....Or three-fourths of the team, anyway. At least for now.

So in my quest to complete my G1 toy collection, I eventually became aware of how rare it was to actually find a Military Patrol for sale in which Tracer still had his helicopter blades. It's a detachable piece, and it's easily lost. Almost all the eBay auctions I've seen are missing this piece. On rare occassions, you'll see a complete team for about $100 or so, or you can buy one still sealed in the original packaging for closer to $500. That's just insane.

But, I wasn't aware of how rare a complete Tracer was until recently, so it stood to reason that there are other people out there who don't know it, either. I thought maybe if I waited, I'd eventually find one for a semi-decent price. I ended up spotting an auction with three out of four Micromasters, and a complete Tracer, that closed at $43. It's still pricy for Micromasters (most of the Patrols I got last year were usually $20 or $25) but these guys were also from the last year of the toy line, and probably weren't produced in as large quantities.

So, I have Bombshock and Dropshot and Tracer, but no Growl right now. I'm sure I'll track him down eventually. My guess is within the next six months. We'll see if I'm right.

I used to call these guys the Micromaster Combaticons, and I did have them on my want list at one point as a kid. But, 1990 was also the year of all those amazing Action Masters, and that was usually what I spent my money on..

BOMBSHOCK

Measuring 1.75" in length, Bombshock is a Leopard tank, and looks like a super tiny version of Brawl (or a slightly smaller version of Bludgeon). He's a bright kelly green with a light grey barrel and painted light grey treads. There is some blue visible on the front of the tank, which is the hinge for his leg transformation.

The tank's turret can swivel, the barrel can pivot a fully 90 degrees, and he rolls around on four black wheels that are tucked away and hidden on the inside of the treads. (The tank barrel is shown as purple on the toy's packaging, but it was switched to light grey for the final production run.)

Unlike Brawl, the front of the tank forms the legs. So, to transform him, you have to swivel the turret out of the way to create enough clearance for the legs to unfold. He has a chest panel that folds down to reveal the robot head. After that, it's just a matter of positioning the arms how you like (the molded fists are embedded inside the tank treads). The instructions call for the gun barrel to be folded down, pointing backwards, but he looks fine with it poking up in the air, too.

As a robot, he's two inches in height. He's green with a blue head and upper legs. Despite the addition of the blue, he resembles Brawl in this form as well, especially the way the tank treads form the arms. He's a cute little death machine, and I'm sure Bludgeon is happy that there's at least one Decepticon tank smaller than him that he can boss around.

Bombshock recently enjoyed a comeback in 2020, getting his second toy as part of Siege.

DROPSHOT

Dropshot is also 1.75" long in vehicle mode. He is gang-molded with Bombshock, sharing the same blue color for his vehicle form. He's an APC with a dual-barreled turret mounted to the top, so he looks like a tiny version of Breacher from the Hunt for the Decepticons toy line. (He resembles Onslaught a little less.) Unlike the weapons for Growl and Tracer, the dual cannon is not removable. But, it does rotate freely. His windows are unpainted.

He transforms like a standard Micromaster, with the rear half of the vehicle unfolding to form the legs, and the hood swinging down to reveal the robot head.

As a robot, he's two inches tall. He's got blue arms and lower legs, a green head and upper legs, and a red-painted pelvis and face. It's an odd choice of colors, especially for a Decepticon. He looks a little Christmasey. His head sculpt is very Jazz-like, especially the triangular-shaped visor that seems to cover the top half of his nose.

Like Bombshock, Dropshot is shown on his packaging with a purple-colored weapon, but it was switched to grey for the final release.

TRACER

I had anticipated that Tracer (and his buddy Blaze Master from the same product year, who uses the same rotor blade design) were going to be among the hardest Transformer to acquire complete and intact. It feels weird to own one finally.

Tracer shares a name with one of the Autobot Targetmaster partners to Scoop from 1988. It's not the first time a name was recycled within the Transformers franchise (there is both a Micromaster and a Pretender named Sky High, and both a Micromaster and an Insecticon named Barrage) but it was the first time a name was reassigned to from the Autobot team to the Decepticon team.

So, in helicopter mode he's about 2.25" long. He's an Apache chopper (like G2 Powerdive) with some liberties taken with the design, most notably the oversized rear engines. He rolls on two working wheels as well as a third, non-rollng wheel, like the ones on Powerglide, hanging from his tail section. He's black almost in his entirety, with only the grey chopper blades and some visible brown parts on the undercarriage. He has light blue painted windows.

