Bot Reviews: Fans Hobby MB-15D Clutch

Another TFCon’s come and gone, and my dragon’s hoard of robots will fuel this blog for a long time. Long enough, in fact, to give me a bit of a backlog panic. But, I figure a good place to go next is one of the at-show exclusives, Clutch, by Fans Hobby.

Much like BotCon back when it was an official convention, TFCon has exclusive transforming robots that you can only get at the show, the big difference being that, since TFCon’s an unofficial convention, TFCon exclusives are unofficial “Third Party” non-Transformers toys. Some things they do share in common with the BotCon figures of yore, however, are that a) they have small production runs, b) they’re repaints and retools of more mass-released figures (in as much as any third-party robot, sold through specialty online retailers only, can be mass-released), and c) they’re often based on obscure, niche Transformers characters, instead of playing the hits, like most Third Party companies do.

So, one of the 2024 convention’s exclusives was this guy, Clutch, by Fans Hobby, limited to 700 pieces. He’s a retool of the front half of a Fans Hobby figure called Naval Commander, which is an unofficial version of the Transformers: Armada version of Optimus Prime. In this case, Fans Hobby took the cab robot (omitting the trailer that he can combine with), and turned him into an update of the obscure Euro-G1 Decepticon, Clench. Like last year’s Huntsman exclusive before him, and several others before that, Fans Hobby’s in the practice of retooling their figures into obscure never-released-stateside G1 characters from the early 90’s, and I’m here for it, as that was a time period full of goofy colors, and loud attitudes, that very much informed Generation 2.

So, Clench. He was the big new Decepticon leader released in Europe in 1993 (and re-released in 1994, with a new name, Colossus, when Generation 2 began), a big truck with an even bigger missile-shooting battle base, with loud colors, and a bio note that gave us no real personality outside of “he’s mean, hateful, and wants to destroy the Autobots.” There was no cartoon or comic at the time, and since then, he’s only had tiny roles here and there in the occasional comic, and only received one other figure, a BotCon exclusive retool, funny enough.

But the original Clench is one of those well-regarded toys that’s earned him something of a cult following, and that was enough to pique my interest in this update (plus, I’d had a positive experience with Fans Hobby’s Huntsman exclusive last year, as you can read here). 

Vehicle Mode

So, let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way here: When FansHobby’s Huntsman turned Doubledealer into Stalker, it was a really good conversion. Clutch is attempting to turn Armada Optimus Prime into Clench, and it’s a less visually successful conversion, mostly because Armada Optimus Prime’s truck mode is a very uniquely-shaped, iconic-looking vehicle, whereas the original Clench was more of a generic, Movie Prime-style long-nosed truck. This means that Clutch is really transparently Armada Prime in funky colors, with a newly-tooled stubby half-trailer over his truck bed. There’s no mistaking it, the “this is Armada Optimus” vibes are there as soon as you pull him out of the box.

But, okay, let’s not look at what he isn’t, let’s look at what he is, which is a good-looking monster truck. His small grill, and absurdly wide bumper gives him a real mean sense of chunk and heft, meaning the whole package works pretty good as a bad-guy truck. Honestly, Armada Optimus was always kind of a bulky, “mean” design, so it turns out it translates into a villain pretty well. 

It’s not a realistic truck, either, but some kind of futuristic space-truck, with lines and sculpting that suggest day-after-tomorrow high technology (his windows having techie details sculpted directly behind them also gives off this vibe.) As I mentioned above, he’s got a trailer covering his robot-leg-composed truck bed, and you can always remove it, and remove the gun attached to that bed for a more traditional Armada Optimus look, if you want. Same goes for his two sets of double smoke stacks, which are seemingly meant to be popped off and placed on either side of the truck, like the original Armada Prime, but on this figure, are placed behind the truck, against the trailer, seemingly just to make him look a little different (the original Clench didn’t do that either). But I like the little trailer, it adds mass to him, hides the fact that the back of the truck is just barely-transformed robot legs, and it reminds me of Brian Ruckley’s Transformers comics, which gave their take on Optimus a similarly stubby little trailer.

