Name: Divebomb
Series: Classics
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Apache Helicopter
CHOPPER MODE
Height: 2.5cm Length: 8.5cm Width: 7.5cm (rotorspan)
A long skinny helicopter, Divebomb is blue with a grey tail and a four blade grey rotor with red edges. The canopy is painted yellow with silver edges. The colour scheme is a mixed without being muddled, the blue and grey make for a nice basis. There's a red Autobot logo on the back of the main body while the winglets on the sides have "77" (port) and "T.M.R." (starboard), in silver paint.
The main rotor spins really well if you flick one edge - I find it's a lot of fun, even if it's a very simple feature. There's a tiny blue stabilising rotor on the portside of the tail which also spins very well, although it' small and difficult to access. There are no wheels underneath, instead the front lies flat on a powerlinx port while the tail sits on a moulded (and unpainted) tail wheel.
I like this chopper mode - it's fairly realistic even if the colours are designed to provide contrast with the other toys in this set rather than going for a standard colour scheme. The rotors spin better than I'd expect of a MiniCon and it _looks_ like an urban chopper, which makes Divebomb's vehicle mode work, even if the choice of name doesn't suit.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Swing the tail fins forward, rotate the nose out to the front. Fold down the winglets, split the tail and swing the halves all the way forward to form legs. swing the winglets out to the sides and unfold as arms. Lastly fold down the engines & rotor to reveal his head.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 6.5cm Width: 4cm
A blue robot with silver legs that extend into his torso, up to the armpits in fact. With a rotor on his head. The silver and yellow canopy is his chest while blue the engine block surrounds the blue head which has yellow eyes and a tiny sculpted mouth. The tail rotor sits on the inside of his left foot. The colour scheme is about the same as the vehicle mode.
As with most Classics MiniCons, Divebomb has gone for an inventive transformation, and he manages it better than quite a few of his contemporaries. The legs are awkward but he stands quite well, something quite a few don't manage. The rotor on top of his head is just plain strange, but at least it's out of the way of the robot itself. I guess you could argue he's wider than the figure I gave - since I ignored the rotor. Again it spins well, so while he might look really odd, it's still fun. There is no poseability here, so the spinning rotor represents all of Divebomb's play value.
As weird as this robot mode is, it's not without it's charm. The legs are a novel idea and the position of the rotor is both bizarre and comical. Propellorhead ends up with play value no other Transformer can offer as a robot, too.
OVERALL
A decent little chopper mode goes through a really innovative transformation, resulting in a weird yet kinda wonderful robot mode. I can't say he's a great MiniCon, but the innovation works in its charming eccentric way - 5.5/10
Name: Firebot
Series: Classics
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Fire Truck
FIRE TRUCK MODE
Height: 2.5cm Length: 5cm Width: 1.5cm
A boxy red fire truck with a pointed front, Firebot has metallic blue sloping windows at the front, metallic grey rails on the roof along with two dark brown water cannons which stow by facing backwards. Firebot has four dark brown plastic tyres and silver paint on either side, with text that reads "T.M.R. 77" (same as Divebomb) and Autobot logos. It's a decent colour scheme although the use of dark brown on a non-beast Transformer is quite unusual.
The detailing is fairly good but the seams are a little sloppy - thankfully the painted details and the water cannons make sure that Firebot works as a fire truck. I'm impressed by the water cannons - they can both swing to face forward and they're innovative features. Sure, a ladder would have been nice, but I like the variation (and not all fire trucks have huge ladders on the roof, anyway). The cannons and his rolling tyres represent the sum of play value here, although my Firebot rolls poorly.
Despite the lack of a ladder, this is a good truck mode. Sure the seams are messy, but the water cannons are cool and he still manages to look like a fire truck. The gaps detract a little, but less than the downright weird robot modes of many MiniCons in this series.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Lift up the cannons, split the front and rotate the halves down to the sides. Extend the rear to form legs, split the legs and stand him up.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 6cm Width: 4.5cm
A red and brown robot, Firebot is largely red with brown forearms and black thighs, while all four brown tyres are visible. His face features an unpainted mouthplate and small silver eyes. The torso is quite small, and centres on a powerlinx port, while the boots are huge and his knees concave. The proportions sound worse than they are - sure they're not ideal, but he still looks pretty good really. I'm more concerned with a dearth of paint here - the eyes represent the only real colour.
