Dave's Transformers Siege Rant: Micro Masters Wave 1 Race Car Patrol (Roadhandler and Swindler) Air Strike Patrol (Visper and Stormcloud) Battle Patrol (Flak and Topshot) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/Micro1 The Micro Masters are Siege's version of the Legends price point, two Micro Masters for ten bucks. Most Micro Masters Patrols are based on Micromaster Patrols from G1, but with only two figures rather than four (which does leave open the possibility of the other two being released in later as-yet-unannounced waves). CAPSULES $10 price point. Race Car Patrol: Decent robot and car modes, weak weapon modes but partially makes up for that in flexibility (two versions of an unconvincing big gun or two unconvincing pistols). Mildly recommended. Air Strike Patrol: Good (if a bit tippy) robot modes, good jet modes, nice sword mode. Recommended. Battle Patrol: Really good first impression, but Topshot's vehicle and weapon modes fail to hold together well. Flak is somewhat boringly dependable, and can't make up for his partner's shortcomings. I suppose that somewhere out there is a set where all the tabs were the proper size for their slots and things hold together well, but that's not the set I got. Mildly recommended. RANTS Packaging: Blister cards about the same size as Legends toys, 9" (22.5cm) tall, 4.75" (12cm) wide, and 1.5" (4cm) deep. Same basic trade dress as the Battle Masters, but some details differ. For instance, the art on the card front is of the altmodes rather than the robot modes. The two patrol members are packaged in robot mode, with their Siege faction logos behind them. The instructions are behind them, covering up most of the logos, rather than being tightly folded and hidden behind the card insert. The instructions name the combined weapon, and give it techspecs I'm guessing are Strength (a flexing arm icon), Accuracy (a target reticule), and Fireblast (a burst with an arrow emerging from it). They're scored with chevrons in faction color out of a possible 20. A competing interpretation of the last number is Range, although that doesn't make a lot of sense for the melee weapons. There's two more stats that have been seen on other weapons from Deluze and Voyager figures, a Defense or Armor stat, and a "16 ton weight" sort of thing that may be Heft. [Later note: A Hasbro Pulse Unboxed article clarifies that the stats are Damage (flexing arm), Precision (targeting reticule, I was close enough), Range (not Fireblast), Heft (the weight symbol), and Defense (the shield). I guess I get to go back through all my reviews and update this.] Speaking of the card insert, the class is on the left side as MicroMaster with no space. The card back shows how the two figures merge to make a single weapon, and then there's an inset with a faction-appropriate figure holding the weapon. MicroMaster Patrols don't come with Fire Blast pieces. In general, they're all about the same size as their G1 counterparts, some are a little taller and some are a little shorter. AUTOBOT: ROADHANDLER Assortment: WFC-S4 Altmode: Muscle Car Transformation Difficulty: 3 steps Previous Name Use: G1, Uni Previous Mold Use: None Fireblast: None Weapon: None Function: Race Car Patrol Division: Ground Command Unit: Recon Rank: Private Packaging: Five ties hold the robot into the blister, which feels like a little overkill. Then again, given how the ball joints tend to pop off (see below) it might have been necessary. Robot Mode: Fairly good update, the mold and general transformation are very similar to the original, although the colors don't quite match. Oddly, they decided to add a couple of paint details not present in G1 while not painting the pelvis blue. The thighs are red rather than yellow. Just a bit over 2" (5.2cm) tall in red, yellow, and black, plus a blue face. The backplate, pelvis, wheels, a hinge for the backpack, and the 5mm peg inside the backpack are black plastic. The rest is bright red plastic. The piece that makes up the head and the torso front is dipped in bright yellow plastic, with medium-dark blue paint on the face, and silver vents on the shoulder roots and abdomen. Two horizontal bar details on the shoulder fronts are painted gloss black, and the window details on the boots are also gloss black. The left arm (door) has a red on white Autobot symbol printed on it. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, the waist turns smoothly if stiffly, and the knees are hinges. The screw hole in the center of the chest is also a 5mm peg hole, and there's a 5mm peg that can fold out of the backpack. No 3mm connections in this mode. Swindler can be put in weapon configuration and mounted on the backpack, although it's too back-heavy to stand up unless leaning forwards significantly. Transformation: Put the arms to the sides and snap tabs on them into slots in the roof piece. Peg the boots together and fold the knees 180 degrees, snapping some arc-shaped tabs into the wells around the 3mm pegs (used for weapon mode), then fold the backpack down to make the front end. I've had the arms pop off during transformation to robot mode, the tabs that secure them in vehicle mode are REALLY good, to the point that the force needed to free them up may just tear the arm off entirely. Altmode: In G1, Roadhandler was a Pontiac Firebird TransAm, and this version is pretty close. The front end has been changed, coming to a slight point rather than being a flat front end, and the bar down the middle of the roof has been eliminated. It's still basically an Earth-style sportscar, though, MAYBE a few of the panel lines could be considered "Cybertronian." Okay, the wheels have way too many panel lines to be regular tires, but changing tires to handle an all-metal planet makes sense. 2.5" (6cm) long, red and black. About 80% the size of a Hot Wheels car, and assuming it's still a Trans Am it's about 1:86 scale (the wheelbase on this toy is proportionally longer than on a Trans Am, but that's a necessary change to keep the front wheels on the foldable part). The backpack hinge is the only really out of place black plastic here, the snap-on wheels are also black, the rest of this mode is bright red plastic. All of the windows are painted gloss black, and the small Autobot symbol is on the left (driver's side) door. No headlights or taillights. No connectors of any kind in this mode, rolls okay on the snap-on wheels, but the friction is high enough internally that it doesn't really free-roll very far. Overall: Pretty good neo-Micromaster, I wouldn't mind re-buying it as a Gunrunner redeco. AUTOBOT: SWINDLER Assortment: WFC-S4 Altmode: Sportscar Transformation Difficulty: 5 steps Previous Name Use: G1 Previous Mold Use: None Fireblast: None Weapon: None Function: Race Car Patrol Division: Ground Command Unit: Recon Rank: Private Packaging: 3 ties hold the robot into the blister. Robot Mode: The needs of the combined weapon mode prevented a more accurate-to-G1 mold, as the hood ends up on the back rather than the chest. As with Roadhandler, the thighs are the wrong color (gray instead of blue), and the pelvis is unpainted black. But like G1 Swindler he has very tall shoulders...in fact, moreso than in G1. 2" (5cm) tall at the head, but with the arms at the sides the total height is 2.5" (6.3cm). Light-to-medium gray (about a 40% gray, where 100% is black) and black with some bright blue and yellow. Black plastic is used on the torso back, the pelvis, the backpack hinge, the wheels, and the 5mm peg on the backpack. Otherwise 40%-value slightly shiny gray plastic. The helmet, collar, and shoulder fronts are painted bright blue, the face is painted bright yellow. There's a red on white Autobot symbol on the left arm (door panel), and gloss black on the window parts of the boots. Same joints as on Roadhandler, but the shape of the arms significantly restricts range of motion. The packpack peg can't be folded out to do anything in this mode, so the only connector is the 5mm hole in the chest. Transformation: Similar to Roadhandler's, but only the center half of the hood forms the backpack, and it has to snap between the tall shoulders. To get the hood into place requires warping the shoulders, which makes this toy a bit hostile to hobbyist repainting. Altmode: In G1, Swindler was basically a DeLorean DMC-12. The lines have been tweaked a bit here and there, with the big difference being a short "trunk" flat area in back rather than more of a hatchback look (no, the DMC-12 was not a hatchback AFIAK, but it had that sort of shape in back). Very squared off front end. The tires are slightly panel-lined, but not as extremely as on Roadhandler. A bit over 2" (5.2cm) long in silvery gray and black. Black plastic on the wheels and a little bit of hinge visible on the hood, otherwise gray. The windows are almost all painted gloss black, the rear little bit of each side window (the parts on the boots) is unpainted. The front grille is painted black, but no paint on the headlights or taillights (which are properly molded). Overall: Not quite as good as Roadhandler, but decent. Unlike Roadhandler, G1 Swindler never had his mold reused. It might work as Downshift if done in white, though. AUTOBOT: Multi-Mech Particle Exhaust Cannon Assortment: WFC-S4 DAM 11, PRE 9, RNG 7 The cardback shows Hound wielding it. Transformation: From vehicle modes, pull the 5mm peg out from under the hood, unfold the legs but leave them pegged together, and then rotate Swindler's waist 180 degrees. Roadhandler's peg goes into Swindler's chest. Note, the gun can be formed with either one on top, as both have the same basic parts. If you bought two sets, you could make a double Roadhandler gun if you wanted. Also, each half can be held as a single-mech particle exhaust cannon, as long as you rotate the waists. In what turns out to be a common problem with all the MicroMasters, while turning the waist it's as likely that both legs will pop off at the hips as it is that the waist will turn. Especially when going back to robot mode. Weapon Mode: Well, it looks like two cars mashed together. The peg's kinda short, so not all figures will be able to hold the MMPEC (or the dual pistol configuration). 