Dave's Transformers Classic Rant: Basic Wave 1 Dinobots (Terrorsaur, Knockdown, Swoop) Night Rescue Team (Strongarm, Divebomb, Firebot) Demolition Team (Wideload, Sledge, Broadside) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Classic/Basic1 After Mini-Cons being reduced to dribs and drabs, one set per wave at best, we now have them return as the only thing at the Basic price-point (officially labeled "Mini-Con Teams" as the class). Mind you, these aren't really "classic" in the sense of the other size classes, and have the feeling of being intended for late in Cybertron but pushed back to Classic. While there's plenty of name reuse, there are very few homages to the characters the names were taken from. CAPSULES Dinobots: Good altmodes, interesting transformations, robot modes have some problems. Still, good overall. Recommended. $6.99 at Target. Night Rescue Team: What I said about the Dinobots, but even moreso. Firebot has a niofty vehicle mode, though. Recommended, but not as strongly recommended for kids. $6.99 at Target. Demolition Team: More of the same, generally. The most poseable ones, but also the least stable. Recommended. $6.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: The cardbacks are the same general pattern as the Deluxe Classics, but obviously smaller, at 8.25" (21cm) high and 7.5" (19cm) wide. The blisters are a little different, with some dents in the front near the bottom and vent patterns molded into them. The card insert at the front lists faction, then team name, then the names of the three figures, one above the next. On the back of the card are pictures of all three toys in both modes and techspec numbers for each toy. However, there's only a single bio note and quote for the team. The bio notes, at least for these sets, don't say anything about the individuals, just generalizations about the entire team. Each toy is packaged in non-robot mode, held into the blister by a twist-tie (Swoop being the sole exception with two ties and a rubber band). The instructions are folded up in a baggie, as usual. They're one-sided in two colors (black and red or purple). There are no individual mottos or bio notes, so I will provide my own, as I sometimes do. Consider it fanfic. [Later note: back when some of these were going to be part of versus packs, and several of them had different names, they had individual bios. But I'm not going to include them here.] Before going into detailed reviews, a quick comment on the design philosophy that seems to be in operation here. If I had to guess at the priorities the designers had here, I'd say that innovative transformation came first, followed by good altmodes. Robot modes were a distant third. There's some pretty oddball robot modes here, with limited and weird poseability, but every toy has some transformation aspect that doesn't immediately remind me of some other TF. [Later note: just to clarify, the reason I don't say where the Mini-Con emblems are is that there are none. They ditched 'em.] AUTOBOTS: DINOBOTS Members: Terrorsaur, Knockdown, Swoop Previous Name Use: G1, G2 and RiD (as a team), BW and BWX (as a character) Motto: "We fight where others fear to go." Adventurers through and through, no environment is too inhospitable for the DINOBOTS. In fact, these three tough robots are more at home in the thickest, most poisonous jungles of the galaxy than they are in the comfortable machine cities of CYBERTRON. When a mission requires animal instincts, sure feet and a laser-proof hide, the DINOBOTS are the ones to call. The general theme here is robotic dinosaurs, making these the very first beastmode Mini-Cons. Based on the techspecs, it looks like Swoop is the leader (heck, he's coequal with Prime!). AUTOBOT: TERRORSAUR Altmode: T.rex Previous Name Use: BW, Armada Function: Cleanup Despite his fearsome appearance and mighty jaws, TERRORSAUR's preferred place is not the front lines, it's in the reserves. It's not that he lacks bravery...he just has a talent for finding survivors late in a battle and either rescuing or dispatching them as appropriate. Advanced olfactory sensors let TERRORSAUR sift out a single aromatic molecule out of billions. STR 7 INT 6 SPD 5 END 8 RNK 4 COUR 6 FRB 5 SKL 5 Avg 5.75 Beast Mode: A robotic T.rex, 3.25" (8cm) from snout to tail tip. It's packaged in a more old-style pose, with the tail dragging, but the molding of the head/neck indicates it was intended to be in a horizontal-torso position in line with current theories. Made mainly of a warm green (66CC33) plastic