Transformers Studio Series 86 Core Rumble review

Rumble is one of my favorite Deceptions. He’s a punk, but he’s oblivious to his size and fiercely loyal to Soundwave and Megatron.

As I’m slowly building up my G1 cartoon era collection, I absolutely needed Rumble — along with a tape player version of Soundwave — for my Deception crew. Thanks to the Studio Series, Hasbro has been able to release cartoon accurate versions of my preferred versions of these guys.

I was worried Rumble might be hard to find, but he wasn’t as difficult to track down as I thought. Now let’s see if he’ll shake up my collection in a good way.

Packaging: The Studio Series presentation is a lot cleaner than the Legacy branding thanks to more streamlined colors and character focused artwork. Although the box is small, Rumble is still somewhat obscured. This plastic-free packaging seems to hold the integrity of the box better for smaller figures though.

I like the artwork of Rumble about to cause some destruction with his pile driver pistons.

I appreciate the side artwork as it makes it easier to distinguish the figures on the pegs. The bright blues and red contrast nicely with the black base color.

His packaging doesn’t have much personalization thanks to the various languages crammed on the back, but we do see Rumble’s robot and alt modes.

Likeness: Hasbro already did a set of cassettes and those were a bit chunkier and stubby. The Studio Series Rumble is more streamlined. He has the same level of detail as the Battle Masters version, which tried to throw us off further as they released him in black and red.

It’s small, but I love the head sculpt, which conveys his personality well. His laser blasters plug into his back easily for a relaxed default look.

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Alt Mode: Rumble changes into a cassette, which would be more useful if I had a Soundwave to store him.

Transformation: Rumble’s transformation isn’t too complex as his transformation makes sense in creating the cassette. It only takes nine steps to transform him.

Scale: Part of Rumble’s (and Frenzy) charm was he was so much shorter than the other Decepticons yet acted like was a massive as Devastator.

Studio Series Rumble is smaller than the standard minibots and definitely will be looking up at the rest of the Deceptions.

Paint: Rumble‘s paintjob is pretty spot on from the cartoon with the sky blue and lavender color scheme.

The paintwork is very clean with no issues at all. Maybe the only problem is the silver posts breaking up the flow. The red in Rumble’s eyes are strong enough that they don’t look faded.

Articulation: Rumble’s articulation is reasonable for what we’re getting at his scale. He moves pretty well despite missing some of the standard joints of the larger size figures.

 

Just as important, he can hit a deep lunge in order to trigger his piledriver attack.

Rumble has:

• neck
• bicep
• ball-jointed shoulders
• wrists
• wrist hinge
• hips
• knees (swivel)
• ankles

Accessories:  Rumble comes with his two laser blasters and his piledrivers.

That’s a lot for a smaller scale figure for under $12.

The lasers plug into his forearms nicely. His piledrivers are engineered exactly like the Masterpiece Rumble figure where they slot into his arms and lock into place with no trouble.

Worth it?  I grabbed Rumble for $9.99. That’s a more than fair price for a Transformer in 2022 that comes with this many accessories and well-engineered design work.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Rumble is a fantastic addition to my Decepticon crew. Now comes the long wait of getting the Frenzy repaint and updated takes on Lazerbeak, Buzzsaw and Ravage.

Where to get it?  Rumble shouldn’t be too hard to find if your area stores carry the smaller Studio Series figures. If that’s not feasible, you could grab him from Amazon or Entertainment Earth.