Steamhammer with Constructicons

Height: 9.5cm (head height)

Articulation: 12 total points - 3 points each arm: ball joint shoulder, upper arm swivel, hinge elbow; 3 points each leg: ball joint hip, thigh swivel, hinge knee.

Colors:

• Steamhammer Molded "Constructicon green", black, light grey, medium grey; Painted Silver, "Constructicon green", black, red;
• Drones Molded black, grey, orange, off-white, yellow, Hawkes Blue; Painted black, dark green, yellow, red, silver, off-white, blue, orange.

Accessories: Constructicon Drones.

Release Data: Released last quarter 2010 in the US at a retail price of US$19.99

Author: ExVee

(more...)


Steamhammer knows there's another Decepticon team out there with the same name as his.  He doesn't care.  The strength granted him through the Power Core process is more than enough to destroy anyone who dares to challenge him.

It seems like only yesterday that we first learned about Powercore Combiners. Certainly it doesn't feel like over a year has passed since the Toy Fair when fan representatives had their first chance at seeing demonstration of the gimmick, which was quickly reported to an eagerly waiting fandom. In many ways the anticipation that built up and the awe at this new innovation to the classic combiner play pattern was a lot like when Armada was unveiled nearly a decade ago. It saddens me deeply that after all that, the PCC line and its gimmick did not really grab me. But while individual Scouts and new Mini-Cons found their appeal, the combining gimmick in its execution never really clicked with me. So naturally it is with this, the final set of drones that I'm finally properly taken with the combining aspect and seeing it for what I wanted it to be a year ago. No, this toy isn't the final product of the line, or even the last five pack. But it is the final set of new drones in all likelyhood. Yes, this times out perfectly, doesn't it?


Robot Mode

I may be mistaken, but Steamhammer is kind of tiny. Even by standards of five pack figures, the robot mode seems ridiculously short. Of course this comes down to the design of the toy and where the mass was placed. In this case, Steamhammer has a huge backpack of the bulldozer blade, which is more important later, but the amount of material it soaks up forces significant subtraction from the main body mass of the figure. The way the proportions worked out, I can't help seeing Steamhammer as coming across more a juvenile than the way Transformers usually work out.

The poseability is about on par as small Scouts go (in fact it's so much so that I almost called it Basic again...) but there's a little extra to serve for later transformation. But for whatever it's worth, you get swivels above and below the knee for total sideways kneecap action! The major problem though is that between the shape of the pelvis and the top of the hips, the legs can't move forward or backward to anything remotely close to meaningfully. Any attempt to make it happen will ultimately see the legs pop off the ball joints. With legs this stubby and so much mass on top it's not like you could expect much good in the way of posing with the legs, but all the same it really seems weird and feels like a flaw. The arms suffer for having comparatively large chunks of vehicle hanging off them at inconvenient angles which easily run afoul of the blade backpack basically without even trying. It's easiest to keep the arms bent so that the rearward projections stay as low as possible relative to the inner surface of the blade. But no matter what you're looking at problems here. There's a set of claws mounted to hinges under either forearm. They remind me of nothing so much as kama, albeit upside-down and backwards. Sadly although they can be removed from the hinges, they're too wide to have them handheld. In actuality these are the rippers (actual technical term) for the bulldozer mode which landed here I guess just to dump more junk on the arms to get in the way. I guess if these can't be cutting weapons, maybe they can be punching weapons or something. Either that or Steamhammer is a practitioner of an unusual reverse-bladed kama style with the weapons affixed to the arms. No, I'm not overthinking this at all!

Speaking of junk in the trunk, Steamhammer has some floaty bits coming off the backpack. Chunks of tread with some sort of projection off one end that just hang around about an inch off the backpack. If those cylindrical projections are supposed to be guns, they're extremely useless, being able only to fire at the ground in front of Steamhammer in the best of cases. And anything else they might be seems roughly as pointless since I can't even imagine a better use for them than the elaborate fiction I spun around Steamhammer having those rippers attached to the forearms. Thankfully, somehow despite the immense backpack this thing is hauling around, back-heaviness is not a concern. The figure uses the PCC connectors as heel spurs to provide for solid support under the really out of whack center of mass this toy has going on.