3.5" (8.5cm) long combined, individual pistols are each 2.5" (6cm) long. The undersides of the toes of each part have 3mm pegs in recesses, so some Fire Blasts will work, but not all. For instance, Firedrive's Fire Blast pieces work fine, but Blowpipe's won't fit. Set Overall: Not too bad, but limited by the nature of the altmodes (we expect kibble on planes but not on cars, but military vehicles allow more obvious toyetic bits without needing to be hidden, so cars in this scale are sort of higher degree of difficulty if you want a weapon mode). The weakest of the three sets, but still worth picking up. DECEPTICON: VISPER Assortment: WFC-S5 Altmode: Stealth Jet Transformation Difficulty: 4 steps Previous Name Use: None (was the Japanese name for Whisper) Previous Mold Use: None Fireblast: None Weapon: None Function: Air Strike Patrol Division: Air Command Unit: Infantry Rank: Raider Yeah, Whisper isn't exactly an easy thing to trademark, but at least Visper does have some pedigree in Transformers. Packaging: 3 ties hold the robot in the blister. Robot Mode: The proportions are different, and they made the boots better, but the main difference with G1 is that the pale purple was replaced by a deeper purple color. Under LED lights at home, it's almost a "Decepticon Purple" in hue, but under fluorescent lights the purple is a bit lighter, and closer to the G1 color. Storm Cloud has the same shade of variable purple, echoing how Whisper and Storm Cloud were gang-molded in G1. Anyway, it's a fairly basic boxy bot with wings and a big "front half of the altmode" backpack, and missile pods flanking the head. The wings are supposed to fold back, but they look fine if you leave them forwards (at the cost of some awkwardness in the arm range of motion, though). 2" (5cm) tall at the head, the backpack rises a few millimeters above that. Thee torso and head are light purple, everything else is black, and there's red and silver accents all about. The head and body pieces are purple plastic, the limbs, wings, and backpack are black plastic. There's silver paint on the face and some shin details. There's red stripes on the wings, and red bits on the sides of the abdomen. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, the knees are hinges. A transformation hinge at the neck lets the head tilt back, or if you tilt it way back a 3mm peg connector comes out and you can make it a sort of "gun head" deal, especially if you attach a Fire Blast to it. The toese bend down for transformation, and this can be used in robot articulation to make it look like he's about to tip-toe or something. On mine, the knees are very stiff, to the point that trying to bend them can result in popping the entire leg off at the hip. And even with some fairly long heel spurs, the figure is VERY back-heavy and tends to fall over. Unless you do the gun head trick, there's no standard connection points that can be used in this mode. There's tabs on the legs for attaching melee Fire Blasts, but Lionizer's doesn't really have romo to fit in this mode. Transformation: Fold the wings forward, tabs in the forearms snap very securely into slots on the wings. Tilt the head all the way back inside the inner portion of the backpack, point the toes, and then fold the main part of the backpack down to snap around the heel spurs. The result is very secure and stable, to the point that it can be tricky to get it back out of jet mode without ripping a piece off entirely. Altmode: Still basically the fake stealth jet "F-19" that the G1 Whisper turned into, just a bit more angular and with some elements of the F-117 sneaked into its silhouette. The tails are connected by a plate between them in order to fully hide the robot face. A little bit of history here...back in the 80s, it was known that some sort of stealth bomber or stealth fighter was under development. One thing that black project managers like to do when they can't keep the existence of something secret is to leak fake details, stuff that looks plausible to the layperson but won't let enemy analysts get anywhere. The F-19 was (probably) just such a leak (or maybe just a guess on someone's part), and there were a LOT of toys based on it because as an unofficial leaked design it wasn't trademarked or anything. 