Steamhammer and the Constructicons!

[138 Scourge]

My first impression of these guys was actually pretty negative, but that was during a cursory glance while looking for the Dinobots. Steamhammer himself, especially, irked me, because he bears a strong resemblance to the ROTF Dirtboss, and man, I HATED that mold. But after checking 'em out a couple more times, I got interested in the set, mainly because Steamhammer isn't transformed right in-package, and as such is better than he looks at first, and he's got neat-looking drones. Plus, the bio's interesting. Apparently, Steamhammer's calling his team "The Constructicons" regardless of what the original Constructicons think about it. And if they have a problem with that, he's more than willing to beat them down. That is seriously dude's entire bio, he's willing to fight for his name against Devastator. Given the recent trend in these bios in defining a character by who they're gonna fight, this says that the Constructicons are here to fight...the Constructicons. So how're the toys? Well, I'll tell you this for free, they just beat hell out of the last Constructicon combiner we got.

Steamhammer: That is just a weird name. Are we expected to believe he's powered by steam? Then again, I still call excavation vehicles "Steam Shovels", so I'll just go ahead and shut up about that. Steamhammer's a funky little robot, in package we're led to believe that his bulldozer blade just hangs out over his head in one bigass chunk of kibble, but it's not quite that bad. It hangs out against his back as one bigass piece of kibble. Still, not quite as obtrusive. He does have kind of unfortunate kibble for his treads in two big chunks that hang out from either side of his blade, there's a few ways you can pose these by messing with the angle they're at and with the hinged blade bit their attached to. There's barrel-looking bits on either end of these kibble chunks that almost make them passable gun bits, but they just don't move around enough to pull this off. Unless dude's aiming for something standing right at his feet, these hypothetical guns just wouldn't work. So, kibble chunks. Depending on how you pose 'em, though, you can pretty much totally hide the PCC combiner bits, so that's something. Steamhammmer does have a tough-lookin' little face, with beady red eyes and a big silver jaw, he just looks truculent. Not that much in his robot body appearance does anything new with the Constructicon theme, he looks about how you'd expect a construction robot to look. Except, he does have kind of cool weapons attached to each hand. There's a couple bladed-looking things that curve around each hand and extend a bit out from the fist, they're unconventional claw-deals, but they're pretty cool, and they're on a hinge so they can flip down to allow the figure to hold weapons or whatever. Oh, and he's got two big toes coming off of each tread-leg, these become important later. The Power Core bits on his legs hide out on the back of his feet and make for decent heelspurs, which he does need to balance out that massive backpack. The figure's colors are...okay. Black, silver...and bright, bright, Constructicon green. Now look, I love eye-searing colors, but in this case it just sort of...distracts from the rest of the robot. There's just so much green that it just overwhelms everything else. But...if dude's trying to piggyback on the "Constructicon" name, he's certainly on the right track, there. Honestly, if it wasn't for the bio bit, I'd say "Y'all think we can knock it off with every construction vehicle being bright green?", but the bio makes it work.

The transformation here is a little different, there's some neat stuff going on, and when you do it right, everything pegs together pretty well. Fold down this black bit on his chest, then fold the arms back on the panels on the side of his body. They'll lock together, at which point you fold the thighs up and clip them into place. Fold those two big toes down, and then rotate the Power Core bits through the slot between the toes (that's kind of cool), and peg the treads into slots on the arms. Then you just pretty much move the shovel into place and clip those unfortunate kibble bits into place on the tread assembly. I like it, it's easy enough, but there's some cool things going on, and unlike the Dirt Boss mold that this reminded me of at first, everything clips down nicely, resulting in a solid bulldozer. Those blades from his hands do end up just dragging behind the 'dozer, but it looks okay. Two of the four Power Core bits are hidden, the other two just hang out on the back of the bulldozer saying "Howdy". And instead of being an open-cab bulldozer, this thing has a tiny enclosed cab, indicating that this is, in fact, one good sized bit of earthmoving technology. The only downside, really, is that if you turn this guy over, the combiner head and chest are there just hangin' out, but for a Basic that's got a combiner thing going on, I'm willing to let it slide.

Drones: I'm starting to think Drones need names, even if they are drones. Anyway, these drones helped sell me on this set. Each one looks like a sort of cartoony but mostly real-ish construction thing. There's the bigass plow, which really looks like something between a bulldozer and snowplow, but is pretty neat. There's the front-end payloader, which...basically, mobile conveyor belt on treads, with a wedge bit up front and a shovel arm to scoop things up onto the belt on move them onto the belt to be pulled behind the vehicle. Then there's the drill. This is probably the only drill thing I've ever seen in TFs and thought "Well, yeah, that makes sense". It's pretty much a big steam-shovel thing, only instead of a shovel arm, it's got an armature with a bigass drill on it, that you could point forward for assault, but which would typically point down. It actually looks like something you'd see at a construction site, possibly. Then, there's the steamroller. Has there ever been a steamroller in TF? The closest I can think of is the non-toy character that Grimlock took out in G2 Issue 1, and that was a space crushing-thing tank or whatever. Where these things have wheels, they roll, and where they have treads, they have little wheels in the treads that roll okay. The drill and payloader have articulated armature bits. And, as with the Dinobot drones, points go to these guys for not being the same type of construction equipment things that always show up in construction sets.