with moderate UV glow, a few joining pieces are dark gray (333333). The eyes are painted yellow, the fronts of the lower rear legs are painted silver, and there's red (CC0000) details on the flanks and hips. There is a Mini-Con connector on each hip. The hips are peg swivels, if you're not careful they'll pop off. The upper head is hinged so the mouth can open, if weirdly, revealing a cannon inside. The tail is hinged for transformation, not a good posing joint. The tiny forearms are not jointed at all. The figure is a bit front-heavy, which may be why they decided to go with a more rearing-back pose. It has heel spurs reminiscent of Ramulus's feet. Transformation: Well, the legs stay legs, and the tail folds out of the way. However, the upper half is a bit more interesting. The head, neck and upper torso split to become the robot arms, and the mid torso twists around. Robot Mode: 2.25" (6cm) tall. The pelvis and shoulder joints are dark gray, the rest of the bits are green plastic. The face is painted silver with red eyes. The shoulder joints have an up and down hinge where they meet the torso, then consist of rods that end in balls, that plug into the arm sockets. This gives the shoulders a lot of range of motion...and Terrorsaur can shrug. The right arm is a cannon arm, the left ends in the top half of the dino head, and has a hinge wrist/elbow/something. The waist swivels and the hips are swivels. Overall: A hand concealed inside the dino head for the left arm would have been nice, as would a paint wash to bring out details, but otherwise it's a nice little dinobot. AUTOBOT: KNOCKDOWN Altmode: Triceratops Previous Name Use: None. Function: Shock Trooper Motto: "If yer in fronta me, yer gonna be UNDER me!" No one ever accused KNOCKDOWN of subtlety. He wouldn't understand what they meant anyway. He's not all that fast or nimble, physically OR mentally, but once he gets going he's almost impossible to stop. Even "bulks" fear what this pint-sized tank on legs can do to them. SWOOP tells him what to hit, and TERRORSAUR picks up whatever's left. STR 10 INT 4 SPD 4 END 10 RNK 4 COUR 9 FRB 4 SKL 6 Avg 6.375 Beast Mode: A robotic triceratops 2.75" (7cm) long. The front legs, underbody and rear body/tail are made of a light brown (CC9966) plastic, while the rear legs front torso and head are a pale lavender (CCCCFF) plastic, neither of which glow particularly. The top of the nose, the tips of the horns and strips on the upper front legs are painted a light metallic blue. Yellow paint is on the rear thighs and the frill. There's no paint on the eyes, making it inobvious where they eyes are (they're at the roots of the main horns). There are two Mini-Con connectors flanking the base of the tail. Poseability is minimal. The rear legs can splay to the side, and the nose can move up and down, but the front legs are more or less locked in position unless you partially transform them. Transformation: The front legs fold open to the sides, becoming robot legs. The belly section pulls down a bit to form the abdomen. The head comes up out of the frill (you may need a pry tool if you don't have long nails) and snaps hard into place, while the nose folds down. The entire rear half of the beast splits in two and folds forward to right and left, with the rear legs flipping over to become arms. Robot Mode: 2.25" (6cm) tall, and 3.25" (8.5cm) wide, with shoulderpads that resemble yak horns. The Mini-Con connectors face forward and look like cannons or something. The face is painted metallic light blue with red eyes. Fists are molded onto the insteps of the rear beast legs, so they show up in robot mode. The shoulders are restricted ball joints, so the arms can really only move up or spin on their long axis. The shoulderpad sections can swing back or wiggle around a bit on their transformation joints, though, giving a bit more pose range. The hips are swivels. The knees bend sideways on transformation joints. Overall: Solid in beast mode, if a bit unposeable (not that trikes are reknowned for their flexibility). The lavender isn't exactly my favorite color for a dino, but it's a decent toy. AUTOBOT: SWOOP Altmode: Pteradon Previous Name Use: G1, RiD, Energon Function: Strategic Planning Motto: "It's all a matter of perspective." In theory, SWOOP is co-leader of the AUTOBOTS, an arrangement reached with OPTIMUS PRIME long ago. In practice, he leaves actual leadership to PRIME and concentrates on the overall strategic picture. He often leads his DINOBOTS on seemingly pointless missions