3" (7.5cm) long including the short peg sticking out the back, with a 1.75" (4.5cm) wingspan, it's a sharp delta wing with canards at the front and a tail that's two partly vertical surfaces slanted inwards towards each other. Black dominates the upper surface, with very little of the purple plastic visible from above. The upper surfaces of the wings have the same red pattern as the robot's forward-facing undersides, plus there's more red paint on the tails and the front cockpit window. Decepticon symbols are printed in black on the red parts of the tails. The only connector is in the back, a short 5mm peg with a 3mm nub on it, which sort of plays the role of a jet thrust nozzle. Blowpipe's Fire Blast makes for a good "afterburner" effect, while one of Firedrive's looks more like a cruising speed jet plume. The 5mm part is pretty short, really just meant for COMBAT system connections, but a figure with the right shape of fist could hold it to use Whisper's jet mode on its own as a sort of dagger thing. Overall: Decent little guy, but hampered by that big backpack and a general lack of connection points. DECEPTICON: STORM CLOUD Assortment: WFC-S5 Altmode: Fighter Jet Transformation Difficulty: 7 steps Previous Name Use: G1 ("Stormcloud" was used in the interim) Previous Mold Use: None Fireblast: None Weapon: None Function: Air Strike Patrol Division: Air Command Unit: Infantry Rank: Raider Packaging: 3 ties hold the robot into the blister. Robot Mode: Similar to G1, but on top of the deeper purple, the hands are replaced by 3mm pegs, and I think they mistook glare in the TFU.info photo for silver paint? Officially the wings are folded all the way back, but I prefer the appearance of putting them in the stable position halfway between that and vehicle mode flatness. Color-wise, it's not quite a complement of Visper, as the upper arms and thighs are black. A little over 2" (5.3cm) at the top of the head, and the wingpack makes it a few millimeters taller still. Black plastic is used for the body, upper arms, thighs, and a transformation strut. Purple plastic is used for the forearms, boots, wings, and the nose section of the plane that forms the core of the backpack. There's silver paint on the wrists and their pegs, the "shawl" on the torso, and the front and back tips of the wing pods. The face is painted greenish yellow, and there's some gloss black detailing on the wingtip pods. Excellent articulation for this scale. Ball joint shoulders and hips, hinge elbows and knees, and long enough heel spurs to keep the figure from falling over despite the big backpack. The top tips of the wing pods and the stumps on the forearms are 3mm pegs, there's another 3mm peg sticking out the bottom of the backpack as a sort of tail, and the top of the backpack has a 5mm peg hole. The screwhole in the chest is around 4mm, so not a useful connector. Note, Firedrive's Fire Blasts can not only go onto any of the 3mm pegs on this toy, they can also go into 5mm peg holes...more useful in vehicle mode than robot mode for this toy, admittedly. Transformation: Bend the elbows backwards 90 degrees and swing the arms up into gaps between the wings and the backpack. Fold the knees 90 degrees and swing the legs up so that tabs and slots in the insteps of the boots go into tabs on the wings and slots in the forearms, locking it all into place. Finally, swing the backpack down to form the nose end of the jet. If you omit this last step, you basically have the hilt of the combined sword, or a sort of hatchet if you want to try the dual weapons trick. Altmode: In G1, Storm Cloud turned into a Dassault Rafael (an altmode that would see a lot of use in the years to follow). This version is close, but has twin vertical tails rather than a single one. It also has, instead of a nosewheel, a third canard that sticks down beneath the nose end. It's not quite big enough to act as a grip for 5mm peg hole fists, though, so no turning the jet into a weird gun. 2.5" (6.2cm) long without any Fire Blasts attached to the back, with a wingspan of 2" (5.2cm). The rear fuselage section is black, otherwise it's purple with some silver and black accents. The tail sections are on the black plastic piece, and the underside third canard is black plastic, but otherwise the robot mode's black parts are mostly shoved to the undercarriage kibble. There's silver paint on the cockpit, the front and back tips of each wing pod, and on the still visible wrist stumps. There's gloss black details on the wing pods and on the centerline of the fuselage ahead and behind the cockpit window. On either side of the front half, just ahead of the joint between purple and black plastic, is a printed darker purple Decepticon symbol. No paint