Phil's
Classics Minicon Sledge,
Micron Booster Rockblade
and
Universe Backstop
Review
Sledge is a digger. You can't hate diggers. The main body of the digger is black with blue painted cab windows and so red highlights. He's got a shovel in front which raises where connected to the body and at the shovel, and a scoop at the back hinged in 3 places and which folds to the side. Both the shovel and scoop are connected by arms coloured in yellow. Hey what about a deluxe version of this vehicle Hasbro ?
He's got one Minicon socket under the cab - mounting this vehicle on the forearm of a larger toy with the scoop arm at the back sticking out will look quite nice.
Fold the wheels down so they're in front of the vehicle, fold the connecting piece they're on back so it's under the vehicle, and rotate at what is now the hip so that the shovel becomes his right arm, the scoop is his left and the cab is in the middle. The cab then folds to his left to reveal the head.
His robot mode has a swivel below the hips - careful this joint is just pegged in, hips that bend, a ball jointed waist, his right shoulder is ball jointed while the left arm bend forwards & backwards but doesn't turn. Each arm has whatever articulation it had in vehicle mode.
Not the worst Minicon but the arms do look a little odd.
Sledge was available in the Demolition team 3 pack with Wideload and Broadside.
Rockblade is a common toy in Micron Booster V4. Like his predecessor he's a mainly black Decepticon which changes the yellow for bright pale blue, blue paint for purple and red paint for green.
Somehow the recolour doesn't work and I suspect the presence of the pale blue is to blame !
Backstop appears in the Universe Minicon 12 pack which was exclusive to K-Mart in the US and Woolworths in the UK. This time he's an Autobot. The black is swapped for brown but is mostly painted over in yellow. The yellow becomes a brighter shade and some new highlights are added.
They've done a good job with this repaint, the yellow for once is right for a construction vehicle. May well try to pick this up when the single pack version comes out.
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