Hoist (and Wheeljack) are the last original mould Supercon toys for Armada and come after a bad patch of new toys in this size class. Hoist is in the Cartoon the upgraded form of Smokescreen. This new toy is an excavator - only the second one of this size ever done in Transformers after Grimlock (RID) / Build Hurricane (Car Robots). What we get here is a white cabin which can rotate round 360 degrees on top of brown tracks (moulded with embedded wheels) and an orange arm ending in a brown shovel. When I see construction vehicles I automatically think yellow (not Constructicon green !) but the colours used here are sensible and realistic. The name Hoist I connect with tow trucks but save using the Grimlock name (surely better used for a Dinobot) I can't think of anything more appropriate for this toy.
There's four Minicon ports on the toy, one each side of the cab and one on each side of the back of the cab - these are moulded in the same grey blue plastic as the grill on the front of the cab. The Minicon post behind the shovel arm is meant to power a gimmick that unlocks the shovel arm for use - there's a tiny piece of blue plastic behind & under the shovel arm that prevents you from moving the arm and this is meant to spring back when you place a Minicon on the post. It doesn't and in fact on mine it's now broken and won't even lock in place. This leaves the gimmick permanently active - push in on the post on the back of the cab that the shovel arm is attached to and watch the arm extend & spring forward then automatically pull back on release. Great for knocking other TFs over with ! I remember demonstrating this to John Cullen in the pub the London TMUK mob drank in on Charring Cross road and him loving it - it's a great action feature in keeping with the toy's function.
There is some speculation that Hoist is meant to power the Adventure and Destruction team's gear gimmicks - indeed Hoist's Minicon Refute also has a gear gimmick. I suspect this would have been mounted where the Autobot symbol is on the shovel arm (or possibly on the side where the Minicon port is) It's a shame it's not included as I feel it would have added to the toy.
TF: Rotate the tracks so they're as under the cab as it's possible to be and the little wheel between them is at the front. Unclip the tracks from each other at the back and fold each track out to the side and forward. Fold the connecting pieces out so they're flat against the front of each track and fold the feet up. Pull each track/leg out the side slightly and then fold down under the vehicle. Swing the shovel arm down at the front so that the Autobot symbol faces forward. Swing the shovel out to the side 90 degrees and fold down the claw/thumb in opposition to the shovel. Swing the opposite side of the cab down at the back to form the other arm, folding the claw out at the end, then rotating at the bicep joint so the larger claw is on top. Fold the head up from behind the cab and turn to face forward.
The resulting robot is *VERY* posable almost at the BW deluxe level, with adjustable feet (clever) that can either be flat or slightly bent in at one side making a slightly spread legs pose the default, forward bending knees (as well as a sideways joint from the TF), ball jointed hips, shoulders - that swing out about 20 degrees from the side of the toy as well as turn, left arm has a bicep swivel and a bending elbow, an opening claw as his left hand with the right arm ending in the shovel which looks big at first but works better than you think and there's even the opposable claw/thumb against the shovel. His head - mounted on a ball joint -is moulded in the same brown as the treads and has a resemblance to the Beast Wars toy Dinobot which is quite neat because Dinobot was repainted as Grimlock which was the name of the previous TF deluxe excavator.
He's got four Minicon posts - two on the side of each shoulder, one at the top of the right shoulder, and the other in the left palm. If you flip the right arm round - so the shovel is extending out the back of the shoulder - you end up with 2 otherwise symmetrical arms with minicon posts at the end of either arm..... Time for some fun. Try to reinact a great Death's Head moment by placing Sky Blast on the end of an arm as a missile. Indeed you can connect the entire Requiem Blaster onto the end of the arm using Skyblast or at right angles by exposing the hole on Payload. Or try putting Ransack onto a post to form a grappling line attachment for him - his good interaction with Ransack is another little clue to him perhaps being meant as a gear powering toy. A little further experimentation shows that putting some blu tack on the posts allows the original Ultra Magnus large fists to attach to this..... or plug a Zoids Blox (Z-Builder) Block into the end of the arm which can act as a hand and let him hold most TF (and many Zoid) Weapons. OK he doesn't have 5mm peg holes for hands but makes up for it by having plenty of Minicon ports on his arms allowing him to use most of the combined Minicon weapons.
Wow. For what is possibly to be the last original Armada Supercon - only repaints known of at this time - this is the best. It's a fantastic toy - and that's even including a minicon that's no good - best of this size for Armada and an absolute must have in my opinion. If I was forced to choose just one Armada toy then this would be it, and I rather suspect he'd be floating in my all time top ten Transformers list. He's that good and towers over the rest of the Armada Supercon line.
Hoist was available in Japan as Micron Legend toy MC-11 Grappe Super Mode (Grapple) and also in giftset MS-07 with the adventure team strengthening the thought that he may originally have been meant to be powering their gear gimmick. The Japanese version swaps a silver/grey for the brown.
I've long maintained that Ransack and his Minicon Refute (repainted in Green) rank amongst the worst repaints I've ever seen. But I've been thinking. What if the colours ended up on the wrong bits ? Move the green to where all the purple is on Ransack. Move Ransack's purple to his legs and Refute's wheels. Get rid of the brown or move it to Refute. You then get an eminently sensible Constructicon Scavenger with colours close but not exactly like the G1 original (scavenge and ransack aren't that far removed in meaning so you can see where they plucked the name from) packed with a Minicon you could have easily named Shrapnel for a second G1 homage.
Hopefully the Galaxy Force Longrack repaint will ease the pain of what's happened here !
An odd choice perhaps ? Well both of these have very mismatched arms, with the larger arm on the right. Hoist has gained a beautifully moulded and coloured mini version of Longrack's head. Hoist's "rear of shovel mechanism" has been remoulded to vaguely, and I mean *VERY* vaguely resemble a Giraffe head. His right shoulder has a remould and that's where the force Chip goes. Without the chip the shovel can't move, which was some of the original intention of Hoist's Gimmick.
Colourwise all the white is now yellow with brown stripes applied on the cab, and the legs - whether brown or orange are now grey. Red replaces the blue/grey for the hands and shovel while the cab bumper and robot shoulders are a very dark blue
It's a Very nice colour scheme that works as both animal and construction vehicle. He has a Cybertron Autobot Chip.
Overall - lovely job, favourite of the 4, makes up for the horror that is Battle in a Box Ransack.
Dinobot uses the Longrack version of the Hoist toy but with one modification - it has the original Dinobot like head. All the white is now brown with gold stripes, the orange is gold, the grey/blue is a very bright blue and the legs are all beige. The shoulder panel has a purple Predacon symbol painted on it.
It's a decent enough repaint, but I suspect the only reason for choosing it as Dinobot is the head.... Though the Dinobot = Grimlock thing and Grimlock being the name for the Cybertron Excavator may also have come into play.