Vehicle Mode

Steamhammer turns into what would be a very very large bulldozer at scale. However it's quite small. Though taking up an area roughly equivalent to other PCC commander vehicle forms, the main part of the body is pretty tiny as a result of being comprised almost solely of robot limbs. The tracks make a wide base for the body, but even some Mini-Cons are bigger than the cab section is represented here. The bulk of the vehicle mode is in the form of the blade, very much like the robot mode. The blade can tilt up quite a ways, but besides being of questionable usefulness, it also lets the combiner head peek out underneath. The rippers behind the cab block are hinged as well, but their only degree of movement would be to tuck under the body, lifting it off its wheels. Otherwise the vehicle mode is pretty much a solid little block. There's a Mini-Con port on the roof of the cab, which I'm sure would be useful for something. Probably more than it is in robot mode, at least.

Three items in this set have special paint applications to simulate wear and tear. Steamhammer leads it off with silver "scrapes" on the lower edge of the blade. They're done pretty well to get the effect across. What's a little unusual though is that from some angles you can't really see the paint anymore. Maybe as a combination of the silver paint and metalflake plastic, but unless light is shining straight on the paint, they pretty much disappear into the color of the plastic.


Drones

The major strength of this set is in the drones. There are conflicting opinions on such things as whether combiners need traditional hands - or grasping extremities of any sort, for that matter - or if having guns or slashing claws or cudgels instead is adequate under a concept of GESTALT SMASH!. The prior drone sets tended toward that hack and smash philosophy, with the best of sets only featuring primitive claws at the best of times. Steamhammer, featuring what are most likely the final set of new drone vehicles actually makes some strides past this point. And as if that wasn't enough, it even brings in some new and fairly interesting vehicle choices in the process!

-A Steamroller is something that many have pondered as an addition to Constructicon ranks for years, and while a vehicle-only drone unit may not have been the first choice it's still a good, non-traditional choice for a construction themed group. The steamroller is small, but massive in scale, with two molded seats set to either edge of the operator platform. The left seat has a steering console in front of it as well. The canopy angles down in front more than I'd think it should, but I can't see any way this is an assembly or other production error. The drum wheel in back has trouble rolling in most cases on account of the framework needed to let it serve as a useful foot in limb mode. There's a Mini-Con hardpoint in front so you might add a huge engine or a gun or maybe a Triceratops. The drum wheel is painted with lots of small, thin silver streaks in order to give the appearance of wear. Of the three pieces that have this kind of detail, the steamroller drone probably has the best execution. As a limb, the steamroller is okay. But the footprint is actually very small since only minor parts of the foot are stable. A short heel length in particular can lead to some problems in posing a combined robot. The Mini-Con port ends up just below the knee, but it angles down a bit potentially limiting its usefulness.


-The Plow while still a new vehicle form is probably the least remarkable overall. I mean, a plow is still basically just a truck with a big blade stuck to the front, right? The presence of something like a covered hopper behind the driver compartment makes me think this is the kind of plow used to clear and salt roads specifically. Not exactly a construction job, but okay. Based on the size of the seats in the cab, it looks like this is basically in scale with the steamroller.  The plow also is the last of three pieces to have the weathering paint, this time to indicate the finish being worn off about halfway up the plow blade. This is one of the kind of drones that needs some manual action before transforming. In particular, you have to lift the plow blade up to form the majority of the foot. The hinge is too stiff for the automorph mechanism to move it, and I'm basically positive it's not supposed to anyway. One part I like for no good reason is that the seats on the driver compartment are attached to the hopper bit, and pull out the back of the cab in transformation. It's just one of those small details giving the impression that all parts of the vehicle are involved to some degree with transformation. There's a Mini-Con port on the forward edge of the hopper cover. It sticks straight forward in limb mode, so I suggest attaching Throttler for some really interesting knee strikes. Plow serves as a pretty good foot, especially in comparison to the steamroller what with not having a giant spinny drum in the middle of the foot. Having to manually work the bulk of the foot and a stiff hinge means it's going to be reliably stable. The only part that won't be necessarily is the heel spurs which still work on the PCC autotransform.


