Zob's Retro Review: Decepticon Micromaster Combiner Constructor Squad (1990)

[Zobovor]

I got an amazing deal on a carded Micromaster Erector recently, acquired from the eBay seller from an estate sale. When I checked to see if he had anything else for sale, this was the only other Transformers toy he had available. Now, a complete, unbroken six-member squad of Micromasters Combiners seems to go for about $60-$70 online. These guys were minty fresh, still in the packaging, for $70 shipped. You'd better believe I proceeded to grind my thumb into that "Buy It Now" button so hard that I nearly cracked the screen on my phone.

Now, I'll say as an aside that the bubble was not completely fastened to the card, so it's certainly possible that these toys were removed and then later replaced. But, they're in such excellent shape that, even if this did happen, I still suspect they spent the entirety of the last 30 years in the packaging. The joints are so tight that I really do think I'm the first person to ever transform them. I'll probably never know with 100% certainty, but I choose to believe that I got a killer deal.

So, I've never owned any vintage Micromaster Combiners before. These are my very first. (Back when I was a teenager, I bugged my best friend that they would make a great gift for my birthday, and I think I even deliberately held off on buying any myself, but it never happened. I still have a couple of his Nintendo games that I borrowed, though, so I'm calling it even.)

I remember seeing entire endcaps of Micromaster Combiners at Toys "R" Us, back in the day. They really were the last-ditch effort from Hasbro to try to save G1. I also remember not really wanting to commit to spending the money on them (I remember them being something like $9.99, which at the time seemed like a lot of cash for such tiny toys). The honest truth was that I didn't care about these little robots with no cartoon appearances and no personalities. I had Ninja Turtles to buy, dammit!

I really want to take a moment to appreciate the packaging. The card is so massive compared to the size of the toys. It's like ten percent Micromaster and ninenty percent No Toy. It reminds me of the Scramble City days when they had a tiny little Aerialbot like Slingshot on this absurdly large cardback.
They had two of the vehicle pairs connected together in the package, while the remaining vehicle pair was separated, in order to clearly demonstrate the gimmick.

Micromaster Combiners all have a universal connector system, consisting of a single one-millimeter peg on the left and a one-millimeter hole on the right. Any front or back vehicle half can plug into any other front or back half. (You could even buy duplicates and plug the same toy into itself, if you wanted.)

It's always bugged me a bit that the four-member Micromaster Patrols have had to share a single tech specs card. Something else that bothers me is, after they moved into six-member Micromaster Squads, the pairs of Micromaster Combiners actually share a quotation, according to the packaging. The quotations alone are the ONLY hint we get as to any of the personalities for these guys. For two characters to share one quote seems strange. Unless, of course, they're like Reflector, and it's really one mind controlling multiple bodies. I really have no idea.

STONECRUNCHER and EXCAVATOR
"The bigger the Autobot scrap heap, the greater our success!"

So, our first pair combine together to form a bright yellow, eight-wheeled crane truck. He's long and lean, shaped like a bus, with both a large forward crane arm and a slightly smaller rear-facing crane arm. Both crane arms are bright red. Are there actually trucks like this in real life? I have no idea. I think they were sometimes making up vehicle forms sometimes when they were designing these toys. But, that's okay. The fully-assembled vehicle is about 3 1/4" in length. The forward crane arm can both swivel and pivot up and down, while the rear one only pivots.

Stonecruncher forms the front half of the crane. I'm not sure how he crunches stones with that hook, to be honest. One supposes it just sounds more menacing than Load Lifter. Anyway, he does still look like a complete four-wheeled truck by himself, albeit a shrimpy little one.

To transform him, the front of the cab unfolds to form the robot legs, and the robot arms are on either side. The instructions say something silly about having the crane hook on his back point straight up into the air, but this isn't necessary at all.

In this form, he's yellow with an orange body and grey upper legs. Hey, more than just two colors of plastic! He has a red-painted face, and a mask that looks like Soundwave or Razorclaw. With the yellow-orange-red color palette, he actually kind of does look like one of the Predacons, a little bit. He's a boxy little thing, with his head surrounded by armor.

