Phil's
Micromaster Military Patrol:
Bombshock, Dropshot, Growl & Tracer
Review

The Micromaster Military Patrol were released in 1990 in the same wave of Micromaster toys that also featured the Monster Truck and Hot Rod Truck Patrols. We can be pretty certain of this because there's been a recent warehouse find of cases of these three patrols meaning that they're available cheaply (aprox £35.00 for a set of all three carded).

The whole team was available in Japan as C-363 Military Team and were packed with Micro Trailer #3.

Bombshock

Bombshock is a green tank armed with a pale grey gun barrel. As is the norm for tracked Transformers he has wheels hidden in his treads. Unlike many other Transformer tanks his turret turns through 360 degrees and his gun barrel elevates ! He's a winner already.

Transformation: Rotate the turret to face backwards along the tank. Bend the front of the tank forward to form the legs. Stand with the underside facing. Fold the rear of the tank down to form the chest. Fold the arms up from the side of the vehicle.

The robot here reveals pale blue on the head, chest and upper legs - he's co-moulded with Dropshot using the same colour plastic. The turret is carried like a backpack and can be rotated still in this mode. The gun barrel will pop out easily but there's no way for it to be hand held. Articulation is the standard for Micromasters: Turning shoulder and bending but linked hips & knees.

Any tank this small that has a turning turret and raising barrel has to be good.

The name Bombshock has recently been used for a Powercore Combiners Commander.

Dropshot

Dropshot is an armoured vehicle with a dual barrelled grey gun on the roof. The gun turns round a full 360 degrees but can't be removed.

Transformation: Fold the rear of the vehicle back to form the legs. Stand with the vehicle's underside facing forward. Fold the vehicle's bonnet down to form the robot's chest. Raise the arms up from the side of the body.

Dropshot's transformation reveals the green that's the main colour of his co-mould Bombshock on the head, body and upper legs of Dropshot's robot mode. Standard Micromaster articulation again.

Growl

Growl is another armoured car, this time in a brown/orange colour. The colour together with the form and the gun mounted on the roof bring to mind the Combaticon Swindle. Said gun can rotate and is removable.... more with this later.

TF: Fold the rear of the vehicle back to form the legs. Stand with the underside of the vehicle towards you. Remove the gun from the figure's back and peg into the arm. Fold the bonnet back onto the robot's back.

Yes, Growl has a hand gun! This is a big leap forward for the Micromasters but sadly there's not many others that use the idea other than Growl and his co-mould Tracer who shares both the brown plastic and the black of the head, body and legs. Standard articulation here again.

Big points for the hand gun.

Tracer

Tracer is a Helicopter, cast mainly in black plastic with grey rotor blades - the same colour as the weapons on the other toys in this team. Unfortunately the peg that holds the blades in is very shallow so isn't that secure.

TF: Fold the tail back, stand the robot on the rear of the helicopter and fold down the nose to become the robot's chest.

Tracer uses very little of a second colour on his robot mode - just the same brown as his co-mould Growl on his legs. The legs look odd with the tail mounted between the knees but they still have the standard Micromaster articulation as do the shoulders. Each arm has a peg hole which allows you to mount the helicopter blades as a weapon, but sadly the peg fits just as loosely as it does in helicopter mode. I've checked and the peg for the helicopter blade is fractionally smaller than that for the gun Growl has so there's no swapping weapons between the two either :-(

Decent toy spoilt by the looseness of the rotor blade

Decent set. Pushes what you can do with Micromasters: hand weapons and the tank's turret & barrel.

Well worth a look.

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