on the canards or main thruster nozzle. Four 3mm nubs point backwards, one on each wingtip pod and one each from how the robot wrists stick out along the trailing edge. Plus, that 5mm peg hole in the center can hold Firedrive's type of Fire Blast. So, if you got three Firedrives, you could put five thruster effects on back. Or get two Blowpipes and one Firedrive and have a pair of each type symmetrically arranged. (If you put the Blowpipe ones on the wingtip pods, you can fit 3 Firedrive ones on as well, but the Blowpipe ones look better on the wrist pegs.) Overall: A little more stable as a robot, and while the jet doesn't look quite as good as Visper's altmode, the toy overall has a bit more play value thanks to the extra connections. DECEPTICON: Circuitstream Spyblade Assortment: WFC-S5 DAM 15, PRE 11, RNG 18 Flywheels is shown on the cardback wielding it. Transformation: Start with both in jet mode, and connect them back to back, with Visper's 5mm peg going into the hole at the back of Storm Cloud. Trailing tabs on Visper's wings fit into gaps in Storm Cloud's wings to help stabilize things. Then fold Storm Cloud's cockpit back up into its backpack position. Weapon Mode: A short-hilted jet-sword, reminiscent of Armada's Star Saber. Total length is a little over 4" (10.5cm), basically a fat black blade on a purple hilt. The cockpit section of Storm Cloud does affect the smooth lines of the blade, but it can be swung down as a sort of guard piece when used by a figure with the right shape of fist and forearm. Most of Storm Cloud's connectors are blocked in this mode, but a new 5mm peg with a 3mm nub is revealed and acts as the grip. There's no 3mm nubs on the rest of the weapon for attaching Fire Blasts, but the 6mm by 2mm rectangular tabs that go into the middle of Lionizer's Fire Blast are on either side of the blade. It looks like the melee Fire Blasts will all have these tabs, but not all are going to be the right shape to fit on this sword. If you put a ranged Fire Blast (especially Blowpipe's) on the 3mm nub on the end of the hilt, this basically looks like a Dreadwing Duo sort of super jet. In fact, it works better as this sort of thing than it does as a sword. A good Shapeways add-on would be something with a 5mm socket and a longer 5mm grip that could make it easier for more figures to hold this. Maybe even a short and two medium so it could be turned into a spear of variable length that could be plugged in through a closed fist. Set Overall: Pretty good figures combine into a good sword, and with a little imagination and the right sort of fist shapes, a figure can hold the two as separate weapons just as the Race Car Patrol can become separate guns. I know they're still in an aggressively Geewun phase here, but I'd jump at the chance to buy a redeco that's made to evoke the look of the Armada Star Saber. Visper as Runway and Storm Cloud as Jetstorm, leave Sonar out entirely. AUTOBOT: FLAK Assortment: WFC-S6 Altmode: Missile Tank Transformation Difficulty: 4 steps Previous Name Use: G1, DotM Previous Mold Use: None Fireblast: None Weapon: None (well, missiles in vehicle mode) Function: Battle Patrol Division: Ground Command Unit: Artillery Rank: Private It's always bugged me that this obvious missile/rocket vehicle was called Flak, when the Battle Patrol member who SHOULD have been called Flak was Sidetrack, the anti-aircraft cannon vehicle. Packaging: 3 ties hold the robot into the blister. Robot Mode: Very close to the looks of the G1 toy, but with better proportions. For some reason they decided to go with light gray instead of cream, though, only painting the helmet cream. Flak joins Storm Cloud in the No Hands Club, with wheels where the fists would normally go. There's a trio of weapon barrels that are sort of finger-like ahead of each wheel, more like Hot Rod's arm cannons than actual fingers, though. The front end of the chassis just hangs out as a backpack, but the heel spurs are long enough to compensate. 2" (5.1cm) tall in a mix of olive drab, light gray, dull red, and cream. The upper torso, wheels, thighs, and a fold-out 5mm peg in the backpack are light gray plastic. The backpack itself, the lower torso/pelvis piece, the arms, boots, and head are olive green plastic. The head is dipped in cream paint, the face is painted a sort of dull crimson, and the goggles are painted orange. The abdomen and pelvis piece is dipped in dull crimson, including the ball parts of the ball and socket hips. The tank treads on the arms and backpack are painted medium gloss gray, and there's cream paint on panels on the arms. Good articulation. The shoulders and hips are ball and socket joints, the knees are pinned hinges, and the head can tilt backwards to let the figure look up at all the bulks stomping around. While the upper