Dave's TF Classics Rant: Basic Wave 2 Predator Attack Team Dirt Digger Team Clear Skies Team Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Classic/Basic2 The balance is restored...two Autobot and one Decepticon in wave 1, now we get two Decepticon teams and one Autobot. And another pack of beastmodes, plus a bonus dragon. And, as with wave 1, there's no Mini-Con symbols molded on these. CAPSULES Predator Attack Team: Far from best of breed, these beastmode Mini-Cons are a nice try, but only Dreadwing qualifies as good on its own merits. Very mildly recommended. $6.99 at Target. Dirt Digger Team: Two good figures and one mediocre one. Fresh designs, but nothing all that impressive. Recommended. $6.99 at Target. Clear Skies Team: Another engineering-driven set, nifty transformations and good altmodes, but iffy robot modes and some fragility issues. Mildly recommended. $6.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: Same as wave 1. And as before, I'll write my own invididual bio notes because I feel like it. :) Note: all "Previous Name Use" entries refer to U.S. toys, and may miss some of the more obscure store and convention exclusives. If I don't remember it and can't find it on tfu.info, it won't be there until and unless someone reminds me. DECEPTICONS: PREDATOR ATTACK TEAM Members: Snarl, Dreadwing, Overbite Motto: "The universe is our hunting ground." Generally speaking, even the most evil MINI-CON robots are more light hearted than their larger cousins, the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS. But not these guys. Everywhere they go, they move as if with some dire purpose, their glowing eyes scanning the landscape for potential prey. These robots live to hunt, and are always on the prowl, no matter what their actual mission is. The overall theme for this group is beastmodes, specifically predatory beasts. Predacons represent! Mind you, they're purely robotic beasts, no real organic elements. And now, the fanspecs (and real techspecs). DECEPTICON: SNARL Altmode: Tiger Previous Name Use: G1, G2, BW, BMac, RiD Dinobots, Universe, Cybertron Function: Ambush Hunter Motto: "Good things come to those who wait." Silent and possessed of nearly infinite patience, SNARL may not be very smart, but he's as smart as he needs to be. His energo-claws can be extended to nearly half his own length, or fired at a range of 100 meters. SNARL is a firm believer in the adage that states it's better to be silent and thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt, which suits his partners just fine. STR 7 INT 4 SPD 7 END 8 RNK 4 COUR 9 FRB 5 SKL 7 Avg 6.375 Beast Mode: My first impression on seeing this 3" (8cm) long orange (FF6600) tiger was "jade sculpture". The bulk and convexity of the front half in particular remind me of the way smaller jade sculptures I've seen look. There's at least two different plastics on this, although it could just be a result of batch variation and assembly from bins coming out of different batches. The rear third and the insides of the front legs glow under UV, the rest does not. A couple of splashes of copper on the back are nearly lost against the orange, but the rest of the paint details (including the Decepticon symbol on the left front shoulder) are black. Minimal poseability in this mode. The mouth opens (revealing a short blaster barrel inside) and the tail moves on a hinge. The left rear leg can lift, but it's not really useful articulation in this mode, since tigers don't scent-mark that way. :) Stability is so-so. Things don't peg together, and rely on joint tightness to keep everything in place. The head-and-back part in particular flips up pretty easily. The Mini-Con connector is on the right rear hip. Transformation: The rear third folds down to become the left shoulderpad and arm, with the left rear leg being the robot's left arm, and the other rear leg just hanging there. The head-and-back part becomes the right arm, and the insides of the front beast legs fold down to be the lower robot legs. Robot Mode: 2.25" (5.5cm) tall, and kinda iffy looking. The head is a pretty standard helmet affair with black-painted face. The front of the pelvis/hips section is open, and the beast butt doesn't really fold down far enough to clear the head. The shoulders are kinda rounded and weak-looking as well. There's no hand molded on the left "arm", either. The shoulders are ball joints, as is the waist. The