Ruination (RID)

Ruination is a Decepticon combiner from the Robots in Disguise continuity family.

"Movor, stop distorting space and get back in proper!"

Ruination is the combined form of the Commandos, the Decepticons' military squad. While the minds and bodies of all five Commandos come together to make him, Armorhide, Movor, Rollbar, and Ro-Tor cede all control to their leader Mega-Octane to make Ruination a more coordinated, intelligent and deadly warrior, whose only interest is in fighting.

Making things worse for his opponents is his ability to swap his limbs around to adapt to whatever combat situation he finds himself in. "Flight Mission" mode puts Ro-Tor and Movor in the arm sockets, enabling Ruination to fly. "Land Mission" mode has Armorhide and Rollbar in arm mode, giving him increased power on the ground. This deadly combination of brains and brawn makes Ruination so fierce and powerful that even Megatron is wary around him.

On an unrelated note, Ruination is powered by coffee milk.^[1]

Fiction

Cartoon continuity

2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon

Voice actor: Bob Papenbrook (English), Holly Kaneko (Japanese), Oleg Kutsenko (Russian), Vladimir Gerasimov (Russian, Ultra Magnus: Forced Fusion! only), Alejandro Villeli (Latin-American Spanish), Stefano Mondini (Italian)

The Decepticon Commandos were in the process of sabotaging Sherman Dam, when they were interrupted by the Autobots. Quickly subduing them, they were further interrupted by Team Bullet Train, who, being faced with the superior firepower of the Decepticons, combined to form Rail Racer. Anticipating this turn of events, Scourge ordered his unit to merge into Ruination.

The shock of their ability to combine, combined with Ruination's firepower and strength, had Rail Racer on the defense until the Autobot Brothers distracted Ruination with laser fire and less than snappy one-liners. Rail Racer used this opportunity to defeat Ruination, forcing the Decepticons into a tactical retreat. Commandos

Ruination attempted to fight the Spychangers on Montrose Island and was promptly tipped over. He quickly recovered and blew a chunk out of the side of the volcano, causing lava to flood out. He was subsequently restrained by Optimus Prime while the Spychangers dealt with the lava. Volcano

There's someone I'd like you to meet. His name is Depth Perception.

As part of a ruse to make the Autobots believe they'd defected, the Commandos formed Ruination to fight Sky-Byte. However the game was blown by Scourge, and Ruination was forced to retreat under fire from an outraged Optimus Prime. The Test

In an attempt to stop Optimus Prime delivering the O-Parts to Sky-Byte, Ruination and Scourge confronted the Autobot en route. Optimus kicked Ruination into the air and blew him to pieces with one shot from his blaze blaster. How the mighty have fallen. Sky-Byte Saves the Day

During an attempted energy heist, Ruination fought with Rail Racer a second time. Unfortunately the fight was used as a diversion by the Build Team to steal back the Commandos' hard-worn energy, a fact they didn't discover until after the Autobots retreated. The Commandos goaded the Build Team into facing them in person and easily gained the upper hand, even after both teams merged into their respective combiner modes. Landfill frantically dug a tunnel into the ground to escape but Ruination followed him in and slammed him against a wall. The impact caused the tunnel to begin filling with oil. Ruination pleaded with Landfill to refrain from firing but Landfill fired anyway. The explosion blew Ruination into his component parts which crashed blazing into the sea. A Test of Metal

And that settled the matter of children.

Scourge and the Commandos confronted Ultra Magnus, who was newly arrived on Earth. The act of the Commandos combining merely amused Magnus and he promptly blew Ruination into bits. Ultra Magnus Their second battle, facing Magnus and the energy-depleted Optimus on an island, went little better. After igniting the island's oil deposits, Ruination was witness to the first merging of Omega Prime and soon retreated under the Autobot's awesome firepower. Ultra Magnus: Forced Fusion!

Ultra Magnus refused Scourge's offer to join the Decepticons, leading Scourge and Ruination to fight Prowl and Side Burn, whom Magnus had abandoned to their own devices. The brothers were no match for the Decepticons, even when X-Brawn joined in. The arrival of Optimus Prime, however, turned the tide of the fight when he swiftly defeated Ruination. Power to Burn!

When Fortress Maximus was finally found in a cavern beneath Metro City, the Commandos combined into Ruination to wrest control of the location from the Autobots, but was soon repelled by the power of Maximus's defenses. Fortress Maximus Scourge made another attempt to access Maximus, while Ruination kept Rail Racer busy. The two combiners had a prolonged battle in the middle of the city until Scourge called a retreat. Koji Gets His Wish

Doggy mode!

After the loss of Megatron and the obtaining of Cerebros, the Decepticons located the place where the Autobots had concealed Maximus. An attack was launched, with Scourge and Ruination facing the majority of the Autobot forces. Despite being outnumbered, the battle went reasonably well, especially after the arrival of a resurrected Megatron in a new form, now calling himself Galvatron. Once Maximus was activated, he proved impossible to control—for the Decepticons at least. After Koji stopped Maximus, the Autobots fired on Ruination and the combiner retreated with Megatron. Maximus Emerges

Ruination later held off the Autobots in the desert long enough for Scourge to take control of Fortress Maximus. The battle went well until the arrival of Team Bullet Train and the Build Team with a large number of children who commanded Maximus to stop. Defeated once more, Ruination fled with Scourge. The Human Element

His guns have guns on them.

Following the revelation of Scourge's betrayal, Galvatron reprogrammed the Commandos and, by extension, Ruination to obey his will. Ruination subsequently joined the attack on the Autobot base, which Sky-Byte had located. When their firepower drew out Optimus Prime, the Commandos separated to pursue the Autobot leader and found themselves led into a trap. They combined again to fight the Autobots. Surprise Attack! Despite the loss of the Megastar, the Decepticons gained the upper hand and the Autobots were forced to retreat into their space bridge. Galvatron blew the entrance to the space bridge open, allowing Ruination and Scourge to enter the tunnel in pursuit. Their leader saw it as a chance to get rid of two birds with one stone and ruptured the tunnel wall to flood it with lava. Galvatron's Revenge Ruination and Scourge, like the Autobots, survived the lava but still retained their loyalty to Galvatron. They again faced the Autobots in battle and were overcome by superior firepower, eliminating them from the rest of the battle.

The Commandos were later taken to the asteroid prison colony by Fortress Maximus. The Final Battle

Unite Warriors/Legends

The Combatrons were freed from captivity and brought to the Cybertron of 2021 by Unicron, who also reformatted them into new, stronger bodies. When it turned out Unicron was intending to wipe them from existence once they were no longer useful to him, they combined into the upgraded Ruination and attacked the Chaos-Bringer. Ruination Chapter, Part One Ruination let his guard down with the arrival of Grand Scourge, who claimed to be Scourge, allowing Grand Scourge to strike him and force him to start disappearing again. Fortunately, the real Scourge showed up and interrupted the process by attacking Grand Scourge, allowing Ruination to send the impostor flying with a mighty barrage. Turning his attention towards Unicron again, he successfully disconnected the Chaos-Bringer's head from Cybertron, allowing other combiners to defeat him and preventing him from undoing the future the Combatrons hailed from. Together with Scourge and Sky-Byte, Ruination then traveled into that future to save their leader, Devil Gigatron. Ruination Chapter, Part Two

The five Combatrons formed Ruination during the attack on Neo Brave Maximus where Devil Gigatron was being held, only to learn he had no intention of being saved. Devil Gigatron instead cleansed Scourge of his evil programming, leaving a horrified Ruination holding the small protoform his commander had reverted to. LGEX Scourge Prologue

After Scourge was restored to his evil self in the Legends World, the Combatrons accompanied him home in the form of Ruination. Bonus Edition Vol. EX Scourge and the other Combatrons continued traveling together with Dark Ai, seeking their own destiny. Epiloge

Universe comic

Voice actor: Clive Ramroop (English)

The Ruination who was a Minion of Unicron was one of Megazarak's soldiers, abducted from Viron 704.31 Epsilon. Before being abducted, he had rendered Brave Maximus inert by killing the Emissary. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/07/30

Ruination was sent by Unicron along with Reptilion, Sunstorm, and Perceptor to stop a team aiming to help victims who Unicron had transported from other dimensions. Ruination's group was successfully fought off by the Autobot and Maximal forces. Voice Actor Drama

Ask Vector Prime

From Greengard in a Viron universe, Bio Ranger Iga collected Ruination for the Thirteen Great Demon Generals. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/06/27

Games

Transformers Roleplaying Game

Ruination was a unique combiner with the ability to reconfigure his components at will to optimize his combat efficiency. Decepticon Directive Runination had an anti-grav unit that allowed him to fly in addition to his fearsome strength. The Enigma of Combination

Toys

Robots in Disguise (2001)

One way, or another, I'm gonna find ya, I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha.

• Baldigus (Multi-pack, July 2000)

• ID number: D-011
• Accessories: Two multi-part handguns (made from individual component weapons), ramp/shield

Released in the fifth assortment of Car Robots product, Baldigus is a redeco and slight retooling of the Combaticon molds from Generation 1. As the original mold set is a "Scramble City" style of combiner, team leader Dolrailer (Mega-Octane) forms the super robot torso, while the four other robots—Dangar (Armorhide), Greejeeber (Rollbar), Hepter (Ro-Tor), and Shuttler (Movor)—can form any limb. There is, of course, a "default" configuration, or in this instance, two:

• Flight Mission— Right arm: Movor, left arm: Ro-Tor, right leg: Rollbar, left leg: Armorhide
• Land Mission— Right arm: Armorhide, left arm: Rollbar, right leg: Ro-Tor, left leg: Movor

In the cartoon, he is usually depicted in the Flight Mission configuration.

The main retooling to Baldigus involves him now being able to assemble two hand-held super-weapons using all of the weapons and accessories from all of the component robots. He also has a full back now owing to the ability to store his ramp on his cannon-backpack thanks to a new 5 mm post-hole in the cannon-base and new 5 mm post on the ramp underside. It's spiffy. This same functionality also lets him use the ramp as a (somewhat awkward) hand-held shield.

In the Car Robots line, the five Baldigus components were available both as individual releases, or in a five-robot multi-pack. However, the multi-pack version came only with the bio card for the combined form, available nowhere else, and had none of the individual cards. Sonokong also released the gift set in Korean markets, using the Takara color scheme with the Hasbro mold changes.

• More info on Baldigus at TFU.info

Flight Mission configuration on the left, Land Mission configuration on the right.

• Mega-Octane (Deluxe, 2001)
• Armorhide (Basic, 2001)
• Movor (Basic, 2001)
• Rollbar (Basic, 2001)
• Ro-Tor (Basic, 2001)

• Accessories: Two multi-part handguns (made from individual component weapons), ramp/shield

For the normal-retail Hasbro Robots in Disguise line, "Ruination" could only be assembled by buying the individual robots, all of which have deco differences from the Takara versions. Most strikingly, Ruination has stone-gray combiner kibble, and tank component "Armorhide" is now mainly light-blue. There are several other smaller deco and molding differences between the two releases, but we cover those on the individual components' pages.

Although the Korean release of Ruination used the Japanese color scheme, it was made with the tweaked molds used for the U.S. version.

• More info on Ruination at TFU.info

• Ruination (Multi-pack, 2003)

• Takara release date: September 26, 2003
• Accessories: Two multi-part handguns (made from individual component weapons), ramp/shield

The Ruination molds were redecoed into an "urban camouflage" scheme, primarily shades of gray and stony-blue. This set also features some slight retooling to a few members, most notably Movor's more rounded-off nosecone.

This version of the team was only sold as a complete set of five robots, a Walmart exclusive released in January of 2003. While still branded as a Robots in Disguise toy, the packaging was in the style of the then-running Armada toyline.