torso is pinned to the lower torso, it's not a joint that can be moved. There's no Fire Blast connectors useful in this mode, although there is a 5mm peg that can fold up frmo the backpack. This can be used to mount Swindler or Roadhandler in pistol mode as a cannon. The vehicle mode's 3mm pegs are on the soles of the feet, so you could make it look like Firedrive's Fire Blasts are boot jet exhaust. Transformation: Peg the boots together, tuck the arms aganist the sides, and fold the backpack up. It'll automatically stow the head, although when going back to robot mode the head won't pop out on its own, it needs you to pull on a tiny tab on the neck. Then fold the legs back and around so that the heel spurs go into slots on the back. Altmode: A tank chassis with a big multiple rocket launcher box on top, nearly unchanged from the G1 Micromaster. TFWiki points out the TOS-1 Burantino as a real world system like that, but I'm inclined to think it was more inspired by the Wolverine from GIJoe. It's a bit stubbier than in G1, largely due to the backpack being reduced in size so the front end is short. The missile racks look more like giant audio speakers, with the four regular apertures shoved out to the corners to make room for a larger one that's a recessed 3mm peg like those on the feet of the Race Car Patrol. The apertures are more rounded too, maybe the designer thought they were supposed to be energy cannons or something? Only 1.5" (3.8cm) long and 1.25" (3cm) tall, it's like a chibi version of the original. The red and light gray are mostly hidden in this mode, which is largely olive green with gray treads and cream panels on the sides. The windows molded onto the sides of the front end are unpainted, but there is a small red on white Autobot symbol printed on the hull just below the front of the launchers. The apertures on the launchers are sloppily painted black. The central apertures on the launchers are 3mm stubs set in recesses like on Swindler and Roadhandler, and they can use Firedrive's Fire Blasts but not Blowpipe's. The wheels roll okay, but mine had a lot of mold flash that needed to be trimmed off. Overall: A decent update, still the wrong name. AUTOBOT: TOPSHOT Assortment: WFC-S6 Altmode: Mobile Howitzer Transformation Difficulty: 7 steps Previous Name Use: None Previous Mold Use: None Fireblast: None Weapon: None (cannon in vehicle mode) Function: Battle Patrol Division: Ground Command Unit: Artillery Rank: Private Based on Bigshot from the G1 Autobot Battle Patrol, but they apparently couldn't get the trademark on that. Packaging: 5 ties hold the robot into the blister. Robot Mode: Good update of Big Shot, although I guess they're restricted to only two plastic colors, so the wheels are brown and the thighs are light gray (the torso is also light gray, but got cream paint). The figure has a hunchback backpack situation, where the backpack goes up over the top of the head...in fact, one of the pins that holds things together pierces the robot head from top to bottom. There's also high shoulders, with the real rear wheels being above the shoulder joints, and fake tires being molded around the socket part of the joints. 2.25" (5.5cm) tall in warm brown, light gray, desaturated medium blue, and cream, plus some silver and black accents. The thighs, shoudler roots, heel spurs, and cannon barrel are light gray plastic. The rest of the toy is warm brown plastic. Cream paint is used extensively on the chest, the helmet appears to be dipped in it, and the turret body on the back was coated pretty thoroughly in cream colored paint, but you can see the airbrush spray boundary in a few places on its underside. The pelvis is dipped in desaturated blue paint, and the face is (badly) painted in that color. There's dark silver details on the chest, abdomen, and armor plates on the sides of the turret. The windows on the toes are painted gloss black. The shoulders are ball joints on shrugging struts, the hips are ball joints, the knees are pinned hinges. The waist turns, but the paint on the pelvis piece renders this a very stiff joint, and the "hips pop off before the waist turns much" problem that plagues the Race Car Patrol shows up here as well. The head can turn in principle, but the combination of paint lock and very little access makes this difficult unless you have really tiny fingers or a set of needlenose pliers. The heel spurs fold down for transformation, and this can be used to support some action poses, especially if you frame the shot so that the spur is not visible. http://www.dvandom.com/images/topshotpose.JPG The top of the backpack has a 5mm peg hole, and either a Race Car Patroller in gun mode or a "fan mode" Flak can go there as a weapon. However, that's not really necessary, since (undocumented feature!) the main