off to the middle of nowhere, but always comes back with a valuable insight about DECEPTICON plans. Some say he just needs to get away from things and think, while others suspect he knows more about the way the DECEPTICONS think than any AUTOBOT should, and this unerringly leads him to places where things are happening. STR 5 INT 10 SPD 6.5 END 7.5 RNK 10 COUR 7 FRB 5 SKL 9 Avg 7.5 Beast Mode: A robotic Pteradon of roughly the same style as G1 Swoop, with a 4" (10cm) wingspan and a beak-to-feet length of 2" (5cm). The leading edges of the wings are dark gray plastic (333333) and the rest is a dark red (CC0000). Neither glows strongly under UV. White and gold paint accents decorate the toy, with a sort of white mask on the face rather than painting the eyes. There is a gold Autobot symbol on the rear part of the left wing, making this the only one in the set with a faction symbol. There's a single Mini-Con connector in the middle of the underside. The wings are on restricted ball joints, letting them flap upward. The feet are hinged at the ankles, with about 90 degrees of motion The upper head/crest is hinged to let the mouth open some, and the whole head is on a hinged neck joint. Now, while it's packaged and shown in flat flying pose, you can put it in a standing pose. Fold the wings back almost all the way, then fold the feet and head forward, and it can stand up. Transformation: Very weird, involving a lot of folding bits that can pop apart if you're not careful. The gray parts of the wings become the legs and they have slots into which tabs on the torso front piece fit. The robot head is actually on the back of the beast head, making the crest on the beast head a sort of really long baseball cap visor. When going back to beast mode, be sure to peg the red and gray parts of the wings together, it can be tricky to get them in position for this if you wait too long in the process. Robot Mode: Kinda stumpy, at only 2" (5cm) tall. The face looks a bit too large for the rest of the body (and is painted white with blue eyes). The forearm parts of the wings are molded into the sides of the torso in this mode, and it kinda looks like he's a four-armed robot. The shoulders are restricted ball joints, and the arms are shorter than the wing bits hanging off the backs of the arms. The claws at the end of the arms are on hinged wrists. The head can lean forward, and the ankles are hinged, but there's no leg articulation. [Readers who actually read the instructions point out that the package photo is incorrect, and the instructions show that the beast feet are not the robot hands. There are, in fact, little fists molded into the underside of the wingtips. This does improve the robot mode a bit.] Overall: Robot mode looks goofy and doesn't pose much, but the beast mode is quite nice, and it's impressive that they even GOT a robot mode for a pteradon at this size. Team Overall: Nice beast modes, interesting transformations, and, well...the robot modes have some problems. Still, at this scale, a good effort, and this is definitely a set worth getting. AUTOBOTS: NIGHT RESCUE TEAM Members: Strongarm, Divebomb, Firebot Previous Name Use: None Motto: "We bring light to the darkness." Young and brave, these robots are fresh out of primary programming, and too inexperienced to ever be afraid. When there are other robots in danger, and nothing will save them except a foolish charge into the dangerous and unknown, it's always the Night Rescue Team that gets called in. This is clearly an update of the Emergency Team from Armada, which was a police car, an Osprey-like VTOL and a firetruck (that was named Firebot). Looks like Divebomb is the leader of this pack. Divebomb and Firebot have the initials "TMR" on them, and the number 77. Probably the initials of some designer who was born in 1977 or something like that. :) Or Tokyo Metropolitan Rescue squad 77. AUTOBOT: STRONGARM Altmode: Police Car Previous Name Use: Energon Function: Street Patrol Motto: "You can't outrun the Strongarm of the law!" After some awkward experiences with human law enforcement, STRONGARM was granted official sanction as a Federal Marshal with powers of arrest, something he's very proud of. He makes it his business to know human laws inside and out, and also to avoid overzealous prosecution of minor offenses. He sees himself mainly as a sort of super-SWAT team, and won't go out of his way to deal with traffic violations or littering. Unless he's really bored. Which happens more often than DIVEBOMB would like. STR 6 INT 