Combined Mode: From Robot mode you pretty much just fold the arms back on those panel they're on, flip the blade bit over Steamhammer's head, and the blade will push the small robot head down. Rotate the forearms around and peg those double-blade weapons onto the tabs on the combiner's shoulders. Flip the arm Power Core bits into place, which leaves the unfortunate kibble from small robot mode as...unfortunate kibble again. The legs you just clip into place and fold the toes down and the Power Core bits up like you would in going to vehicle mode. There's antennae on the big robot head, you can fold 'em up or leave 'em down, depending on what you like. Then you just plug in the drones and call it good.

The Drones go in a lot more easily than the Dino drones do, I don't know which one's more representative of the line as a whole. The loader arm is longer than the drill arm, and the plow leg seems to be just a bit longer than the steamroller leg. Still, they don't look as completely asymmetrical as the Dino combiner, and while some of the detail on the torso and head is eaten up by the bright green, it's muted quite a bit by the grey of the blade that helps make up the upper torso, and by all the drones being different colors. A nice touch for the arms is the thumbs. They're hinged to go either way, so if you want to use the drill guy as a left or right arm, the hands won't look gimpy. It's funny, the picture on the back of the box blows this, kind of. They've got the thumb on the loader posed in the middle, so that hand looks goofier than it is. Another neat touch on that loader arm, the ramp bit of the vehicle mode forms a kind of knuckle-duster over the fingers. The fingers are still sculpted on the underside, but between that armor and the fact that this is the longer arm, I'm guessing this is his punchin' hand. One thing I really like about the overall design is that the combiner looks nothing like Devastator. I mean, I like the original Devastator and all, but this set of Constructicons does something entirely different, it might have been easy to sculpt a G1 Devvy head in there, but instead he's got a solid green helmet with an almost triagular visor bit. In a neat touch, the helmet's sculpted to look a little like a hardhat. No idea if that was intentional, but it certainly looks cool. As always, mini-con hard points all over this guy, including one that folds down from the chest area for the "armor mode" mini-cons. The hardpoints on the arms look like they'd probably lend themselves to better mini-con interaction than the hardpoints on the Dino-combiner's arms.

Overall: This is a pretty neat set, really. Steamhammer's not a bad little basic at all, managing a decent robot mode, a pretty cool vehicle, and a good looking torso. Everything locks down well in every mode, hell, the thighs almost lock down too well in combiner and vehicle modes. Those things can be a bear to get loose. But really, no major problems on this team that I can see, except maybe that Steamhammer could benefit from a repaint. The scale isn't too big an issue here. Most of the equipment modes have cabs that are roughly the same size, so all the suspension of disbelief you've got to do involves Steamhammer himself being a big, big bulldozer. Unless you just plain don't like PCCs, you'll probably like this set, but I don't think this'll be the one to change your mind on 'em.

[Shockwave]

they just beat hell out of the last Constructicon combiner we got.

Even the legends Toys R Us one?

[Dominic]

I think you mean the Wal*Mart set. Either way, Scourge was probably talking about the $100 monster from last year.

On a related note, if anybody has one they want to get ride of, I would be interested. (I am not looking to break the bank, and would much prefer to trade.)


Dom
-cannot rationalize this.

[138 Scourge]

they just beat hell out of the last Constructicon combiner we got.

Even the legends Toys R Us one?

I think you mean the Wal*Mart set. Either way, Scourge was probably talking about the $100 monster from last year.

Shocky means the all-green TRU guy, the repaint of the Wal*Mart set. But really, could be either. Both. All three. Movie Devastator can suck it.

[Dominic]

I thought the green one was the Wal*Mart...oi.

Dom
-there is a joke about Devastator sucking somewhere in this thread.

[Shockwave]

Yeah I meant the green one and he's at TRU. In fact, my TRUs still have plenty of them.

[138 Scourge]

Yeah I meant the green one and he's at TRU. In fact, my TRUs still have plenty of them.

One of mine does, too. And it still looks like balls (appropriately enough, I guess).

[138 Scourge]

Unless you just plain don't like PCCs, you'll probably like this set, but I don't think this'll be the one to change your mind on 'em.

I'd like to retract this statement. You see, at the time, I had all of two PCC sets, this guy and the Grimstone set. So, I didn't know that much about the PCC toys. Since I wrote this review, I've experienced firsthand a lot of the previous Power Core sets, and I've got to say, as far as the drones go, this is the best set. Sure, Mudslinger's drones have the cool Mad Max-esque designs, but I've found that as a set of limbs, these just beat out every other set of drones. The arms are still different lengths, but they both look like arms, and despite the differing lengths, they have a fairly uniform look to 'em. The legs..well, they just win by being the same length as each other and supporting the commander figure adequately.

So, if you absolutely don't like PCCs, you might like this set anyway. The core figure's got some flaws, but really, as far as the five-packs go, this is the winner.

[BWprowl]

God damn I wish I could find this set and the Dinobots somewhere!