Dave's Basic Neo-Combiner Rant: Destruction Team D1: Stormcloud D2: Blight (recolor) D3: Blackout (recolor) D4: Kickback D1 and D4 came out with the recolor Air Team members. D2 and D3 came out with the Construction Team recolors. CAPSULES Stormcloud: Good vehicle mode, if in garish orange. Good transformation and robot mode, limb mode is a bit unstable. Rotors not really dealt with well in non-vehicle modes. Mildly recommended. $6.99 at Target. Blight: Puke-yellow recolor of Kickback. It's got dynamic contrast, but is kinda ugly. Recommended. $6.99 at Target. Blackout: Purple and gray recolor of Stormcloud, looks quite snazzy. Recommended. $6.99 at Target. Kickback: Nice solid vehicle mode, good transformation, good if kibbly robot mode, nice unofficial grasshopper mode. Strongly recommended. $6.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: These came with volume 3 of the comic/catalog, instructions and a one-sheet Xevoz ad. Neither had excessive twist ties (two ties and a plastic shield on each vehicle, one or two ties on the weapons). The art of Bruticus Maximus on the side of the insert card is a bit smaller than that of the other two Neo-combiners, but this lets you see more of it. The recolors also have an ad for Attacktix, a battle figurine game for Star Wars. As of 3/15/05, there are no bio notes online. Blackout forgoes the plastic shield for an excessive number of twist-ties, including one around the body of the helicopter that seems to take the place of the plastic shield. DECEPTICON: STORMCLOUD Combiner Code: D1 Altmode: Helicopter Gunship (Huey Cobra seems to be closest match) Name previously used for: Decepticon Micromaster jet (Storm Cloud) Canonical Limb: Right Arm Vehicle Mode: This looks to be a mutated Huey Cobra helicopter gunship, with some distortions to allow for folded up robot limbs. The main body is 5" (12cm) long, and the two-blade rotor has a span of 5" (12cm). It's very orange. Okay, there's also dark brown plastic, lots of gold paint and some dark metallic blue paint accents (including the empty cog on the left side of the tail), plus the usual clear blue energon bits. But the orange is what strikes the eye first, and leaves a mark. I suppose this is the G2 Combaticon homage, had to have at least one eye-bleedingly bright color scheme. There's a tiny little raised Decepticon logo on the left side, next to the back of the canopy. The spark crystal housing is just behind the rotor shaft. The main and stabilizer rotors spin freely, but that's it for movable bits. The winglets on either side of the fuselage have 5mm peg holes on the underside for mounting weapons, although it's a bit tight for a lot of the energon weapons out there. The robot fists are on the underside, and can also mount weapons other than the one that comes with the toy. There are no hardpoints. The energon weapon folds so that the two central barrels point forward and the outer barrels backwards when plugged into the robot hands on the underside. The central block of the weapon is orange plastic. There's four 5mm pegs on the weapon, although two are really only for connecting it as a hand in arm mode. Transformation to Robot Mode: Doing the legs is pretty obvious, and for the most part everything else is reasonably intuitive. There's a few nice "unnecessary" bits that help the look of the robot mode, too. My one complaint is how the rotor folds almost, but not quite, in half and is supposed to rest wrapped around the folded up tail rotor. It tends not to stay there, and looks so-so. I prefer to leave the rotor straight. The rotor post does not come off, so you can't turn the rotor into a melee weapon. Robot Mode: A somewhat short 4" (10cm) tall, it's still really bright, but the balance is good. The body and upper limbs are orange, the head, forearms and shins are brown, plus gold paint on the chest, fists and face. Pretty classic "basic" jointing. Unrestricted ball and socket shoulders and hips, restricted ball joint elbows and knees, swivel head. Plus the waist swivels and the ankles are hinged (but only lock in two positions). The tail assembly in the back makes for a decent third leg for more dynamic poses. The energon weapon has no central peg, so it has to be held off-center in a somewhat awkward way. Five barrels pointing forward make for a fairly impressive barrage, though. Unfortunately, his energon star is on his back, out of the way. Transformation to Limb Mode: As with Treadshot of the Air Team, it involves a fair amount of folding and pegging, but the only difference between arm and leg is how the energon weapon is inserted. Which is good, since they only include the instructions for the canonical limb again. On the bad side, the instructions are really vague about the most important point. The tabs on the insides of the lower legs need to plug into slots on the insides of the forearms. This isn't very solid, but it's better than nothing. Leg Mode: The usual 4" (10cm) tall, and it's wide at the bottom, so it'll go well with a leg that's wide at the