Transformers Siege Chromia review

Chromia may have been one of the earlier fembots in fiction, but Arcee's popularity kept her from becoming prominent in later media. I feel that even without the name being used for Galaxy Force's version of Cybertron Thunderblast or the minor appearance of the Character in Revenge of the Fallen, Chromia probably won't get much attention overall. Sure, a small portion of figures were made, but nowhere to the amount Arcee had. Overall, most people would see her simply as Ironhide's girlfriend. A 2014 Deluxe was made from being a retool of Prime: Robots in Disguise Arcee, but it managed to win fans over with the TRON-esque design for the bike mode whole also attempting to look mostly different from Arcee. Still, it meant that Chromia didn't get the new mold treatment that Thrilling 30 Arcee got. 5 years later, Siege brings in Chromia while Orthia gets closer to completion. While this figure doesn't combine with the other fembots, will it still manage to be as good of an individual figure as it could?

Here is Chromia in her vehicle mode. Certainly beats the original alt mode from the cartoon where it looked like it belonged to a generic sci-fi cartoon. On its own, it makes Chromia look like she's Blurr's sister, what with the similar color scheme and parts of the design. It's similar to the Power of the Primes fembot vehicle modes seen from Moonracer and Firestar. There is a bit of Siege battle damage on the front, though it's minuscule.

It's certainly a decent take on the altmode, which is appreciative since one that most resembles the early appearances hasn't been done. I find the rear wheels being hidden is pretty neat, and it adds a futuristic look to the altmode.

Here's my method of storing the accessories. The gun serves as a pseudo antenna while the grenades become pieces that fill in the gap from the back. It doesn't entirely cover up the exposed hands, but it does the job just fine.

Transforming Chromia is similar to transforming the POTP fembots from what I can tell. There are a few differences, though; some parts aren't exactly integrated fully with the rest of the altmode, and there are no combiner pieces left over. On its own, it's an unimpressive transformation due to the huge chunks of altmode kibble being leftover from the transformation. Even without the combiner pieces that the other fembots would add, it's not able to clean up all the junk leftover from the robot mode. 

The robot mode is mostly good from the front. You can tell they took the cartoon model as inspiration for the design compared to the last Chromia figure. The colors look decent, though I think there are supposed to be more red highlights. While the proportions look fairly good from the front, the silhouette is ruined a bit by the HUGE pieces of kibble on the side. They seriously stick out, and for those that are interested in removing the pieces can't do so with ease. Depending on how tight the ankles are, your copy may stand up fine or have trouble standing.

Head sculpt is good, though the lack of eye paint makes it look lifeless, somewhat like with Beast Wars Blackarachnia (which worked better because it fit with the deadly nature of the character before she fully became a Maximal). Here, it's weird.

Articulation is decent at best. Head is on a ball-joint, shoulders swivel front and back, hinge in and out, swivel at the biceps, bend at the elbows, and the hands hinge inward. The waist swivels, hips move front and back as well as in and out, swivel at the thighs, bend at the knees, and pivot at the ankles.

Comparing it to the T30 version, it may seem more "preferable" due to it being a G1 styled mold, the 2014 Chromia manages to be a cleaner figure overall due to it being retooled from a figure that didn't have too much kibble from the back rather than sharing the engineering of a POTP figure with while still keeping the awful kibble. It was somewhat forgivable with the POTP fembots, but here, it's pretty bad. Also, T30 Chromia manages to be more than a head swap of Arcee as well as being based on the IDW comics.

The gun itself looks decent on-hand. Do be sure not to lose its nozzle, as it helps add some length to the puny gun.

So what's to be done with these small pieces? Some would put them in the back or add them to the forearms. Needless to say, there are plenty of options, all thanks to the Siege ports.

This is my method of using them. It makes for a dual-barrel blacker, and I'm sure the weapon ports can still use the blast effect pieces.

Now to further clarify the retool debate, this is an image taken from another fan, and I want to apologize if I don't remember the name of the fan or the page. Needless to say, Chromia's not a full-on retool despite having the transformation steps seen with the other fembots known as Moonracer and Firestar. The figure doesn't have any POTP compatibility (due to it being a Siege figure), so no hand stomach feature (was stupid anyways), no Combiner pieces, also shorter than the other figures. The feet don't have the vehicle mode panels, and as far as I can tell, there's no way it'd be a combiner piece when it would be better suited as a mainline Siege figure while Greenlight and Lancer would become limbs as niche releases.

While this reuse came out later, this relates to the specific character of Chromia. She had a Walmart Netflix redeco that gives her more battle damage than she previously did...still makes me wonder if it's actually worth it or not because it's shelfwarming as badly as Sideswipe and Hound are.

While it's not a retool of the POTP fembots used for Orthia, this figure was reused as Nightbird. The last Nightbird figure was a repaint of Arcee, and despite it being clearly made as Arcee first, it looked pretty good. Here, it looks more like Nightbird gained weight. Not so fitting for this character. At least the weapon could sort of look like a melee weapon with the grenades.

Here is Chromia next to her boyfriend, Ironhide. It's a decent scale, though I hope Ironhide likes big backpacks and won't lie about it because while Ironhide has no kibble, Chromia's got big chunks of kibble on her back.

It's certainly nice to have both figures in the same wave. Still, Chromia's not too hot with the kibble that remains from borrowing the engineering of the POTP fembots, which is a shame because the last figure was pretty good yet most fans didn't see it as such because of how it didn't scream "cartoon", but the more supposed cartoon-styled Chromia ends up looking weird.

Weirdly, the bikini piece comes off, which isn't intentional yet is reminiscent of when the Transmetal II Blackarachnia toy had a bra that could be removed. It helps make the waist articulation move better, but without it, Chromia ends up having her crotch exposed. Why it's a separate piece is beyond me.

Yeah, let's move on before it worsens...

Overall, this is one of the weakest Siege figures in the line that I own. The vehicle mode looks pretty good, but the robot mode suffers from the huge kibble chunks while the weapons have easy to lose pieces. Thankfully, the colors look good and the figure doesn't have too many issues standing up, but given how the toy is warming pegs badly, I feel you'd want to wait for it on clearance. 10 dollars work well for this toy.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