To transform him, you pop the helicopter blades off and lose them forever. Those large rear engines straighten out to become the legs, while the tail section just sort of tucks out of the way a little. The nose section flips down to form the chest, revealing the head, and the side landing wheels are the arms.

He's only about 1.75" in height, still mostly black with some brown upper legs. The rotor blades are meant to attach to his right arm for use as a weapon in this form. Vortex couldn't do this, but you know who could? Cop-Tur, the Tonka GoBot. That guy was a visionary.

Tracer is a little weird and spindly, but it was either give him a lanky robot mode, or give him a fat, chunky helicopter mode, I suppose. I think they made a good choice.

Sadly, these guys never made any media appearances during the G1 days, owing to the lateness of their arrival on the scene. But, they're still pretty cool little toys in their own right.

Zob (not feeling well today, but I'm always willing to write about toys)

Great review, Zob, as always. Thank you! And I had no idea about the relative value of those blades, either.

Hope you're feeling better. :)

JB

On Wednesday, May 11, 2022 at 4:56:35 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> ...Or three-fourths of the team, anyway. At least for now.
>
> So in my quest to complete my G1 toy collection, I eventually became aware of how rare it was to actually find a Military Patrol for sale in which Tracer still had his helicopter blades. It's a detachable piece, and it's easily lost. Almost all the eBay auctions I've seen are missing this piece. On rare occassions, you'll see a complete team for about $100 or so, or you can buy one still sealed in the original packaging for closer to $500. That's just insane.
>
> But, I wasn't aware of how rare a complete Tracer was until recently, so it stood to reason that there are other people out there who don't know it, either. I thought maybe if I waited, I'd eventually find one for a semi-decent price. I ended up spotting an auction with three out of four Micromasters, and a complete Tracer, that closed at $43. It's still pricy for Micromasters (most of the Patrols I got last year were usually $20 or $25) but these guys were also from the last year of the toy line, and probably weren't produced in as large quantities.
>
> So, I have Bombshock and Dropshot and Tracer, but no Growl right now. I'm sure I'll track him down eventually. My guess is within the next six months. We'll see if I'm right.
>
> I used to call these guys the Micromaster Combaticons, and I did have them on my want list at one point as a kid. But, 1990 was also the year of all those amazing Action Masters, and that was usually what I spent my money on.
>
> BOMBSHOCK
>
> Measuring 1.75" in length, Bombshock is a Leopard tank, and looks like a super tiny version of Brawl (or a slightly smaller version of Bludgeon). He's a bright kelly green with a light grey barrel and painted light grey treads. There is some blue visible on the front of the tank, which is the hinge for his leg transformation.
>
> The tank's turret can swivel, the barrel can pivot a fully 90 degrees, and he rolls around on four black wheels that are tucked away and hidden on the inside of the treads. (The tank barrel is shown as purple on the toy's packaging, but it was switched to light grey for the final production run.)
>
> Unlike Brawl, the front of the tank forms the legs. So, to transform him, you have to swivel the turret out of the way to create enough clearance for the legs to unfold. He has a chest panel that folds down to reveal the robot head. After that, it's just a matter of positioning the arms how you like (the molded fists are embedded inside the tank treads). The instructions call for the gun barrel to be folded down, pointing backwards, but he looks fine with it poking up in the air, too.
>
> As a robot, he's two inches in height. He's green with a blue head and upper legs. Despite the addition of the blue, he resembles Brawl in this form as well, especially the way the tank treads form the arms. He's a cute little death machine, and I'm sure Bludgeon is happy that there's at least one Decepticon tank smaller than him that he can boss around.
>
> Bombshock recently enjoyed a comeback in 2020, getting his second toy as part of Siege.
>
> DROPSHOT
>
> Dropshot is also 1.75" long in vehicle mode. He is gang-molded with Bombshock, sharing the same blue color for his vehicle form. He's an APC with a dual-barreled turret mounted to the top, so he looks like a tiny version of Breacher from the Hunt for the Decepticons toy line. (He resembles Onslaught a little less.) Unlike the weapons for Growl and Tracer, the dual cannon is not removable. But, it does rotate freely. His windows are unpainted.
>
> He transforms like a standard Micromaster, with the rear half of the vehicle unfolding to form the legs, and the hood swinging down to reveal the robot head.
>
> As a robot, he's two inches tall. He's got blue arms and lower legs, a green head and upper legs, and a red-painted pelvis and face. It's an odd choice of colors, especially for a Decepticon. He looks a little Christmasey. His head sculpt is very Jazz-like, especially the triangular-shaped visor that seems to cover the top half of his nose.
>
> Like Bombshock, Dropshot is shown on his packaging with a purple-colored weapon, but it was switched to grey for the final release.
>
> TRACER
>
> I had anticipated that Tracer (and his buddy Blaze Master from the same product year, who uses the same rotor blade design) were going to be among the hardest Transformer to acquire complete and intact. It feels weird to own one finally.
>
> Tracer shares a name with one of the Autobot Targetmaster partners to Scoop from 1988. It's not the first time a name was recycled within the Transformers franchise (there is both a Micromaster and a Pretender named Sky High, and both a Micromaster and an Insecticon named Barrage) but it was the first time a name was reassigned to from the Autobot team to the Decepticon team.
>
> So, in helicopter mode he's about 2.25" long. He's an Apache chopper (like G2 Powerdive) with some liberties taken with the design, most notably the oversized rear engines. He rolls on two working wheels as well as a third, non-rollng wheel, like the ones on Powerglide, hanging from his tail section. He's black almost in his entirety, with only the grey chopper blades and some visible brown parts on the undercarriage. He has light blue painted windows.
>
> To transform him, you pop the helicopter blades off and lose them forever.. Those large rear engines straighten out to become the legs, while the tail section just sort of tucks out of the way a little. The nose section flips down to form the chest, revealing the head, and the side landing wheels are the arms.
>
> He's only about 1.75" in height, still mostly black with some brown upper legs. The rotor blades are meant to attach to his right arm for use as a weapon in this form. Vortex couldn't do this, but you know who could? Cop-Tur, the Tonka GoBot. That guy was a visionary.
>
> Tracer is a little weird and spindly, but it was either give him a lanky robot mode, or give him a fat, chunky helicopter mode, I suppose. I think they made a good choice.
>
> Sadly, these guys never made any media appearances during the G1 days, owing to the lateness of their arrival on the scene. But, they're still pretty cool little toys in their own right.
>
>
> Zob (not feeling well today, but I'm always willing to write about toys)

