Quickmix comes with Minicon Stripmine - see separate review.
Quickmix is the fifth Transformer Cement Mixer to be released. The first was Mixmaster - and all his subsequent repaints, then Dual Targetmaster Quickmix, then Takedown the MM and finally back in the early 90s the Micromaster Sixbuild cement mixer which I can't find the name for - but it has in turn been repainted as the Micromaster Devastator Mixmaster. Compared to Cement Mixers, Bikes have got a good deal ! In addition there is a Brave Gao Gai Gar Cement mixer which ends up as a robot with a cannon for an arm.
Quickmix is a mainly Orange cement mixer with some grey and yellow detail, and a light grey and cream mixer drum. Broadly the colours are similar to Dual Targetmaster Quickmix. Stripmine's Blue & Yellow does also match TM Quickmix's Targetmasters - nice touch. The drum does rotate, but only if disconnected from it's feeder mechanism first. There's a grey lump with a curved front sticking from the front of the vehicle. It looks a little odd but I can conceive that it might be a winch so we'll let it pass for now. There's a Minicon port on the cab - the engine exhaust detail here puts me in mind of either Energon or Cybertron Landmine - and another on the rear of the vehicle mounted on what look like a pair of exhaust pipes. The front of the mixer drum rest in a groove at the behind the cab - can pop out if you lift the vehicle by the mixer drum. The back of the drum is pegged into a feeder arrangement for the drum - a box with a chute behind it., and both are connected to an arm the goes to the side of the toy.
If you fold up the top of back of the feeder bucket up and over the front, there's a hole exposed that the peg at the back of Stripmine fits into, enabling him to act as a weapon on the cement mixer. This will expose 2 small pegs. From here if you then fold the entire feeder bucket back you'll get a control panel that Stripmine's robot can stand at - the pegs fit the holes in Stripmine's arms, so it's quite possible that Armada Thrust's Minicon, Inferno, might also be able to operate it. Folding the console back has in turn exposed the key socket - but to use it you'll need to pull the mixer drum free from it's mount at the back of the cab and straighten the rear arm. If you then insert the Giant Planet Key (Cybertron #ve37) the 2 halves of the mixer drum pop apart revealing a missile launcher - a blue shaft ending in a yellow tip surrounded by clear plastic. The missile launcher is fired from a trigger in front of the key socket. The cannon can raise about 45 degrees and turn through 180 degrees - an excellent second vehicle mode.
To Tf to Robot Work Mode - and I'm guessing here somewhat as it's not on the instructions or box but given that the 2 other work modes are shorter forms of the main robot I think we can work it out - start with the cannon mode and fold down the rear wheels under the vehicle like Cybertron Mudflap. Unpeg the rear of the vehicle and fold out behind him. Bend that out to the side of the vehicle from on top, and bend the cannon to the other side unclipping the feeder mechanism/control console. Fold down the orange panel that is revealed. Then rotate the head that was under it. Separate the 2 halves of the front of the vehicle - the front of the cab is attached to one half, and the rear to the other. This will now rotate to form the robot's knees. Fold out the grey structure that might be a winch to form the feet - there's much more of this running inside the cab legs - but the red spots want to be at the rear. Position the arm and the cannon.
To TF from there to Robot Battle Mode pull down on the legs. Wasn't much difference was there ? So little that I'll skip talking about the work mode as all comments relate to the battle mode.
The robot mode is reminiscent of the cannon for the arm Gao Gai Gar toy I mentioned earlier so you're loosing an arm straight away. The body of the toy is grey with an orange chest plate, shoulders, left forearm and lower legs. His head is orange, with silver and grey detailing and a yellow ear piece and mike headset. He's got a lightpipe visor but it's the same clear plastic as the rest of the toy and not as effective as many other lightpipes.
We need to talk about the articulation. Obviously the cannon arm is going to be odd, but it's only limit is that it can't 100% straighten at the elbow, and that the control console hangs behind it - if you remove the key though you can fold & swing the control console under the cannon. The other arm is more of a worry. For not the first time recently the elbow bends oddly. For effectiveness arms should be able to bend so the arm forms an L shape with the fist upright. Here the arm bends and the fist is on the side of the L - for the fist to still be upright the arm would be folded over the front of the chest. A wrist or forearm swivel would have fixed that. Both arms have biceps swivels, swing out to the sides at the shoulders, and have shoulders that move forward and back. The neck turns. The hips bend to the sides, there's a swivel at the bottom of each thigh just above the knee, knees bend back and ankles fold to sides and swivel. Spot what was missing ? That's right the hips don't bend to the front or back*. If you don't have that you can effectively forget about the knee joints being useful as well. The panels the hips are connected to are sloped to the sides but there's no reason at all the hips couldn't have been connected to a central piece that moved down through body like these sloped panels do. My only thought is they tried it with hips and the cannon proved too heavy for balance. But we'll not know unless someone asks the design team at Botcon.
* The dept of corrections would like the following to be registered: The hips _do_ move forwards and back in a walking motion. Excessive force is needed to get them to move. If RID Ultra Magnus had had hip joints this tight then Omega Prime would have had a chance of standing up. If I hadn't been told I wouldn't have had a clue that they did move the joint is that tight.
The feet are by necessity very big at the front to support the robot with the cannon. However I can't see why they couldn't have made the feet fold up like Mudflap's thus eliminating the sting out bit at the front of the vehicle.
Minicon posts - the one from the top of the front of the cab is now on his right knee, and the one from the back of the vehicle is now on his left forearm. In addition there's now 2 on the chest plate - not a lot of use to anything other than maybe Ransack, or for a Madonna impersonation involving 2 Skyblasts ! (someone needs to take a photo of this)
So overall - Excellent Minicon with a small problem with it's socket. OK but limited main vehicle mode - I want my mixer drums to turn ! Very good 2nd vehicle mode. Stunning integration of the Minicon into both vehicle modes. Attractive robot mode. I like the toy, it's good, but a couple of tweaks here and there would have made it really quite excellent. Worth while getting.
The recolour gives the robot a more military green feel, but it's Transformers Universe, we're looking for toys that are evocative of past glories here. If you're going to make a Decepticon cement mixer then *please* go the whole hog, colour it completely green and call it Mixmaster rather than a mishmash of colours under a name used for Autobot and Minicon trucks !