8 SPD 7 END 7 RNK 4 COUR 7 FRB 6 SKL 6 Avg 6.375 Vehicle Mode: Solid, black, and 2.25" (5.5cm) long. Other than the metal rivets and soforth, it's all black plastic. The lightbar on top is painted in metallic dark blue and a shiny deep red (CC0000) that glows brightly under UV. The headlights are yellow. The bumper is silver, and a "Police District" logo is printed on both sides in silver, with an RR in a sunburst. A red and white Autobot symbol is printed on the front of the hood. The windows are not painted. There are two Mini-Con connectors on the underside just ahead of the rear wheels. This is one of the most solid Mini-Con vehicle modes ever, it takes a lot of force to get it to transform. [Later note: It's been pointed out to me that the headlights and some of the other front end bits come from a late model Dodge Charger. However, the general lines are not Charger, the front is too long and the rear too short. No real car made of recent decades has that long a front and that short a back, a sort of Batmobile effect.] Transformation: As mentioned, it takes a fair amount of force to get this going, but it's easiest if you start by folding the front end down. Then fold the bottom rear out to form the lower legs...and grabbing them, twist the two halves of the car (right and left) around. The front end slides down between the halves and the head folds up on top of it. Very odd transformation, and sometimes a part pops off due to the force needed. Robot Mode: 2.5" (6.5cm) tall, with the front bumper forming the chest and the lightbar the belt. The head is also black, with red eyes. The Mini-Con connectors are now at the heels. The arms bend at the elbows. That's pretty much it. The knee joints are only sideways for transformation. Overall: Solid vehicle mode that really needs paint on the windows, interesting transformation, pretty weak robot mode. So-so toy. AUTOBOT: DIVEBOMB Altmode: Helicopter gunship Previous Name Use: G1, Energon Function: Aerial Support Motto: "I am the eye in the sky, looking at you." Inexperienced and impetuous like the rest of his team, DIVEBOMB nonetheless takes his position as leader seriously. Well, as seriously as anything else. Which often isn't very. Able to monitor over three hundred communications channels simultaneously while searching for trouble, at least a dozen of those channels end up being human entertainment broadcasts. He's very fond of 1980s popular music. One of the few Mini-Cons able to fly in both modes, he rarely lands, and sometimes annoys OPTIMUS PRIME by hovering a few centimeters off the ground when at meetings. STR 6 INT 9 SPD 8 END 6 RNK 8 COUR 9 FRB 5 SKL 8 Avg 7.375 Vehicle Mode: Definitely a gunship, with rocket pods under the stub wings and a gun turret under the nose. 3" (7.5cm) long (not counting the rotors) with a rotor circle of just under 3" (7cm). The tail and rotors are light gray (999999), while the main body, rotor shaft top and tail rotor are dark blue (003399 more or less), neither plastic glowing under UV. Neon red paint that glows strongly under UV is on the leading and trailing edges of all four rotor blades. The canopy is painted silver with yellow windows, and a red Autobot symbol is printed behind the rotor between the turbofans. The left stub wing has 77 printed on it in silver, and the right one has T.M.R. in silver. Both the main rotor and tail rotor spin freely. There's no front landing gear, but there's a Mini-Con connector on the underside of the cockpit. Transformation: The tail splits in two (right and left) and folds around to the front to form the legs. The bottom of the cockpit swivels around (snapping into place) to form a lower body, and the legs fit into pegs on either side. It's not a locking peg, more of a guide peg. The stub wings and horizontal stabilizers also fold around, with the missile pods becoming arms. The rotor unit folds 90 degrees to become a hat. :) Robot Mode: 2.5" (6.5cm) tall and on the spindly side. The rear landing wheel halves form heel spurs, but they're not long enough, and it's very easy to tip it over backwards. The stub wings form shoulderpad wings, and the canopy is his chest. The head is blue, with yellow eyes. The arms bend at the elbows, but only to the sides. The main rotor still spins, so he can fly around in robot mode. Overall: Like Strongarm, it's a good vehicle, interesting transformation, and pretty bricky robot mode. Better colors than Strongarm, though. AUTOBOT: FIREBOT Altmode: Firetruck Previous Name Use: Armada, Universe (the GoBot was