The scale on this guy’s interesting, too, because he feels like he fits in with mainline Transformers Legacy figures, instead of the Masterpiece scale he’s supposed to be in. He’s larger than a Voyager-class figure, but smaller than (most) Leader-class figures.

He’s way smaller than Huntsman, too, but I think this might actually be G1-accurate. 

So, the colors are a big draw in early 90’s Transformers, and Clutch certainly has that look going on. The cab of the truck itself is a very dark blue plastic, with a kind of metallic sparkle to it, something the original had, plus bits of dark gray plastic. The rest of the cab’s got some tasteful hits of gold on the grill and bumper, black and silver for the wheels and smokestacks, yellow for his windows and a pair of lightning bolts on his hood (love that for him). Finally, reflecting the style of the time, he’s got bits of very bright pink and bright green at the sides of the truck. The trailer on top of him, meanwhile, is cast entirely in dark gray, has a slick looking yellow and black set of caution stripes on either side, a little bit of green uptop, and some red and gold upfront. 

The colors are overall somewhat subdued for the era he came from, but still unmistakably early 90s, and it’s a set of colors this not-Optimus wears really well. Looking at photos of the original G1 Clench, though, I do find myself wishing that they’d made this version a bit more accurate, including the “Transformers” tampo in pink and white across the windshield, or the little robotic wolf logos that were supposed to bisect the lightning bolts, or found a way to add more pink to the sides of the truck, all things that would have improved that accuracy.

In terms of materials and handfeel, he embodies the reason why I like what I’ve seen from Fans Hobby: He’s really, really chunky and solid. You pick him up, and he’s got some real weight to him, and the whole thing holds together perfectly. He feels like he’d pass Hasbro drop tests. Like, you’re not going to mistake him for an Official Transformers Product (™), his materials and general vibe are too different, but he feels even more durable than they do. One funky thing about him: I’m entirely unsure how his mini-trailer is staying attached to him. It must connect somewhere, but I’m not sure where. It’s also the least stable bit of him, popping out of place if you jostle him too much, but at least it stays on him just fine. Also, his wheels are made out of some kind of solid rubber, which feels way more durable than the stuff HasTak stopped using in the 00’s.

For features, Clutch technically only has the ability to roll, which he does very well, but it’s possible to make a bit of your own fun. You can actually swing open the back doors of his mini-trailer, exposing the gun inside, like some kind of sneak attack.

And you can also just pop the trailer off entirely, and extend the barrel of the gun a little bit.

It’s the right size for a very small figure to kind of sit behind it, and act as a rear gunner.

Speaking of, there is a gimmick with the weapon, but I’ll save that for robot mode. And on that note:

Transformation

See, the good thing about Armada Optimus is that he had a pretty simple, straightforward transformation, and there isn’t really any need, or way, to make it complicated, so Clutch’s conversion is also a surprisingly straightforward affair. You’re just standing the truck up, flipping the feet out, fiddling with the legs, unfolding the arms, and re-configuring the torso a little bit, and, well, that’s all. There’s a bunch of little steps I’m not mentioning, but it’s the kind of transformation I didn’t need instructions for after one go. It’s still satisfying to do, though, because it’s all about moving huge chunks of plastic around, and there’s a lot of wonderfully clicky ratchets. 

I did run into a fairly big quality control issue, though: You’re supposed to slide the “gauntlets” on his forearms upwards, to shrink his arm length a bit, and on my copy, the left arm was just completely jammed, and wouldn’t go upwards. Turns out all I needed to do was loosen some of his very tiny screws to fix it, but still, buyer beware, he may need repair. 

Robot Mode

So, once again, this is just clearly Armada Optimus Prime, in new colors, with a new head, and isn’t fooling anyone into thinking he’s Clench, the way Huntsman did. But, you know, I think it works for him. See, one criticism I frequently saw leveled against the original Naval Commander release was that his proportions were a bit strange, and didn’t quite evoke Armada Optimus as well as he could, and I kind of see what they mean. His torso is oddly long, and his legs are oddly stumpy. It’s easy to pose him in ways where his body looks very strange, as a result.

