A lot of my opinions on the P.C.C toy line were formed by my first experiences with it,some good, some not so good. We've already talked about Huffer so lets talk about my first 5 pack.
So the time has come my friends to speak about Wave 1's first 5 pack team, Bombshock and the Combaticons.
This was the first 5 pack I picked up but I'd already had a donation of the Combaticon limbs from Mr Grufflock. Having an spare set of limbs does work out quite well some times.
I have a lot of affection for the Combaticons from G1, one of the few VHS tapes of Transformers I had was “The revenge of Bruticus/Dinobot island”, this video was watched and re-watched over and over. This is the very reason I like the Dinobots and the Combaticons so much. They were my Transformers at a young age, I never owned enough of the toys as a child but what Dinobots and Combaticons were cherished items.
Seeing something use the Combaticon name will always generate interest from me, most of the time it's a slew of military based repaints (I'm looking at you Energon Bruticus Maximus) but these were something different.
Lets make a start shall we?
This was the first 5 pack I picked up but I'd already had a donation of the Combaticon limbs from Mr Grufflock. Having an spare set of limbs does work out quite well some times.
I have a lot of affection for the Combaticons from G1, one of the few VHS tapes of Transformers I had was “The revenge of Bruticus/Dinobot island”, this video was watched and re-watched over and over. This is the very reason I like the Dinobots and the Combaticons so much. They were my Transformers at a young age, I never owned enough of the toys as a child but what Dinobots and Combaticons were cherished items.
Seeing something use the Combaticon name will always generate interest from me, most of the time it's a slew of military based repaints (I'm looking at you Energon Bruticus Maximus) but these were something different.
Lets make a start shall we?
Bombshock is named after one of the Micromaster Military patrol and is very loosely based on him. HIs bio reads “Once a member of an elite Cybertronian military unit” so yeah, you could think of that as the Micromaster team.
Bombshock is a Twin barrelled artillery cannon truck in military green (Really?! NO!). He has a rotating turret with some sculpted detail representing (to me any way) missile pods. The two cannons have their own hinge as well as a main hinge to raise and lower the guns.
His alt mode does suffer a lot from the fact it's a torso and a robot. The turret which transforms into the torsos chest is viable as the back of the turret. He's hollow in places too. He's only got two of his PCC pegs on show, right at the back of his truck. This does have one advantage which I'll talk about later. It's not the worst alt mode of the line but he's a close second. He's got two Mini-Con pegs on his turret but one of them isn't usable in alt mode, it only becomes useful once you transform him.
So lets do that.
Bombshock is a Twin barrelled artillery cannon truck in military green (Really?! NO!). He has a rotating turret with some sculpted detail representing (to me any way) missile pods. The two cannons have their own hinge as well as a main hinge to raise and lower the guns.
His alt mode does suffer a lot from the fact it's a torso and a robot. The turret which transforms into the torsos chest is viable as the back of the turret. He's hollow in places too. He's only got two of his PCC pegs on show, right at the back of his truck. This does have one advantage which I'll talk about later. It's not the worst alt mode of the line but he's a close second. He's got two Mini-Con pegs on his turret but one of them isn't usable in alt mode, it only becomes useful once you transform him.
So lets do that.
Bombshocks robot mode isn't bad. He doesn't have the Commander flip out Power-Linx port like the 2-pack Commanders do, but since he's not packed with a Mini-Con it's not too big of a problem (it's not like this mold was going to get a Mini-Con at a later date.....). He has his PCC pegs directly underneath his fists, however they look out of place there, but you can swing them forward as sort of faux guns. His other PCC pegs serve as, much needed, heels. Because of the placement of the turret Bombshock is VERY back heavy if you don't swing those PCC pegs out from his legs you are going to struggle to get him to stand.
He has some nicely sculpted detail for his head and his torso with some nice paint apps, in yellow, to help break up the grey and green he's soaked in.
His head has some nice detail work, no light piping (boo), his face is picked out in brass and he has silver “goggles”on his head.
TORSOOO...... HEEEENNNNNSHIN!!!
He has some nicely sculpted detail for his head and his torso with some nice paint apps, in yellow, to help break up the grey and green he's soaked in.
His head has some nice detail work, no light piping (boo), his face is picked out in brass and he has silver “goggles”on his head.
TORSOOO...... HEEEENNNNNSHIN!!!
Bombshocks torso does some basic tricks, his hips click into some tabs, you spin his legs 90 degrees and you flip out his PCC pegs. His entire back pack folds over his head revealing his Torso mode head and Bombshocks arms clip into place to bulk out the torso. Finally the double barrels can be positioned so that the Power-linx peg can be used (as a back armour port??). There isn't a lot of extra detail revealed on the body, just some former inner leg if you were wondering, but the head.... oh man! The head is one of the best things about this mold. A single red visor in the centre of what looks like a face plate bolted to his black head. He is also quite possibly (I'll be honest I haven't checked) the tallest of the official torsos.
There's not much else I can say about his torso mode as there isn't much else to say about it really.
Obviously Bombshock is paired with the Combaticons but as part of the gimmick he can combine with any of the other limb sets out there.
There's not much else I can say about his torso mode as there isn't much else to say about it really.