Fire-Bot) Function: Firefighter Motto: "It really warms my heart. And my armor." FIREBOT loves fire. It's so beautiful, almost alive. Of course, it's also his duty to douse fire, but thanks to his ability to record a panoramic view in both visible and infrared wavelengths, he has hours and hours of footage to review in his down time. He'd never set a fire himself, and would be horrified at the suggestion. But he sometimes has to fight the urge to watch for just another few seconds before turning his twin foam cannons on a blaze. STR 8 INT 5 SPD 6.5 END 7.5 RNK 6 COUR 7 FRB 5 SKL 9 Avg 6.75 Vehicle Mode: A firefighting truck along the same lines as the Armada Firebot, but narrower and with two roof-mounted hoses rather than just one. 2" (5cm) long and mostly made of red (FF0000) plastic that glows brightly under UV. The wheels, water cannons, part of the roof, and the front chunk are made of dark brown (no web color equivalent) plastic, but the front end is painted red (good match, glows even brighter). The front windows are painted metallic light blue, the railings along both sides of the top are painted gunmetal. T.M.R. 77 is printed in silver on both sides near the rear, and on the left side is also a silver Autobot symbol. The water cannons on top are on swivel joints and move independently. The wheels roll freely. On the underside slightly ahead of the center is a single Mini-Con connector. Transformation: The rear half or so separates and pulls straight back to make the legs. The front quarter splits into shoulders, with the brown roof halves (that are teeth-meshed together) become arms. There's an additional joint that can let the sides of the upper body move, but this doesn't seem to be involved in transformation. Robot Mode: 2.25" (6cm) tall. The lower arms and upper legs are brown (the mostly due to paint on red plastic). A very snazzy looking design, with the water cannons now arm-mounted and the Mini-Con connector at the center of the chest. The head is red with light blue eyes and a long sallow faceplate. The shoulders are ball joints, the elbows are sideways hinges. The hips are very restricted ball joints, and the knees are hinges that can't bend very far due to the thigh armor getting in the way. Overall: Somewhat boring if solid vehicle mode, only moderately innovative transformation, but very nifty-looking (and reasonably poseable) robot mode. Most balanced of the three. Set Overall: The most extreme example of the design philosophy I mentioned earlier. Worth getting mainly for the vehicle modes and the transformation engineering. Probably not a great set for kids, but worthwhile for adult fans. DECEPTICONS: DEMOLITION TEAM Members: Wideload, Sledge, Broadside Previous Name Use: None Motto: "We play dirty." If it can be built, the Demolition Team can bring it down. Every member of the team is an expert engineer, specializing in weakening and destroying the foundation of any structure they encounter. Before any important battle, you'll find the Demolition Team on site, tunnelling beneath enemy fortifications. Entire AUTOBOT cities have collapsed in a thunderous cloud of dust because of the work of these three. This is sort of a mixed bag team. A dumptruck, a power shovel...and a tank. Okay, kinda like the Destruction Team in Armada (borer, bucket wheel and AA tank), I suppose. They all have rank 8, so I guess they form a sort of anarcho-syndicalist commune. DECEPTICON: WIDELOAD Altmode: Dumptruck Previous Name Use: G1, Energon Function: Structural Analysis Motto: "Everything has a weak point. And yours is right...THERE!" Each member of the Demolition Team has a specialty, and Wideload's is figuring out where to act to do the most damage. Special seismic sensors and holographic arrays let him analyze any structure to find the points of maximum stress. Usually, he then passes that information over to his teammates, but when necessry, he can strike with his massive arm blades to crack open armor or collapse walls. Wideload tends to treat everything, and everyONE, as something to break, which gives him a cold and calculating personality. STR 7 INT 7 SPD 6 END 8 RNK 8 COUR 6 FRB 6 SKL 7 Avg 6.875 Vehicle Mode: Well, it's a dumptruck of the heavy duty variety, 2" (5cm) long. It has six wheels, two in front and two pairs of two on the same axle (all four on the same axle, that is) in the rear. Four of the wheels and most of the undercarriage are black plastic, while two of the wheels and the upper parts are medium green (339900). The inner two rear wheels are