left shoulder can't do much, though. The left elbow is a somewhat restricted ball joint as well. The mouth is now a hand, so he has a hinged thumb. The feet are kinda small, but large enough to generally support it. The connector ends up on the back of the left shoulder. Overall: Looks kinda nice in beast mode, and they deserve some credit for the transformation, but the robot mode is like a really bad imitation of Lioconvoy. One to leave in beast mode. DECEPTICON: DREADWING Altmode: Raptor (eagle or falcon) Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Energon Function: Aerial Hunter Motto: "When you least expect it, expect me!" While his original alternate mode was a jet, when DREADWING saw examples of Earth's hunting birds, he knew he had to get reformatted. Now he soars silently on thermals, using his advanced optics to pick out unwary victims and then entering high speed dives to strike and be gone before the target's allies know what's happening. In cases where a wider damage pattern is needed, he can release explosive feathers in passing, laying down a carpet of devastation. The nominal leader of the team, in part because his tactical advantages let him better coordinate the actions of the others. STR 6 INT 6 SPD 6 END 5 RNK 5 COUR 9 FRB 4 SKL 8 Avg 6.125 Beast Mode: I think this may have the longest single dimension of any Mini-Con, although I wouldn't put a lot of money on that assertion. :) It has a wingspan of 5" (13cm) and is 2" (5cm) from front to back. Made entirely from brown (between 660000 and 663300) plastic, again apparently of two types. The two pieces that form the tail and trailing edge of the wings, plus the legs and the throat area glow under UV, while the rest does not. This suggests to me that there's two sprues, and they designed it so they could later release it in a two-tone scheme. A metallic light blue paint adorns much of the leading edge of the wings, while the head is red, as are strips along the wingtips. While the head's shape doesn't look very condor or buzzard to me, the color suggests they may want it to be one of those species rather than a raptor. The robot head is also painted in red and metallic blue, so the fact it peeks out through a hole in the back is a bit emphasized. The red paint glows brightly under UV. There's a purple Decepticon symbol printed on the metallic light blue part of the left wing root. The wingtips have swivels for transformation that allow a little posing in beast mode. The legs are on ball joints, so you can have the bird perch on a flat surface. The head is on a hinge, but it doesn't move much before popping off entirely. There are two Mini-Con connectors, one under each wing where it meets the body. I suppose that makes it a sort of shield or cutting weapon for its bulk user. Transformation: As with Swoop, they do a lot with the wings. The front halves unclip from the rear and fold around on ball joints to become the legs, with the wingtips swinging up to become big anklewings. The tail splits to give the robot mode a sort of X-shaped wing backpack. The beast legs pull apart and down as upper arms, with the beast legs becoming forearms. The head flips around to face front. The beast head just sort of hangs between the robot's legs, looking infected, while the Mini-Con connectors end up on the hips and are inaccessible in robot mode. Robot Mode: 2" (5cm) tall at the head, about 3" (7.5cm) tall at the tops of the wings, depending on how you pose them. The hips and elbows are ball joints, the shoulders are hinges that raise to the sides, and the head can look up and down. The feet are a little small, but you can always fold the ankle wings down to act as stabilizers. The face has a stylized beak look, and the colors make it reminiscent of BW Terrorsaur. Overall: Best of the trio, mainly because it's kinda impressive how they got a stable robot out of a flattened wing shape without excessive weird origami transformation schemes. DECEPTICON: OVERBITE Altmode: Wolf Previous Name Use: G1, Universe Function: Pack Hunter Motto: "Strength in numbers." OVERBITE is a fierce hunter in his own right, with titanium claws and a bite capable of shearing through ten centimeters of AUTOBOT armor, but his true threat comes from his ability to suborn local fauna to his cause. He emits a cloud of nanomachines that nestle in the brains of simpler organic creatures, increasing their aggressiveness