Dave's Transformers Rant: Basic Construction Team C1: Sledge C2: Duststorm C3: Wideload C4: Bonecrusher See the Basic Air Team review for details on the general design philosophy and stuff. CAPSULES Sledge: Good, solid vehicle mode, interesting transformation, nice but unstable robot mode. Energon weapon is a bit obviously combiner kibble. Recommended. Duststorm: Unstable vehicle mode with obvious robot bits, bad color scheme, so-so robot mode with floppy joints. Some of the bad parts can be fixed or compensated for, but a generally disappointing toy. Mildly recommended, and only if you're being a completist. Wideload: Somewhat better color scheme than Duststorm, but not really the right kind of green. If you're shooting just for a complete Constructicon Maximus, maybe get two of these instead of any Duststorms. Mildly recommended. Bonecrusher: Good-looking recolor, but if you want to have a more Devastator-y version of Constructicon Maximus, you may want to go with two Sledges instead. Recommended. Note: you might want to just get four Sledges and a Steamhammer to make Constructicon Maximus, or two Sledges and two Wideloads. RANTS As of March 12, 2005, there are no techspecs available for these toys. Packaging: C1 and C2 came with comic/catalog vol 2, C3 and C4 came with vol 3. All of them have Xevoz ads, even though Xevoz was cancelled before C3 adn C4 were released. C3 and C4 have ads for Attacktix, a Star Wars "Battle Figure Game," which strikes me as being a direct competitor to the Star Wars miniatures game put out by Hasbro property Wizards of the Coast. DECEPTICON: SLEDGE Combiner Code: C1 Altmode: Power shovel (like G1 Scrapper) Name previously used for: G1 Micromaster Combiner (dump truck front half) Canonical Limb: Right Arm 3 twist-ties and a rubber band on the vehicle, one tie on the Energon weapon. Vehicle Mode: 5" (13cm) long power shovel, if that's the correct technical term. A four-wheeled construction vehicle with a bulldozer-ish shovel on the front. It's a mix of darkish olive green and a yellow green with black parts and some silver paint on the shovel and the rear top. There's also yellow-green paint on the back that may be intended to be the same as the yellow-green plastic, but this is a shade or two greener. The spark crystal housing is on the shovel arm, and the Energon weapon is attached to the rear to evoke a rear shovel via a non-standard set of pegs (rather than 5mm pegs). The driver's compartment windows are clear blue. The wheels are 3cm in diameter and roll freely. The shovel arm can lift by 90 degrees, and the shovel itself has a total range of about 225 degrees. There is very little robot stuff visible in this mode, just the thighs from the side and back (and the Energon weapon blocks view of them from the rear). There are two 5mm pegholes, both at the rear top, on what become the robot shins. The Energon weapon doesn't meaningfully attach to these. Transformation to Robot Mode: The rear half unfolds into legs pretty simply, but the rest of the transformation is satisfyingly complex, with lots of folding around. I especially like how the steps on the sides of the driver's compartment fold around to become pectoral plates. The official transformation has the shovel as a sort of bustle, but it can also be folded up into a backpack. Robot Mode: 4.25" (10.5cm) tall at the head, with the Goryu-like bit behind the head adding an extra quarter inch or so. The color balance remained about the same, with the addition of a few splashes of yellow paint on the head and shoulders, plus a molded Decepticon symbol in the middle of the chest (hidden away in vehicle mode). The front wheels are sort of like wings behind the back, and the rear wheels are just pegged onto the sides of the boots. While the actual vehicle has no radiator grille (that position is taken by the merge link), the abdomen of the robot mode is a yellow-green grille that I might go ahead and paint silver. The pelvis has more of that darker yellow-green paint. The head is dark olive green, with a silver face and the earlier mentioned yellow strip. The eyes are lightpiped blue, but the driver's compartment behind the head makes it harder to get this to work. Poseability is good. Ball joint shoulders, hips and knees, ratcheting