green, oddly. The front grill and bumper are painted silver, the front window is light blue (66FFFF). Along the sides of the dumper are patterns painted in dark and light purple, both of which paints glow under UV. A silver Decepticon symbol is printed on the dumper lip above the driver's cab. There's one Mini-Con connector on the front right lip. All six oversized wheels roll freely, and the dumper tips to almost straight up. I was a bit surprised that the green wheels turn, usually that sort of thing is an odd color because it's part of a fixed piece. Transformation: The front end turns into legs in a fairly standard way. The dumper halves become arms, but do so by having the rear axle split and rotate around so that the rear wheels form the chest. Maybe Wideload is a femme? :) Robot Mode: 2.25" (5.5cm) tall. The arms and feet are green, as is the head, but the core of the robot body is black. There's no actual hands, but the dumper lip parts bend enough to kinda act as claws. The head has no paint on it, and has a somewhat goblin-like look. The shoulders are ball joints, but restricted oddly so that the arms can't raise straight forward, and the actual joints are level with the eyes. The waist turns on a restricted ball joint, the hips are ball joints and the knees are hinges. The front wheels touch table as heels, so there's a little stability issue for standing, but it's not a huge problem. Overall: The dull one of the group, but dull is sometimes good. :) Solid vehicle mode, reasonably interesting transformation, pretty poseable robot mode. DECEPTICON: SLEDGE Altmode: Backhoe Previous Name Use: G1 (Micromaster), Energon Function: Sapper Motto: "I'll burrow two meters beneath their mines, and blow them at the moon!" SLEDGE fancies himself an intellectual, and is always quoting works of cultural import. Well, MISquoting, usually. Meticulous by nature, he'd rather spend hours carefully excavating a battlefield to create exactly the desired effect, where his teammates would prefer to just get the job done and not worry about that last one percent. Still, it's hard to argue with results, and many an AUTOBOT has fallen into a concealed pit at just the right moment to turn the tide of battle. STR 7 INT 7 SPD 5 END 8 RNK 8 COUR 7 FRB 6 SKL 6 Avg 6.75 Vehicle Mode: There have been a lot of power shovels (like G1 Scavenger) in Transformers, but not a lot of old-style backhoes, with the shovel on the back and a blade on front (oddly, Wikipedia says the term "backhoe" is almost unknown to the general public...if anything, I hear it used TOO often for things that aren't necessarily backhoes). This is the sort I mean, if not exactly the same in details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:S2300039.JPG Sledge also has hydraulic legs at the rear of the sort that fold down to stabilize the backhoe while it's digging, although they don't actually move on the toy. Anyway, Sledge is 2.75" (7cm) long when all folded up, but can be stretched out to 4" (10cm). Most of it is black plastic, with the scoop arm and the front blade arm made of yellow (FFFF00) plastic, along with some internal bits. A deep red (CC0000) paint is used extensively for details, and the cab windows are painted in a UV-glowy cyan (00FFCC) paint. A purple and white Decepticon symbol is printed on the roof. As an aside, an odd optical effect caused by all the yellow and red around it makes the black plastic look dark brown at a casual glance. Well, for me, anyway. The rear backhoe has hinges for shoulder, elbow and wrist joints, plus a fourth joint allowing some side to side motion, a nice touch. The front shovel has just a shoulder hinge and a wrist ball joint that's so limited it acts as a hinge. The wheels roll freely. There's a single Mini-Con connector on the center underside, in a piece of yellow plastic. Unfortunately, the vehicle mode doesn't hold together very firmly. Definitely the most likely toy of these nine to fall apart under casual play. And I mean literally, the rear wheel sections are pegged on. Transformation: The undercarriage pulls down and rotates to form the legs and lower body. The cab flips up to reveal the head. And, officially, that's about it. However, it looks better if you rotate the shoulder piece so that the front end of the vehicle points up, instead of down, when you position the right arm. [Which, as some readers have pointed out, is what the instructions say.] Also, I'm not sure how to even get this to look like the package photo, the pelvis is on backwards or