Welcome to Kimia, Room 113 review Icepick and Chainclaw

Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Dark.... Ageis. Well actually it's Stu, but my Paul Heyman reference sounds a lot better with my web name.
Today we start on the first of the Wave 2 figures, will Wave 2 improve on Wave 1? Or will it spiral into a well of crappiness?

Wave 2 starts with Icepick and Chainclaw.
Icepick shares his name with one of the members of the Pretender Monsters but that's about all they share though. Icepick was also one of the few (if only) PCC's to spread beyond the line. He appeared in the “Human Alliance” toy line. Teaming with a human partner after the loss of his “Combiner team”.  

He transforms into a “treaded snow plow”, a robot and a torso.
Icepicks vehicle mode looks pretty good, it has some nicely sculpted detail ALL over it and it's a solid little brick of a vehicle. It's got two Power-Linx ports on the top of it but they are so close that if you use one it'll render the other one useless with most Mini-Cons. More on that later.
The white and dark blue contrasts nicely here, especially with the occasional silver paint app to break it up. Two of his PCC pegs are visible, but lets face it most of these figures have PCC ports viable.
There's not much else to say about the vehicle mode so lets get to his robot mode.

Icepick is the only PCC that doesn't have hands. Not even a close approximation of hands like Leadfoot/Over-Run, he has claws. Three fingered claws. His arms are a bit longer than seems natural giving him a more animalistic look to. He suits it, it makes him feel like all he does is chop Autobots up with his claws.

He has a nice looking face sculpt with details picked out in a nice metallic blue. The head is ball jointed but it has no real movement due to his collar. I can see why they did it like this on an engineering level (it keeps the torso mode head on its joint by the way) but it seems like a weird way of doing it. No light piping though.

He has some decent articulation mostly because of the various joints needed to make the torso mode transformation.  

The two Power-Linx ports are nicely spaced out in this mode providing him with a peg for shoulder mounting a Mini-Con, great for weapon modes to give him some fire-power since he can't hold anything. The second port is the standard flip down commander peg to use with chest armour Mini-Con modes.

His PCC pegs are still visible on his shoulders but the other two are stashed away in his legs. They stand out a bit mostly due to the fact that they sit on what will become the torso modes shoulders

Now it has to be said that the hips are very loose on mine which unfortunately causes issues with him standing but that doesn't seem to be the case with all of them. I like his robot mode all in all, so shall we talk torso mode?

Icepicks legs move out and his arms twist to block out his chest, these look kinda weird as it makes me think he's either protecting his shoulders or scratching his armpits.... His wind shield flips down allowing his torso head to flip out and what a head! It's a giant block of light piping! It's almost like he only has a face plate and the ice grows out of the back of it. This might also explain why some of the line has no light piping, Icepick stole it all!  I don't usually associate Icepick with any set of limbs and I've used the Destructicon drones for the purpose of this review.
His torso mode looks okay, but it isn't the best. The loose hips on mine means he's often tilted straight forward or backwards.
It would've been nice if there had been an Arctic themed drone team. I do have spares I could adapt for him but painting white is a nightmare (only to be beaten by yellow AAAARGGGGHHH!!!).


So how does he look with those third party limb sets?

Let's talk Mobine first, as usual it bulks out Icepick nicely, due to how his shoulders/PCC ports work there is all kinds of clearance for the missile pod shoulders. There's not a lot to say about about this pairing unless you get a bit crazy with how you build the Mobine set.

If you do a quick Google image search on Mobine you'll see various takes on how to use the pieces of the armour. Icepick has a strange build. I tried it for the first time while writing this review. It's interesting but I don't like how the legs work. 

The Iron Army sets make him taller and that's about it. Yet again there isn't much else to say on Icepick with the set. Icepick doesn't “POP” with these add on sets like some figures do.


I think it speaks a lot about Icepick as a figure, as a torso he doesn't do much, sure his head is amazing but the rest is fairly dull. Icepick spends most, if not all, of his time in his robot mode.

Shall we talk mini-Cons?

Chainclaw transforms from a robot to a gun (with two modes no less!) and chest armour. He's built from clear blue plastic.
As a robot he has decent sculpting, I especially like how his face is a just a blank red visor, almost a precursor for Transformers Prime's Soundwave. He has some nice clamp hands (CLAMP, CLAMP, CLA-BAMP!) to.  

His chest armour mode isn't great, he swings his legs up and his arms swing round to his back. That's about it..... Moving on.

GUN MODES!!

So as I said earlier Chainclaw has two gun modes, one is prinarily for Icepick to use, it allows his Power-Linx port to be plugged onto Icepicks shoulder/the top of his vehicle mode. It works really well in vehicle mode, fitting in perfectly.
His alternative gun mode works with everybody who has a hand hole, so just about everyone apart from Icepick.
I actually own two Chainclaws, I was so impressed with this gun mode that I bought a second one to pair with United Scourge as Fracas (Takara did the same thing with a solid grey plastic version of the mold).

Well that's Icepick and Chainclaw done, next we talk about the only Autobot from Wave 2 of the Commanders, Leadfoot and Pinpoint.

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.

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