hinge elbows, turning head and waist. The elbows ratchet mainly so that they will stay in place on their own in vehicle mode. Unfortunately, the ball joints are rather loose, I may take some clear nail polish to them. The Energon weapon unfolds to become a weird twin-bladed sword, or can be folded partially closed to become a funky double-kama claw weapon that looks better. You can get a sort of pseudo-grader mode as well. Put Sledge in a sitting position, fold the shovel a little to make it a grader blade, and swing the wheels on the feet down as front wheels. Power lounging! Transformation to Arm Mode: Attach the Energon Weapon and open it up as a claw. Fold joint piece over and attach to shoulder. That's it, officially. As an extra step, you can fold the shovel over so that its opening points down and covers the top of the shoulder, which reduces the look of having yet another shovel up there (Steamhammer's got one too). Transformation to Leg Mode: Open the claw up flat as a foot, get the shovel out of the way of the leg connection. Limb Mode: Pretty much the vehicle tacked on to Steamhammer with an energon hand or foot. Very stable, naturally. The arm mode is 6.5" (16cm) from the top of the shoulder to the claw tip, with no elbow. It's a bit chunky, but the claw looks reasonably good at the end of it. Leg mode is naturally 4" (10cm) from the joint to the ground, although the shovel raises the total height a bit with its knee shield. The length of the foot is just shy of 4" (9.5cm), but it's rather narrow at only 2cm wide. This makes it a very beefy calf with a spindly claw at the end. Overall: A pretty good toy, leaving aside the floppy joints (which I can probably fix) and how it's awkward to hold the weapon without a ball joint elbow. DECEPTICON: DUSTSTORM Combiner Code: C2 Altmode: Crane Name previously used for: none, it's original. Canonical Limb: Left Arm 4 twist-ties and a rubber band on the vehicle, 2 ties on the Energon weapon. Vehicle Mode: 4.5" (10.5cm) long crane in light blue and dark blue with red windows, some silver paint apps and bronze paint hubcaps. The wheels are light blue, which looks really bad. The robot thighs are blatantly obvious as spindly connections between the front and back halves of the vehicle, and the robot face is still somewhat visible no matter how you turn the head to try to conceal it. The spark crystal is on the crane arm, near the ratcheting joint. There's a 5mm peg hole on the support bar on the front half of the vehicle, as well as one on the crane tip (where the claw Energon weapon is placed). Opposite the crane tip hole is a dead Mini-Con hardpoint. There's a non- hinged crane hook at the tip. If you unhook the crane from its support, it can rise up past straight up and in fact reach about 40 degrees past straight up on its ratcheting joint. The control assembly as a whole can rotate 360 degrees around. However...when you unhook the crane to use its mobility, the vehicle becomes very floppy in the middle, because there's nothing stabilizing the robot hips. The crane's collapsed length is 4.25" (11cm) from hook at the tip to winch at the rear. It can be extended to 6" (15cm), 7.75" (19.5cm) with the Energon claw attached. Transformation to Robot Mode: Open up the front as feet, then separate into legs. The crane section spins around 180 degrees and then folds out on three sides to bracket the bottom of the rear section of the vehicle. The head swivels around on a plate, and the arms open up (the crane boom becomes one arm). Robot Mode: 4.5" (12cm) tall, with a boringly unpainted dark blue chest. The head, collarbone area, shoulders and boots are light blue, the rest is dark blue except for a light blue painted abdomen and pelvic bulge. The Decepticon symbol is inverse-molded as a belt buckle (the purple parts are recessed rather than raised). The face is painted red, with blue light- piped eyes. There's a lot of molded detail on the chest, but because of the dark color and lack of paint, none of it really comes out. If you turn the head and waist around, then swivel the forearms around so that the back and chest swap places, it looks better from a color standpoint, with more light blue on the torso. However, this change makes the one thumb point the wrong way, and the