Whenever I'm buying something on eBay, I always make it a point to check to see what else the seller has available.  If he's got something else I want, and I can get it for a reasonable price, then it only makes sense to get a few things together and only have to pay shipping once.  

So, when I discovered the auction for a complete Greasepit, I checked to see what else the seller was offering, and he had another auction for an incomplete Groundshaker (missing one ramp and a gun) and an incomplete Ironworks (missing the rocket).  Aside from the missing parts, though, the toys looked to be in fine shape, and the auction for both was hovering right around $20 for several days.  It was the same guy who had listed then as "TRANSFROMERS" toys, so nobody who searched for "Transformers" was going to see the listing.  

But, the Greasepit auction and the Groundshaker/Ironworks auction were going to end within seconds of each other, so I wouldn't have time to snipe both auctions.  So, I decided to play it smart and logged onto both my desktop computer and my phone at the same time, queuing up a different auction on each device.  I ended up getting the Groundshaker/Ironworks auction for about $39, well under market value (Groundshaker alone tends to sell for close to $70, and I've seen Ironworks sell for just as much).  Happy day!  

Today we're going to look at Ironworks, and as soon as I get my extra Groundshaker parts, I'm sure I'll have some things to say about him as well.

So, the Micromaster figure itself is a redeco of Powertrain, from the Autobot Off-Road Patrol.  Ironworks is gang-molded with Greasepit, and shares the same plastic colors.  As a vehicle, he's a semi tractor trailer cab, mostly yellow with fuscia-painted windows.  He's got a consumer-applied sticker on the rear of the truck that denotes his company of origin as "RI CONSTRUCTION," a cheeky reference to Rhode Island, the location of the Hasbro headquarters.  

In robot mode, he shares a design with Powetrain, only he's got a grey body and feet, yellow arms, and black legs, with a red-painted face and chest component.  Aside from having one of the simplest Micromaster transformations ever (you flip up the feet and rotate the truck canopy and that's literally it), he's also got an odd robot design, with his arms attached far too high up on his body, nearly where his head is located.  

I think it's quite possible I would have collected all the Micromaster Battle Stations back in the day, if they had come with unique Micromaster designs instead of recycled ones.  They included exclusive figures with Skystalker and Countdown, so I don't know why they couldn't have done it with the other Micromaster bases.  But, the fact that the Battle Stations all came with redeco toys really turned me off, back in the day.  In retrospect, it's no different than the beginning of G1, but it had fallen out of favor by 1987-88, and so by 1989 it was less expected. At the time, it felt like a cheap cost-cutting move (which was, of course, exactly what it was).

So, the base starts out as a construction station, with an articulated crane boom on a platform, complete with crane hook.  Presumably it's an unfinished construction site, as it's decorated with things like girders and barrels and a pile of dirt.  The consumer-applied stickers suggest the presence of an unseen, treaded construction vehicle, judging by the tracks it left behind, as well as some sacks of as-yet unused concrete mix.  

The proper configuration is for Ironworks to drive around the site in truck mode.  It looks like there should be enough room for him to stand, in robot mode, inside the hollow crane staging, perhaps so he could operate the crane hook, but he won't fit in there.  He comes with one grey ramp that can connect to the front or the side of the base, and of course he's designed to connect to other Micromaster Battle Stations or Micromaster Bases to form a veritable city.  

To transform the base to a radar station, it sits on its back and unfolds to double the height to become a tower about seven inches tall.  A front platform swings down for support.  The crane arm becomes a rocket launcher, with the crane hook tucking away before you attach the missile to the top.  The missile plugs into a thin strip of plastic in the same manner as the missile for Greasepit.  The crane staging turns upside-down and becomes a cage of sorts for Ironworks to sit in.  He, or another Micromaster, can also be positioned to man the missile launcher, or inside the little shielded pod on the side, or under the cage at the base of the tower.  The windmill-like radar dish is a three-bladed assembly that unfolds and locks in place, but is not designed to freely spin, despite its appearance.  

