While not quite as much of a three home run set as the Decepticon set, I still really like all three of these guys. Decent colours, neat transformations, and a more late G1 feel keep them in the running as a good subgroup.
Going in alphabetical order for a change. Broadside is the first of the three that we'll take a look at. In his aircraft carrier mode, he's pretty decent, lots of space to launch a plane off the deck. No wheels under this mode though, so you get a lot of these with the chest and legs scratched up. I picked this guy up with most of his accessories from a local friend, it needed some TLC, but looks ok now, still in need of some reprolabels for him someday.
His jet mode is terrible. You basically flip him over and extend the wings. The one redeeming quality is that four out of six wings are entirely diecast, with only the horizontal stabilizers being plastic. The one thing that's kind of neat is the cockpit being on a spring so it collapses for aircraft carrier mode and that the seats and stuff are molded inside.
His bot mode is really not much better, with the chest to feet being one solid piece, he's pretty brick-like. I try to make him a little less boxy by leaving the wings out. I like that they included an axe for him.
Next up is my personal favorite of the trio, Sandstorm. His dune buggy mode is pretty sweet with the chromed engine and rims. They really pulled it off nicely with only the rear of the "surfboard piece sticking out the back. He came from one of the Scottish lots.
His chopper mode is also pretty well done, with only the side windows visible if you go by the official transformation (pictured)
This is the transformation I usually use, which puts the arms into more of a pontoon looking alignment. (excuse the older pic) As you can see, it completely hides the side windows.
In bot mode, he's pretty well proportioned. Other than the arm joining the torso at the elbow, I have a hard time finding much fault with him. The feet are sometimes diecast on him.
Lastly, the most popular due to his character being in the movie, Springer. His car mode is different, very Cybertronian. The back wheels are under the rear rotors. He does have rubber front tires though, so that's kind of cool. I found him dirt cheap in a comic book shop in London missing the rotors, and later ended up getting them on Cybertron.ca
His chopper mode is pretty nice looking for a "futuristic" one.
The kind of neat "they didn't need to do that" thing on him is that they made the shoulders slide to three different positions, up for robot mode, back for helicopter, and in the middle for car mode. His helicopter blades fold up and become a sword. I think this is one of the first figures to utilize the blades like that.
All in all, they are definitely later G1 molds, but in my opinion, decent ones. These guy's newer versions are pretty good too.
PS...3 more days til I leave for TFcon!
wow first time I have seen clear images of Broadside, man what an awful looking toy in all alt modes, maybe I didnt notice that the carrier mode had a small tower on it, also that is a weird place to have an indented rub sign. I could see what you were doing with folding out the wings, but I think you folded them out too much , looks funky man . maybe the wings need to be closer to the body, makes it more cartoon accurate :D
ReplyDeleteHaha, was hoping no one would notice that they fell down farther, the missiles were pointed straight down, not in on an angle like that. My photo room gets hot fast in the summer, so i wanted out of it as quickly as possible and didn't notice til i was editing.
Delete