Dave's Transformers HasLab Rant: Liokaiser

Leozak (fighter jet)
Gaihawk (fighter jet)
Killbison (antiaircraft tank)
Jaruga (katyusha-style car)
Drillhorn (drill tank)
Ellbat (fighter jet)
Deathcobra (helicopter)
Liokaiser (super robot)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/Liokaiser

I was originally going to put this in the Miscellaneous directory, but then I finally looked at the dark purple foil Legacy logo at the right angle and could actually read it. Note, while I own the Combiner Wars version of Liokaiser, I never bothered to review it (I barely bothered to review the Computron set, I think I was getting kinda tired of the redeco/retool gift sets).
Hellbat has not gotten to be called by his actual name in this country, going back to the Combiner Wars set where he was Fellbat. While it's
possible "fear or parents' groups" is part of the reason, it turns out that there's a Hellbat Armor Batman toy out there, so being unable to secure the trademark is also a possibility (not that Ellbat is likely to ever be sold separately, which is where the trademark issue is most relevant).
I did buy the previous two Victory toys done through HasLab, Victory
Sabre and Deathsaurus, but by the time each arrived I had lost some of my enthusiasm (not to mention people started talking about problems with chrome
or easily broken parts), so they've stayed in their boxes.
Speaking of boxes, this shipped in a box inside a box, and the display
box is full of other boxes. Cardboard Pretender? No shipping-related
damage, although the back cover of the instructions got mangled a little when it was put into the box.


CAPSULES

$300 if backed on HasLab at the time, price at this time likely to
vary. It's worth noting that if you assume $20 for the stand and weapon accessories, that's an effective budget of $40 each for seven Voyager-sized (well, by current standards) combiners. Pre-tariffs, comparable toys were
$35, but keep in mind that most of those can spread development costs across
at least one retooling/redeco each on average, plus they're likely to have larger runs. There's other factors, of course, but the upshot is that each figure is unlikely to have a budget significantly different from a regular on-the-shelves Voyager, and I've taken that into account when deciding
whether to forgive some iffy bits here and there.

Leozak: Decent robot mode, iffy vehicle mode, clearly prioritized being the upper torso of Liokaiser.

Gaihawk: Good jet and robot, arm could stand to have somewhat more
stable shoulder kibble but otherwise decent.

Killbison: The vehicle mode is pretty much just "you're not leaving it
in this mode anyway, so why bother?" and robot mode is clunky. Weakest of
the set.

Jaruga: Some interesting compromises made to give it a decent robot mode while still including the needed combiner bits. It has the option of an animation-accurate vehicle mode and an enhanced vehicle that includes the combiner pelvis and thighs.

Drillhorn: Despite sharing a lot of pieces and engineering with
Killbison, it's a noticeably better toy in both non-boot modes.

Ellbat: Shares a LOT of parts with Gaihawk, but manages to be a distinct robot and vehicle. Wings get in the way a bit in robot mode, though.

Deathcobra: Shares some parts and some engineering with Ellbat, but transforms rather differently. Does pretty well with what amounted to a few minutes of screen time, but has trouble with robot kibble in vehicle mode and lots of vehicle kibble in robot mode. Decent if over-kibbled arm mode, and
the shoulder cannon mode...exists. I mean, kudos for finding something for
it to do other than replace Ellbat.

Liokaiser: Comes very close to looking like the animation model without sacrificing articulation or stability. I don't know how available it'll be
to those who didn't back the project or what it'll cost, but leaving aside
the caveats of "it might be expensive and hard to find" I go with a
Recommended rating here.


RANTS

Brief background: In the Victory series, the first Destron combiner was Dinoking, who got a Legacy toy recently. But then the Breastforce (yeah,
that name is not on the box anywhere) came in late in the first half of the season and quickly displaced them as the Big Bad (Liokaiser can turn
invisible, which was a terrifying force multiplier). However, while the Dinoforce got relegated to mostly comic relief, the Breastforce was not
immune to wacky hijinks, and no it never had anything to do with their team name. At one point, Leozak (or Leozack in some translations) decided Hellbat had screwed up enough times, and called for an old friend name of
Deathcobra. Hellbat was understandably worried about his job, and through a series of contrivances...accidentally killed Deathcobra. He successfully blamed it on the Cybertrons, though, but he remains the only character on either side to just outright murder a named Transformer in Victory. (Death
in honorable combat doesn't count as outright murder...Hellbat just sniped Deathcobra from hiding.) Anyway, while Deathcobra's animation design
certainly supported the idea of being an alternate left arm, he never got an official toy before now. An interesting note about the original toy, it was the first combiner to require no external "combiner kibble," as all of the stuff that would normally be separate like hands and feet were folded up
inside the individual toys.
There's always been some dispute about some of the names, although until recently not Hellbat. Gaihawk is also known as Guyhawk, Leozak as Leozack as mentioned earlier, and then there's Jaruga who absolutely no one could figure out, and has been Jallguar (on TFwiki), Jargua, and some just say Jaguar even though the Japanese doesn't even remotely support that.
Note, the Combiner Wars version had a Sky Lynx retool named Dezaras as
the torso core, leaving out Leozak (but retaining his colors instead of the Deathsaurus colors) and Jargua entirely. At least Leozack got a Timelines retool of Energon Starscream, this is the first time Jargua has gotten a toy since the original set in 1989. Combiner Wars also had Killbison renamed Ironbison in addition to Hellbat being Fellbat. Gaihawk went by Guyhawk in Combiner Wars, with only Drillhorn escaping the name roulette unscathed.

Packaging: A big display box (no windows) 15" (38cm) tall, 11.5"
(29.5cm) wide, and 8.5" (21.5cm) deep. The front has close-up art of
Liokaiser from the knees up, in front of a pair of converging red grids as
seen in transformation stock footage in the Victory anime. Below the knees
are square head shots of the seven components, and the Transformers Victory logo with Liokaiser's name is below that. The upper right has a Legacy logo
in dark purple foil on black, so it's literally just a dark blob unless you catch the light just right. In the lower right is an age 15+ admonition.
The right side has the Victory logo in the upper right, and then renders of the six regular components (Leozak, Gaihawk, Killbison, Jaruga, Drillhorn, Ellbat). The back has the logo in the upper left, with the right two thirds dominated by Liokaiser standing on a purple grid. Insets along the left show Deathcobra as a replacement right arm, as a right shoulder weapon, and then
his own robot and vehicle modes. The left side just has the headshots from
the front, but in a vertical column under the logo. There's plenty of space
to do insets for the Breastplate partners, but they chose to not do that.
The top has a render of Liokaiser with his multi-section staff next to the logo, while the bottom has the legalese and a render of Liokaiser using the display stand that was one of the "stretch goals" of the set. (I put that in sarcasm quotes, because I don't think any of the HasLab Transformers projects has ever failed to hit all the goals, although I think at least once it took
a last minute big order from one of the online resellers to push it over the top.)
Inside this box are a series of undecorated cardboard boxes, each with a Cybertronian lettr on it along with the HasLab logo. They're just A, B, C,
and D in Cybertronian. Boxes A and B have the same dimensions as the box
front but are thinner (2"/5cm for A, 2.5"/6.5cm for B). C is as tall as the main box but 6" (15cm) wide and 3.75" (9.5cm) deep, while D is as tall as the main box and 3.75" (9.5cm) deep but only 5" (13cm) wide. There's no ties, everything is held by blister clamshell pieces on top and bottom.
A: Stand, multi-section staff, and full color instruction booklet.
B: Leozak, Gaihawk, Ellbat, all seven Breast partners, and Killbison's cannons.
C: Jaruga and his detachable small missile launchers, Killbison's main chassis, and the combiner pants (pelvis and thighs, which add onto Jaruga's vehicle mode).
D: Drillhorn and Deathcobra.

