Phil's
Armada & Universe Smokescreen
and
Micron Legend Grapp
Review


Smokescreen

Armada Smokescreen's vehicle mode is a orange crane. So straight off that bat the name is wrong - an Autobot Crane of that sort of colour should be Grapple. Did the loose the name Grapple ? Or did they need to hold onto the name Smokescreen ?

As I said above Orange is used for the main body of the crane
Grey is used for the crane arm itself (and the robot's upper legs)
Black is used for the wheels, front bumper and the winder for the tow cable.
Blue is used for the crane hook, tow hook & missile

Quite nice crane mode - you need a minicon attached to slide the extension out, but get too far and a missile launcher deploys from the end of it. One other (dead) hardpoint on the roof. Winch on the back is quite fun, the hook has a minicon connector on it. Back of the vehicle becomes the robot's chest - winch is deployable here still, front becomes his legs and his arms. Crane ends up on the shoulder SFC ladder style, and when you rotate it the head moves too. No fist holes again here - moulded inner and undersides of fists, the dead hard point not being on the outside of the right hand.

Smokescreen & Liftor were availible in Japan as MC-04 Grap (surely a bad translation of Grapple ?) and Lift. They were also in the MS-02 giftset with the race team.

See also the Armada Hoist review.


Battle In A Box Smokescreen

Smokescreen is a new version of the Armada Smokescreen crane,

Orange becomes dark blue
Grey becomes a slightly different shade
Black is still black
Blue becomes yellow.

Although the blue looks nice I'm afraid it just brings out (somehow) the squatness of the toy which doesn't do it any favours at all. Not the best repaint ever.

Smokescreen is packed with a repainted Liftor with both set against Ransack - a badly repainted Hoist - and a repainted Refute.


Further repaints

I'm surprised we never got a Decepticon version in green as hook !


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