and letting him control them telepathically. While individually no match for even a MINI-CON, the pack as a whole gives OVERBITE a significant tactical advantage. STR 7 INT 6 SPD 5 END 7.5 RNK 4 COUR 9 FRB 5 SKL 7 Avg 6.31 Beast Mode: A gaunt wolf 2.5" (6cm) long made of very dark gray (almost black) plastic. The forelegs, underside, lower rear legs and tail glow greenish under UV, the rest don't. At this point, I'm almost certain these two-tone things are intentional, and we may see recolors of all three in more obviously contrasting plastics. There's a recessed Mini-Con connector on each rear hip. The eyes are painted red, and there's a silver Decepticon symbol printed on his left ribcage. There's also dark metallic purple accents on the sides and on the rear legs, which are very hard to see and rank up there with the metallic purple on black of Cybertron Scourge's face. The rear hips are swivels, and the rear digitigrade ankles are hinges. The "waist" is a ball joint. The tail is not independently poseable, but you can almost get Overbite into a proper "sit, boy" position. Transformation: The rear legs become robot legs, the top front splits to become the arms (with the head splitting into hands), and the waist spins around 180 degrees. The front beast legs just hang off the back. Robot Mode: 2.5" (6cm) tall, with an overall look that vaguely evokes the dark wolf Megazord baddie from Power Rangers Mystic Force. :) The head is painted red with a white face, and there's a white patch on the chest. The metallic purple is a little easier to notice in this mode, being on the fronts of the arms and the thighs. Shoulders and waist are ball joints, hips are swivels, knees are hinges. But the feet are so tiny that it can barely stand in a ramrod- straight pose, much less while doing anything. [Later note: He actually has heel spurs that flip out to make his feet a tiny bit longer, which helps a little.] Overall: Not all that impressive in either mode. A simplified Transmetal Cheetor in transformation, can barely stand in robot mode, and looks weird in a not-so-good way in beast mode. Set Overall: While not "made of suck" as some have suggested, it's definitely the weakest Classic Mini-Con offering, which is a pity. Really only a set to get for the novelty of beastmode Mini-Cons, and the Dinobots do that job better anyway. DECEPTICONS: DIRT DIGGER TEAM Members: Oil Slick, Dirt Rocket, Grindor Motto: "Mud slinging is our job, and we love a job well done." These guys might look like down and dirty backwoods brawlers, but in reality they are highly efficient spies and information warriors. All too often, those engaging the DIRT DIGGER TEAM in a battle of wits have found themselves sorely under-prepared. If you've got a dirty secret, these three will dig it up and show it to the world at the worst possible moment. They specialize in breaking the spirits of their enemies through a constant flow of false information. The vehicle theme here seems to be Boys' Toys. A muscle car, a crotch rocket and a monster truck. And, where all the Predators have high Courage, these guys all have high Intelligence and Skill. DECEPTICON: OIL SLICK Altmode: Muscle Car Previous Name Use: Universe Function: Grifter Motto: "I'm just a good ol' boy, never meanin' no harm." OIL SLICK is as smooth and slippery as they come. Where his teammates prefer technological means of information gathering, OIL SLICK prefers what Terrans call "HumInt"...the personal touch. Oozing innocent country bumpkin charm, he tricks his victims into revealing far more than they'd intended, while also engaging in confidence games on the side. Even SWINDLE has expressed admiration of OIL SLICK's skills. When things do blow up in his face, he's not afraid to cut and run...literally, thanks to his monowire- edged blade. STR 7 INT 8 SPD 6 END 6 RNK 6 COUR 6 FRB 4 SKL 9 Avg 6.5 Vehicle Mode: The rear end of this is a Dodge Charger from the late 60s or early 70s, although the front end is a bit stretched. I will be very disappointed if I don't see at least a digibash of this into the General Lee, and I might buy a second set just to do it myself. :) 2.5" (6cm) long and mainly made of dark orange (CC3300) plastic with minimal UV glow. The tires are a medium gray (a bit darker than 666666), and a bit of this can also be seen showing through as the radiator grille. Violet (663399) paint with moderate UV glow is used for flame