All together in the boxes, it weighs 7.0 pounds (3.2kg). Everyone is packaged in vehicle mode, or parts of vehicle mode.

Note, the reviews are listed in the order top to bottom of the side of
the box, but I actually reviewed box A first, then box B, box C, box D, and finally the combined form. Apologies if I miss an edit to keep flow going properly.

Breast Partners: Okay, they don't call them that anymore ("Chest-force"
is sometimes used), but since nothing on the box refers to them by any name, I'm going to stick with the old name. The gimmick for these guys (and Deathsaurus) is that their breastplates come off and turn into partners that can be either beasts or weapons (all guns in this case, but Eaglebreast from Deathsaurus becomes more of a bow).
Leozak has Lionbreat, Gaihawk has Hawkbreast, Killbison has Bisonbreast, Jaruga has Jaguarbreast, Drillhorn has Hornbreast, (H)Ellbat has
Komoribreast, and Deathcobra has Cobrabreast. Komori means bat, but the
others had transliterated English names, or as close as they could get. They generally just get called -beast rather than -breast when actually mentioned
by name in official materials these days.
The instructions have a couple pages showing how to transform the breastplates to beasts for all seven partners. To get from breastplate to
gun usually just involves folding out the barrel, and is covered in the robot mode instructions for each individual toy.

In addition to the usual robot to vehicle and robot to combiner part steps, the instructions also show how to use the included base for storing stuff, how to combine it to support Liokaiser, and how to split it up into three separate bases for individual vehicles or robots (so three in back can
be flying over the others). Each individual set of instructions also
includes a few steps for assembly out of the package (at the least attaching the breastplate). Oh, and the Legacy logo is a lot clearer on the
instructions than it is on the box!

General Aesthetic Note: While the molding is highly detailed "neo-G1" in its aesthetic, the colors try to support a simpler animation model look, so there's very few painted details by comparison with the sticker work of the
G1 toys. Not that there's very little paint, mind you, but most of it is in "flats" that just fill an area to compensate for the plastic color sprues not always lining up with the animation designs.


DESTRON: LEOZAK
Altmode: Fighter Jet (F-14 Tomcat)
Partner: Lionbreast
Transformation Difficulty: 12 steps (jet to robot), 14 steps (robot to torso) Previous Name Use: None in US mass market
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Breastforce Commander and upper torso
Special Unit: Breastforce
Origin Universe: Japanese G1
Signature Weapon: Leo Cannon

Vehicle Mode: Okay, it's an F-14D...with arms stuck to the sides, boots stuck on back, and a big chest underneath. So, yeah, this is the mode that
got the short shrift of the three. Interestingly, the only country still flying the F-14 in 2026 is Iran, although it's uncertain how many of them survived the airstrikes. The Tomcat was otherwise retired in 2006 in favor
of the F/A-18. The F-14 was the inspiration for the original Macross
Veritech fighter (Skyfire), but has otherwise not gotten a lot of use in Transformers compared to the F-15, F-16, and other later models. According
to TFWiki, others using this mode were Micromaster Nightflight, Classics Thunderwing, Classics Jetfire, and Collaborative Maverick (the only one that really tries hard to be a proper F-14). A carrier jet, it has swing wings so that it can have a wider wingspan for takeoff and landing, but swept back for supersonic flight.
Total length is 8.5" (21.5cm), although if you only include the parts
that should be on the jet, it's 7" (18cm), which would make it close to 1:100 scale. The wingspan varies between 4.75" (12cm) and 8" (20cm). The main colors are a sort of seafoam green and a very pale gray that's almost white. There's two types of seafoam green plastic, although in this mode only the roots of the wings are the duller sort. The glossier version makes up the
rest of the wings, the vertical stabilizers, and the cockpit/nose section
plus the hinge holding it on as well as a couple of struts flanking the bit right behind the cockpit. Some of the visible robot bits are also seafoam green. The nose wheel strut is black plastic. The rest of the jet mode is very light gray plastic, wlthough there's seafoam green paint on parts of the fuselage top that holds the wing hinges.
The cockpit windows are painted gloss red, the wings have printed yellow and white stripes with purpe on silver Decepticon symbols.
The nose wheel is hinged to swing down, and the wings are hinged to
sweep forwards and back (and as often happens with such toys, they will swing WAY too far forwards if you want). There's additional hinges in the wings
that are used in other modes. The tail sections are on transformation hinges but shouldn't be moved in this mode. Note, if you want the nose wheel to
touch the ground, you need to either remove Lionbreast, or fold the robot
toes out. Otherwise it just sort of rests on the chest and folded-down toes.
There are no standard connectors in this mode, but there's a slider clip on the underside (robot kneecaps) that goes around the T-tab atop one of the stand pylons.

Lionbreast: Okay, as a chestplate it fills a gap in Leozak's chest, roughly a rectangular seafoam green shape with winglets in dark green and
very light gray. The core is seafoam green plastic, while the winglets and
the bit across the sternum at the top are a single piece of very light gray plastic. The peg that attaches it and the fold-out gun barrel are also very light gray plastic, while the beast legs are black plastic. Hidden in this mode is the beast head, which is seafoam green plastic. The center bit of
the winglet piece is painted seafoam green in an okay match, while the
borders of the winglets (except the bottom one as seen in chestplate mode)
are painted dark green, with a purple Decepticon symbol on the left one (from Leozak's point of view).
About 1.5" (37mm) tall and 1.75" (46mm) wide in chestplate mode. Leo Cannon mode just involves folding out a gun barrel from what's the bottom of the chestplate, the barrel has a 4.5mm diameter barrel so you can't use it as
a sort of axe handle. If Leozak had forearm sockets (it doesn't), this would look better as a shield.
To get Lionbreast, fold the head out from under the top, tuck the grip
peg down either direction (forwards/upwards does sort of lock the head in place), and then fold down the legs. I can get the rear legs out without needing a knife, but the hip joints are super stiff and there's not enough
room between the forelegs and the wings for me to get a grip with a
fingertip. The cannon barrel makes a stubby tail. Warning, prying the left foreleg out caused the winglet piece to partially come unglued on mine. Lionbreast has very stiff ball joint hips, the tail can sort of wag I guess, and the head can nod on its transformation joint. The lion eyes are painted red.

