Dave's Transformers Siege Rant: Micromasters Wave 4 Off-Road Patrol (Highjump and Powertrain) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/Micro4 Another "wave" that's just one set and reships. At least this one is new, although ironically it was beaten to shelves by the ten-pack that has retools of them. This half of a patrol leaves out Mudslinger (a monster truck) and Tote (aka how to do G1 Ironhide with something resembling his animation model). CAPSULES $10 price point. Off-Road Patrol: Decent molds, sturdy and good matches in vehicle mode to the G1 versions. Robot modes on Highjump is a bit off, but Powertrain works well. Both have some issues with parts needing extra force to transform. Mildly recommended. RANT Packaging: Same as previous waves. They both have the same sigil as Chromia, but with the lowest rank indicator. AUTOBOT: HIGHJUMP Assortment: WFC-S33 Altmode: Land Rover Transformation Difficulty: 6 steps Previous Name Use: G1 Previous Mold Use: None Division: Ground Unit: Special Ops Rank: Private Packaging: Two ties hold the robot mode into the tray. The hood is in vehicle mode position, but needs to be pulled back away from the head to get proper robot mode. Robot Mode: Unlike G1 Highjump, the front end of the vehicle doesn't completely fold back as a backpack. Instead, it just sort of moves back a few millimeters (not an easy thing to do, I kept feeling like I was about to rip it off entirely) so that it's no longer quite a Huffer situation with a big canopy directly over the head. Weirdly, there's what look like fake windshield and side windows on the abdomen, upside down from how G1 Highjump's actual windshield was on the top of his chest. The colors are also not as good a match as they could be, with red chest and gray legs instead of how G1 had it the other way around. The winch bit, which is no longer just the knees, is now a buttcape section in the backpack. All told, I have to wonder if the need for a weapon mode is all that prevented them from using the G1 design as a basis and just giving it better articulation...okay, the original had just forearms, but still. Speaking of forearms, the rear wheels are on the end of the arms, past the fists, as if they're pizza cutter versions of Wolverine claws. 2" (5cm) tall at the head, 2.5" (6.5cm) at the top of the front bumper. Mostly darkish gray with black, red, silver, and light gray. Black plastic is used for the wheels, pelvis, torso innards, the strut that holds the vehicle front end, and the 5mm peg inside the front end. Everything else is somewhat dark gray plastic. The helmet and chest are painted bright red, and a fueld tank sort of detail on the right shin is also painted red. The face is painted silver, and the rear windows on the shins are light gray. Shoulders and hips are ball joints, waist turns, knees are hinges. Despite the bulk of some parts, some pretty good action poses are possible without falling over. The center of the chest is a 5mm socket. Transformation: Rotate the waist 180 degrees and fold the feet up together under the buttcape. Snap tabs on the forearms into slots on the backpack, and shove the hood piece down. Some massaging may be needed to get all the tabs to seat properly, but no problems with parts popping off. Going back to robot mode is a bit tricky in terms of getting the hood back, as noted earlier. To gun mode from vehicle mode, unbend the knees a bit so that the bottoms of the feet face backwards, then fold down the grip peg. With the grip peg still inside, this becomes sort of a booster-rocket vehicle mode. Altmode: As with most Micromasters, the only real concession to "Cybertronian vehicles" is the greebling on the tires. Otherwise, it's pretty close to the original not-quite-Land-Rover altmode. The roof winch has been altered to random tech stuff, possibly another "It's Cybertronian" change, or possibly due to the designer not knowing that the detail on the original was even supposed to be a winch. 2.25" (6cm) long, more gray than robot mode. All the plastic visible in this mode is gray except for the black wheels. All the windows are painted light gray...an unusual situation given how often Hasbro will leave some windows unpainted. (I suppose if that's supposed to be a moon roof rather than a sun roof, it's unpainted where it should have paint.) The front bumper, grille, and bars on the roof are painted silver. The not-a-winch is painted red, and the red not-a-gas-can from the shin is visible on the back. Rolls decently, no articulation otherwise, and no connection points. Gun mode: Basically looks like an SUV with boosters in back and a peg sticking down in front. Oddly, unlike the various car-gun Micromasters, there's no Fire Blast sockets in the soles of the feet, just details that look like spotlight apertures or something. Overall: It's okay, but some choices that prioritized the vehicle mode leave the robot mode a bit iffy. At least it didn't fall apart at any point in transformation. AUTOBOT: POWERTRAIN Assortment: WFC-S33 Altmode: Semitractor Transformation Difficulty: 6 steps Previous Name Use: G1 Previous Mold Use: None Division: Ground Unit: Special Ops Rank: Private Packaging: Two ties hold robot mode in the tray. Robot Mode: In terms of the mold, it's pretty close to G1, down to the wheels atop the shoulders. It has a bit more of a buttcape than G1, because the cab nose folds out of the way of the legs. The rotation joint for the backpack is in the chest rather than the abdomen, which puts a big hole in the otherwise G1-accurate chest detailing. While the packaging photoshops it to be lighter, the blue is very dark by comparison to G1. The overall coloration is a LOT oranger than G1, with the thighs and boots being orange instead of black, and there being no blue plastic. The feet have very short toes but long heel spurs, since the toes have to be on the underside in vehicle mode. A little over 2" (5.2cm) tall at the head, with the shoulders rising a few millimeters higher, it is very orange. The wheels, pelvis, torso innards, and the 5mm peg inside the cab nose are black plastic. The gun barrels hidden inside the boots are about the same color plastic as most of Highjump. Everything else is a very bold orange plastic. The helmet and front of the torso are painted dark blue, as are the shin fronts including kneepads. The face and the partial chest vent are painted silver, as is the single smokestack on the backpack. Same articulation as Highjump: ball shoulders and hips, swivel waist, hinge knees. The buttcape is also hinged, not that it's terribly useful outside of transformation. As with Highjump, the center of the chest is a 5mm socket. The gun barrels for weapon mode can be folded out, but he can't stand on them. Transformation: Peg the legs together and rotate the backpack 180 degrees, which will involve some struggling to get the tabs on the butt into slots in the backpack. I tried bending the legs first to get the tabs out of the way, and while that made turning the backpack easier, getting the tabs in at the end was no easier than just rotating onto the tabs. Anyway, then fold the arms in and put tabs on the forearms into the stress slots on the hips. Finally, told the nose end down. For gun mode, start in robot mode. Then flip the gun barrels out from inside the boots and fold the 5mm grip out from the nose end buttcape (need a knife for that last one). Now transform into truck mode as before, but now it's a gun. It's possible to start in vehicle mode, but getting the gun barrels out is awkward without fully untransforming. Altmode: Another one that's basically an Earth vehicle (longnose semitractor) with weird wheels. As often happens with smaller six-wheeled vehicles, only four of the wheels are real. Unlike most with fake wheels, though, these are molded and painted to look very convincingly like the actual wheels, down to the arc gaps made by the snap-on design. The bottoms are slightly flattened to avoid the fake wheels skidding on the surface, though. 2.5" (6cm) long and still very orange. A little of the pelvis is visible, and the four real wheels, otherwise all orange plastic. The fake wheels are painted matte black, while the windows (including the extra window on the top bit) are painted gloss black. The grille is painted silver, and the deck in back is painted dark blue. Rolls okay, no articulation or connection points. Gun Mode: It's basically the truck with barrels sticking out the back and a grip coming out under the front end. The barrels end in 3mm studs, but are close enough together that if you want both to fire at once you have to use the thin variety of Fire Blast. The barrel tips don't want to stay parallel, this seems to be something very sensitive to assembly...the Irontread retool doesn't have this problem. After some extensive Dremel work, I determined that on mine the problem was that the barrels were inserted a fraction of a millimeter too far inside, so that the non-spur part of the heel blocked the barrels from coming out. Filing or Dremeling that bit down let the barrels come out straight: http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/powertrainfix.JPG Fan Mode: There's a number of ways it can be turned into a sort of gun emplacement, using the cab front end and the arms as a tripod and the legs with gun barrels out as the weapon bit. Some of the arrangements even look like mecha beasts. http://www.dvandom.com/images/powertraintripod.JPG Overall: A little more hassle to transform than I'd like, but otherwise a pretty good update of the mold. AUTOBOT: CONFOUNDER CANNON Assortment: WFC-S33 Strength: 10 Accuracy: 12 Fireblast: 19 Transformation: Once you have both individual vehicles in their unnamed solo gun modes, just plug Powertrain's 5mm peg into the 5mm socket on Highjump's chest. This...is not easy on mine, thanks to paint inside the socket. A little work with an X-Acto helped. Weapon Mode: It looks kind of like an upscaled version of Blowpipe and his ilk, with big feet stuck above the barrels. 3.5" (9cm) long, with the same very short handle peg issue that the Sports Car Patrol's weapon mode suffers from. It depends on the strength of the grip hinge on Powertrain to keep stay together, and it doesn't really work, leading to a droopy gun. It's possible to find a way to put them together with Powertrain on top and Highjump as an underslung launcher, Highjump's peg can't hyperextend like Powertrain's can. Alternate Guns: If you put two Powertrains or a Powertrain and an Irontread together, they fit more snugly and there's no drooping. It looks decent enough. A double Highjump or Highjump/Ricon holds together well too, but looks really dumb. Set Overall: Generally sturdier than a lot of the Siege Micromasters (I did finally pop a wheel off Highjump while trying to get the hood pushed back, but that was clearly my mistake not a weakness in the mold), and okay molds in general. Weapon mode...exists, I guess. Dave Van Domelen, back to the ten-pack.