patterns on the hood, while the windows and rooftop Decepticon symbol are black. [Later note: I've gotten a dissenting opinion on the vehicle mode, with claims that it's a 1970 Barracuda instead.] The wheels roll freely. There's a single Mini-Con connector on the underside in a piece of medium gray plastic, about 1/3 of the way from the back along the centerline. Note: if you partially transform to robot mode, flip out the hand weapons and then go back to vehicle mode, the two weapons do not get in each other's way, so he can cutchoo. Transformation: The hood and doors split in two to become the arms, with weapons folding out as hands. The rear third becomes the legs, but they hinge outwards rather than knee-wise. The waist rotates to bring the legs around to face the right way (which also puts the Mini-Con connected onto his butt, a rather unfortunate position for one, as the original Dualor could tell you). If you try to make the legs fold out the "normal" way you're gonna end up popping the hips. The boots just have the fenders, leaving the wheels on the hips, further separating this from most carformers. Robot Mode: A little over 2" (5cm) tall at the head, closer to 2.75" (7cm) counting the car doors which form vertical shoulderpads. The feet are shaped so that they stand flat when the legs are spread apart a bit. The pelvis, shoulder joints and weapon hands are made of the gray plastic. The left weapon is a knife, kind of like the Progressive Blades used by Evas, while the right weapon is probably supposed to be a claw. But it looks like a vegetable peeler. Interestingly, despite not being poseable and therefore not positioned to do this, the top of the head is molded to look like it would become the supercharger in vehicle mode (the fact it's painted purple and the bump on the hood is not, however, does do a bit to ruin the illusion). The face part of the head is painted silver, the only silver on the toy. The shoulders are a mix of a hinge at the torso and a ball joint inside the arm, for very good poseability. The waist turns, the hips are ball joints. The knees only bend sideways, though. Overall: I like this one quite a bit. The vehicle mode is a little distorted, but recognizable, and there's several elements of the transformation and robot mode not normally seen in Mini-Con cars (but we did see the leg trick in the old Land Military Team). DECEPTICON: DIRT ROCKET Altmode: Street Racer Motorcycle Previous Name Use: None Function: Video Surveillance Motto: "Smile, you're on Candid Camera!" The only kind of dirt this bike sees is what his optics record, and he's far more comfortable in the city than the backwoods, but he's learned to deal with his teammates' preferred locales during the downtime between missions. He has modified his suspension to let him drive on unimproved roads, but always complains about his paint job being ruined by the gravel he kicks up. Speaking of modifications, if he can't take a picture he needs, he'll fake a picture he needs. All it takes is one geniune image of the subject and he can create a new photo virtually indistinguishable from reality by even Cybertronian technology. STR 4 INT 8 SPD 6 END 4 RNK 6 COUR 5 FRB 4 SKL 9 Avg 5.75 Vehicle Mode: Your basic "crotch rocket" street racing motorcycle, a little under 2.5" (6cm) long and made of mainly canary yellow (FFFF33) plastic with black seat and wheels. Some of the yellow plastic glows almost white under UV, but it's not symmetric, so I'll chalk this one up to batch mixing. Purple flames are painted along the sides, although they stop a little abruptly on the edge of the central fueltank panel (which is what flips up to reveal the robot head), where you can find a slightly redder purple Decepticon symbol printed. The windshield is painted metallic medium blue. The headlights and tailpipes are silver. There's a Mini-Con connector on either side under the fuel tank, about where the engine would be. There's also small tabs on the bottom that act as kickstands if you're careful. The wheels spin freely. The handlebars are oddly straight and uniform...and a Lego minifigure can hold onto them and sort of ride Dirt Rocket. Transformation: The seat splits in half and folds out to become the arms, and the head pops out of the fuel tank. The front end splits in two to form very awkward legs. The rear wheel and tailpipes just stick out the back. Robot Mode: Okay, there's only so