Transformation: Pretty simple from jet to robot, most of it involves separating out the legs and arms, and folding the nose end back onto the
back. Rather than having the thighs collapse into the boots (and thus not having the boots hanging out the back), there's just panels that fold back
onto the boots, covering the thighs in jet mode. The jet mode is solidly tabbed together, so you need to untab a few bits like the kneecaps and hip
pads to free up the robot mode articulation. The combiner shoulder roots
just sort of fold to the sides and sit on the outer edges of the boots. The instructions don't show the wings folded back along those extra hinges as a separate step, but the final "holding Leo Cannon" picture indicates it's a thing you should do.
Going from robot to Liokaiser torso, pull the backpack out and open the chest panel so that the heads can swap (if you stop there, you get chibi
Leozak or something), turn the waist 180 degrees and fold the legs against
the chest (rectangular tabs on the backs of the boots go into the torso
vents). The tail sections tab into slots on the sides, and when you pull the backpack back into place tabs on the forearms go into slots there. So many "mystery tabs" from robot mode get used in this mode to stabilize it. You'll know you have the wings in the right position when the Decepticon symbols on them are properly right-side-up. Liokaiser's head doesn't quite fit into Leozak's chest, so you have to fold out little kitty cat ears on top.
Speaking of little kitty cats, Lionbreast has to be removed for this mode,
his official storage spots are either on Liokaiser's back or as part of the breastswarm on Deathcobra's cannon mode.

Robot Mode: A somewhat chunky bot with wings sticking out of the
mid-back and big chunks stuck to the outer edges of the boots. The helmet is vaguely leonine, with a "mane" of four blades on each side and a faint smirk
on his face. Without Lionbreast installed, the chest is pretty flat except
for a deep vent on either side in a protruding cowling. While I wouldn't say Lionbreast is necessary for the robot mode to look complete, it's definitely better with the breastplate attached.
5.5" (14cm) tall at the head, about 6" (15cm) or so at the tops of the wings depending on exactly how you pose them, but with a Voyager's bulk.
Same basic colors as jet mode, bit with yellow bits atop the kneecaps.
Seafoam green plastic used on the head, inner shoulder joints, elbow joints, forearms, thighs, toes, and the various vehicle bits that use it. Everything else visible in this mode is the very light gray plastic. Much of the color splash in this mode comes from Lionbreast. The robot face and some details
on the tops of the toes are painted very light gray. The robot eyes and the eyes of the beast- styled helmet are red, and the bits on top of the kneecaps are painted yellow. The shoulderpads are painted seafoam green. There's a small purple Decepticon symbol on top of the left chest vent, and it's partly blocked by Lionbreast's wing.
The neck is a ball joint with the socket in the head and a cut in back
to let the head look straight up. There's technically a waist joint, but you have to lift up the backpack to let it turn. Pinned hinge and swivel joint shoulders, swivels just above the hinge elbows, ball joint wrists that let
the fists bend inwards for transformation. The hips are pinned hinge and swivel joints, but there's little stabilizer tabs that get in the way of the hip flaps unless you lift them all the way up on their hinges. Swivels just above the knee hinges. The toes are on swivels so that they can rotate to
stay flat, but since the rest of the foot doesn't have instep hinges, it's
more aesthetic than useful. There's no meaningful heel spurs, so the toy is vulnerable to falling backwards. The wings have their root swivels and then the hinges that let them fold back as well.
The fists can hold 5mm sockets (but if you push Leo Cannon in too far things get messed up), and there's a 5mm socket in the chest for Lionbreast, that's it for standard connectors. To get the figure onto a pylon, you need
to fold up part of the backpack to let the T-slider go into a slot in the
back of the pelvis. It can be folded back into place once the slider is all the way in, though.

Combiner Mode: A nice solid chunk. The shoulder joint roots are further back than the head, but since the wings partly hide the shoulders from view anyway it's not a huge problem. The new head is made of seafoam green
plastic with a very light gray neck post. The post turns at its base and has
a hinge at the top, so the head can tilt back a bit. The faceplate and the area around the eyes are painted very light gray, the eyes and the helmet's eyes are painted red. While the head still has a feline look to it, there isn't as much of a mane.
Interestingly, a couple of pegs on the underside of the jet nose that go into sockets on the collar area in jet mode will accept flexible Fire Blasts, despite being a little more than 3mm in diameter. The sockets they plug
into, though, are definitely too wide to hold peg-style Fire Blasts.
For connecting to Jaruga, both of the pylon-sockets are used, as well as rectangular slots on the tips of the toes. There are no 5mm sockets
available in this mode.

Overall: Kind of a weak vehicle mode, decent robot mode, solid combiner mode (and frankly most of these sets are only getting taken out of Liokaiser mode for storage anyway).


DESTRON: GAIHAWK
Altmode: Fighter Jet (MiG-29 Fulcrum)
Partner: Hawkbreast
Transformation Difficulty: 13 steps (jet to robot), 13 steps (robot to arm) Previous Name Use: None in mass market US release
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Right Arm
Special Unit: Breastforce
Origin Universe: Japanese G1
Signature Weapon: Hawk Cannon

I have seen this transliterated as "Gayhawk" as well, but that's just a cheap shot at his color scheme, no reading of the Japanese supports it. (I'm sure there's some fanfic that supports it, but I ain't going looking for
that.) "Gaihawk" is pronounced like "Guyhawk."

Vehicle Mode: Okay, TFWiki says it's a MiG-29 Fulcrum, which was the Soviet answer to (and partially copy of) the F-15. Thing is, this toy
doesn't really look like the MiG-29 except in broad strokes, and it looks
about as much like the F-15. The air intakes being separate from the
fuselage is not something either jet has, and seems to be a consequence of matching the animation model of the robot shoulders without a transformation step that snugs them tighter in. FWIW, while this doesn't match the MiG-29 very well in a lot of details, it does match the G1 toy with the exception of the air intakes. The thrusters are a bit weird, because the cowlings on top are in the right places, but the actual thrusters are much closer together since they're on the Liokaiser hand. Oh, and the nose wheel is not the same
as Leozak's.
6.75" (17.5cm) long with a wingspan of 5.75" (14.5cm), roughly 1:100 scale. The main colors are hot magenta and very light gray with some yellow and yellow-orange. The wings and all four tail pieces (vertical and horizontal), and some hinge bits behind the cockpit are very light gray plastic. The thrusters, nose wheel, and more of the hinge behind the cockpit are very dark gray (pretty close to black, same as on Leozak). Everything
else in this mode is hot magenta plastic.
Other than a border around the edges, the tops of the wings are painted bright yellow with purple on silver Decepticon symbols on them. The cockpit windows are yellow-orange, and the top bits of the molded thruster nozzles on the fuselage itself are painted almost-black. Other paints are robot mode specific.
The nose wheel can fold down, and unlike with Leozak toes don't need to
be folded down to let the nose wheel touch down, as the robot has a slimmer chest and Hawkbreast is also thinner. There's a 5mm socket on either side
from the robot arms, the thruster nozzles in back look like they might be useful sockets but are not. There's a 5mm peg sticking out from under the
left side near the cockpit, which is for attaching cannon mode Deathcobra.
The pylon attachment method in this mode is in the form of slots on the inner sides of the kneecaps.

Hawkbreast: Folded up as a chestplate, the wingtips look like chest windows and the tail covers the abdomen, with the hawk head on the sternum. 1.75" (4.5cm) wide and a little bit taller than that, it's mostly hot magenta with some very light gray and almost-black. The core is a single piece of
hot magneta plastic, the folded down head is almost-black plastic, and both
the wingtips and a panel on the reverse side are very light gray plastic.
The "windows" on the wings are painted hot magenta, with a small purple on silver Decepticon symbol printed on the left pec. The 5mm connector peg is fairly short and way up in the top center on back.
The Hawk Cannon mode is identical to the Hawkbreast mode, there's no
need to fold out the barrels which are already part of the tailfeathers. The two barrels are 3mm studs, long enough to accept Fire Blasts, unlike Leo Cannon's ultra-short barrel tip.
Folding out the wings and head results in the hawk mode, with the chest window paint now on the underside. The hawk eyes are painted red, which is
the only paint on top in this mode. The unfolded length is 2.25" (just under 6cm) with the wingspan being 2.75" (7cm). The mecha-feathers are molded on both the light gray and magenta parts, it'd be nice if they had unified
colors, maybe paint the feathers on the top side magneta with the light gray just being the borders like on the chestplate side. (Stickers would need to
be really tiny to avoid wiping out the molded detail, though.)