Excavator is the rear half of the vehicle. He doesn't look like he can do a lot of excavating, because once again, all he's got is a crane hook. (They should have swapped the names for these guys with the names for Crumble and Takedown.) Unlike his partner, Excavator can't really function as a convincing vehicle on his own. I guess he could drive backwards, with his crane hook pointing forward, but he's got no vehicle cockpit to speak of. Also, he's got bars that I think might be compatible with those C-clips that they were adding to the toys for a while around 2010ish.

Excavator also has a random hole on the top of his vehicle form. It doesn't serve any readily apparent purpose, but my suspicion is that he's made to be compatible with other Micromaster Combiner teams who come with accessories (like Missile Master's missile, for example) to further enhance the mix-and-match play value.

To transform Excavator, the "front" of the vehicle (the connector point, anyway) unfolds into the legs, and that's basically it. As a robot, he's yellow with a purple chest, light grey upper legs, and a white painted face. Unlike his partner, his legs are a solid block and the feet cannot move independently.

I think Hasbro might have gotten some flak over the years for designing so many of the G1 toys as bricks. The packaging artwork always shows them with proper arms and legs, but many of the toys lack this functionality. Well, I wonder if they got in trouble for this at some point. I was entirely unaware of this, but I guess there came a point when they stopped referring to the robot legs as "robot legs." Seriously. The instructions don't say "flip out front section to form robot legs," they say "flip out front section to form robot standing platform." Robot standing platform. I think that's absolutely hilarious. He doesn't have legs. He has a standing platform.

The designs for Stonecruncher and Excavator were recycled and reused for the Autobot characters Retro and Surge, who were sold with the Missile Trailer vehicle.

SLEDGE & HAMMER
"Dumping a world of hurt on the Autobots is our only purpose in life!"

Sledge Hammer! was both a 1986 television series (season one was funny; season two was not) as well as a 1986 song by Peter Gabriel, so I think the names of these characters are meant as a pop culture reference. I think they're the only Micromaster Combiner pair whose names are halves of a whole.

So, here's how minty new my Sledge and Hammer toys are. They don't fit together quite right, because they've never been combined together before (these were the guys who were packaged separately from each other). I guess it was different with the other vehicles, because the plastic was brand new when they were assembled and packaged. It was probably resilient and soft. After three decades of curing and hardening, I worry about pegs snapping off. I gotta be careful with these guys.

They form a bright orange, ten-wheeled dump truck that's towing a dump trailer. Only eight of the wheels are functional; the second-to-last rear axle is fake, and the wheels are entirely black, missing the metal pin hubcap. How much material can a tiny Micromaster dump truck carry? I really don't know. I imagine they take many, many trips.

Sledge is the front half of the dump truck. By himself, he could still pass for a vehicle in his own right. He's super chibi, though. He reminds me of G2 Long Haul, only fun sized.

Transforming him is kind of weird, because there are some parts that only move to get out of the way for other parts. You rotate the truck bed 180 degrees, but that's only so you can unfold the truck hood into the robot legs. Then you rotate the truck bed back and pretend like it never happened. (He appears incorrectly in his packaging artwork with the truck bed still rotated and hanging awkwardly over his head. So, evidently the artists at Hasbro did not pretend like it never happened.)

As a robot, he's between 2 1/4" to 2 1/2" depending on whose advice you take when transforming him. He's got an orange backpack and lower legs, with a yellow body and grey arms and upper legs. He almost looks like a robotic candy corn. He's got a light orange painted face, and his head sculpt resembles the Marvel Comics version of Targetmaster Quickmix.

Due to the way his legs transform, he's the first Micromaster I've ever seen who doesn't have any kind of peg-hole on his feet so he can interact with a base or playset. I thought every single one of them was built that way. Shows what I know.

Hammer can't do much as a vehicle by himself. He's like one of those U-Haul trailers that you can rent for $49 a night. Maybe other Micromasters occasionally use him when they need to move some tiny furniture.