many ways you can do motorcycle transformers, especially at Mini-Con scale, but this isn't really one of the good ways. The rounded front end makes for poor feet, and the legs look really bad, even with the knee joints. Anyway, it stands 2.5" (6cm) tall including the flap on top of the head. The shoulders are a combination of ball joint at the torso and hinge at the top of the arm, the hips are ball joints, and the knees are hinges but kinda useless. The face is painted silver. Overall: The weak figure of the lot. DECEPTICON: GRINDOR Altmode: Monster Truck Previous Name Use: Armada, Energon Function: Network Intrusion Motto: "PWND!" GRINDOR is possibly the biggest geek, nerd, AND dork in all the DECEPTICON army. But he's also one of the physically strongest MINI-CONS, so when he tries to act cool, everyone else usually lets it pass. Able to both crush cars and demolish firewalls (both kinds), GRINDOR is the one who gets the information that doesn't require a personal touch. OIL SLICK talks up the marks, DIRT ROCKET takes and fakes their pictures, but it's GRINDOR who goes into private blogs, medical and tax records, and any other sensitive material he can think of. He also feeds the dirt the others find into "trusted" news sources to make sure it makes it into all the wrong ears. He doesn't so much lead the team as coordinate their missions. But he's good at it, so the others put up with his 1337-sp33k. STR 8 INT 7 SPD 5 END 7 RNK 6.5 COUR 7 FRB 5 SKL 7 Avg 6.56 Vehicle Mode: A monster truck in the Gravedigger style, with some of its signature design elements. 2" (5cm) long and 1.5" (4cm) wide. Mostly made of dark gray (333333) plastic (no UV reaction) with green (66FF00) struts along the bottom reminiscent of Dirt Boss (strong UV glow). Neon green flames are painted at the front of the hood, the windows and some accents along the back are yellow, and a silver Decepticon symbol is printed on the roof. There's two Mini-Con connectors on the underside between the front wheels. The big wheels on the front have rims sticking out intended to lock into the hubs of the rear wheels. Transformation: Reminiscent of Blastcharge, the wheels fold together to form the legs. Unlike Blastcharge, however, there's feet on the ends of these other than little claws. :) The hood section splits into feet. The green struts do a complex folding trick to get the legs in the right position. The arms simply unfold from the rear, and the head flips up. If you transform just the head and arms and run the vehicle backwards, it's a sort of car-taur. On mine, the wheels on the left leg didn't snap together properly, so I had to shave things down with a blade to get it to work. If you force things too hard, the struts simply pop apart. Robot Mode: A little over 2" tall (about 5.5cm) with much of that in the legs. The shoulder joints are green plastic, and the green struts end up on the outsides of the legs. The top of the head is painted yellow, and there's three yellow stripes around each arm. The Mini-Con connectors end up at the backs of the feet. The shoulders are a combination of hinge at the torso and ball joint at the arm. The head has a transformation joint that lets it look down. The hips are universal joints. The feet are so big that even the hunchback formed by the passenger compartment sticking out doesn't tip the figure. [Later note: JediTricks points out that the ankles are hinged to move side to side, so that you can spread the legs apart and still keep the feet flat. Also, the hub peg is 5mm.] Overall: Middle of the pack. Apparently prone to production problems, but a decent design otherwise. Set Overall: Solid, but not spectacular. No tired old designs, but nothing new that works exceptionally well either. AUTOBOTS: CLEAR SKIES TEAM Members: Thunderwing, Steel Wind, Nightscream Motto: "We fly free." These three MINI-CON robots are as different as any three individuals can be, except for one thing: their love for soaring through the crisp, blue skies of a living world. Across the Universe, countless worlds are infested with DECEPTICON mining crews stripping resources to fuel their engines, and spewing smoke and filth into the skies. Wherever this happens, you cn expect to find the CLEAR SKIES TEAM, waging a private war to destroy the DECEPTICONS and save the skies they love. Okay, capitalizing "Universe"? Huh. All flying altmodes, but not much design unity otherwise. No