Transformation: On the one hand, this design does have the thighs collapsed into the boots, hence the better vehicle mode. On the other hand,
it can take a lot of force to get the thighs out, and the first time I transformed this I popped the left leg off at the thigh swivel. Hint,
there's a panel on the instep of the left boot that needs to be opened for
the leg extension and then closed back up, oops. Also, getting things
started requires bending the mid-toros hinge to unsnap things, so if you
didn't take Hawkbreast off first, it's popping off at this point. Otherwise, it's fairly straightforward.
Going back to jet mode, getting the boots completely snapped together
and in place can be a bit difficult, but the rest is easy enough.
Getting to right arm mode was also reasonably straightforward, I really only needed to consult the instructions for how the robot arms are
positioned, and while the way I found looked a little better IMO, the
official way is needed to help stabilize Deathcobra's shoulder cannon
mounting. Anyway, this mode basically puts the legs back in jet mode other than the tail sections being folded up, while the upper half bends over at
the mid-torso hinge while the head and neck fold back into the jet nose backpack, pulling out the socket for going on the shoulder root of
Liokaiser. Since the torso is bent over completely, Hawkbreast is coming off whether you like it or not.

Robot Mode: Viewed from the front, it looks pretty close to the
animation model, although from the side the wings and tail fins stick out rather more prominently than they do in the cartoon. The helmet visor resembles a hawk's beak, with big but not-quite-connected sunglasses-like optics under its shade and a short crest on top. The air intakes are on top
of the shoulders (they're hinged to fold back, but only do so in combiner mode).
5.5" (14cm) tall at the head, 5.75" (14.5cm) at the shoulder scoops, in basically the same colors as vehicle mode. Almost-black plastic is used for the fists and the interior facing of the right boot, plus some hinges on the back and toes, and the bit from Hawkbreast. Very light gray plastic is used for the neck root, sternum behind Hawkbreast (which also has a bit of almost- black), abdomen, elbow hinges, thighs, all of the left knee joint, and the inner bit of the right knee joint (the outer bit being almost-black), plus
the wings and fins as before. Everything else is hot magenta plastic.
There's very light gray paint on the face and the biceps, yellow on the helmet beak and kneecap vents, red optics, and some almost-black paint on the lower corners of the kneecaps. Behind Hawkbreast on the belly button area is
a no-outline purple Decepticon symbol.
The neck is a ball joint with the socket in the head and a cut in back
so it can tilt all the way back to look straight up. The waist is weird,
but as with Leozak the rotation is blocked unless you unplug the wing pack
and fold it out a bit. The torso basically holds Liokaiser's right arm articulation, so there's a ratcheting hinge between chest and abdomen that
lets the figure bend over, 15 degrees per click and five clicks total.
Bending it requires untabbing the wingpack, and a single click is enough to free up the other joints. Liokaiser's bicep swivel functions as a sort of waist swivel here, although it's betweeen chest and abdomen. And then the abdomen itself is hinged to the pelvis, a ratchet with 15 degrees per click
and a total bend of 90 degrees, although after the first two clicks a gap
opens up between torso and pelvis. Gaihawk leans to the right via this
joint. Pinned hinge and swivel smooth shoulders, although unless you fold
the air intakes back the arms can only lift about 45 degrees up. Bicep swivels, hinge elbows that bend to about 50 degrees acute, and ball joint wrists that rotate or swing in for transformation storage. Pinned hinge and swivel hips, lower thigh swivels, hinge knees that can't quite make it to 90 degrees. Like Leozak, the toes rotate in an attempt to sort of be like
instep hinges, and snap down for transformation or that Don Martin look. The tail fins don't quite touch the surface, but the figure only has to rock back
a little for that to happen, so standing is a lot more stable than with
Leozak.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, there's a shallow 5mm socket in the center
of the collarbone for attaching Hawkbreast, a socket on the outer face of
each forearm, and one on the bottom of the pelvis back for pylon mounting.
The right and left chest front also have 5mm sockets, which are covered up by Hawkbreast normally. I'm not entirely sure what those are for, but they're a little tight and may be purely decorative and only coincidentally about 5mm.

Combiner Mode: It just snaps onto the "side of the foot" block from Leozak, easy to get on but a bit of a struggle to get it off. The revealed hand is the same almost-black plastic as the nose wheel and the combiner shoulder clip. By default the wings remain up like in robot mode, but when attaching Deathcobra's cannon mode they fold down and tab onto the arms like
in vehicle mode. The arm can't quite hang straight down, because the torso ratchet hinge won't do that sixth click (at least on mine, not willing to
risk breakage to see if I can make it happen) but it can lift all the way to the side. The bicep swivel and elbow work as previously described.
The newly exposed hand has the index finger separate from the clump of
the other three, each of the two pieces is hinged where it meants the base of the hand and about halfway up. The thumb is not articulated. There's a 2/3 circle 5mm socket in the hand that can hold most things without the fingers being folded around it. Hawk Cannon can be held in the hand, but officially goes in the forearm socket on the back side.

Overall: On its own, a better toy than Leozak, but it also doesn't have the burden of being part of the torso. No glaring flaws, about the only problem worth mentioning is the locked waist in robot mode unless you hunch
the figure over (and pop Hawkbreast off).


DESTRON: KILLBISON
Altmode: Anti-Aircraft Tank (Gepard)
Transformation Difficulty: 15 steps (tank to robot), 18 steps (robot to leg) Previous Name Use: None in US mass market
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Right Leg
Special Unit: Breastforce
Origin Universe: Japanese G1
Signature Weapon: (Not named on TFWiki, probably Bison Cannon)

Vehicle Mode: Yyyyyyeah, he's not a Gepard. I mean, the animation model might've approached that, but this is far worse than even the G1 toy in terms of having a flat front (aka antitank round bait) and being lower in the
middle than at the front and back. It's also a "four treads" design like
the G1 toy rather than a regular two-tread tank body like the animation model or the real Gepard. Killbison handily beats Leozak in the Worst Vehicle Mode contest here.
Anyway, the hull is a bit over 5" (13cm) long in mostly light brown with light gray cannons and flat front end, plus darker gray treads and yellow stripes on the rear halves of the sides. The cannon piece and the front
facing are the usual very light gray plastic, there's some almost-black
hinges visible on the lower front end, otherwise it's light brown plastic.
The treads are painted medium gray with the drive wheels and other stuff inside the enclosure of the treads painted almost black. The armor panels on the rear fenders are painted golden yellow.
Tank-ish mode rolls decently on the little wheels under the treads. The only connector socket is on top in the middle, for the anti-aircraft guns,
and it's a 5mm hexagonal socket sunk in a 7mm round socket.
The antiaircraft cannon is made of three pieces of very light gray
plastic pegged together. The cannons are mirror images of each other, and
use the same 5-and-7mm pegs that the cannon base uses, so they stay very
firmly in their intended 5-and-7mm sockets on the sides of the core piece. There's two more 5mm sockets on top and one on either side at the front of
the core piece for attaching bonus guns or something. The back end has something that's molded to look like a shoulder stock, but I think it's a
sort of game of telephone away from the Gepard's radar dish. The cannons are 3.5" (9cm) long, while the whole thing assembled properly is 4.25" (10.5cm) long. The barrels end in 3mm studs. When inserted into the socket on top of the chassis, it can turn about 45 degrees either way without starting to come out of the socket, and the cannons can elevate to straight up.

