Phil's Searchlight & Backwind review

[Philip Ayres]

Backwind

Backwind is packed with and is the partner for the Power Core Commander Searchlight.

Searchlight is a clear green Minicon robot. The only other colour plastic used is some black for the legs and a frame running through the body. There's a couple of paint applications in this mode - yellow circles on each knee and a silver face plate. His most prominent feature is his arms - they're very long with the elbows at waist level and the hands - hook shaped - at floor level. He almost looks more simian that human in proportion. His right forearm has a six barrelled gattling gun moulded into the top of it. Articulation is good: ball jointed knees, hips & shoulders and bending elbows. His Minicon port is at the centre of his chest, but it's a screw hole so unlike every other Minicon he's missing the post down the middle that will trigger gimmicks.

His vehicle attachment mode is designed to work specifically with Searchlight. Point his right arm - the one with the gun - down and the left arm up, then fold it up at the elbow. Fold the upper legs up behind the lower legs. Pin the Minicon under the helicopter's nose. This gives Searchlight some added search & rescue equipment. The yellow circles on Backwind's knees become bright searchlights, with the left arm serving as a hooked winch while the right arm serves as extra weaponry.

Backwind's weapon mode is somewhat less successful. From robot mode fold the right gun arm up above the head. Fold the right leg back so it covers the lower leg then turn so the right knee cap is in the right arm pit. Swing the left leg round at the knee so the back of the left leg is up against the bottom of the right foot. Fold the left arm down so it runs along the left upper leg. What you get is a gun, but only in the sense it's got a barrel. The rear of the weapon is a square block formed from the body parts but it doesn't hold together well. It's held by a Minicon post on the side of the robot's left foot.

I'll stick with Chopster's axe mode.

Finally we have Backwind's armour mode. Fold each arm up and out to the sides. Fold then lower arms in to cover the upper arms. Rotate the lower legs out to the sides 90 degrees at the knee and fold up over the upper leg. Swing the legs up so they're alongside the chest with the knees under the armpits. With a large chest piece this helps to make Backwind a decent sized bit of armour. The arms which stick out to the sides can be folded back if they get in the way of the robot.

If you remove the armour mode with the arms bent back, open the arms up at the elbow and bend the legs back to get a bonus beast mode - Backwind can become a frog !

Overall: Weapons mode is a bit rubbish. But otherwise he's a pretty decent Minicon.

[The Doctor]

Any pics of Backwind? I can't place him.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

www.tfw2005.com/resources/power-core-autobots-407/searchlight-with-backwind-4601/

[Philip Ayres]

Searchlight review to follow.....

[Philip Ayres]

Power Core Combiner Searchlight

The original Transformers Searchlight was a white car (with a blue robot head) that was part of 1987's Throttlebot team (and one of the few members of the team that didn't map to an original Mini Autobot by virtue of similarity of design or colour: Goldbug = Bumblebee, Rollbar = Brawn, Wideload = Huffer and Freeway = Gears. Chase is either Cliffjumper or Windcharger leaving whichever one is left over as Searchlight).

The *New* Power Core Searchlight is a search & rescue helicopter, dual propeller with one mounted above the cockpit and the other on the tail like the old GI Joe Tomahawk. I want a Tomahawk. The design for Searchlight is a little odd in that his rotors don't have the same number of blades: four on the front one and three on the rear, both as shown on the packet. However the rotors are in theory removable so there's nothing to stop you buying two Searchlights and pairing the rotors between the toys. I say "in theory removable" because I've never seen a peg quite as snug as the ones used here ! It's a 5mm peg & hole so in theory the rotors should be holdable as hand held weapons. The rotors rotate on their post which is good for their main purpose and adds something if you do decide to use them as weapons. Most of the helicopter is a very pale grey but there's flashes of dark blue everywhere so in many ways he's a nod to his namesake colourwise. All four of his bright blue Power Core connectors are visible in this mode but they all point backwards so it doesn't take much imagination to see these as high powered Cybertron engines boosting Searchlight's flight speed.

Searchlight comes with his own Minicon, Backwind, who is reviewed separately. In his vehicle attachment mode Backwing attaches to a Minicon port under Searchlight's nose giving him a pair of high powered searchlights, a rescue hook and a gattling gun. Searchlight's robot mode chest Minicon port is a small distance further back and you can fold that down to attach Backwind there as well. The disadvantage of plugging Backwind in is that Searchlight won't sit flat with him attached. However if you dig out a Seacon weapons stand, Seachlight's chest Minicon peg can fold down and sit in the top of the stand letting you display Searchlight in flight with his Minicon attached. He can of course use any other Minicon in this mode: Chopster, for example, gives him a nice weapons array pointing forward.

Transformation: Remove the Minicon. Fold the cockpit out to the sides leaving the rotor in the middle. Fold the tail slightly to the sides, again leaving the rotor mechanism in the middle. Looking from the front fold the tail rotor and assembly out to your right from the middle of the jet. Similarly the front rotor & assembly folds out to your left. Fold the tail halves down under the helicopter to form the legs and fold the feet out. Stand and have the underside face towards you. Swing the sides of the jet round 180 degrees so the Power Core blocks are pointing straight up and the cockpit halves are behind the hips. Fold the arms - formed from the spine of the helicopter and the rotor assemblies - down to the sides. His right arm comes from the front of the helicopter while the left arm comes from the back.