something (well, and the robot mode is mirror-flopped, but even addressing that the pelvis is still wrong). For maximum poseability, though, I'd recommend rotating the pelvis so that the socket of the waist joint points straight up (diamond profile, not square). Robot Mode: 2.25" (6cm) tall at the head, 2.75" (7cm) at the top of the folded up cab. The helmet is painted red with the face left black with no eye paint. The boots are also almost entirely red. The color balance is good in general, with the arms and lower torso being yellow, the upper torso, pelvis, upper legs and "hands" black. The Mini-Con connector is completely hidden in robot mode, unlike most of the other toys in this wave. Jointing is weird due to the asymmetry of the robot mode. The right arm has a sort-of universal joint shoulder, and a hinged wrist, but no elbow. The left arm has an inverted hinge elbow, plus hinged wrist and a shoulder that can move up and down plus a little forward and back. The curse of just about every figure that uses a power shovel for an arm. The waist is a restricted ball joint, which can turn or lean forward and back. The hips are swivels, and there's a swivel at the knee where the lower legs just peg into the upper legs. They come apart a little too easily. The heels don't really extend backwards much, so it helps to have at least one arm pointed forward to avoid the figure falling over. Overall: A bit odd-colored, and unstable in both modes, but also pretty poseable in both modes. (Okay, as I'm typing this, a show on Discovery Channel just talked about paleontologists using a backhoe to dig up fossils. Not in common usage my skidplate.) DECEPTICON: BROADSIDE Altmode: Tank Previous Name Use: G1, Armada Function: Demolitions Motto: "Broadside want big boom!" Easily the most intelligent of the team, he's also the "class clown," frequently acting like a triggerhappy moron, but not consistently enough to fool anyone into underestimating him. Incredibly impatient, he often trusts in his intuitive sense of where to fire rather than waiting for WIDELOAD'S advice, ending up needing five shots to do the job where one would have been enough. Of course, with his main cannon's power, one is often enough no matter how carelessly he places it. STR 9 INT 9 SPD 4 END 8 RNK 8 COUR 9 FRB 8 SKL 8 Avg 7.875 Vehicle Mode: This is a very nice main battle tank in olive green plastic, 2.25" (5.5cm) long. There's some neon yellow "racing stripes" on the turret and the sides, and similar orange stripes at the front. The tread surface is painted black. A purple and white Decepticon symbol is printed on the top rear of the turret. The turret rotates easily, and the gun elevates all the way up, although it can't depress all the way down to horizontal. It rolls on the usual tiny wheels hidden in the treads. The single Mini-Con connector is on the underside, just ahead of the center. Stability is okay. The tread pieces don't lock in place, but also don't flop out trivially. Transformation: Really odd. The treads and the halves of the rear deck are connected to a central core that sort of scissors to bring the treads back and the deck halves forward (treads as legs, deck halves as arms). A hand folds out of the left arm, and a rotary cannon from the right arm. The front deck folds down in two pieces to make the chest and abdomen, and the cannon folds back to bring the face out. The entire turret is the head. Freaky. Robot Mode: A very leggy (as in, the legs are more than half the total height) 2.5" (6cm) tall if you ignore the cannon acting as an antenna, 3" (8cm) if you include it. The visor is painted yellow. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, but the shoulders are directly *behind* the hips, making for odd proportions. The neck is the turret swivel, and the face can look down. Forget about getting this to stand. The feet are tiny, and further hampered by little numbs on the bottom that prevent using even that tiny area fully. I've gotten mine to stand a couple of times, but it's really hard to do, I'm confident it was just glued down for the photo shoot that generated the package photo. Overall: Good vehicle mode, oddball transformation, robot mode is...a noble effort, but more or less a writeoff. Team Overall: Kind of a mixed bag. Generally more poseable than the other sets, but also more unstable. Dave Van Domelen, now to find places to put 'em all. Broadside's definitely staying in tank mode, though...don't want it falling over whenever a door is opened somewhere in the building.