On Wednesday, May 11, 2022 at 5:56:35 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
> So, I have Bombshock and Dropshot and Tracer, but no Growl right now. I'm sure I'll track him down eventually.

Ended up finding an auction for Growl, and another Bombshock, for like $25. Growl is another character with a removable piece, so most of the ones on eBay are missing his gun. This was clearly unacceptable. But, the gang is back together now, and I can finish my review of the team.

GROWL

In vehicle mode, little Growl is a tiny FMC XR311 combat vehicle. It's the same type of vehicle the G1 Swindle toy transformed into, before Sunbow redesigned him and decided that he was "really" a Willys MB jeep. This guy, particularly his color, went a long way towards making this team feel like the Micromaster Combaticons.

His vehicle mode is 1.75" in length, and is the same brown color as was used on parts of Tracer (every Micromaster in a four-pack was gang-molded with another member from the same Patrol). They gave him a closed canopy instead of an open one, though. His light grey gun, which is only an inch long, mounts on the top of the vehicle form. It just plugs in with a peg, so you can rotate it, but it doesn't lock in place.

His transformation is pretty much G1 Swindle. The back of the vehicle unfolds into the legs, and the hood swings up and rests on the robot's back. His gun can detach and is designed to mount onto the outside of either one of his arms as a robot. He is, I believe, the only Micromaster who carries a handheld gun. He can trade accessories with Tracer, too, if he wants.

As a robot, he's only about 1.75" in height, roughly Tracer's size, but much shorter than Bombshock or Dropshot. He's brown with a black body and upper legs, with a grey painted pelvis. His face looks a lot like Skystalker from 1989. His arms are short and stubby, like a Terrorcon, and he can only raise them about 90 degrees.

I always wanted these little guys, back in the day. I had no real way of knowing that 1990 was going to be the last product year for G1 (though honestly the writing on the wall was kind of obvious, even when I was 13 years old). If I'd known, I might have made sure to pick them up before there were no G1 Transformers left at all. But, the upshot of that is that I finally get to enjoy them for the first time, many years after the fact.

Zob (I'm never going to get those Detolf shelves if I keep buying toys like I do)