But, you know, if he’s not supposed to be Optimus, those issues vanish a little bit, and it’s also easy to pose him in ways that look good! 

For scale, again, this guy’s taller than a Voyager, and pretty close to a Leader-class in size, albeit much bulkier, meaning he once again feels like he fits in on your standard Legacy shelf.

And he’s a bulky, muscular-looking robot, all broad shoulders and Popeye arms (with little wrist guns!). He looks appropriately mean, because, again, Armada Prime was already kind of aggressive-looking in a way that villainizes well.

Still, there’s some oddness to his design besides his odd proportions. For one thing, he has this flat panel of Truck Hood behind his head that doesn’t really stash away or lock in or anything, but just hangs diagonally behind his head, and it doesn’t look great. He’s also got these two chunks of truck hanging off his waist that seem to always get in the way. The best I can do with them is make them sort of evoke one of those old-timey suits with the long coattails on them.

Still, he works more than he doesn’t.

The headsculpt is the big, new thing, and it came out pretty good. Clench has an odd face, one that looks like he’s wearing something between a scuba mask (with the tubes) and Darth Vader’s helmet (the triangle mouth), along with some fins and a forehead-diamond uptop, and it’s well-rendered here. I particularly like his eyes, they’re sculpted in a way that makes them look kind of narrowed, like he’s had enough of the fools he’s surrounded with.

For colors, while they’re all the same as the altmode, the balance of them has changed. There’s now way more bright pink and green on him, thanks to all the plastic and paint now visible on his arms and legs. He’s way more colorful, and way more 90s in this form, but the dominant colors of dark blue, gray, silver, translucent yellow, and gold still keep him looking more sinister than bright. Again, I do take issue with the layout of them not really imitating the specific plan of the original G1 figure, with its solid pink forearms and thighs, and odd blue-and-black chest, but with a transformation and general body plan like Armada Optimus has, that wasn’t really in the cards, I think. Also, his left foot contains his production number on the bottom, I got number 387 out of 700.

In terms of his build quality, most of him manages to be just as solid and chunky-feeling as his alternate mode. He’s mostly built out of of tight, clicky ratchet joints, so he holds together really well, and his weight, combined with his generous foot pads, keep him nice and stable. There’s one singular bad spot of quality control on my copy, though: His new headsculpt, on its balljointed neck. That neck joint is very loose on my copy, and while it can still hold a pose, his head bobbles and wiggles around without much force. Maybe I’ll call it another BotCon tribute; the bits of new tooling they’d give their figures tended to be somewhat poorly-engineered.

Aside from that balljointed neck, Clutch is technically a Masterpiece-scale figure, so he’s got Masterpiece-tier articulation. Basically, take the kinds of jointage on your average Voyager-or-higher Legacy figure, and add bonuses like double-elbows, toes that curl, and articulated hands (three fingers are fused, and the trigger finger’s on a separate joint), on top of the usual bonuses like ankle tilts and wrist swivels. He’s a blocky guy, so you’d think he isn’t especially bendy, but that’s not the case!

There’s also something interesting going on with his shoulders, where he has joints that make them “shrug” upwards, and they want to sort of naturally settle into a diagonally dynamic position. 

I’d say the one thing he really lacks is an ab crunch, something  I wouldn’t expect on a mainline figure, but kind of miss on someone trying to be as dynamic as this guy. Also, his waist is kind of odd, in that it’s locked into not being functional, unless you pull out these long tabs on either side of it to “unlock” it. Even then, its range is limited due to those coattail-like panels hanging off of it. 

For accessories and features, there’s a few things going on here. First of all, he’s got his big, hefty hand-cannon, which is, again, clearly Armada Optimus Prime’s iconic rifle, with its circle in the back, and all its other details. When transforming it from its altmode configuration, you flip away two thin ligatures that keep it attached to the truck bed, and flip out a handle for his hands, and then extend the barrel. It slides nicely into either hand via some grooves in his palm, and it looks appropriately overpowered in those hands. They also took the time to give it some color, too, in the form of green “power” accents, and some silver and gold. There’s also a new-to-Clutch accessory you can tab on top of the back of it, a translucent green “targeting reticule,” based on a detail from G1 Clench. 

