions more to the back will allow you to mount Spoiler and Magnum to the front of the lower legs.
The addition of the Roller Car chest panel and shoulder pieces help complete the look.
Overall, an amazing piece! Marauder looks good and big when fully combined!
Admittedly, it’s far from perfect, though. I dislike the connection design for Smokey (Dragstrip), as he’s just simply hooked on, with no real locking mechanisms to hold him securely in place. The connections for Magnum and Spoiler are also a bit off and they do tend to pop free if you handle the combined figure a bit too much. I think Ethereaon (Superion) was better designed, a least it held everyone together with no problem.
There’s also the issue I have with the arms that seem a bit too skinny and I do wish they made them look beefier for the correct proper proportions.
From what I understand, Marauder was technically FT’s first attempt at doing a combiner (even though Ethereaon was finished first), along with the rumored stories of FT falling out with the original designer, this release was supposedly plagued with problems, which lead to delays and a somewhat imperfect final product. I think I can give Fans Toys a bit of a free pass for the issues (pandemic problems at the time and all), but I wish they would revist and come up with a fix of some sort down the road for this set.
That all said, it’s still the best Masterpiece Menasor out there for me IMHO, mostly due to the great paint, sculpting, play options, electronics and diecast
INDIVIDUAL GALLERIES
FT-31A Road King (Motormaster)
FT-31B Magnum (Wild Rider)
FT-31C Spoiler (Breakdown)
FT-31D Smokey (Dragstrip)
FT-31E Bandit (Dead End)
Gold
