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By Daniel Lipkowitz, Assistant Editor
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Vehicle Modes
Buzzsaw is not, as one might think, an industrial power saw. In fact, he is a bucket excavator, a vehicle that uses a scoop-lined wheel to remove massive amounts of soil, depositing it on a rear-mounted conveyor belt for removal. In yellow and grey with forest green accents, Buzzsaw is a pretty good example of such an excavator, down to the detailed bucket wheel and tiny operator’s cabin. As the Mini-Con is pushed forward, the wheel spins. The effect is diminished slightly by the fact that it’s spinning in the wrong direction for either sawing or digging, although pulling the vehicle backwards will fix that little problem.
Drill Bit is a bright orange (with grey and yellow accents) drilling machine. His most prominent feature is the giant silver-tipped drill sticking out from the back of the vehicle. If this is modelled after a real piece of equipment, it’s not one that I’m familiar with. Although turned backwards and partially concealed, the robot mode head remains visible in vehicle mode. Oddly, the front window on the orange-painted cockpit is left bare grey plastic, but the side windows are painted a metallic-specked dark blue. As Drill Bit is pushed forward, his drill spins with a loud clicking noise.
Dualor is presumably named for the paired cannons on his turret. A dark grey tank with yellow and blue accents, this very nicely detailed little Mini-Con seems a bit out of place alongside his two non-military team mates. His turret can rotate 360 degrees, and as the tank is pushed forward, the cannons reciprocate, each side recoiling in turn. In an impressive bit of engineering, the recoil action continues to work as the turret is rotated.
Transformation to Robot Mode
Buzzsaw: Swing the treads to the back as legs and flip out the yellow feet. Separate the front and back halves of the wheel/conveyor belt, folding them to the main body’s sides. Fold up the belt’s extension arm to the right shoulder. Raise the yellow panel to form the chest. Turn the head 180 degrees (the instructions show the head in the same position in both modes, but rotating it in vehicle mode conceals the face better).
Drill Bit: Swing down the treads 90 degrees and fold the feet forward. Rotate the head 180 degrees. Fold the drill toward the front of the vehicle to form the right arm. Fold the grey smokestack (?) forward and lower it to form the left arm.
Dualor: Pull the front half of the tank forward to extend the legs, then flip out the feet. Rotate the turret 180 degrees. The instructions say to rotate the head as well, but the face is hidden better in vehicle mode if it’s already turned.
Robot Modes
Buzzsaw is a terrific little Mini-Con, compact, stocky and well-detailed. His left arm has no hand but carries his excavator wheel, and the conveyor arm on his left side ends in a green fist. He has a simple, utilitarian face that only adds to his appearance of being a one-robot industrial wrecking machine. His wheel can be made to rotate by spinning the toothed gear on the back of his shoulder. His Mini-Con symbol appears on his left shoulder.
Drill Bit must have serious trouble keeping his balance. While one arm is an enormous drill, the other is a tiny L-shaped nub. Even as a weapon, it’s pretty silly-looking. Still, there’s something endearing about the little guy, with his mismatched arms, chubby torso and G1 Cosmos-like noggin. His symbol is sculpted onto the shoulder of his drill arm.
Dualor is fairly plain in robot mode. With a large, exposed gear cavity in his torso, almost no paint detailing from the front and a featureless robotic face, he ends up looking rather drone-like. He’s distinguished by a Powerlinx socket that’s very oddly placed, indeed. His symbol can be found at the front of his turret.
Articulation
Buzzsaw has swivels at the shoulder, hips, neck and waist. Thanks to his transformation, he can also point his toes. For a guy with no elbows or knees, he’s got quite a bit of poseability.
Drill Bit isn’t far behind, with swivels at the shoulder, hips and neck, plus pointable toes.
Dualor shares Buzzsaw’s articulation, with swivelling shoulders, hips, neck and waist. And yes, he can point his toes, too.
Features
Every Mini-Con team has a gimmick, and the Destruction Team’s is a pretty nifty one. Each team member has an internal gear system linked to a moving part, making their weapons spin or reciprocate as they’re pushed forward on a flat surface. But that’s not all! In a beautiful bit of planning, each Destruction Mini-Con can also attach to the Cyclonus toy, their vehicle modes plugging in beneath the helicopter’s cockpit. Cyclonus’ own rotor-spinning gear mechanism interfaces with that of the attached Mini-Con, making its weapons move as Cyclonus’ trigger is pulled.
Impressions
Mini-Cons just keep getting more complex and detailed, and it’s impressive how articulated and transformable the Destruction Team members manage to be when their entire torsos are filled with gears. As an issue of personal color preference, I wouldn’t mind a bit less neon yellow, but it’s hard to complain about these terrific little guys. The fact that they were engineered to interact with Cyclonus, and vice versa, is yet another indication of the potential of the Armada line. One oddity, though, is the placement of the Destruction Team’s Powerlinx sockets. It’s been theorized that they may have been a late addition to the molds, and that certainly seems possible. None of the Powerlinx are visible in the prototype shots on the packaging, where Dualor has a totally different waist design and Buzzsaw’s chest panel lies flat in vehicle mode (it’s pushed up a little bit on the final toy where an absent Powerlinx and a waist rotation might have kept it level).
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