Stag Hunter

The Stag Hunter is a Beastformer Head Hunter vehicle from the Generation 1 continuity family.

Stag night!

The mighty Stag Hunter (スタッグハンター Sutaggu Hantā) is one of several powerful vehicles produced by the Three Wise Ones millennia ago, and hidden away to keep their raw destructive power from falling into the wrong hands. The Stag Hunter was hidden in the area that would become known as the "Rocklands" of South Snarl, a wild, undeveloped region where only the brutally strong survive. It was eventually found and tamed by King Bombsheep, who rides it into battle against the invading Laser Beast forces.

Powered by a combination of fusion engine and its pilot's amplified Psycho Energy, this machine can achieve speeds of up to 300km per hour, and is surprisingly adept at driving through underground tunnels. It is armed with a pair of Psycho Missiles, and the "antlers" make up the weapon known as the Psycho Spider Unit, which can produce a web of Psycho Energy filaments to ensnare targets in a glass-like ball. And, like the other Head Hunters, it comes equipped with a monstrously powerful fusion cannon in its mouth.

However, this power comes at a cost. Repeated use of the Psycho Energy functions runs the risk of corrupting its pilot with its raw power, even enslaving their mind to the machine....

Fiction

Beastformers comic

{{#if: Humancharstub-StevieBarnett-IRobotMaster.png|link=Stevie Barnett | | }} {{ #if: This article needs to grow up a little bit. |This article needs to grow up a little bit. |}} This comic series, compliation/TPB, feature or continuity article is a stub and is missing information. You can help MediaWiki by expanding it. Note: For single issues or individual stories, use {{issuestub{{#if:||{{{2}}}|}}}} {{ #if: |{{ #if: |  | }} talk page.|}} {{#if: {{#if: |What's needed: |}}|{{#if: |What's needed: |}}|}}

{{#ifeq: ||}}{{#ifeq: |File|}}

Toys

Beastformers

• Stag Hunter (Beastformer Head Hunter Vehicle, 1988)

Released in the Takara Transformers-less Beastformers sequel series, the Stag Hunter is a large green robotic stag-head "chariot" with a pull-back motor: pulling back and releasing the vehicle sends it rolling forward, slowly at first then dashing forward with a burst of speed, with the lower jaw rapidly moving up and down. The back end pulls out to allow a Beastformer or Laser Beast figure into the control section, pushing back to "lock" them in. Each side of the control station features a pair of swing-up gray bars, used to secure other Beastformer figures by slipping under their arms.

This Head Hunter vehicle came with Bombsheep as a pack-in pilot, unchanged from his prior releases. While late-series runs of the individually-sold Beastformers could have full-color Fire/Water/Wood rubsigns, it is unknown if the box set toys could have them.

What was not packed in with the Head Hunters was a collector's card for the vehicle, slightly unusual since the larger Fortresses got cards.

The Stag Hunter's horns and (non-spinning) drills (aka the "Psycho Missiles") are made with a soft plastic that can get a little gross with age, as the plasticizer slowly seeps out, similar to what happens to the Pretender Monster and Dinoforce shells.

Notes

• The Head Hunters' packaging has virtually no information about the vehicles' fictional powers outside of the generic "sealed away for being too powerful" backstory, plus they lack "bio" cards. The most you get is a "function" over the name, with the Stag Hunter being the "Grassland Mobile Tank" (草原機動戦車 Sōgen Kidō Sensha). The Hero Special 12: Laser Beasts mook, which simply calls them the "Hunters", goes into far more detail on their powers and weapons... and seemingly ignores that "grasslands" part.
• In the Hasbro Battle Beasts line, the "Battle Chariots" came with a semi-random{{#ifeq: ||}} selection of Beasts. Supposedly, this is the source of many of the rarer variants in the Hasbro line, like the pink War Weasel and Crusty Crab, whose decos match up with their Takara releases, but more carded samples of these toys would help confirm that.
• Speaking of Battle Beasts, the Takara-release Hunters' customer-applied decal sheets are the same as the ones packed in with the Hasbro versions of the toys, using the Battle Beasts logo and having "©1987 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved" on them.

Foreign names

• English: Battling Deer Stalker