Obviously Bombshock is paired with the Combaticons but as part of the gimmick he can combine with any of the other limb sets out there.
Iron Army matches up really well, the running military theme helps. The extra clearance provided by how Bombshocks torso mode shoulders and legs transform helps with posing to. The tank legs really REALLY make the already tall Bombshock even taller. So tall in fact that I struggled to fit him into my light box to take the photos! He even towers over the normal “super mode'd” PCC commanders!
The Mobine armour is pretty much the same, tall guy becomes even taller. There's not a lot to say about him like this. If I had the “jungle type” I think he'd look really good with it.
One thing I'd like to mention, Bombshock has a way of working with the Mobine armour unique to him and Steelshot (Bombshocks repaint). While both are in their alt modes you can swing out Bombshocks arms and after some messing around you can peg them into the front of the Mobine armour's missile tank mode. A nice little touch and one I wouldn't have known about if not for google image search.
So that's Bombshock all talked about, shall we move onto our first set of limbs?
Since it's my first limb review I better do a little bit here about the limbs in general for the line.
The idea with the PCC limbs is as follows, each team has 4 “kinda transforming” drones, they auto morph from a vehicle to a arm or leg, no robot modes!
Now they don't have the same ability as the more traditional three modes combiner limbs where you can use, say Air Raid, as an arm or a leg. These drones form a leg or an arm. No more, no less, you can't swap an arm drone for a leg drone and expect it to work at all. While I feel this limits the “swap them around” gimmick I can see why they did it, PCC was a “filler” line between movie releases. They didn't want to invest a lot of time or cash into it, extra limb transformations means extra cash.
Since it's my first limb review I better do a little bit here about the limbs in general for the line.
The idea with the PCC limbs is as follows, each team has 4 “kinda transforming” drones, they auto morph from a vehicle to a arm or leg, no robot modes!
Now they don't have the same ability as the more traditional three modes combiner limbs where you can use, say Air Raid, as an arm or a leg. These drones form a leg or an arm. No more, no less, you can't swap an arm drone for a leg drone and expect it to work at all. While I feel this limits the “swap them around” gimmick I can see why they did it, PCC was a “filler” line between movie releases. They didn't want to invest a lot of time or cash into it, extra limb transformations means extra cash.
Now much like the rest of the line there are good drone sets and there are bad drone sets. Some of them have issues. Unfortunately the Combaticons are one of these.
The Combaticon drones consist of an APC (right leg), an Armoured car (left leg), a missile carrier (right arm) and a tank (left arm). Each one has some nicely sculpted details on it and a “smattering” of paint apps.
The APC is a half track vehicle with a rotating gun turret. When you plug it onto a PCC port it springs open to form a foot. Now for some reason the back of the PCC port doesn't hold very well so it has a tendency to push itself off with the spring loaded parts.
The Armoured car is a jeep with twin missiles on its back. It reminds me quite a lot of a Cobra Stinger. When you plug it into a PCC port it's wind shield and roof open up revealing a mini gatling gun and the rear wheels fold open to form toes of a sort. The armoured car has the same problem as the APC it's spring pushes back on the peg forcing the limb off the peg.
Our first arm is the missile carrier, this looks like it's been directly ripped out of Command and Conquer, two GIANT missiles in launchers (that don't fire) on a set of tank treads with a plow at the front. I can totally see people building these in bulk and swarming my base with them. When you peg the arm onto a PCC port the missile racks stay where they are as the rest pushes out to form the arm. Lets get this out of the way, only one of the PCC drone sets actually has a good attempt at hands. The Combaticons are not that team. It pushes out a 4 fingered claw with the very rough impression of thumbs. The arm is also very long, longer than our next limb any way.
Said limb is the tank. Yet again this something that wouldn't seem out f place in C&C or to an extent Warhammer 40K. It has a central turret with two large guns on it. It also has some sculpted guns on the side. Some black and a very small amount of yellow break up what would otherwise be a wide expanse of grey plastic. For the arm mode it's back half pushes out and lets the claw hand swing free. It's a few centimetres short of the other arm it does kind of suffer a bit for it but it does help summon up the image of one of Left 4 Dead's Charger infected. Think of Bombshock charging forward spitting missiles from his one bulked out over powered arm before swatting Autobot PCC's around with it.
They're by no means the worst set out there, not by a long shot (they'll come with a future wave for a sneaky hint) but for my first experience I wasn't blown away. It did leave me hopeful for future releases though.
So that's out first 5 pack all done, only one more to go and then all of wave 1 will have been done. So who's next? Well let's just say their up, up and away!
They're by no means the worst set out there, not by a long shot (they'll come with a future wave for a sneaky hint) but for my first experience I wasn't blown away. It did leave me hopeful for future releases though.
So that's out first 5 pack all done, only one more to go and then all of wave 1 will have been done. So who's next? Well let's just say their up, up and away!
 | Stu "Darkageis" Murray is a founding member of The Old Oilhouse, a lifelong transformers nut and collector of Sentai and Kamen rider in all it's forms. He sometimes takes epic trips to Newcastle, and tells tales of these sagas often. When not watching people in spandex fight each other he paints miniatures, go HERE to take a look. |