clear techspec spike either. Kinda feels like another team thrown together out of leftovers, which I reflect in my fan bios. AUTOBOT: THUNDERWING Altmode: F-14 Fighter Jet Previous Name Use: G1, Armada, Universe Function: Air Superiority Motto: "I clean the filth from the skies." THUNDERWING knows he bears the name of an infamous DECEPTICON general, but rarely talks about the fact that he once was a DECEPTICON himself. Never an enthusiastic member of that faction, he grew sickened by seeing world after world turned into an ashen slagheap by the DECEPTICON war machine. One day, he could take no more, and started attacking his own side. Luckily for him, STEEL WIND and NIGHTSCREAM were in the area, and helped him escape the vengeance of his erstwhile allies. Now he uses his astonishing speed, plus his knowledge of DECEPTICON tactics and weapons to fight the CLEAR SKIES TEAM's quixotic battles. STR 7 INT 6 SPD 10 END 8 RNK 4 COUR 8 FRB 6 SKL 5 Avg 6.75 Vehicle Mode: From above, this is definitely an F-14, down to the little panel line details. From the side, though, the cockpit profile is wrong, and there's a little bite in the tail not seen on the Tomcat. 3" (7.5cm) long, with a wingspan from just over 2" (5cm) in fully swept through 2.75" (7cm) in a realistic forward position to a physical maximum that can't be done on the real jet of 3.25" (8.5cm) wide. The tail and some core connectors are yellow plastic (FFFF00, major UV glow) while the rest is medium blue plastic (3366FF, slight UV glow). The nosecone and horizontal tail parts have yellow paint. The cockpit is silver, and there's a silver accent ahead of the thruster nozzle. Each wing has a golden emblem printed on it, crossing the Autobot symbol with a stylized wing Air Force-style symbol. [Later note: same one seen on Cybertron Wing Saber.] The wings are just pegged on, and can pop off if you're not careful. The thruster nozzle has a joint to allow a sort of vectored thrust, but it's really there for transformation. :) The nozzle itself is the Mini-Con connector, making this one of the few end-on connections, although the joint lets it point different directions if you want. Transformation: The front fuselage splits into arms, with the wing roots acting as shoulders and the wings themselves sticking out the back. The yellow rear part folds out into legs about the same way as Oil Slick's rear section. The rear fuselage and thruster fold up to become the chest and head. If you're not careful, it's easy to pop the wings off during transformation. Robot Mode: 2.25" (6cm) tall including the shoulder spikes. The shoulders are ball joints and he head can tilt to look down, that's pretty much it for meaningful poseability. The wings can be messed with, and the knees bend sideways, eh. The legs and the shoulder joints end up yellow in this mode, with the rest being blue. The face is painted silver, with the visor painted red. There's arms molded into the insides of the fuselage halves, and a suspiciously flat and undetailed square on the chest. I wonder if that was going to have a Mini-Con symbol. Overall: A nice jet, a transformation scheme not seen before (or not seen much, anyway), and a kinda bricky robot mode. Okay. AUTOBOT: STEEL WIND Altmode: A-10 Attack Jet Previous Name Use: None Function: Ground Assault Motto: "Keep your filth down in the dirt!" STEEL WIND is the only member of the CLEAN SKIES TEAM to start life as an AUTOBOT, and as a result is their spiritual leader. He broke with OPTIMUS PRIME over the importance of protecting worlds with no intelligent life. While OPTIMUS prefers to focus on worlds with sapient inhabitants, STEEL WIND refuses to accept this triage and takes his small team to the forgotten worlds, where none will be able to give thanks for his efforts. But, thanks to his devastating array of weaponry and heavy armor, many DECEPTICONS will curse him for those efforts! STR 8 INT 7 SPD 7 END 9 RNK 4.5 COUR 7 FRB 8 SKL 6 Avg 7.06 Vehicle Mode: A light gray (CCCCCC) A-10 Warthog with full weapon loadout, 2.5" (6.5cm) long with a 3" (7.5cm) wingspan. It looks like it should be floppy given all the joints and stuff, but it's surprisingly stable. There's a single Mini-Con connector on the underside just behind the wings. The nose cannon has two barrels, unlike on a real A-10, but that's because the nose splits. There's maroon (660000) paint along the top of the fuselage and on the intakes