But more importantly, it has an actual, honest to god gimmick: A spring-loaded, shooting missile. That’s right, just like Huntsman, FansHobby remembers that these are toys, and includes action features, something other Third Parties never bother with, and HasTak itself has mostly phased out. So, Clutch comes with three stubby little missiles, in translucent green, with black caps on the end, and visible springs inside, looking kind of like vials of toxic liquid (and they’re definitely too small to be safe for standard North American retail).

You pop one into the end of the rifle, until you hear a click, and there’s a trigger hidden in a detail on the front-left side of the rifle that you can squeeze to shoot it. That said, it’s a really stiff trigger, and I couldn’t really take a photo of it in action, because I actually needed two hands to shoot it. Still, it works, and it’s a fairly strong spring. I’m just enamored that it’s here, really.

The other feature has to do with that newly-tooled mini-trailer. In robot mode, you can transform it into a tiny little gun turret/battle platform by opening it up, unfolding a kickstand at the front of it, flipping up a little mounting point, and placing the rifle there.

Basically, it’s a small blast shield that barely covers him, with his gun mounted on top, for when he doesn’t want to deal with the kickback, I guess.

Those ligatures that attach it to his truck are repurposed here, too, as handles for him to brace himself with.

It’s an interesting little contraption, and it’s based off of a similar setup from the G1 Clench toy, though that one was a lot bigger, whereas this is kind of stumpy, but in a way I find fun. You can also stash two of the three missiles, and the targeting reticule behind the gun emplacement, if you wish, and they’ll even stay in there in vehicle mode.

I guess I should also talk about what he’s missing, according to what I’ve seen of the Naval Commander version of this. He doesn’t have a Matrix in his chest, just an empty recess where it ought to go.

Additionally, the original Naval Commander could combine with his trailer to make a super robot, and so this smaller robot originally contained larger combined-mode hands, and a combined-mode head, both of which have been removed from this release. I’d say I miss this stuff, but it’s not really necessary for the character, and removing it all makes him feel cohesive, unlike how Huntsman still had a bunch of articulated parts left over from his tooled-out bird mode.

Overall

This is an interesting, unusual figure, one that’s hard to rate. On one hand, he’s definitely not as successful as the Huntsman when it comes to convincing us he’s not the character he was retooled from, this is just Armada Optimus down to his bones. On the other hand, it occurs to me that this might be the point. Certainly, if they’d cared about accuracy, Fans Hobby could have, say, retooled their Laser Optimus Prime update (Gunfighter) into him, to at least get the vehicle mode right.

Knowing that figure exists makes Clutch feel more specifically like a purposeful tribute to those old BotCon/Collector’s Club “stick a new head and colors on a barely-related toy, and act like it’s someone else” exclusives, and he does appeal to me in that way.

In terms of the figure itself, this is a much simpler toy than Huntsman was, with a lot less going on. On the other hand, between his straightforward transformation, his smaller size, and his chunky simplicity, this is a more approachable figure than Huntsman, and it’s one I’m more inclined to pick up and mess around with as a result. It helps that the focus on chunkiness, solidity, and gimmicks that FansHobby seems to infuse its figures with makes him way more fun than your average fiddly, complicated, mostly-for-display Third Party affair. That, and he’s at the right scale to just go on the shelf with my mainline Legacy/Generations/Studio Series stuff.

Of course, all that said, there’s the big specter of the price, something all Third Party figures suffer from. This guy cost me $220 Canadian dollars at TFCon, a number I was only willing to pay because I’d made way more money than that from my sales as a vendor. If I wasn’t literally funding the purchase through the convention, I wouldn’t have gone for it, because that’s generally too rich for my blood. But I did get it, I enjoy what’s here, and if you can snag him for a price you’re willing to pay, you’ll find him to be a fun addition to your shelves, too. It even makes me curious how the full Naval Commander, with his proper trailer he combines with, is, if the core figure is this good. 

For over 100 Bot, Non-Bot, and Retro Bot Reviews, click here to view my archive.