Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 12, 2011 16:25:21 GMT
Dark of the Moon Human Alliance Icepick & Sergeant Chaos
Icepick comes in robot mode, a mainly white robot with black parts and purple highlights. She's dominated by the large track on her back that makes balancing her rather difficult. Articulation isn't bad: double bending knees, thigh swivel, ball jointed hips, neck, shoulders and elbows. Her hands annoy me: they look like they're posed to hold 3mm handle weapons but the hands are just slightly too small for them to fit just like the bar between her legs will allow you to clip a c-clip weapon on but is slightly too thin to take it's weight. She comes with a pair of c-clip weapons: I'm guessing they're meant to be guns of some sort. There's bars for them to clip to in front of her shoulders, formed from the skis of her snowmobile mode, and inside of her hands. Under her left arm is a plate with a Minicon peg mounted on it which will allow her to add extra weapons to her.
Transform to robot mode: fold the track back so it points out of the back of the figure with the waist pulled back so the legs are roughly in the same direction. Fold the head down to form the snowmobile's windscreen. Fold the chest forward. Straighten the arms and rotate the elbow 180 degrees. Bring the arms together above the track to form the rear of the vehicle. Manipulate the hinges at the front of the track so that the top plugs into the peg under the saddle. Fold the heel spur forward, then the top & bottom of the legs at the knee and rotate at the hip so the knee faces forward. Wiggle into position under the front of the snowmobile. Fold the chest down between them and position the skis.
The Snowmobile itself isn't that bad form wise. Functionally however it's an entire different ball game: neither handle bars nor skis move from side to side and the tracks underneath the rear of the bike are fixed with no wheels mounted in them to allow the vehicle to move. It's biggest problem however is when you try to use the toy with the figure it comes with. Sergeant Chaos is about an inch and a half high, with universal joints at the shoulder, hip & knee as well as a turning head. By himself Sergeant Chaos is fine but once he's with the Snowmobile it becomes obvious that he's hideously out of scale with it. I think for this size of toy you'd probably be looking for a figure at about 3 inches high, double the size of Sergeant Chaos yet smaller than those in the Star Wars or GI Joe lines. The C-clip weapons in this mode can be attached to the skis at the front or the bars at the rear of the seat.
Icepick has a third mode as a weapon for a larger toy: Fold the tread out behind the vehicle, then fold forward so it's between the skis. Split the tread in half and fold back on itself to form a chain saw weapon. Use the Minicon port, now under the saddle, as a handle for a larger to to hold it. Unfortunately the weapon mode is now far too long, a good six inches, with just the front third being the actual business end. A different transformation that ended up mounting the handle further up the weapon instead of the opposite end to the blade, would work much better.
I'm sorry but Icepick didn't float my boat at all. It's got flaws both as a toy and as a package with it's driver. Fortunately some of the other Human Alliance toys are a lot better.
Dark of the Moon Human Alliance Flash Freeze Assault Icepick & Sergeant Chaos
Flash Freeze Icepick is a simple paint swap:
White becomes black
Black becomes orange
Clear Purple becomes clear green
He comes with a repaint of Sideswipe and a repaint of Major Tungsten as the new version of Sergeant Chaos.
Icepick comes in robot mode, a mainly white robot with black parts and purple highlights. She's dominated by the large track on her back that makes balancing her rather difficult. Articulation isn't bad: double bending knees, thigh swivel, ball jointed hips, neck, shoulders and elbows. Her hands annoy me: they look like they're posed to hold 3mm handle weapons but the hands are just slightly too small for them to fit just like the bar between her legs will allow you to clip a c-clip weapon on but is slightly too thin to take it's weight. She comes with a pair of c-clip weapons: I'm guessing they're meant to be guns of some sort. There's bars for them to clip to in front of her shoulders, formed from the skis of her snowmobile mode, and inside of her hands. Under her left arm is a plate with a Minicon peg mounted on it which will allow her to add extra weapons to her.
Transform to robot mode: fold the track back so it points out of the back of the figure with the waist pulled back so the legs are roughly in the same direction. Fold the head down to form the snowmobile's windscreen. Fold the chest forward. Straighten the arms and rotate the elbow 180 degrees. Bring the arms together above the track to form the rear of the vehicle. Manipulate the hinges at the front of the track so that the top plugs into the peg under the saddle. Fold the heel spur forward, then the top & bottom of the legs at the knee and rotate at the hip so the knee faces forward. Wiggle into position under the front of the snowmobile. Fold the chest down between them and position the skis.
The Snowmobile itself isn't that bad form wise. Functionally however it's an entire different ball game: neither handle bars nor skis move from side to side and the tracks underneath the rear of the bike are fixed with no wheels mounted in them to allow the vehicle to move. It's biggest problem however is when you try to use the toy with the figure it comes with. Sergeant Chaos is about an inch and a half high, with universal joints at the shoulder, hip & knee as well as a turning head. By himself Sergeant Chaos is fine but once he's with the Snowmobile it becomes obvious that he's hideously out of scale with it. I think for this size of toy you'd probably be looking for a figure at about 3 inches high, double the size of Sergeant Chaos yet smaller than those in the Star Wars or GI Joe lines. The C-clip weapons in this mode can be attached to the skis at the front or the bars at the rear of the seat.
Icepick has a third mode as a weapon for a larger toy: Fold the tread out behind the vehicle, then fold forward so it's between the skis. Split the tread in half and fold back on itself to form a chain saw weapon. Use the Minicon port, now under the saddle, as a handle for a larger to to hold it. Unfortunately the weapon mode is now far too long, a good six inches, with just the front third being the actual business end. A different transformation that ended up mounting the handle further up the weapon instead of the opposite end to the blade, would work much better.
I'm sorry but Icepick didn't float my boat at all. It's got flaws both as a toy and as a package with it's driver. Fortunately some of the other Human Alliance toys are a lot better.
Dark of the Moon Human Alliance Flash Freeze Assault Icepick & Sergeant Chaos
Flash Freeze Icepick is a simple paint swap:
White becomes black
Black becomes orange
Clear Purple becomes clear green
He comes with a repaint of Sideswipe and a repaint of Major Tungsten as the new version of Sergeant Chaos.