of the engines. The cockpit windows are light blue (99FFFF), the centers of the jet intakes are dark gray (333333), and a red Autobot symbol is printed on the left side of the fuselage under the cockpit. Transformation: The wings split along their long axes and spin so that the leading edges reverse, putting the front fuselage halves on the outside, very weird. This makes the front fuselage halves into clown shoe feet. The rear fuselage splits into shoulderpads, with fists popping out of the engines. Nifty and weird. Robot Mode: 2.25" (5.5cm) tall at the head, a bit taller at the shoulderpads depending on how you pose them. It has to lean forward a bit due to the curved shape of the feet, though. And the legs can't really come together. The forehead and fists are dark gray. The Mini-Con connector forms a belly button. Aside from the clown shoes, it looks pretty good. Shoulders and hips are restricted ball joints, the ankles are hinges. The hips are restricted weirdly, so that the legs can't swing forward, just back or to the sides. Overall: Definitely a wave one style of "transformation focused" design. Good jet mode, interesting transformation, oddly limited robot mode. AUTOBOT: NIGHTSCREAM Altmode: Dragon Previous Name Use: BMac, Armada, Universe Function: Non-Sapont Relations Motto: "The world screams its pain in words only I understand!" Among the MINI-CONS, a relatively young faction has arisen that calls itself the PREDACONS. Similar in outlook to the DECEPTICONS, it nontheless has some significant differences in philosophy. NIGHTSCREAM was once a PREDACON, and like many in that faction chose an alternate mode based in part on organic life...to be specific, one of the dragons of Altair IV. But as time went on, he found he shared an empathic bond with organic life, a bond that drove him from the PREDACONS and into the waiting arms of the lone AUTOBOT warrior STEEL WIND. He joined STEEL WIND's lonely crusade, and has never regretted it. He brings not only his ability to communicate with "lesser" lifeforms, but also corrosive acidic spit that ignites in oxygen-rich atmospheres to burn like napalm. STR 6 INT 10 SPD 6.5 END 7.5 RNK 4 COUR 9 FRB 7 SKL 5 Avg 6.875 Beast Mode: A mecha-dragon 3.25" (8.5cm) long with a wingspan of 4" (10cm). The sides, legs and top of the head are dark red plastic (990000) while the rest is orange plastic (FF6600), both plastics with mild UV glow. Black paint adorns the shoulder spikes and the rear thighs, plus the Autobot symbol is printed in black on the right side. The belly scutes are painted yellow, and the eyes are metallic blue. The root of the neck is a ball joint, the top of the head is hinged. The tail is hinged at its root, and the wings are also hinged at their roots (but are kinda floppy). No leg poseability. The Mini-Con connector is, um, at the cloaca. Transformation: The flanks swing down to become legs, the neck becomes one arm and the tail becomes the other. A lot of ball joints are involved in moving everything around, though, and even on the fifth or sixth try I can't get it to transform all the way to robot mode and back without at least one ball joint popping. Unlike Swoop or Dreadwing, the wings just stay wings, nothing is done with them. Robot Mode: 2.25" (5.5cm) tall, same wingspan. The abdomen is really, really sad. It looks like they took a robot, chopped him in half, then inserted an orange plank between the top and bottom halves. Not only does it throw the proportions off, it just looks bad on its own merits. The upper torso/head piece is dark red, so there's a decent color balance. The face is painted yellow, and the shoulders black. Despite having little dragon legs hanging off the thigh and boot, the legs look decent. Both shoulders are ball joints, the hips and knees are swivels. The right hand (dragon head) can open, and the left whip-hand has a wrist hinge. Good poseability for a Mini-Con, and way better than the other two in this Team, although that's not a hard hurdle to leap. Overall: Nice to see mecha-dragons getting some love, but a toy that is almost guaranteed to fall apart during transformation counts as a bitter sort of love. A little more stiffness on the wing joints would've been nice, too. Set Overall: A definite transformation-focused set. Nice little pieces of engineering, but not necessarily good as toys. Dave Van Domelen, wants a silver Chinese dragon Mini-Con named Kiryu.