Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, The Old Oilhouse proudly brings to you it's toy review tag team champions of the worrrlllldddd!!! The guy who writes it, Stu, the cat that sleeps, Sally, The new age reviewers!
This week we continue with Wave 2 with a homage to Powermaster transformers, why did they choose to do it with a Power Core Combiner? Lets find out.
This week we continue with Wave 2 with a homage to Powermaster transformers, why did they choose to do it with a Power Core Combiner? Lets find out.
Today's review subjects are Leadfoot and Pinpoint.
Autobot Leadfoot transforms from a F1 style race car, to a torso and a robot.
His vehicle mode is nicely put together everything plugs together nicely and creates a very solid race car. Sure it's not going to win any prizes for accuracy but if you showed that alt mode to anybody they'd say it was a race car.
Leadfoot is mostly orange with some parts picked out in white. His spoiler reads “BLACKROCK” representing Marvel G1's own G.B Blackrock, which is a nice nod to the old character.
In this mode he has two Power-Linx ports, both of which fold down to hide them away (Bonus!). One is on the very front of the car and is usually what you'll use in vehicle mode. The second one is really meant to be for Leadfoots robot mode, it's hidden in the driver seat/cockpit but with a bit of messing around you can fit the right sized Mini-Con on there.
Leadfoot has a good dose of visible PCC port syndrome, all 4 pegs stick out of the back of his alt mode with no attempt to hide them at all.
All in all it's a nice alt mode, lets move onto the robot mode though.
His vehicle mode is nicely put together everything plugs together nicely and creates a very solid race car. Sure it's not going to win any prizes for accuracy but if you showed that alt mode to anybody they'd say it was a race car.
Leadfoot is mostly orange with some parts picked out in white. His spoiler reads “BLACKROCK” representing Marvel G1's own G.B Blackrock, which is a nice nod to the old character.
In this mode he has two Power-Linx ports, both of which fold down to hide them away (Bonus!). One is on the very front of the car and is usually what you'll use in vehicle mode. The second one is really meant to be for Leadfoots robot mode, it's hidden in the driver seat/cockpit but with a bit of messing around you can fit the right sized Mini-Con on there.
Leadfoot has a good dose of visible PCC port syndrome, all 4 pegs stick out of the back of his alt mode with no attempt to hide them at all.
All in all it's a nice alt mode, lets move onto the robot mode though.
Leadfoots flaws stand out with his robot mode, the main problem are his giant “truckasaurus” hands ( LANA! ), they are huge, bigger than his head huge and right underneath them are two of his PCC pegs. He doesn't even have normal hands, they're formed from the exhausts of his alt mode they can't hold anything properly. What he does have is a peg hole in what would roughly be his wrist. The idea being that you peg the Mini-Con into it for him to “hold”. This instantly cuts down what Mini-Cons you can use with him, many of them are to bulky for him to weld properly. More on this when we talk about Pinpoint.
His arm joints are very stiff, now this might just be a problem on mine but I worry about them breaking anytime I move them. He's got a lot of range with his arms though, nothing amazing but pretty good.
The head looks a little small but the light piping is very good, he has piercing yellow eyes, penetrating my very soul! It has some nice sculpting with his face picked out in silver paint.
Over all robot mode isn't awful, it's not great either but he's by no means the worst.
His arm joints are very stiff, now this might just be a problem on mine but I worry about them breaking anytime I move them. He's got a lot of range with his arms though, nothing amazing but pretty good.
The head looks a little small but the light piping is very good, he has piercing yellow eyes, penetrating my very soul! It has some nice sculpting with his face picked out in silver paint.
Over all robot mode isn't awful, it's not great either but he's by no means the worst.
Leadfoots flaws stand out with his robot mode, the main problem are his giant “truckasaurus” hands ( LANA! ), they are huge, bigger than his head huge and right underneath them are two of his PCC pegs. He doesn't even have normal hands, they're formed from the exhausts of his alt mode they can't hold anything properly. What he does have is a peg hole in what would roughly be his wrist. The idea being that you peg the Mini-Con into it for him to “hold”. This instantly cuts down what Mini-Cons you can use with him, many of them are to bulky for him to weld properly. More on this when we talk about Pinpoint.
His arm joints are very stiff, now this might just be a problem on mine but I worry about them breaking anytime I move them. He's got a lot of range with his arms though, nothing amazing but pretty good.
The head looks a little small but the light piping is very good, he has piercing yellow eyes, penetrating my very soul! It has some nice sculpting with his face picked out in silver paint.
Over all robot mode isn't awful, it's not great either but he's by no means the worst.
Leadfoot isn't finished though! Time for some torso talk!
His arm joints are very stiff, now this might just be a problem on mine but I worry about them breaking anytime I move them. He's got a lot of range with his arms though, nothing amazing but pretty good.
The head looks a little small but the light piping is very good, he has piercing yellow eyes, penetrating my very soul! It has some nice sculpting with his face picked out in silver paint.
Over all robot mode isn't awful, it's not great either but he's by no means the worst.
Leadfoot isn't finished though! Time for some torso talk!
Leadfoots torso mode does some simple and some not so simple transformations. The legs do the standard shift out and rotate to give him wider legs, the robot chest flips down allowing you to spin the robot head away revealing the torso mode head and you have the robot modes back as the torsos chest All pretty standard, nothing to serious. The arms however form the problem. At first they look like they'd be simple enough but even after owning two versions of this mold I still struggle to get them right. You are supposed to fold up the arms, then using the holes that you would use to peg the arms into the legs for his alt mode, peg them onto the wing mirror looking parts. My Over-run has broken peg holes because of how awkward it is to get it right.
