Buzzsaw is in fact some sort of Excavator apparently ! The vehicle has the Saw Blade/Bucket Wheel at the front and what I assume is some sort of conveyor belt at the back to dispose of waste. Flip the treads down and then fold the saw out to one side and the conveyor belt to the other side to form the arms. There's a panel that folds up to cover the gearing on the chest. Head and waist joints here too !"
The Destruction team all involve moving parts powered by a gear arrangement. The vehicle can be rolled along on a flat surface using a small rubber wheel to power the gimmick causing movement. Alternately they can be clipped onto the underside of Cyclonus where an exposed gear wheel meshes with Cyclonus' blade mechanism to cause the parts to move when you use the trigger to turn Cyclonus' blades. The intention was that other toys should have this gimmick - Hoist obviously was planned to have it and I have my suspicions about Overload too. Incidentally after the Minicons peg & socket connectors and the clip under the jets for Swindle/Thunderclash this makes the third method of attaching a Minicon to a larger toy.
The name Buzzsaw implies it's some sort of circular saw which is what it looks like at first glance. However it turns out he's actually a bucket excavator - look it up on Wikpedia - with the arm out the back which is actually a conveyor belt for disposing of excavated material. The spinning disc, side supports, robot head, gear wheel and minicon socket are all moulded in yellow while the rest of the toy is in grey.
He has one Minicon socket underneath the toy which enables it to be mounted on a character's forearm and used as a Buzzsaw. As I said above Megatron's a good toy to demonstrate this with and he can be paired nicely with Drillbit on the other arm.
TF: Fold the treads back behind the vehicle as legs and fold the feet up. Fold the disc arm to one side and the conveyor arm to the other. Swing the conveyor arm up onto the robot shoulder. Fold the robot chest up and make sure the head faces the right way.
Robot is nearly as broad as it is too with a very wide stance. This however serves to give him a rather tough looking appearance. There's a hand moulded into the inside of the conveyor arm, and the other arm has the wheel on the side - now definitely a Buzzsaw - which can be spun freely now it's disconnected from the gearing. He bends at ankle, hip and shoulder. Both waist and head turn.
Overall: 2 decent modes, good gimmick, great as an add on weapon. One of the best Minicons so far.
In Japan Buzzsaw is know as Wheel who appears with the rest of the Destruction team in pack numbered MM-04, and also in giftset MS-04 with Sandstorm (Cyclonus).
Onto the repaints - the Destruction team are the Minicon repaint kings having more than any other team does without having a remould !
Grey becomes black and yellow becomes grey for this release. So not only are they rare, they're also effectively a black variant which is always popular !
Good going Takara !
These are one of the few Japanese Minicon exclusives I've ever been tempted to try and collect.
The Destruction Team return as releases in Wave 2 of the Cybertron Minicon VS packs. Landslide is an Autobot paired with Kobushi - a purple Decepticon repaint of Dune Runner from the Adventure team. Both Adventure and Destruction teams are referred to as Exploration Team on their members Bio sheets - I'll call them Decepticon Exploration team and Autobot Exploration Team.
Landslide's tracks & conveyor arm become a lighter grey than before, the body & wheel arm become yellow and all the yellow plastic becomes a rust brown although some of these pieces - especially the shoulders - are quite heavily painted. This toy feels like they've just moved the colours on the original around a bit !