-Scoop Loader as the TFWiki calls it is a machine you may have seen during roadwork. This is the thing that torn up scraps of asphalt are swept into during resurfacing jobs to easily load a dump truck or other receptacle. I'm sure these have other applications as well, but I'll always know it as the road eating machine. It's also wonderful, beautiful orange. Even if it wasn't a really awesome machine I'd love it just for this. It has a small hydraulic shovel, hinged at the base, to help move bigger chunks of debris onto the conveyor that runs upward along the length of the vehicle. One benefit of the unfolding way the PCC limbs all transform is that it allows this conveyor to be a continuous piece through the middle of the body rather than being represented separately at different places like a larger, fully transforming toy might have to do. The Mini-Con hardpoint is atop the cab, which will probably make most equippings look kind of strange. I suggest taking that to the greatest extreme possible: That means it's time to dig out a copy of High Wire, because nothing can be weirder than a giant bicycle attached to the roof of a road eating machine's cab. The scoop loader is one part of why I like this set so much, because when transformed into an arm, the limb actually ends with fingers and a movable thumb (hinged at the base so it can flip from right to left handed). This hand so far has not really proven that useful for grabbing things, though I guess if you found something just the right size that wasn't very heavy it'd work out. But yes, I'm in the camp of give me something like a normal hand, even on a giant(er) engine of destruction. Plus the fingers are sculpted into the backside of the loading scoop, so you could still imagine that part as a big smashy surface and that any combined form equipping this unit would have a killer back-hand.


-The last limb I would say is in one sense the most unusual and in another rather traditional. It's a Drilling Rig, specifically a well driller, I'd say. Though this would be the kind for someplace with a high water table or something else not too far underground. Deep-well machines are a much different kind of contraption. But the reason this is different yet familiar is because the body of the vehicle is a lot like the typical steam shovel frame, but with the drill rig in place of the shovel works. It even kind of looks like a conversion job, with the initial length of "arm" being nigh-identical to a steam shovel's, but replaced at the elbow with the big drill apparatus. The drill articulates at that elbow, and can pose between vertical and a little bit above horizontal. The base is hinged as well, but completely immobile in vehicle mode. There's a Mini-Con connector behind the cab. I'd stick a jet on this one. Sadly there's no way to attach Throttler in any way that would look useful. Too bad, a rotating drill rig with the bit at one end and a Mini-Con hardpoint at the other would have been ideal for this purpose. As an arm, it's much like the scoop loader in having a traditional (if three-fingered) hand and opposed thumb which can hinge from left to right. This hand also has a hinge at the wrist, making it a little more poseable. But without a functioning elbow any wrist or hand articulation is largely academic. One thing of note is that driller makes a shorter arm than scoop loader, so any combiner using these as arms will look a little lopsided. Makes it more regrettable that we may never get these recolored so we could use pairs of matching length. Oh, and in arm mode the base hinge of the drill rig can be moved, but only to fold down. It's already at just about its maximum upward tilt in vehicle mode.


Combiner Mode

Steamhammer shares the trait with Grimstone that torso mode is probably more quickly reached from vehicle mode than robot. In this way you could just as easily do like the Energon cartoon did with its combiners and pretend they don't even have an individual robot mode. If you wanted to be like the Energon cartoon, and you don't want that, right?

This is a lot like how Bombshock worked, with a big chunk of stuff flipping over top of the regular robot torso to make a bigger, beefier combiner body. In this case head, chest and shoulders all hide on the backside of the bulldozer blade. Unusually for combiner cores designed for the five packs, Steamhammer gains a Mini-Con hardpoint in the middle of the combiner chest. The combiner body is built to look very broad-chested, with a decidedly unsubtle step down to a pretty narrow abdomen and waist. Definitely bigger across the shoulders than Grimstone, and while the torso width from shoulder to shoulder is identical on Huffer/Crankcase, Steamhammer just LOOKS bigger.