head looks too high up. So there's really no way to make it look good without getting out the paintbrush. Poseability is, in theory, pretty good. Head turns, waist turns, right shoulder is a ball joint, left shoulder is a universal joint (hinge plus swivel), there's upper arm swivels, right elbow is a lightly ratcheting hinge while left elbow is a stiffly ratcheting hinge, hips are ball joints, knees are hinges. However, the hips are REALLY loose, to the point that a thick enough layer of nail polish might just peel off. And on mine, they put in two left thighs, which means that the block that keeps the knee from bending the wrong way instead keeps the right knee from bending the correct way (time to get out the Dremel). The big clodhopper feet do compensate somewhat for the floppy hips when it comes to posing the robot mode, but the hips cause lots of trouble in other modes. The Energon weapon is just a claw at the tip of the crane arm. Transformation to Arm Mode: Attach the Energon claw, bend the shoulder joint. That's it. Transformation to Leg Mode: I had to kind of guess at this, since Duststorm is a canonical arm, and it's not overly obvious. Flip open the robot feet, that much is obvious. Then connect the closed claw to both the crane support (in upright position) and the crane tip. Limb Modes: Unlike Sledge, there's a significant difference between the two modes. The arm mode is as long as the vehicle mode, duh. :) No elbow, but you can extend the reach by extending the crane. The leg mode is the usual 4" (10cm), but is kinda weird looking, with the crane connecting the knee to the toes. The base touching the ground is 3.5" (9cm) long and about an inch (2.5cm) wide. It can bend in the middle by about 45 degrees because the internal joints do not oppose each other. In fact, it's a LOT easier to bend here than at the actual knee. Overall: Once I'm done fixing it (tightening ball joints, dealing with the mis-assembled piece, painting on some details), it'll be an okay toy. Out of the box, though, it's disappointing. Only the fact that it CAN be fixed keeps me from dropping to "neutral" or worse on this. DECEPTICON: WIDELOAD Combiner Code: C3 Recolor of: Duststorm Altmode: Crane Name previously used for: G1 Throttlebot (dump truck) Canonical Limb: Right Leg Color swaps: I wonder if this was actually the initial design, and Duststorm the recolor, since there's one more plastic color here. The light blue plastic on Duststorm is replaced by black (so the tires are black). The dark blue of the chest, shoulder connectors, upper arms, upper legs, collar, crane and crane support are now very light gray. The remaining dark blue parts are a sort of leaf green. Paint apps: The windows are all school bus yellow, the hubcaps are painted dull gold. There's green and black paint to help balance things out somewhat, and a dull gold face. There's an empty metallic blue cog on top of the crane cockpit. Other differences: Well, it's assembled correctly, unlike my Duststorm. :) Overall: A better look than Duststorm, but still suffers from a very boring chest. So, like with Duststorm, I've painted it (yellow on the pecs, leaf green on the central bit, black ink wash in the grille below it). DECEPTICON: Bonecrusher Combiner Code: C4 Recolor of: Sledge Altmode: Power shovel Name previously used for: G1 Constructicon, G2 Constructicon, BW Maximal Canonical Limb: Left Leg Color swaps: The light green and black plastic on Sledge becomes a sort of chocolate brown, while the dark green becomes a sandstone sort of light gray-tan. Paint apps: There is extensive yellow paint on what becomes the robot forearms, shins, feet and pectorals, as well as on the inside of the scoop. The feet and cockpit have gunmetal gray. The face and the bolt patterns on the shoulder joints are painted metallic purple. There is an empty metallic blue cog inside the scoop. The hubcaps are painted a dull metallic gold. Other Differences: none that I could find. Overall: A more dynamic look in robot mode, if not really a construction vehicle color scheme. I've upped my capsule rating to recommended, although you're still better off with two Sledges for a G1-ish look. Dave Van Domelen, will update the Constructicon Maximus review later, once the paint on Wideload dries.