Originally written February 2020.
Sometimes, we’re so caught up in the new, that we don’t stop and appreciate the good things that pass us by. Case and point: Transformers: Siege may be over, and the discussion may have pivoted to Earthrise and Kingdom, but there’s still plenty of great Siege stuff out there, if you’re just into good figures and not the newest. The long-winded “Autobot Alphastrike Counterforce” is one of the many, many exclusives the line had, and one that’s still currently up for grabs on Amazon.ca, among other places. I picked this up fairly recently, thanks to a combo of a giftcard and another sale, but even when it isn’t on sale, it’s priced fairly for a set with two Deluxes and a Battle Master, rather than having any kind of exclusive price-hike. Conceptually, it’s kind of a confusing jumble of ideas, consisting of three repainted or retooled figures that are all homaging unrelated ideas, however, it’s also three really good figures from a really good line. There’s a lot in this set, so I’ll attempt a speedrun.
Covert Clone Sideswipe
This redeco of Siege Sideswipe, despite the name, is based on how his original toy was colored for its Transformers: Generation 2 re-release in the early 90s. If you’ve been reading anything reviews here regularly, you know I’m a sucker for homages to that really specific era of the franchise, and enough people seem to like this specific look for Sideswipe that he’s even gotten a Masterpiece figure (which, naturally, I have).
Whether it’s this guy, Sideswipe, or Red Alert, or, Deep Cover, or Tigertrack, this is still a good Deluxe mold.
It’s a really simple, straightforward carformer without anything super-novel going on transformation or design, aside from just being “very well engineered and super-poseable.”
He’s still a bit plain when it comes to accessories, only having a shoulder launcher with a removable missile/handgun, but luckily, there’s a Battle Master in the set to up his arsenal. Given the era of extreme attitude this colorscheme originates from, I’m happy that he’s stable enough to pop 90’s comics-esque Battle Squats.
Colors-wise, the black with red highlights, and a bit of white, is stunning as usual. There’s a weird issue with how the colors break down, in that the sides of his car mode are red instead of black, but honestly, I like how it looks.
If you happen to have one on hand, he also also color matches really well with Generations Selects Powerdasher Cromar, who you can use to give him more G2-style heavy armaments.
If anything, I wish they’d done a bit more with him, like attempting to deco on some of his original green G2 stickers…
..or giving him some different accessories to either simulate the toy’s giant missile launcher, or the comic’s big handguns and sword, like the Masterpiece did. But for a quick repaint, he’s a slick one, and is my favorite version of this mold by a country mile.
Trenchfoot
So, there’s some debate over who this guy’s supposed to be, but I’m pretty convinced he’s a renamed-for-copyright Pinpointer, the little red and black Targetmaster partner for the Autobot Crosshairs, who actually has a figure coming out in Siege’s last wave, meaning he’s basically meant to go with a completely different figure. (2021 update: I was really, really wrong on this, they did a proper Pinpointer later, in the Netflix line. I’m leaving this up as a testament to my hubris.) That being said, his red and black colorscheme makes him a perfect match for this version of Sideswipe, and gives him some badly-needed extra firepower.
This guy’s a redeco of Blowpipe, and it’s really interesting how casting him in black and red makes the mold look a lot better than the prototype-looking grey and light blue of the original. Aside from that, he’s just as solid as the original Battle Master mold, without much really going on.
He does have a different blast effect part, though, repainted from Caliburst, a sort of squiggly blast with a mushroom-head on the end, and it’s here that I got nailed with a quality control problem in the set. The part is supposed to have an adapter on the end that lets it fit on both small and large pegs throughout figures in the line, but mine seems to be missing that adapter, meaning it can’t peg onto anything, though I could loosely fit it into Sideswipe’s shoulder launcher. However, I was able to drill a hole into the end of it, so it at least fits into the smaller of the two pegs. I’d swap the set out for a new one, but given that everything else in the set came out perfect, I’d rather fix it myself than play quality control roulette. Plus, I’ve never heard of this problem before, so I’d assume it’s a one-off for me.
I spent so much time on that issue because there’s not too much to say about Trenchfoot. Honestly, Battle Masters never really felt worthwhile as single-packed releases to me, and throwing one in with a larger figure feels like a better use of them. He certainly goes well with Sideswipe.
Slamdance
The third figure in this set is a clever retooling of Siege Skytread, into a homage to something totally different: A random Autobot from latter day 1987 G1. Slamdance was kind of odd, conceptually.
He was a two-pack of Autobot cassette tapes (able to fit into Blaster) that, instead of having robot modes, changed into a tank and a jet, Grand Slam and Raindance. The two vehicles could then combine into a robot, Slamdance. Since Skytread already split into a tank and jet, someone had the wild idea to redeco him into a new version of this guy. It kind of has the energy of the old 2008 Transformers: Universe toyline, which contained a grab-bag of unrelated figures repainted into G1 homages.
The Skytread mold was more ambitious than Sidswipe, managing to be two smaller vehicles that combined into a single robot, while still being stable, poseable, and pleasantly blocky, and that all carries over here. Slamdance has the one bit of new tooling in the set, a head based directly on the original toy, which helps sell the homage.
Unlike Sideswipe, his two guns make him feel decently armed, so I don’t feel bad when Sideswipe gets the spare weapon.
He’s got the same faults as Skytread, in that his tank mode’s a bit of an afterthought, and his jet mode suffers from undercarriage, and he had to sacrifice his waist for the gimmick, but he also fixed a little issue I’d had on my copy of Skytread, in that the sides of that tank mode now peg in and stay together, when on the original release, they fit poorly.
Once again, it’s a good-looking repaint. Nothing turns a villain into a hero faster than some red and blue, and the silver highlights compliment the Superman-looking scheme really well.
Also, if you’re a Steven Universe fan, you’ll get a kick out of owning a robot that’s a blue and red thing fused together into a large humanoid with shades on.
Overall
Like I said at the start, this is a really good set, even if it’s kind of a thematic jumble, where they chose three unrelatedly-themed characters instead of any unified idea to the set. You get two good Deluxes, in more interesting colorschemes than their general release, plus a Battlemaster for them to make use of, all at the same price they’d cost if you grabbed the three toolings at retail. If you like any of the figures in the set, in terms of tooling, colors, or identity, then the whole thing’s worth picking up, regardless of its age. Don’t get lost in the quest for the newest things that you pass by great releases like this!
For over 100 Bot, Non-Bot, and Retro Bot Reviews, click here to view my archive.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks