Dave's TF Combiners Rant Steamhammer Constructicon Maximus This review will cover Steamhammer individually, and Constructicon Maximus collectively. It will have a few less details than the Superion Maximus review, since I did that first and don't feel like repeating everything here. Edited March 12, 2005, after I got the recolor limbs. CAPSULES Steamhammer: Vehicle mode is better than it looks, robot and combiner modes are very good. Strongly recommended. $9.89 at Target. Constructicon Maximus: Proportions are a little weird, but stability and poseability are very good, especially for a combiner. Worth getting limbs for. RANTS DECEPTICON: STEAMHAMMER Combiner Code: C5 Altmode: Power Shovel Name Previously Used For: Nothing, new name. Combiner Component: Torso Quote: Intelligence is a greater weapon than brute strength STEAMHAMMER is a dark and stoic DECEPTICON warrior. His ability to jam enemy transmissions has earned him a high-ranking position in GALVATRON's army. His primary function is communication and espionage but when called to action, STEAMHAMMER can battle with the best of them. His powerful fists are deadly weapons. LANDMINE is one of the few AUTOBOTS that will dare face him in fist-to-fist combat. In vehicle mode, he has been known to literally flatten his enemies. Although he is a seasoned warrior, STEAMHAMMER prefers breaking codes to breaking heads and tries to avoid getting involved in battles. STR 9 INT 6 SPD 5 END 8 RNK 7 COUR 8 FRB 8 SKL 7 Avg 7.25 Too bad he doesn't have much of that vaunted intelligence. Packaging: Same as Storm Jet. Three twist-ties, two rubber bands that hold the central part together. There seems to be a consistent production error on these, though, relating to the treads. There's a thick bar of sprue left between the two treads (removing it improves the looks and doesn't affect stability), and the two tread pieces are often if not always on the wrong sides. There's these tabs on the sides that are supposed to fit into the gray hip pieces, but instead are up by the head. Simple enough to replace. Vehicle Mode: This is a power shovel. Big blocky powerplant in back, small cockpit at the front left, shovel arm at front right, all balanced on treads that seem too small. Reminds me of Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, I'm tempted to glue googly eyes to the shovel scoop. :) It's mostly neon green with some black parts in the arm and up top, black treads with silver paint in the center, and silver paint on the front of the shovel. The cockpit windows are reddish orange. [Later note: there's a hollow (no symbol inside) blue cog on the left side of the vehicle with the later shipments.] The shovel has a wide range of motion, thanks to essentially being jointed as a robot arm (universal shoulder, upper arm swivel, elbow hinge). The "elbow" on mine was loose and floppy, but a little tightening with a screwdriver took care of that. The shovel has a 90 degree range of motion from parallel to the final arm segment to perpendicular down. Unfortunately, the shovel arm overall lacks the range of motion to actually dig a hole in the ground, although it can scoop things up from a pile (say, of Energon Stars). The treads are on a swivel, so the vehicle can swing around 360 degrees. The treads have tiny hard plastic wheels on the underside, which roll okay on paper or smooth surfaces of comparable or greater friction. The rear half is pegged together strongly, but the front part is just held by pin hinge stiffness, which can cause problems. An extra peg or two would have helped a lot. The cockpit isn't pegged together, so it's easy to flip it open and reveal Constructicon Maximus's face. Steamhammer's spark crystal is on the shovel itself, flanked by two Powerlinx Hardpoints that really can't hold any Mini-Cons and are clearly just there for Energon weapons. Two more hardpoints are at the top rear of the engine box, and one more at the rear underside. These three can hold Mini-Cons, although the bottom one makes the Mini-Con into a fannypack or something. There are three 5mm pegholes on the shovel arm, although one is blocked by the cockpit. Two more pegholes are on gray pieces at the bottom rear corners of the sides. Transformation to Robot Mode: The thing that made this really hard for me the first time was my usual practice of "move everything that can be moved". Turned out that you really want to leave the vehicle treads in place, because once you fold them out it's easy to get the connecting joint out of position so that it's not immediately obvious how to get the tread unit back in place. Once you make the repairs mentioned under Packaging, everything pegs together pretty solidly. In the reverse transformation, getting the side flaps folded back from the boots takes strong fingernails or the help of a knife. Robot Mode: 5" (13cm) tall at the head, 5.5" (14cm) at the treads that flank his head. The torso is a bit wide and blocky, mainly because it is exactly the torso of Constructicon Maximus. Looks a bit big on Steamhammer, a bit small on CM. The chest design is very reminiscent of Armada Scavenger's, with the patterns of bolts on either side. The color is mostly "Constructicon Green" with some black and grey parts, plus metallic purple chest and kneecaps, orange-red bolts, silver shovel and orange-yellow face. The eyes are lightpiped blue. Both shoulders are universal joints, while the hips are ratcheting universal joints. The waist turns, but the head does not (okay, it wiggles a little). There are upper arm swivels on both arms, hinged left elbow, double hinged right elbow. The shovel at the end of the left arm has a wrist hinge and opens up. The left elbow has enough range that you can set up the arm either with the shovel teeth-up as a shovel or teeth-down as a digging claw. There are swivels just above the knees, which are hinges. The toes can move, but only in 45 degree increments (this still allows some nifty poses, though). Lots of connectors available in this mode. There are two hardpoints on the shovel (not really accesible to Mini-Cons), one on each knee, and one on his upper right arm. There's a 5mm peg hole on the chest, plus three on the shovel arm. There's also a hardpoint inside the torso, but it's really just a peg for holding things in Torso Mode...I suppose some of the slimmer Energon Weapons could fit on it and give him a tail, though. Transformation to Torso Mode: From robot mode, stow the head, fold the arms inside the torso (a little tricky until you learn the order of motions) and peg them together, fold down the flank flaps to become hip flaps, collapse the legs up and push the old robot thighs forward to help lock things in place (here's a peg inside that is shifted to a new hole for this configuration). The cockpit on the left shoulder shifts over and opens up to reveal the new head. Torso Mode: Very solidly put together, although Steamhammer's knees have about 20 degrees of play even when everything's in the proper place, making the legs a little floppy. Still, this is a candle to the bonfire of Storm Jet's stability issues. With the legs together, it's a solid block of green, black and purple. There's even a nice fitting of pieces between the thighs and pelvis, although the width of even Duststorm is too much for Constructicon Maximus to keep its legs together. Steamhammer's shovel scoop makes for a somewhat awkward shoulderpad. Powerlinx hardpoints on the thighs and the shovel are still accessible (well, as accessible as the ones on the shovel are in the first place). There are 5mm peg holes in the central chest and on the hip flaps. The chest hole is kinda weird for most weapons. For a more machinelike Constructicon Maximus, the cover for the head can be left on, so that it's a BattleMech cockpit a la the AgroMechs and ConstructionMechs. Overall: This may look bad in the package, but the vehicle mode is surprisingly good (although it may be not quite assembled right in the package, requiring a little work to get it all put together right). The robot mode is quite good, as is the torso mode. Sleeper hit of the year. Or month, anyway. CONSTRUCTICON MAXIMUS No separate bio note yet, there may not be one. Appearance: Regardless of which limbs are used, the figure is 9.5" (24cm) tall at the head, add a half inch more if you count up to the top of Steamhammer's scoop on the left shoulder. With Skyshadow and Treadshot in place of Bonecrusher and Wideload, the weight is about 15 ounces (a little over 400 grams). The proportions are a little odd, with big boots and arms but smaller torso and head. To some extent, that helps give the impression of being huge, and you're getting a worm's eye perspective, but this only goes so far. The colors are mixed, since while Steamhammer has G1 Constructicon colors going for him, the other limbs are either duller green or blue or whatever. The head has light-piped blue eyes, but it's not immediately obvious that this is the case, in part because the plastic is a little less clear than usual, and thick enough to block fainter light. The overall look will depend on which figure you put where. Since I'm putting A1, A2, C1 and C2 on as limbs now, I don't have a complete grasp of what it looks like assembled. Both C1 and C2 make good feet. C1/C4 are iffy as left arms, however, because their wheels and shovel get in the way of Steamhammer's shovel. [See below for the completed figure's look.] Stability: The upper legs are a bit floppy, since Steamhammer's boots don't lock down on his thighs in the front-back direction, but this isn't a huge problem. Once you get the limbs on solidly (which can take a try or two on the legs), they stay well. And since the limbs themselves are generally pretty solid, that helps. Since both types of foot are narrow and long, they provide good balance, and can even keep CM standing in such poses as the legs allow. Poseability: Shoulders and knees are combination joints, and are fairly stiff with swivel and ratchet hinge. The hips are ratcheting universal joints, but are limited by Steamhammer's boots. The head can turn somewhat (the shovel on his shoulder limits it) and the waist can turn. Some additional poseability is possible in the feet and hands, based on which figures are used as limbs. Additionally, there's a fan-mode for Duststorm/Wideload that gives him elbows. Open the front end up partway to become a claw, and leave the crane as a "wing weapon" like G1 Starscream's, rather than having it be the claw. The robot waist can be swiveled around to make for an elbow. Canonical Mode Looks: With everything in the official positions, there's a somewhat lopsided look. The right side is all shades of green and gray-to- black. The left side, however, has a blue arm and brown/yellow/tan on the leg. I think it'd look better with two Sledges and two Wideloads. Alternate Assemblies: If you put both shovels as arms and both cranes as legs, you gain the advantage of almost being able to put the feet together with the legs both straight down. However, the left arm is restricted by the shovels getting in each other's way, not to mention the front wheels. You can move all the stuff out of the way, but it doesn't look very good that way. In any case, this version looks kinda spindly on its legs and overly bulky on the arms. Megaton Man-ish. With both shovels as legs, a very wide stance is required, but you do get to have elbows on both arms by using the fan mode above. This can also be manipulated to make both cranes into shoulder weapons/cannons, kinda nifty. This also has the advantage of the "forced perspective" effect that big boots brings. Overall: A very cool set. The hips are a little looser than I'd like, but there's a nice range of what you can make it look like. Definitely worth the forty bucks required to assemble it.