The only issues of note are with the legs. For one, the legs are supposed to clip into place by tabbing into channels on the sides of the pelvis. The problem comes when it's time to unclip. The tabs are really worryingly thin and it's very difficult to actually pull them free of the slots. Even though I can't see any stress marks developing yet, I'm deathly afraid of these thin tabs snapping off one day. The fact that the legs need to assume this position for vehicle mode too isn't helping matters any. But it might actually be an argument for just skipping Steamhammer's tiny little individual robot mode afterall...  The other problem is that what becomes the combiner's universal hip joints are on the loose side, especially the swivel portion. They'll hold the toy's weight, but any even somewhat extreme degree of posing can defeat their friction and lead to the splits or beyond. Less a problem and more just a minor irritation is that there's not a lot of wiggle room in the shoulder connectors. Some PCCs have the shoulder connectors on enough hinges or otherwise moving parts that you can boost total shoulder range, but Steamhammer's only hinge upward. Useful for a little bit, but not very much ultimately.

Steamhammer's combiner head looks like it's supposed to have lightpiping or something, but it doesn't. I'm not sure it'd really be possible, anyway. I'm lead to this by the "face" portion being a visibly separate piece from the surrounding head, and then a visor painted in the middle of that piece. Maybe that piece can be substituted for clear plastic when run in a two pack with a Mini-Con or something, even if not light-piped. The head can turn a few degrees to either side; a wide helmet shape and a big square hinge directly behind the head prevent it going any meaningful distance. Steamhammer has antennae that fold away for all other modes. Despite looking vaguely like little guns they cannot point forward - the farthest they can hinge is from pointing horizontally backward to straight up. I bet in most cases you'll end up forgetting to raise them at all. ...I usually do...

The biggest issue you'll find in combined mode is probably the steamroller foot giving out a bit, even if just to a table slightly uneven. Posing so the edge of the foot is carrying the weight kind of helps, but it's still a heck of a small foot print to work with. The combined mode is really wide bodied because of how the arm drones transform. Steamhammer's torso mode made to look broad chested as it is pulls off the wide shoulders easily. The entire combined mode looks more unified than most of the others. The arms are pretty symmetrical looking, and especially having more traditional hands seem like a better extension of Steamhammer. The leg drones aren't quite as matched, but having similar widths and overall shapes makes them look like nothing so much as boots in a way other leg drones never seemed to manage. It may be to do with not having cannons, blades or small puppies pop out of hidden compartments in the process and settling for just being square boxes to stand on, but that's just a guess. Equipping any other four drones to Steamhammer quickly shifts the torso mode to being a lot like any other torso. Using the Dinobots helps a little with being unified again, but only because the four limbs all match colors.

Meanwhile, adding the Constructicon drones to any other torso results in what I find to be a marked improvement, leading me to the natural conclusion that it's just a really well designed and executed set of limbs that make a solid looking combiner with just about anyone. Leveraging Smolder's unusually constructed shoulders (or I guess Stakeout too) even improves them functionally and creates potentially the best and most poseable combined form available.



Closing Remarks

Steamhammer itself might not be any special note for PCC, but the limbs are worth paying attention to. They're a good high note to meet the end of the line with, in terms of new mold production. I'm sorry it took until the line had about run out before we got here and that this set has been hard to get hold of, but I'm not disappointed with the result at all. The Constructicon drones will dress up any commander robot you want to use very effectively, as well as making their own commander into a very nice combined robot. Steamhammer is a little dwarfish by itself, largely ...er, primarily as a consequence of carrying the bulldozer mode's blade and thus the combiner mode upper body as a backpack. It's a lot of mass to lose out of useful application within the robot mode.

If Powercore Combiners didn't grab you before, give this set a shot. Trust me, there's a reason that I haven't reviewed any of these before this one. Steamhammer and his little vehicle pets aren't perfect, but they're a lot more like what I wanted out of the line to start with and I really wish we could proceed on with more designs building off of these. But if not, I'm glad that we got at least one really solid set of limbs before the line bowed out for the movie's return. Alone I'd call Steamhammer Good, but the drones really pick this one up, and the package as a whole scores an easy Excellent.

Too bad I'll never get the special super-poseable non-automorphing limbs I dreamed of from early in the line, but at least I got a pair of hands, right?

-ExVee