Where Greasepit's base is clearly designed for the battlefield once it's unfolded, Ironworks only has a single armament, and I imagine it's mostly defensive.  His radar station is meant for communications, not combat.  Perhaps the base could boost the communications range for Action Master Blaster, thus ensuring he kept all Autobots in radio contact with each other.  

One of the things missing from the Transformers play pattern for the first couple of years was a playset in which the toys could interact.  Masters of the Universe had Castle Grayskull, and Ninja Turtles had the Technodrome, but Transformers had nothing.  (There was the mail-away S.T.A.R.S.. cardboard stand-up, of which I was once a proud owner, but it sure wasn't the same play experience.)  Then they released city-bases like Metroplex and Fortress Maximus, but they were only able to interact with tiny Transformers, not full-sized ones.  

So, the idea that they were placing a significant focus on playsets and bases that were not only custom-designed for Micromaster-sized toys, but they could even connect together so that the more of them you owned, the larger a playset you could build.  But, it came too late for me.  By 1989, I was still collecting Transformers, but I wasn't playing with them—at least, not in a way that made playsets appealing to me.  If action figures are dolls, then playsets are just doll houses, and that didn't appeal to me much.

I'm currently struggling with figuring out how to display these guys.  The bases and playsets tend to take up a lot of real estate on a shelf when they're unfolded.  Like most reasonable people, I display my Transformers in robot mode, so does that mean I need to unfold the Ironworks playset and display it as a gigantic windmill?  Haven't figured that one out yet.  

Zob (pretty sure Ironworks does not function as an actual ironworks, despite his name)

On Saturday, May 6, 2023 at 8:18:28 AM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:

> So, I decided to play it smart and logged onto both my desktop computer and my phone at the same time, queuing up a different auction on each device.

This is the way. The way of the Biddalorian from Clan Snipey.

> But, the fact that the Battle Stations all came with redeco toys really turned me off, back in the day. In retrospect, it's no different than the beginning of G1, but it had fallen out of favor by 1987-88, and so by 1989 it was less expected. At the time, it felt like a cheap cost-cutting move (which was, of course, exactly what it was).

Back in the day the only micros I ever got were the Decepticon jets 4 pack and that was pretty much the end of my interest in the line. I don't think they could have done anything with the boxy, boring looking stations that would have got me to buy them. Windmills were definitely not the answer.

I do wonder how they were able to make runs of just single micro team members to redeco for the stations. Are the micro station commanders cast in the same colors as the as the stations themselves? OMG I can't believe I am even thinking about micros at all.

> One of the things missing from the Transformers play pattern for the first couple of years was a playset in which the toys could interact. Masters of the Universe had Castle Grayskull, and Ninja Turtles had the Technodrome, but Transformers had nothing.

Hey now. Them's fightin' words for anyone who took the Scramble City leaders' base modes seriously. Or Optimus Prime's combat deck which was canonically at least part of the Ark in the comics. But yeah there really wasn't anything comparable to a Castle Greyskull that retailed for cheap and served as a nice big Barbie dream dollhouse for TFs. That's kinda why GoBots was neat because Tonka took it upon themselves to flesh out the line and create the HQs of each faction at affordable price points. Hasbro was so hellbent on making everything in the line have some sort of transforming element at the cost of synergy with its greatest advertising vehicle-the cartoon. They could have at least done a cardboard Ark backdrop. Speaking of which...

> (There was the mail-away S.T.A.R.S. cardboard stand-up, of which I was once a proud owner, but it sure wasn't the same play experience.) Then they released city-bases like Metroplex and Fortress Maximus, but they were only able to interact with tiny Transformers, not full-sized ones.

There was also a cardboard Autobot base by some company named Western or something but I never knew anyone who had one. It really didn't look Transformery at all and didn't have that toon synergy I would have loved. One cardboard playset that did it right was a pretty awesome cardboard base for Super GoBots that is probably the best affordable toy robots playset of the 80s..