Another character added to the Universe line is Ransack with Mini-Con Refute. The duo comes with Universe Magnus which is sold as a boxset known as Battle-In-A-Box. Ransack is another figure ripped apart from time and space by Unicron and used as yet another pawn by Unicron to battle the Autobots as a way to gather energy for himself to grant him more and more power.

Ransack is a repaint of Armada Hoist but its odd how for a repaint that the figure looks completely different. The face and head of Ransack looks even more like Beast Wars Dinobot than the previous versions of this figure. Guess it makes sense why this mould was eventually used as the Pre-Beast Wars version of Dinobot for the exclusive Botcon figures boxset.

Robot mode is very flexible and can be placed in various poses. The arms bend at the elbow section and the legs bend at the knee sections. Considering how Ransack has a huge crane piece for an arm it’s amazing just how well the arm can actually move and be placed in directions. The arm can even rotate to different directions and can be extended and held in place.

The crane section has a power-Linx section for a Mini-Con to attach to, this was left from the previous mould which was Armada Hoist and works in this mould for Mini-Con Refute. There is a small piece at the top which folds out but for the life of me I can’t figure out what this is actually meant to do. It just appears to fold out but not really actually do anything.

Vehicle mode is meant to be a construction crane much like G1 Decepticon Scavenger was, however the vehicle mode doesn’t exactly look very realistic. It does look convincing in an odd way but just don’t expect to see something on the scale of G1 vehicle styles (however that was the main problem with G1 toys, great vehicle mode but crap robot modes) but still its pretty amazing how the vehicle mode does look considering the easiness of the transformation.
Refute is the Mini-Con who comes with Universe Ransack and looks very much like how a cross between G1 Insecticon Scrapper and an actual vehicle would look. The front of Refute in vehicle mode has large antenna like G1 Scrapper used to have while the back of Refute looks much more like an actual vehicle than anything else, however it is a little difficult to figure out exactly what type of vehicle Refute is actually meant to be.

Robot mode for Refute is small but obviously that’s to be expected since he is a Mini-Con after all. The detail on Refute seems also lacking but yet again this is because he is a Mini-Con and while there meant to be a sort-of tribute to the G1 Micromasters they are hardly on the same level of detail, well least not in this reviewers opinion anyways.

The amount of movement that Refute does have is rather impressive however since his arms and legs all bend at the right joint sections and he can be placed in various poses. The figure could have done with a slightly better paint application but aside from that the figure is very well done.

The figure comes packaged with Magnus as it was a duo only set which is rather annoying because if you don’t want Magnus but you do want Ransack then your kind of forced to buy the dup set because they were only sold as a twin pack. The boxset looks great however as it actually looks like a mini battle in a box which is what ironically it was meant to be. The figures both come with Mini-Cons and both come with instructions which is pretty nice but really is to be expected to begin with.

A great addition to the Universe line and a fantastic mould that’s been used again for Cybertron line. Well worth adding to any fans edition of Universe characters and one of the better repaints around. Hopefully the Universe line will continue and have more fantastic figures such as Ransack.