top (like the Sky Shadow mold). Uses the energon weapon in the same configuration as it attaches to the vehicle mode, so you have a narrow front and a wider back, 3.5" (9cm) long total. Be careful attaching the foot, or the robot ankles will snap back abruptly. The rotors are in front, so I suppose Bruticus Maximus could savagely knee someone. Arm Mode: About 6" (15cm) from top of shoulder to fingertips, and this is one of the only combiner arms that really looks like it has a hand. Keeping the rotor straight adds to the G1 resemblance. This is a Popeye arm, with the cockpit forming a big bulge on the inside of the forearm. No stable formation is available with anything like an elbow joint. Overall: One of the benefits of the recolor program used for these guys is that I don't have to HOPE for a less garish recolor, it's already in the pipeline (admittedly, Blackout is purple, but anything's an improvement). While the limb mode could stand to be a little more stable (round pegs instead of long slots, maybe), it's a decent mold. DECEPTICON: BLIGHT Combiner Code: D2 Recolor of: Kickback Altmode: Anti-aircraft armored vehicle (see Kickback entry) Name previously used for: no one Canonical Limb: Left Arm Plastic Color Swaps: Kickback's light gray plastic becomes black on Blight. The medium green becomes a sort of slightly greenish puke yellow, and the dark green becomes a slightly less green puke yellow (which may be simply a batch variation with the intent of color matching). Paint Apps: The treads are still painted black, and the empty blue cog is in the same place as on Kickback. The headlights are light blue. There's a different silver pattern at the front, silver on the guns and on the "fenders". The robot shins are painted almost completely black, as well as part of the feet. There's metallic purple paint on the rear fenders, the abdomen, and the knees. There's some gunmetal gray on the chest and hips, and silver on the face. Other differences: None that I can find. Overall: Well, it *is* puke yellow. There's some nice dynamic contrast here, but it is on the fugly side, color-wise. DECEPTICON: BLACKOUT Combiner Code: D3 Recolor of: Stormcloud Altmode: Helicopter Gunship Name previously used for: Decepticon Micromaster Combiner (rear half of jet bomber) Canonical Limb: Right Leg Plastic Swaps: The brown on Stormcloud becomes a nice deep "Decepticon Purple", as does the orange of the head, neck, upper limbs, rotors, chest flaps and tail tip. The orange on the torso and pelvis becomes a medium cool gray. The orange of the weapon is now purple. Paint Apps: The tail section is painted purple with gold accents, while the winglets are painted gray with gold accents. The cockpit area is painted black with a triangle of sky blue at the top. The fists and kneecaps are also sky blue, with a strip of that color down the front of each shin. The feet are painted black with gold toe vents. Other Differences: This isn't so much a difference as something I was too injured to check out when I reviewed Stormcloud (due to an ice storm glazing my car, I pulled the muscles in both forearms while trying to open the doors). The side pieces of the hand/gun can be pulled off and mounted separately, either in the fists of the robot or on the forearm winglets. However, since the central piece has no 5mm connection pegs or holes, it can be a bit trickier to deal with once you remove the side parts. You can insert one of the twin gun barrels into the fist, with the other sitting outside the back of the fist (this is the only place where the fist "wall" is thin enough for the twin barrels to bracket it). This makes it some sort of hook weapon. Overall: What a difference a recolor can make! While Blackout has all the mechanical problems Stormcloud suffers from, the purple and gray color scheme is such an improvement that it results in a qualitative raise in my rating of the toy. Get this one, avoid Stormcloud if you can (i.e. do a double-Blackout version of Bruticus Maximus). DECEPTICON: KICKBACK Combiner Code: D4 Altmode: Anti-aircraft armored vehicle (see below) Name previously used for: Insecticon grasshopper Canonical Limb: Left Leg Vehicle Mode: After doing some research and asking around, there's two anti-aircraft vehicles that have the right general shape (most AA vehicles have the guns in the middle of the turret, not on the flanks). The Japanese Type-87 (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/japan/type-87-aaa.htm) has guns a little closer to Kickback's, but the Russian ZSU 2S6M (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/zsu-x_2s6m.gif) is otherwise much closer, including the searchlight. Neither has the wavy fenders or front mounted smoke canisters that Kickback has, but those may have been taken from an actual tank (AA vehicles aren't strictly speaking, tanks). The canisters are also the plug-in point for the hand/foot in limb mode, so they could have just been put on without reference. Later Note: Prabal Nandy found a much more likely candidate, the German