To transform Hammer, the "front" of the vehicle (which is to say the connector end) unfolds into his legs, and that's all. In this mode, he's got an orange backpack and lower legs, a purple body, and grey arms and upper legs. I tried to memorize which of these guys was which before my package showed up, and the mnemonic device I used to help me remember was that Hammer is purple, which reminds me of M.C. Hammer's hammer pants. His head sculpt looks like Grimlock to me. I suspect the designers were cribbing off a lot of earlier Transformers ideas by this point.

Sledge and Hammer got a redeco in teal as Terror-Tread and Cement-Head, who came with the Cannon Transport.

GRIT & KNOCKOUT
"Only our Decepticon victory is carved in stone!"

Our last pair merge to form an excavation vehicle of some sort. (They actually capitalize it in the tech specs. "Combine to form Crane, Dump Truck, and Ground Digger.") The truck is mostly purple, with light grey parts on the rear end, and a bright red rear-mounted construction shovel. He kind of looks like Octane and Scavenger had a baby together. The shovel has a single point of articulation and can pivot up and down.

Grit forms the front half of the truck. By himself, he could easily pass for a standalone vehicle. He's a dark purple with light blue painted windows. Like Excavator, he has a hole on the top of his vehicle form that seems to serve no purpose or function. Maybe it will make more sense when I get the other Micromaster Combiners.

To transform him, the back of the vehicle unfolds into the robot le... uh, robot standing platform. The front bumper also folds back. This probably wasn't strictly necessary (there are lots of Micromasters whose heads are surrounded by armor and vehicle parts) but it probably helps him to feel less claustrophobic. As a robot, he's purple with light grey upper legs and a yellow body, with an orange painted face. His head looks like Guzzle to me. Same mask and everything.

Knockout might pass for a vehicle by himself, but he'd be an odd one. He does have his own cockpit, but the canopy windows don't really read as such, since they're unpainted.

You unfold the "front" of the vehicle to transform him, and you're done. Not very involved. My mnemonic device to remember him was that even though he's a "knockout" he's actually the ugliest of the six. He's got large arms that are light grey, an orange body, and purple lower legs. It's just not a great look. He's got a yellow painted face, and to me the head sculpt looks just like Ruckus. Are all the Micromaster Combiners this way? I've never really seen really good photos of their faces before. I'm starting to wonder now if all the head sculpts were cribbed from earlier characters.

I'll be the first to admit that $70 seems like a lot of money for a handful of super tiny Transformers, but that really only works out to be a little more than ten bucks a pop, which is roughly what individual Micromasters tend to sell for on eBay. And, a sealed version of the Constructor Squad normally sells for at least $160, so I feel like I got an exceptional deal.

Not sure what the month of February will bring, but of course you know you guys will be hearing about it, regardless. That's just how I roll.


Zob (now to find a place on the shelf for Erector and the Candy Corn Posse)

[Evil King Macrocranios]

On Thursday, January 6, 2022 at 5:43:21 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:

> Now, I'll say as an aside that the bubble was not completely fastened to the card, so it's certainly possible that these toys were removed and then later replaced.

I looked at the auction pictures of this one and the Erector, and the way the bubbles are cleanly sliced along the bottom edge is exactly how I would cut my carded TF packages when I was a kid. Starting at some point in '86 I would take a razor blade to a point near the base of the bubble (but not touching the card) and cut a line along the base about half the length so I could remove and replace the figure and keep the bubble attached. But what would end up happening is that without the figure in there to support it, the bubbles would get crushed from being in storage under my bed. So not all of them survived intact but some did.

[Zobovor]

On Sunday, January 16, 2022 at 11:49:50 AM UTC-7, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:

> I looked at the auction pictures of this one and the Erector, and the way the bubbles are cleanly sliced along the bottom edge is exactly how I would cut my carded TF packages when I was a kid.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. In retrospect, I'm sure that's exactly what happened. Given the tightness of the joints and Sledge's absolute refusal to connect properly to Hammer, though, I'd say the amount of actual play these toys received was somewhere between minimal to none at all.


Zob (everybody in the house is sick, and I blame all the idiots at work who pull down their mask so they can talk to you)