Bisonbreast: Unlike most of the others, this (and Hornbreast) don't need their 5mm pegs folded out to connect to the chest, there's short rails on the beast hips that go into slots in the chest cavity. In fact, it's easier to attach it with the 5mm peg folded in. In combiner mode the 5mm socket isn't available anyway.
Breastplate mode is a fairly standard "wide sternum with wings" design
for the set, but a bit more colorful than most. The core and gun barrel are almost-black plastic, the wingplate, beast head, and legs are very light gray plastic, and the connector peg is the same light brown as most of Killbison. The wings and mini-abdomen plate are painted hot magenta, and there's a no-outline purple Decepticon symbol in the center. The height is 34mm (a bit over 1.25") and the wingspan is 41mm.
Bison Cannon mode just flips out the barrel, which is another of the
same mold as Leozak's. Officially the bison head remains tucked against the peg, but that leaves almost no clearance to put the peg in Killbison's fist, you'll need to fold the head up if you want a better grip.
Beast mode involves folding out the head if it wasn't already out for cannon mode, and then folding down the legs. These work the same way as Lionbreast's, but aren't as stiff on mine. So, it's basically a bull with a wingpack, 46mm (1.75") from snout to tail tip. No, the head doesn't even
look a little like a bison, it's a regular cattle type head with short horns. Not that the G1 toy looked any more like a bison. (Note, the G1 toy had red plastic for the head, legs, and tail/cannon barrel, and put the big horns on the wingpack piece. I guess they decided very light gray was preferable to a lot of magenta.)
In theory, the breastplate can remain attached when transforming to
robot mode, but the amount of force required to open up the back to let the head come out is likely to make Hornbreast fly off anyway. And it does need
to come off when going to combiner mode.

Transformation: You have to remove the cannons first to be able to open
up the backpack and pull out the head, but you can leave Bisonbreast in place for robot mode. Pull the backpack away (see below), pull out the head, and snap it shut again. Then there's a clever bit where rocker panels on the top of the tank chassis front are pushed down, unlocking the tread sides. Swing those out and you can pull the arms out to the sides and then rotate the
tread pieces on them to become shoulderpads. With the boots still opened up, separate the legs and then pull the knee joints up on hinges inside the
boots. Close the sides and then push the rocker switches back the other way
to lock the boots. You do need to make sure the panels with the knees on
them are all the way up first, or things might not close properly. Oh, and fold the feet down and replace the cannon on the butt. The instructions show pointing the cannons down, but in the animation the barrels are clearly
visible over Killbison's shoulders. To get the best look in that respect,
put the barrels in the 5mm sockets at the front of the core chunk rather than their usual spots, and point upwards. When going back to vehicle mode, make sure to turn the fists sideways because there's pegs inside the boots that
have to go into the fist sockets.
Pulling the backpack open requires an insane amount of force. At least closing it again is made easier if you push down as you push in. I may need
to shave some plastic off of this. After a bunch of tries it seems like one side is a little easier to open than the other, but which side it is does not stay the same, I think it depends on how it snaps closed. I still need to
use a screwdriver as a lever to open it up about half the time when neither side is "easier" enough.
Combiner mode is just vehicle mode with the knee joint pulled out (which requries removing Bisonbreast, but it can go back later) and the toe and heel folded down from the sides. The toe takes longer nails than I have or some clever corner pressure. Technically this can attach to either thigh of Liokaiser as the knee peg is symmetric and it bends either way, but you'd end up with short toes and long heels if on the wrong side.

Robot Mode: Blocky and chunky with treads on the shoulders and boots, a lot of the articulation is limited by all the vehicle kibble. The helmet has bull horns and a horizontal bar visor with a closed faceplate. There's
molded circular details on the frame of the chest, two to a side, although they're covered up by Bisonbreast. The thighs are much shorter than the
shins, and the upper arms are significantly longer than the lower arms, but with all the tank tread fenders this isn't as big of a problem as it might otherwise be.
The robot is 5.75" (14.5cm) tall at the head, but if you mount the
cannons on back like I suggested earlier the total height is 6.75" (17cm).
Same basic colors as vehicle mode, but a bit more of the very light gray and almost-black. Almost-black plastic is used for the combiner connector in the chest, the neck root, the shoulder struts, elbow joints, fist, hip joints,
knee joints, and toe hinges. Very light plastic is used for the shins, toes, soles of the feet, and of course the cannon on back. Everything else is
light brown plastic.
Light gray paint is used on the faceplate, the abdomen front and sides, the center pelvis front, and the lower biceps. The visor is gloss red, the kneecaps are golden yellow. The treads are painted as in vehicle mode, but it's easier to see that the medium gray paint wraps around and the almost- black paint does not. There's no Decepticon symbol other than Bisonbreast's, the bare combiner peg inside the chest just doesn't have room for one (and it might be "unpaintable" plastic anyway). I guess they didn't want to put one anywhere else that wouldn't be covered up by Bisonbreast. (I suppose a teeny one on one of the round things on the chest would be covered, and I happen to have some "cover the Micromaster screw hole" symbols left over from a sheet I got many years ago.)
The neck is a ball joint with the socket in the head and only a little wiggle room aside from turning, but the entire plate holding the neck strut
is on a transformation hinge that doesn't lock into place so tilting the head back is hard to avoid. Smooth waist, but with the cannon attached to the
butt there's not a lot of range of motion. The shoulders are weird, with hinges on the tops of struts and swivels with the torso at the bottom, and nearly 2cm between the two. Swivels just above the hinge elbows, and swivel wrists (not ball because the fists are hidden in the boots). Standard pinned hinge and swivel hips, mid-thigh swivels, hinge knees. The shortness of the thighs render a lot of this almost moot, though. The toes are on hinge and swivel joints like Leozak's, but they're smaller so the usefulness of the
tilt joint is even more questionable.
The hands can hold 5mm pegs, there's the dedicated 5mm socket in the
chest for Bisonbreast and the one in the butt for the cannon. There's a 5mm socket in the lower butt, but there's a little rectangular detail on the
bottom of the pelvis that means the pylon can't connect to it (I also checked the Liokaiser adapter, no go there either). That bit doesn't seem all that necessary (it stabilizes vehicle mode, but they could've done that
differently without blocking the pylon peg), I wonder if it was put there specifically to make sure this guy couldn't be flying on a pylon.
While all of these figures look like they're missing something without their breast partners on their chests, Killbison (and Drillhorn) look a lot more incomplete, with the combiner knee just sort of visible in the caved in chest. If displaying in this mode, I recommend leaving Hornbeast on the
chest and maybe having Killbison use his vehicle mode cannon as a ludicrously large pistol. Or just pull off the individual barrels and make them just ery big pistols.