There's some stuff I don't like straight away: The arms aren't anchored to the body: the ball joints are on hinged panels that are maybe 5mm from the sides of the body and attached to panels that are linked to the side panels from the helicopter by another hinge. The side panels of the helicopter which now form the sides of the body also don't lock into position, they can be rotated through a full 360 degrees, which we'll use later. The cockpit halves stick awkwardly out of the side of the hips. I bet many people don't like the Power Core Block on a tall post sticking out of each shoulder, but use your imagination and these turn into two giant energy cannons. This may be the intention because the non locking side panels can be used to rotate them forward so they're pointing out the top of the chest. Articulation: Bending ankles & knees, thigh swivel, universal hips, ball jointed shoulders, forward bending upper elbow and ball jointed lower elbow plus ball jointed head. His chest features the fold out Minicon peg found on the other 2-pack commanders. Backwind makes quite a good piece of chest armour and works well with him here especially if you reposition the arms on the Minicon over Searchlight's shoulder. Sadly Backwind's use as a Minicon weapon is less good here but that's all down to Backwind rather than any deficiency with Searchlight who has 5mm peg holes in his hands for holding standard size weapon handles. The rotor blades from the helicopter mode have ended on the outside of each wrist so they can be used as spinning blade weapons there.

Searchlight can also be used as the core robot at the centre of a Power Core Combiner. Fold his chest forward, fold the flaps out to the sides of the chest and turn Searchlight's head down into the chest exposing the combined robot head. Fold the arms back at the upper elbow joint so they're pointing backwards - this might have worked better if the lower elbow joint could be folded back instead. Fold the power core block mounted posts down to the sides. Spread the legs out and fold the legs in 90 degrees at the thigh swivel. Fold the lower leg back at the knee so that it covers the upper leg, the back of the foot rests against the smaller robot's thigh and the Power Core blocks on the smaller robot's knees point down.

Searchlight's robot core mode is surprisingly solid. It's got some decent articulation with the shoulder Power Core blocks turning as well as raising at the body. The new, larger head is ball jointed, the hips turn, the knees bend and the Power Core blocks bellow the knees turn. The blocks are easier to get limbs onto than several of the other toys where the blocks seem to want to shuffle out the way every time you go near them with a limb drone! Searchlight works better with the Aerialbot limbs than their own commander Skyburst does.

Overall: Decent Vehicle mode that works well with the Minicon, robot mode has some difficulties but nothing major. Combined mode surprisingly good.

[Philip Ayres]

Hmmmm. Not happy with the tail of that Searchlight review. May need revising.

[The Doctor]

Hmmm, sounds interesting though my fan-brain is annoyed Searchlight is not a car.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

Darkray

Darkray is Caliburst's repaint in Wave 3 of the Powercore combiners. In this wave there's some mix and matching going on: Darkray isn't paired with Huffer's repaint, Crankcase (who becomes a 5 pack commander with two of the Combaticon and two of the Aerialbot drones). Instead he's packaged with Searchlight's Decepticon repaint Windburn. In an odd way this was prefigured at Toyfair 2010 where Searchlight was shown with Caliburst. The clear blue becomes clear green and the silver grey becomes a darker grey, nearly black. The same changes are made to Crankcase on the light pipe on the combined mode head and the upper legs indicating that the repaints still have the same Commander and Minicon co-moulded it's just that the Minicon and drone limbs are then swapped around.

My main issue with Darkray is who he's packaged with. Windburn is the only one of the Wave 3 2-pack commanders that's capable of holding the weapons mode of Smoulder's repaint, Razorbeam. So to my mind Windburn should have got Razorbeam. Instead Razorbeam's packed with Darkstream, a repaint of Skyburst, who can't hold the weapons mode, despite what the instructions show. This is just plain silly. To make it even worse Darkray's vehicle mode weapon looks huge attached to the bottom of Windburn which means Windburn can't rest anywhere near flat in vehicle mode with Darkray attached. If he's had Razorbeam the you could have attached the axe mode flat under the helicopter adding the handle pointing out the front as a weapon. Grrrr.

As you may be spotting I have some issues with the Wave 3 repaints of the Powercore combiners.

Still good looking, but poorly paired up this time.

Windburn

Windburn is Searchlight's repaint. The body of the helicopter becomes a darker grey while the blue becomes red (PCC Block struts, shoulders, elbow joints & knees) or a pale lilac (lower arms, chest & head) and the grey of the rotors become a brassy grey.

Windburn is packed with Darkray, a clear green repaint of Caliburst, Huffer's Minicon. I Think Darkray is the wrong Minicon: it should have been Razorbeam, the repaint of Smolder's Minicon Chopster. Darkray doesn't sit flat under Windburn like Razorbeam would. Add to this that Windburn is the only one of the PCC Commanders packed in the Scout with Mini-con assortment that's capable of holding Razorbeam's axe mode and I think you can conclusively say that Hasbro's got this one wrong.

Not the best repaint in the set, vehicle and robot both look a mess in their new colours.

[Rich]

No doubt this has been said before, but some of these are the worst named Transformers for a long time. What's the worst TF name ever? Has anything ever topped Slag?

[Philip Ayres]

Slag is very apropriate. He's a Dinobot flamethrower capable of melthing metal and reducing it to slag.

In Slag's defence, as the slang term was only emerging at the point the original Dinobot came out, there is a RID DINOBOT Slapper

[Rich]

I dunno, I just checked online and the pejorative use apparently dates from 1971. But while I can accept that cultural filters weren't as switched on in the 80s, there's no way that the person who thought up Backwind, Windburn and Darkray, wasn't having a little chuckle. Has there been a good new name since the 80s?

Starscream is the by far the best name. I mean, Drift? Leaving aside every other complaint, can you get any more mealy mouthed than that?