gun can fold down over the head when the turret is rotated 180 degrees. This lets you put a Fire Blast on the barrel tip, plus put one of the Firedrive Fire Blasts into the 5mm peg hole as a jetpack thrust. Transformation: If you haven't already, rotate the turret so the cannon end is on top. Shrug the arms up against the sides, fold down the heel spurs, then snap the boots together and fold them up against the thighs, with the heel spurs sliding into slots on the back. Rotate the turret forwards to secure them. The arms don't really lock in place, and the front wheels are hard to get down far enough to avoid scraping while rolling. While kinda clever, the folding heel spurs trick is just not all that stable. Altmode: In G1, Big Shot was a Denel G-6 self-propelled gun, and while the turret details have changed (and the cannon barrel is a lot shorter) on the new version, it's still basically the same vehicle. Unfortunately, they didn't have budget for more than two color runs, so the wheels are all the same brown as the chassis. As usually happens, the middle set of wheels is fully fake, just molded onto the robot arms, but the front and back pairs do roll. About 2" (5.3cm) long, in mostly the same colors, although the blue is fairly suppressed. In addition to the details covered above, there's a small red on white Autobot symbol printed on top of the center of the turret. The turret rotates all the way around, although going too far unlocks the heel spur panels, and the gun elevates all the way to straight up. It's a sort of soft ratchet, mostly stable at horizontal, 45 degrees, and straight up. Fire Blasts can go on the 3mm nub on the tip of the cannon, and Firedrive's can go into the 5mm hole in the back of the turret for a rocket tank effect. The toy doesn't roll very well since it tends to skid along on the pelvis. Overall: Big Shot is one of my favorite G1 Micromasters, and this is an okay update. Unfortunately, the heel spurs just ended up too floppy, causing problems in both modes, and the vehicle mode in general is pretty unstable compared to the other five MicroMasters in this wave. AUTOBOT: Electroverge Neuro Blaster Assortment: WFC-S6 DAM 14, PRE 12, RNG 16 The cardback shows Sideswipe wielding the Neuro Blaster. Transformation: Flak starts in robot mode, just stow the head and pull up the peg in the backpack. Technically you could get a decent gun mode from Topshot by just pulling the arms down a bit, raising the gun to maximum elevation, and plugging it into Flak. But to get the intended mode, the front end needs to be undone, the waist rotated 180 degrees (during which the legs will probably pop off...frankly, it's easier and quicker to just pull the legs off and rotate the waist then put the legs back on than it is to try to turn the waist without the legs coming off), and then the panels folded back down. There's a lot of tabs that just sort of rest in slots as opposed to fitting snugly (tops of Topshot's shoulders, tabs on the heel spurs that go into slots on Topshot's chest), but really it's just the 5mm peg and hole connection that does all the work of keeping things together. Folding Topshot's legs differently raises the back end of the gun and lets the heel spur struts sort of cover up more of the face and torso (which are fully visible on top of the gun in the official mode), but it's not much concealment. Frankly, just leaving the front end in vehicle mode is more stable and looks about the same. If it were easier to turn Topshot's head, rotating it 180 degrees would be good enough. Whoever made the instructions must have recognized how hard the head is to turn, though, as they do not tell you to do it. Weapon Mode: A decent looking large pistol, probably best suited to a Voyager or even Leader class figure. If you fold out the robot legs, though, you get sot of a stock to make it more rifle-like for a Deluxe. Unlike the other weapon modes, it has a decent-sized grip, since Topshot's cannon becomes the weapon grip. Stability is pretty bad, though, and that's almost entirely on Topshot. 3.75" (9.4cm) long, with the light gray plastic shared between them helping a little to tie things together...it'd look more unified if they'd used cream colored plastic, though. Flak's launchers form the business end, and it's really hard to get both of Firedrive's Fire Blast pieces in without them being non-parallel. Set Overall: The two G1 inspirations were among the best (IMO) Micromasters, so these had a reputation to live up to. Sadly, while a lot of the design elements are cool in principle, the execution faltered, with a bunch of tabs and slots doing nothing. Flak is nice and solid, pretty much all of the problems fall on Topshot's shoulders. And hips. Dave Van Domelen, probably moving on to Studio Series Ironhide next.