Combiner Mode: It's a big block with a ratcheting knee joint (15 degrees per click, can go 5 clicks either direction) and a smooth instep hinge. As noted, you can put Bisonbreast back on the chest in this mode, or you could attach it to the cannon mount if you'd rather it be on the outer side of the boot.
It's easier to attach to Liokaiser's upper leg if you bend the knee a click or two first, since Killbison's shoulderpads block the way a little for
a straight knee. It is VERY hard to get it disconnected, in part because the whole thing is very unwieldy when assembled. It might be a little easier if you disconnect Leozak and the limbs from Jaruga first.

Overall: Probably the weakest individual figure of the core six, with a pretty bad vehicle mode and a robot that gets in its way a lot.


DESTRON: JARUGA
Altmode: Katyusha-modified dune buggy
Transformation Difficulty: 12 steps (vehicle to robot), 12 steps (robot to
lower torso and thighs)
Previous Name Use: None
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Pelvis and Thighs
Special Unit: Breastforce
Origin Universe: Japanese G1
Signature Weapon: Jaguar Cannon

Vehicle Mode: Technically there's a sort of "regular vehicle" and "super vehicle" here, with the combiner kibble becoming an improved missile launcher that straps on back to up the launchers from four to sixteen total. Jaruga does suffer a bit from the "there is no external combiner kibble" philosophy
of the original G1 design, even if it kindasorta cheats this time, with a vehicle mode that just sort of has a big chunk of legs on the back. Without the booster unit, this does look a lot like the G1 vehicle mode, but G1 put
the Liokaiser thighs inside Drillhorn and Killbison, and this version just
sort of tacks them on top of Jaruga's own legs in vehicle mode.
To be clearer, hopefully, the piece that is the pelvis and thighs of Liokaiser also has a pair of wheels on struts. Placing the piece on top of
the back end of Jaruga's vehicle mode lets you swing the struts down to peg
the new wheels into the hubs of the existing rear wheels. From any direction but head on, this is obviously just carrying the thighs around, but from the front it turns a small four-missile system into a huge "stupid Battletech design" sort of missile box. A super-katyusha, if you will, with six wheels
to better spread the extra load. The added twelve launcher openings are just painted irregular octagons, the needs of the combiner mode prevent there from being and protruding warheads. Maybe they're energy weapon apertures
instead.
Without the extra block, it's a dune buggy with a smaller missile box on the back, only four warheads poking out the front but the overall volume implying a hidden magazine of extra shots. It has a closed driver's compartment, probably a good idea given the unavoidable exhaust blast of
firing those missiles. The robot arms are just stuck to the sides, but
that's pretty standard for this sort of altmode.
The core vehicle is 6.25" (16cm) long and is mostly very dark gray. The wheels are the same almost-black as the accent color on the jets, while the rest of the visible plastic in this mode is a very dark gray that's slightly cooler than the almost-black and not quite as dark. Some very light gray is visible around the edges, but is pretty much all robot mode stuff.
The winch cable on the front end is painted silver, as are the wheel
hubs. The hood has a golden yellow stripe down the middle, flanked by very light gray, with a purple-on-silver Decepticon symbol near the front. The driver's compartment windows on front and sides are yellow-orange, and the missile tips are painted red. The very light gray biceps are visible on the sides, and the golden yellow kneecap vents are visible on back of the missile box when the booster isn't attached.
The wheels roll nicely, and even with Jaguarbreast attached there's
decent ground clearance. Technically the smaller rocket pods can elevate
since they're attached to the robot toes and can use the toe hinges. The
rear wheels have some play to slide in and out along their axles to make it easier to lock the booster missile pack in place. No other intentional or useful articulation.
There's 5mm sockets on the fronts of the missile box for attaching the warhead pieces in this mode, 5mm sockets on either side of the box (for attaching the warhead pieces in robot mode), a 5mm socket on the underside of the front end, and a 5mm socket under the center in the depression where Jaguarbreast lives. Each wheel hub is a 5mm hexagonal socket, and the ones
on the rear wheels are in raised collars. The front ones are really shallow, so it's hard to get pegs in. Unsurprisingly, there's no pylon-mount for this vehicle either.
With the booster piece on it, the center of mass is still ahead of the rear wheels, if not by much. Total length becomes 7" (18cm) and height is 4.25" (11cm), and it does look like if it fires any of the missiles it'll tip over backwards. The thighs in back are very light gray plastic with bo
paint, the extra wheels are almost-black plastic with silver hubs.
Everything else is the very dark gray of the main vehicle. There's golden yellow paint on vents on top (pelvis decoration), and red on the two rows of six weapon apertures. There's a little nub of very light gray plastic at the bottom center of the "front" of the launcher box, with a spring behind it,
this is to help stabilize the combiner mode. The wheels are on swivel stuts that swing around to lock onto the rear wheels of the main vehicle, or can be adjusted as a stand for a standalone launcher. They cannot be attached to
the front wheels of the baja buggy, they depend on the raised collars of the rear hubs.

Jaguarbreast: In breastplate mode it's pretty compact, fitting neatly within the chest cavity with very little sticking out to the sides. It still has a vaguely wing-like motif common to the breed, but is only 33mm (about 1.25") wide and 29mm tall, in a mix of very light gray, deep purple, and hot magenta. The main structure is very light gray plastic, the attachment peg
and fold-out gun barrel are almost-black plastic, and the beast legs still
sort of visible in this mode are the same hot magenta as Gaihawk's main
color. Not visible in this mode, the beast head is also very light gray plastic. The wing-like details on the chest are painted deep purple on the right and left thirds, with a darker purple-on-silver Decepticon symbol on
the left pec. The attachment peg is near but not at the top edge on back.
Jaguar Cannon mode has a little gun that folds out from the top of the chestplate, so the bulk of the weapon ends up behind the grip rather than in front. The barrel is the same mold as Leo Cannon's barrel, but different color. The grip peg cannot be fully stowed correctly (although it can point forwards parallel to the barrel) unless you pull out the beast head, so that helps a bit with stability while trying to put the weapon in Jaruga's hand. It's difficult to get Jaruga to hold Jaguar Cannon very well because the
kitty ears prevent the body from resting flat on the forearm, so the whole thing just sort of points down a bit. You can fold the beast head out all
the way to help with this, but it's an inelegant solution. To replicate the instructions picture, the grip peg has to be barely in the fist. Definitely not a particularly impressive weapon mode. I'd rather just leave it in Jaruga's torso and have him hold the missile pods as weapons.
Fold out the head and legs to get beast mode, and I found it a lot
easier to get the legs out than on Lionbreast. The result is little stubby
peg legs and a head that sticks out maybe a little too far ahead of the front hips. The chest wings are a little more over the rear hips than the front hips. The beast eyes are painted red.