This set was made available in Japan much later as a "USA Edition" release, available only to retailers participating in Toy's Dream Project's "Toy Card" program. This was a straight release of the toy in Hasbro packaging, with some extra stickers added for "USA Edition" branding and legal information.

• More info on Wal-Mart Ruination at TFU.info

Universe (2003)

• Ruination (Multi-pack, 2004)

• Accessories: Two multi-part handguns (made from individual component weapons), ramp/shield

The entire Ruination team, using the urban camo molding, was redecoed again to make another Walmart exclusive set, under the Universe banner. The deco was seemingly inspired by Ruination's original Takara colour scheme, with gold combiner kibble and beige "desert camo" not unlike Armorhide's original plastic (albeit with a different pattern), allowing fans to Frankenstein together a show-accurate Ruination.

It came out at the same time as five other Walmart Transformers exclusives, which led to a glut. Ruination seemed a particularly slow mover in this batch.

• More info on Universe Ruination at TFU.info

Unite Warriors

• Baldigus (Giftset, 2017)

• ID number: UW-EX
• Release date: March 31, 2017
• Accessories: Two multi-part handguns (made from individual component weapons)

Unite Warriors Baldigus is a redeco of the Unite Warriors Bruticus set, made up once again of Dolrailer, Dangar, Greejeeber, Hepter, and Shuttler. However, this box set has a few notable differences from Bruticus beyond new colors.

First, the combiner mode's hands and feet, rather than being the standard multi-function hand/foot/gun accessories found with most Combiner Wars/Unite Warriors releases, are redecoes of the dedicated hand and foot molds that originally came with the Combiner Wars Computron set. The individual robots also come with extra weapons, molds found in the Unite Warriors releases of Scattershot, Scrapper, Long Haul, Scavenger, and Mixmaster; these guns combine with the already-existing guns to form two hand-held multi-weapons, similar to the original Baldigus's multi-weapons.

This set was the sixth TakaraTomy Mall exclusive set in the line, and the final Unite Warriors release. It was also the fourth toy to have the "UW-EX" ID "number", shared with Grand Scourge, Lynxmaster, and Megatronia.

Notes

Swindle: Hey! We actually look like our toys right now. Anybody wanna buy our old bodies?

• Robots In Disguise has been the only time that the original Combaticon molds have appeared onscreen using animation models that look very close to their toy bodies. (Operation Combination is close, but the toys in question are always shown in combined mode, never as individuals. Plus, well, that was never animated.) In the original Generation 1 television series, the animation models of the individual Combaticons, as well as Bruticus, were quite different from the actual toys.
• Ruination is a rare example of a Combiner actually making use of different combination setups within animation. The default combination patterned after his mold origin Bruticus allows him to fly, while swapping his arms and legs makes use of the firepower provided by his land-based vehicles. Although Superion and Menasor demonstrated the ability to change limbs assignments among their respective teams in the Scramble City: Mobilization OVA, they did not demonstrate any specific benefits from doing so.
• His original Japanese name, "Baldigus" (バルディガス Barudigasu), likely derives from "Bruticus" (ブルーティカス Burūtikasu). The two names have similar pronunciation in Japanese. For years, the correct Romanization of said name was up in the air, with "Baldigus" and "Valdigus" being the most popular fan spellings, until his Unite Warriors release provided an official Romanized spelling. Though, a Japanese model sheet did feature his name spelled, rather unfortunately, as "BARDIGAS".^[2]
• He has the most awesome name of any combiner, ever. Well, technically, he's tied with the other combiner named Ruination on that front, but he had the name first. How he ranks compared to Slayride, Sinnertwin, and Shreddicus Maximus in terms of best name ever is debatable, but he's up there.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Baldigus (バルディガス Barudigasu), Ruination (ルイネーション Ruinēshon)
• Korean: Baldigus (벌디가스 Beoldigaseu)
• Russian: Decepticon (Десептикон Deseptikon)

References

1. ↑ Car Robots Baldigus's bio card.
2. ↑ Car Robots "BARDIGAS" model sheet