Gepard: http://www.army-technology.com/projects/gepard/gepard1.html and http://www.army-technology.com/projects/gepard/gepard8.html (the scalloped fenders cinch it). The tread body is 4" (10cm) long and 2" (5cm) wide. The body is medium green with silver and bronze paint accents, plus a long stripe with "B/12" at the front (couldn't find a relevant reference on this). The treads are black, but little green wheels are what actually roll. The turret section is light gray and dark green on a rotating medium green base. The front end is a searchlight, which doubles as a spark housing, and has a molded Decepticon symbol on top of it. There's triple-barrelled something or others on either side of it. The rear section is obviously the robot forearms, but the energon weapon is intended to cover for this. The integrated guns are gray plastic with black paint on the front halves and orange tips. In compliance with toy gun safety laws or to keep Stormcloud from feeling lonely or something, I guess. The metallic blue empty cog is on the front middle armor plating. The turret can rotate all the way around, the guns can elevate all the way up, and even the searchlight can raise up some, although that does reveal the robot head. Aside from the robot fists, there are no pegholes or hardpoints. The smoke canisters at the front can act as 5mm pegs. The energon weapon is misassembled on the back of the card picture, but correctly assembled here. It covers the robot forearms, gives the turret greater stability in general, and adds radar and another two barrels to the turret. There's a hardpoint on the back of the radar dish, and two regular pegs on the underside for connecting to the turret. There's also two 5mm peg holes on the underside, for attaching in limb mode. Transformation to Robot Mode: The treads pop out and become wings, leaving the middle third of the front to trivially become the legs. There's a lot of swiveling and sliding to turn the turret into head, chest and arms wrapped around the middle third of the back. The shoulder pieces don't peg on, they slip over a clip lip thing, kinda clever. Robot Mode: At 4.25" (11cm) tall, he's bigger than Stormcloud, but still a bit puny compared to the other combiners. Of course, he's heavily armed enough to compensate. Or overcompensate. His torso, wings and lower legs are medium green. The upper arms, upper legs and shoulder guns (the tribarrels that had flanked the searchlight) are dark green, his forearms and head are light gray. There's silver and metallic blue paint on the kneecaps, plus metallic blue on his abdomen. And his face is orange. The searchlight forms his chest, a good place for his energon star. Same joints as Stormcloud, although the head is a little stiffer to turn and has guns attached to it. The feet are big flat paddles of armor plate, which looks funny but does give good stability. The ankle joints lock every 45 degrees, with four positions (flat, pointed toe, bent foot, and stowed for vehicle mode). The treads are on their own joints as wings, with some limits on their movement. They can only rise to about 30 degrees away from vertical, and resemble grasshopper wings (appropriate for the name, eh?). The AA guns are mounted one to each forearm, and can swivel around freely. The energon weapon is meant to be held by one of the non-centered pegs with the radar dish up, but you can also flatten the dish back so Kickback can hold his weapon by a centerline peg. Transformation to Limb Mode: As with Sledge, start with vehicle mode and attach the energon weapon in whichever configuration is desired. However, for arm mode, you may want to go unofficial. Pop the tread sides away and rotate the turret base up to where it needs to be for robot mode. This gives you an upper arm swivel (robot waist) and double elbow joint (robot hips and knees). Leg mode: It's a tank with a foot on the end. 4" (10cm) high. Arm mode: It's a tank with a claw on the end. Or you can follow the advice above and get a much better (if limited by the treads getting in the way) arm with lots of poseability. [Later note: Sharp-eyed viewers have noted that the cartoon uses the mode articulated version of the arm described above. The instructions for the arm mode that come with Blight may or may not make this "official", and the pictures on the back of the card have been wrong before.] Grasshopper Mode: There's been some complaining online about how they shouldn't give the name Kickback to a "tank" (not that this is actually a tank, as mentioned above). And while "kick" refers to the recoil of a gun, "kickback" is rarely used for that purpose. Fortunately, it seems like the designers almost intended a third mode, with how they had the treads move aside. Gentlemen, behold! http://www.dvandom.com/images/kickback0207.JPG Overall: Different from any other tank-style Transformer I can think of, which is a plus. Stable in both modes, good colors, interesting transformation. Definitely worth getting. Dave Van Domelen, now to comment on completed Bruticus Maximus.