Transformation: The missile box unfolds to become legs, and it's a lot easier to fold the toes out if you use the missiles as handles and then
remove them afterwards to put at the ankle sides. Pull the arms away from
the sides and then rotate the lower arms at the swivels just above the
elbows. Then fold the vehicle front end back until it snaps into place and turn the head around. Jaguarbreast can remain in the chest the whole time.
The instructions are vague on this point, but there's a second hinge in the vehicle front end that can also bend, the robot mode instructions do not use this, nor do the combiner mode instructions on the next page. The final combination instructions don't show it bending either.
Note, the combiner shorts piece does not officially have any role in
robot mode, but you can kind of set it up as a crew-served rocket weapon or something. Flip up the pelvis armor skirt as a blast shield.
Going to combiner mode basically starts with vehicle mode, just remove
the big rocket pack and fold Jaruga's legs to 90 degrees as the furst step. Then fold the robot arms out to the sides a bit, they'll need to clamp onto Leozak later. Finally, shove the legs into the front of the missile pack, making sure to get the rails in the right places, locking it all down with
the little missile pods. The wheels of the pants piece need to be left out
of the way until the end, then snap into place on the sides.
It takes a fair amount of force to get the robot legs into the waist
area of the combiner chunk, you'll know you've got it in far enough if you
can put the little missile launchers on the sides. These lock it very firmly in place, and can be difficult to remove as part of separating the components again. Even with them gone, getting the robot legs out of the waist is HARD.
I needed to insert a metal bar and use it as a lever to start things.

Robot Mode: A fairly blocky G1-animation-style bot other than the
vehicle front end hanging off the back and the rear wheels on struts sticking out of the thighs. The official position of the rocket pods on the ankles looks a little weird, but it is true to the animation design as well.
Without Jaguarbreast the chest is pretty hollow, looking like he got punched hard by an enemy combiner and it caved in the torso. The helmet is jaguar- themed with a roughly hexagonal front silhouette unlike most other Jaguar/ Ravage types.
5.5" (14cm) tall in mostly very dark gray and very light gray with some splashes of red, purple, magenta, and golden yellow. Very light gray plastic is used for the torso front, the base of the neck, fists, thighs, and knees. Everything else is very dark gray plastic. The face and biceps are painted very light gray, the visor and the missile warheads are painted gloss red,
the kneecap vents are painted golden yellow. With Jaguarbreast removed, there's a no-outline purple Decepticon symbol printed just below the
connector socket inside the chest.
The neck is a ball joint with the socket in the head, it can rock
forwards and backwards a little in addition to turning, but can't tilt to the sides. The waist is a smooth swivel and the hips bang up against back kibble after about 45 degrees either direction. Screw-secured hinge and swivel shoulders that can't quite lift all the way to horizongal on the lifting hinges, swivels just above the hinge elbows, ball joint wrists that can
rotate or stow the fists inside the forearms. Pinned hinge and swivel hips that are blocked by the thigh wheels from quite lifting all the way to horizontal, upper thigh swivels, hinge knees, instep hinge ankles. It looks
at first glance that there might be another swivel right above each knee, but that's just an artifact of the thighs being made of multiple pieces. The
toes can fold down on transformation joints, on the rare occasion this is useful.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, there's a dedicated 5mm socket inside the chest cavity, another on backpack (underside of the vehicle front). There's
a socket on the outer edge of each foot for the missile pods, and on top of each toe for the missile pods in vehicle mode. The wheel hub sockets remain accessible and also remain difficult and kinda dumb. :)
I didn't discuss the missile pods as separate pieces above because
they're supposedly part of the vehicle mode, but here they can be detached
and held as pistols instead. Identical pieces hollow on their undersides
(but the warheads were painted via being dipped in paint, as their inner hollows are also red), with 5mm pegs on the bottom for attachment in robot
mode as ankle weapons or pistols, and 5mm pegs on the back for attachment in vehicle mode, they're each 28mm (a little over an inch) long including the
back pegs. It takes a bit of extra force to get them into the fists, this might be due to a little mold misalignment or potentially an intentional "you gotta MEAN it" choice. If you turn a fist sideways, you can get both
launchers onto the same hand as a rocket punch weapon.

Combiner Mode: So, this is the pelvis and thighs of the combiner, plus a backpack made of most of the main bot. If you have the side wheels properly snapped into place, the waist turns if very stiffly, and the pelvis skirt has to lift up on its own fairly stiff hinge to make room for the hips. The hips ratchet to the sides 10 degrees at a time, blocked at 7 clicks if the wheels are in place but able to go to 9 if you swing the wheels back out of the
way. The hips ratchet from straight forwards to straight back with 10 clicks between extremes. The mid-thigh swivels are smooth. The thighs end in
sockets for the tops of the knees to slide in.
Unlike the other core Breastforcers, Jaruga can leave his partner in
place through all transformations. (Killbison and Drillhorn can put them
back after combiner mode transformation, but do have to remove them for part
of the process.)
Getting this attached to Leozak is tricky, Leozak's hip armor flaps need to be pushed outward as far as they'll go or it'll block attachment. Once everything else is in place, they fold back down to help lock things. I suspect that the mystery hinge on Jaruga's front end is just to make it
easier to get the headlight bits into Leozak's toes, just a little wiggle
room there does help. If you're not putting all the partners on Deathcobra, LionBreast goes on that 5mm socket on the underside of Jaruga's front end. David Willis has pointed out that this results in Lionbreast's head poking up over the edge of Jaruga's front end like the cat in the "two women yelling at
a cat" meme.
I've been assembling Liokaiser as I finish reviews (reminder, going in
box order, so the jets first, then Jaruga) and the double peg attachment to
the pylon is enough to hold up the boot-less Liokaiser just fine. It looks like an accident with the invisibility cloak only working on the boots....

Overall: Well, it does sort of cheat with combiner kibble, but the alternative would be kinda skinny thighs that would have to be part of the tanks and attach to Jaruga's legs for a bit of a stability nightmare, at
least they found a way to have the vehicle mode carry it even if it just goes to Trailerspace in robot mode. Somewhat weak weapon mode for its partner.


DESTRON: DRILLHORN
Altmode: Drill Tank
Partner: Hornbreast
Transformation Difficulty: 11 steps (tank to robot), 16 steps (robot to leg) Previous Name Use: No mass market US release
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Left Leg
Special Unit: Breastforce
Origin Universe: Japanese G1
Signature Weapon: (TFWiki has no listing, but probably Horn Cannon)

There are some pieces in common with Killbison, as well as partial
pieces like the boots where they copied over part of the design from one to
the other but the actual molds were different because of other elements of a given piece. Identical pieces are: fists, elbow joints, shoulder joints,
torso core (but not the pull-out backpack), combiner upper knees, pelvis fronts, hip joints, thighs, knee joints (including the bits inside the boot), shins/inner boot faces, feet and pseudo-ankles, combiner toes and heels (but placed on opposite sides), soles of the feet, little wheels inside the
vehicle treads. The outer faces of the boots have some shared details including the rear treads, but differ on the backs, which are of a piece with the outer faces. And yes, this leaves the vehicle mode looking different in most ways, the similarities are mainly robot mode.
No pieces appear to be explicitly mirrored (unlike Ellbat below), the combiner toes and heels are just swapped.

