Another Day, another Deluxe. This time it’s SIEGE line Hound, a good looking bot who is rather flimsy and not up to the expected quality.

SIEGE Hound looks the business and *seems* like a great toy right? Well he does look amazing, but he is also a fiddly piece of crap with bits popping off and warping left and right, and in vehicle mode his arms prevent him from rolling by dragging on the ground.

A nice Hound for chug collectors, but a terrible “toy” for kids that will be broken in five seconds like Wheelie or old Ironhide McPopoff.

The manual was utterly useless, mainly I chuck them in the recycle bin anyway, but I decided to consult it for some wisdom when I could not figure out where his arms were meant to end up.

Yup, no help at all, but the manual did look a bit less muddier than previous instruction sheets.

In his vehicle mode, Hound in compact and solid and rather tiny. He has some lovely details and highlights and really nothing to complain about here. His weapons can clip on and all that.

Top down and his faction logo and that signature *star* look nice.

The side of his wheels have some color to them – I don’t know if it’s paint or just green plastic -but either way it works. The black and green contrast nicely.

Once transformed (if you can figure it out, I could not) his arms go……….nowhere. He just holds them in front of his chest, they don’t collapse or fold away anywhere. They just sit there….and block the wheels from moving in vehicle mode.

SIEGE Hound fits in nicely on a Classics / Generations shelf, and while he might be small for some, to me his size is about right. Shorter than Prime, taller than minibots.

Getting a closer look at Hound in bot mode, his deco and details I really like. He’s a GREAT looking bot, but his transformation is fiddly, fragile and rather awful.

Hound goes well with other chug / Classics Autobots, here he is with Prime, Cliff, Powerglide and Beachcomber.

His weapons can be put on just about anywhere, with the line wide gimmick of multiple ports on sides of limbs etc, that also encourages you to buy weaponizer micro-masters – I don’t have any sorry.

Hound’s deco is a nice dark army green, in contrast to his previous Classics toys which was a lighter animation inspired tone.

His head sculpt is very good and he has lovely come hither baby-blue eyes.

I don’t have a bad thing to say about the bot mode, I love it. His weapons are decent, and even have a bit of paint for a change – like what used to be standard on TF toys. He poses well but be prepared for parts to pop off if you get adventurous.

Transforming him however, I had no clue where some parts were meant to go. It was frustrating and un-intuitive. The manual was useless, so after tearing that up – I watched some youtube videos and followed along to ensure I did not break the toy. Joints are rather tight, and bits pop off the arms and legs with even the smallest amount of light pressure.

Bot to vehicle alt mode was awkward, but I got there eventually – there is very little clearance for anything, it all scrapes and mashes together. But going back to Bot mode, I ran into some trouble. Mainly the lower leg assembly popped apart five times or so when trying to collapse it back into the correct place for robot mode.

I noticed that it popped off while barely touching it, and yet it was hard to pop back in again. It’s not a ball joint, just a little friction joint circle / “c” shape on his lower leg. Putting it back together even once, and I could already see PERMANENT warping in the plastic. I was super careful, but it still kept popping off.

It was not a defect or the old “just your one mate, my ones fine” – no IT IS BAD FUCKING DESIGN 101 – the clip part is WAY too thin. In the hands of a child, this toy would be deader than a Dinosaurer the first time they played with it. Give it a few years, and I’m sure this part will fail, warp or snap on 90% of the Hounds out there. Compare that to say my old Doublecross from 1987, transformers easily over 1000 times by this point and still works just fine – and yeah, it’s just not good enough imo. I get modern TF toys are cheap and thin, but this is TOO thin. This is a cat’s whisker that will inevitable break on the majority of them released.

It’s this quality / design let down that means I won’t ever be transforming him again, once that little tiny clip bit breaks – it will never go back. It’s just too small to glue, you would have to use heat and melt some plastic on there. And if you did, it would not transform after that anyway.

So I have a really nice looking non-transforming Hound figure, and he will live on my Classics shelf with other 80’s bots. He looks great, he is an awesome *LOOKING* Hound, good for collectors of action figures, but a crappy Transformer and an overall crappy toy my friends. I would never give this toy to a kid.

SIEGE Hound is a supermodel, all style and looks, little to no substance.