The poseability is better than you find on most Classics Minicons, since Firebot's transformation is relatively conservative. The shoulders are ball jointed while his elbows can swing sideways (not much use, really). The water cannons form really cool forearm cannons, and while you can aim them, lifting the arms to aim looks much better. The hips are ball joints, but they're restricted enough to work only as rotators. His knees bend back a little, and while you won't find many dynamic poses in his restricted legs, Firebot does have large footprints so he's stable enough.
A mildly awkward shape and a lack of paint hold Firebot back, but again the cannons kick ass and take names. The poseability is better than on most Classics MiniCons - but they're an unposeable lot, generally.
OVERALL
A relatively conservative transformation allows Firebot to concentrate a little more on the shape of his robot mode, and while he's not flawless, he's probably my favourite of this set. I really dig the cannons and the choice of brown is interesting. I wouldn't say he's head and shoulders in this set, but Firebot is still the best toy of this trio, despite the _awful_ name - 6.5/10
Name: Strongarm
Series: Classics
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Police Car
POLICE CAR MODE
Height: 1.5cm Length: 5.5cm Width: 2.5cm
Strongarm really likes black - he's composed entirely of black plastic. There are painted details - a silver impact bar at the front flanked by yellow headlights, a red and blue lightrack on top, a red stamped Autobot logo on the hood (with white relief). Along the doors are two silver stripes with the words "POLICE DISTRICT" and at the front on his fenders are silver sunbursts with "RR" inside them (and they're mirror images, so the initials are backwards on the left side!). It's not a very interesting colour scheme, and while it;s accurate enough, at this scale detailing isn't enough - Strongarm really needed more colour, and painted windows would have been enough to do the trick.
There's not much more to say about this car - the black tyres roll poorly since they're hardly any clearance and the low level of sculpted detail doesn't help the fact that Strongarm is drowning in black. A little more colour would have made a difference, although some of the low-detail areas (such as the back, which is just a set of hinges) probably look best in black.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Fold down the front, fold the bottom of the rear down and back forming legs. Rotate the sides out, which splits the legs and forms shoulderpylons from the front. Swing the front of the casr down to form his chest which will bring the head into place, fold down the arms and you're done.
Strongarm has a tendency to come apart during the transformation - excessive force _is_ required and some of the pieces are likely to pop off, and not in a friendly ball-and-socket way.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 6.5cm Width: 4cm
A black robot with the lightrack on his groin, the impact bar and headlights on his chest (upside-down) and the stripes on his shoulder pylons, Strongarm has a black head with red eyes. The facial sculpt is pretty good - better than anything on the vehicle mode anyway. The paint may not be extensive, but it's all on show here, so Strongarm's colour scheme is more interesting now.
The bodyshape is unusual thanks to the novel (and fairly successful) transformation - common for Classics MiniCons. The boots and arms face outwards slightly which looks a little strange, but it still works. The shoulder pylons are a good idea, but the chestpiece protrudes a long way and the head is set too far back - the shoulder pylons highlight this which makes they become something of a liability. There's not much poseability - the arms can lift up on their transformation joints. There are powerlinx ports on the outsides of his boots.
A decent looking but very static robot mode. This is Strongarm's better mode, although that's damning with faint praise to an extent. It's one of the more successful robot modes to come from the Classic MiniCon stable of daring transformations, anyway.
OVERALL
My least favourite of this set, partly because there's so much black and partly because transforming him is pain in the skidplate. The robot mode does look good, but the car looks somewhat underdone, which balances things out in a bad way - 4/10
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of.
TEAM OVERALL
An interesting set that never really reaches any great heights, but none of the toys are downright awful at least. The unusual transformations are the most noteworthy aspect of the set, and while Firebot and Divebomb come out okay, Strongarm is a little compromised. None of the names are well used - and there's no good way to use the name Firebot. I get the feeling that this set would have been better if the transformations were slightly more focused, but as it is, they're reasonable toys but nothing special - 5.5/10
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