OK let's not dwell on the disappointing stuff, lets talk about what I like! The chest is big and nicely detailed, the transformation of the front wheels revels some nicely sculpted details. The head is a joyous lump of plastic with a solid block of light piping in it with some details pick out in gold paint. I don't usually have Leadfoot paired with any of the limb sets but I've used Wave 2's Rallybots for the photos (more on them in the weeks to come)
OK let's not dwell on the disappointing stuff, lets talk about what I like! The chest is big and nicely detailed, the transformation of the front wheels revels some nicely sculpted details. The head is a joyous lump of plastic with a solid block of light piping in it with some details pick out in gold paint. I don't usually have Leadfoot paired with any of the limb sets but I've used Wave 2's Rallybots for the photos (more on them in the weeks to come)
As I've said before on previous reviews I've never used the Mobine armour or Iron Army limbs on this mold before so what follows are my raw, unedited first time thoughts on each pairing.
Mobine has a lot of problems when you use the “normal” set up. The peg on the armours shoulder blocks articulation on one side due to the wheel. No matter what set up you use you're going to end up using the rocket pods as shoulders. The peg on the shin (the one you'd use for holding the gun you can make from this limb part) bashes into the folded up spoiler, I've tried a few ways of creating clearance but it never quite sits right. As always it bulks out that torso very well. We're not off to a great start for the third party products with Leadfoot. Will the Iron Army set fair any better?
Mobine has a lot of problems when you use the “normal” set up. The peg on the armours shoulder blocks articulation on one side due to the wheel. No matter what set up you use you're going to end up using the rocket pods as shoulders. The peg on the shin (the one you'd use for holding the gun you can make from this limb part) bashes into the folded up spoiler, I've tried a few ways of creating clearance but it never quite sits right. As always it bulks out that torso very well. We're not off to a great start for the third party products with Leadfoot. Will the Iron Army set fair any better?
Kinda.
The arms have plenty of clearance, which is always a good thing, but the legs have issues. The two tanks sit very close to each other because of their width so you have to angle Leadfoots hips up a little more. It's not a massive problem fortunately.
Iron army looks good on Leadfoot but it doesn't fit very well. Saying that they don't fit well with an evil fire truck guy but that's where they're staying for a good while!
There's nothing else to say on the third party products so lets move on to Leadfoots partner, Pinpoint.
The arms have plenty of clearance, which is always a good thing, but the legs have issues. The two tanks sit very close to each other because of their width so you have to angle Leadfoots hips up a little more. It's not a massive problem fortunately.
Iron army looks good on Leadfoot but it doesn't fit very well. Saying that they don't fit well with an evil fire truck guy but that's where they're staying for a good while!
There's nothing else to say on the third party products so lets move on to Leadfoots partner, Pinpoint.
Lets just get this out of the way. Pinpoint has some of the worst modes of all of the Mini-Cons. He's not Backwind levels of bad though. Pinpoint is made of the same clear yellow plastic that was used for Leadfoots light piping. He transforms from robot, to engine, to “gun” and “armour”. The reason I used quote marks will become evident really soon.
He has some decent detail sculpted on him with a very grumpy looking face. It's picked out in gold paint which unfortunately blends in to well with the yellow for it to stand out. His arms and thighs are solid black which helps break up all of the yellow.
He has some decent detail sculpted on him with a very grumpy looking face. It's picked out in gold paint which unfortunately blends in to well with the yellow for it to stand out. His arms and thighs are solid black which helps break up all of the yellow.
His engine block mode REEKS of Powermaster engines, he transforms almost exactly like the G1 engines. He has a nice engine block painted in silver with the exhausts on his arms completing the look. What doesn't work so well are the two large guns mounted on the front, sure they swing back but they are huge!
The gun mode is a massive disappointment. He basically lies flat and the two gun barrels flip out. Nothing clips or clicks into place it's a horribly loose mess. In my Icepick and Chainclaw review I lauded Chainclaw as having a gun mode good enough to use with my Generations figures. Pinpoint doesn't even come close. Even if you use the alternative gun mode which you can use with more standard handed figures it fails. It's off centre, it isn't level. It almost feels like they designed the engine block and then fan mode'd the gun.
His armour mode is the engine block pegged on to a robots chest. That's it. Woooo.
So many disappointing things with Pinpoint. One of the funny things is that they repainted this figure TWICE as Targetmaster partners. One for the limited release Artfire figure (he holds it in engine mode with the guns out, it's awful!), one was a freebie give away and the last one was a freebie if you pre-ordered Arms Micron Optimus. They didn't even repaint it for more PCC's but they did for limited Japanese releases! WHAT?! He's awful!
Don't get me wrong if you use him as a robot and an engine block he's great. Anything else is a total waste of time.
So here's the highlights.
Leadfoot good, Pinpoint bad but if you ignore most of his modes he becomes OK.
That's enough for now, all his Pinpoint rage has wound me right up!
Next week we look at the second Decepticon of the Wave 2 commanders.
So many disappointing things with Pinpoint. One of the funny things is that they repainted this figure TWICE as Targetmaster partners. One for the limited release Artfire figure (he holds it in engine mode with the guns out, it's awful!), one was a freebie give away and the last one was a freebie if you pre-ordered Arms Micron Optimus. They didn't even repaint it for more PCC's but they did for limited Japanese releases! WHAT?! He's awful!
Don't get me wrong if you use him as a robot and an engine block he's great. Anything else is a total waste of time.
So here's the highlights.
Leadfoot good, Pinpoint bad but if you ignore most of his modes he becomes OK.
That's enough for now, all his Pinpoint rage has wound me right up!
Next week we look at the second Decepticon of the Wave 2 commanders.
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.
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.