Vehicle Mode: Even by 1992 drill tanks were something of a cliche in transforming robot toys, never having drill bits big enough to let the rest
of the vehicle follow. That said, this is a decent-looking one. It
generally slopes upwards from the drill cone, with a well-defined cockpit in front to a quartet of vertical fins in back (center two taller than outer
two) and multiple molded gun barrels ahead of the fins. The backs of the
arms that form the tops of the front fenders each have four molded (but non-moving) flaps that would cover missile pods. The drill bit has six thin vanes spaced around the cone and the base it's connected to has twelve
vanes.
7" (18cm) long including the drill bit, mostly darkish blue with various grays and a silver drill bit. The root of the drill, the bit itself, and
some of the back end (the soles of the feet) are very light gray plastic.
The toe hinges visible in back are almost-black plastic, the rest os slightly darker than medium blue plastic. The drillbit's visible parts are painted silver (only the peg is unpainted), the cockpit window is painted light blue, and trapezoids on either side in the back are painted golden yellow. There's some medium gray paint from the biceps visible on top. Intake vents on the middle two fin sections (I guess it's a jet-propelled drill tank) are painted almost-black. The front of the top vane on the drill base is painted red, I guess a laser sight for drilling.
The little rolling wheels work the same as on Killbison. The drill bit attaches via a 5mm peg that has four 1mm long vanes above the lowest 4mm of
the peg, which fit snugly into the 7mm wide countersunk socket around the 5mm hexagonal socket on front. Just like Killbison, there's no place for pylon connection.

Hornbreast: This has the smallest winglets of the Breastforce partners, just a few millimeters across with a nearly square main body. The G1 version had a white body and wings, black limbs and head. This comes close, but slightly different arrangement of the colors. 39mm (1.5") wide and 32mm (1.25") tall. The wingpack, beast head, connector peg, and (same mold as Leozak's) gun barrel/tail are very light gray plastic. The interior core and limbs are almost-black. The winglets and the little blasters molded into
their roots are painted almost-black, and there's a no-outline purple Decepticon symbol printed on the centerline in the top third.
Horn Cannon transforms the same way as Bison Cannon, with the same "head gets in the way" limitation. Transformation to beast mode is also the same, and the legs are identical in mold to Bisonbreast's. The head has teeny ears and a short second horn behind the main horn, which is more like a Sumatran rhino than the White Rhinoceros (two large horns) or the one-horned
varieties.

Transformation: Mostly the same as Killbison's, but the head does not
need to be folded out of the backpack since the drill unit just covers it up
in vehicle mode (and hence the neck root being the only almost-black piece
not duplicated). The backpack is just as difficult to open and close despite having very short pegs, as only the last couple millimeters of the pegs on Killbison actually go into the sockets. At least the drill root (with drill removed) can be used as a handle to improve leverage when pulling the pack open, and I didn't need to use a screwdriver as a lever on this one. Pushing down and in when closing it works here too.
The front treads fold back instead of rotating, resulting in a somewhat different silhouette for robot mode. The rocker switches are the middle two fin-and-gun units, but they're functionally the same as on Killbison. The drill bit can be held as a melee weapon if you'd rather leave Hornbreast on
the chest for aesthetic reasons.
Transformation to combiner mode is about the same as Killbison's,
although the head just stays with the knee joint piece and ends up inside the chest, rather than folding into the backpack.

Robot Mode: The smaller front treads and the fact they just fold back means the silhouette is significantly different than Killbison's even though the torso and legs are about the same shape from the front. The head has a full face in a helmet with a single horn-like crest and two tiny ears.
5.5" (14cm) tall in mostly medium blue and various grays. All the parts that were almost-black on Killbison are the same color here. The head and
the soles of the feet are very light gray plastic, as is the drill section hanging down in back. Everything else is medium blue platic. Very light
gray paint is used on the shin fronts and oddly on the bits between the "proper" boots and the treads, I guess to line up with the light gray plastic sole hinges. There's medium gray paint on the lower biceps, the round
details molded on the right and left chest, and the treads as in vehicle
mode. The face is painted a gloss light blue, with gloss red eyes. The kneecaps are golden yellow. As with Killbison, there's no separate
Decepticon symbol, it depends on Hornbreast for that.
Articulation is mostly the same as Killbison's, but not only are the
arms not as impeded by big fender shoulderpads, the waist is barely blocked
at all since it's easy enough to let the drillbit hang a little farther back
or even just remove it to use as a melee weapon. Because the head doesn't
have to fold back for transformation, it doesn't have that extra neck root hinge, but it can look up a little due to the head being shaped differently.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, and the "can't connect to a pylon" butt peg is the same as on Killbison. Same chest connection socket and slots, but if you remove the drill bit there's a countersunk 5mm socket on the backpack.

Combiner Mode: Functionally the same as Killbison, just mirror-flipped.

Overall: The more fantastic altmode is part of why this works better
than its brother mold Killbison, since there's nothing real to compare it to, but I think it just works better even standing on its own aesthetics and functionality.


DESTRON: ELLBAT
Altmode: Fighter Jet (Dassault Rafale)
Transformation Difficulty: 14 steps (jet to robot), 14 steps (robot to arm) Previous Name Use: None, seriously. Was Fellbat in Combiner Wars.
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Left Arm
Special Unit: Breastforce
Origin Universe: Japanese G1
Signature Weapon: Komori Cannon

Note, while this obviously has to share a lot of engineering with
Gaihawk for functional reasons, it turns out to share a bunch of mold pieces
as well, even moreso than Drillhorn and Killbison do. Again, some of these
are "same file, but mirror-swapped," or "some of a given piece is the same
but not the whole thing." For instance, the shins are basically mirror
images, as are the knee joint shells, the non-fist side panel, abdomen, and
the ratchet joint inside the chest. However, the torso front, arms (all the way from shoulder to fist), thighs, inner knees, toe hinges, toes, nose
wheel, and the hinges in the upper torso for the neck and combiner socket are identical. There's slightly different details on the pelvis pieces aside
from being functionally mirrored, the Liokaiser fist has a single thruster instead of a pair on top of being mirrored, and all of the airplane shell
bits other than the air intakes are new.

Hey, I just realized I can make sense of the trademark-issue name. He forms the LEFT arm, so he's L-Bat!

Vehicle Mode: The Dassault Rafale is one of those late-20C "delta wing with a canard" designs like the Gripen. The Rafale has also been used by Micromaster Stormcloud/Skyhipper, Machine Wars Skywarp and its many redecos, Armada Ramjet, and one of the movie Hatchets. This looks a lot more like a proper Rafale than the G1 Hellbat toy, although for obvious reasons shares Gaihawk's weird intakes (which kind of blend into the canards).
6.75" (17.5cm) long with a wingspan of just over 5" (13cm), making it
1:87 (HO) scale (and not the same scale as Gaihawk, not that combiners live
on the same continent as consistent scale). A mix of darkish blue (same as Drillhorn), very light gray, yellow, and red. Of the purely jet parts, only the wings and some visible hinges behind the cockpit are made of the same
very light gray as everyone else uses. The nose wheel, thruster, and more hinges are made of the almost-black plastic also common among the Breast
Force. The rest is a somewhat dark blue plastic.
Most of each wing is painted golden yellow on top, with purple on silver Decepticon symbols near the trailing edges. The center of each side of the single vertical tail is painted very light gray, and the cockpit windows are gloss red. The top of the molded thruster housing in back of the tail is painted almost-black.
Connectors (including thruster not being one) and articulation basically the same as Gaihawk, except that there's no 5mm peg on the underside of the nose. It wouldn't do to have Deathcobra mount on Ellbat, given their
alternate history.

Komoribreast: While the other partners have basically English names transliterated into Japanese, they used the Japanese word for bat on this
one. This is all made of the very light gray plastic and looks like a bat holding its wingtips under its chin. There's darkish blue paint on the wing hinges (a little sloppy on mine) and the abdomen, red eyes, and a borderless purple Decepticon symbol on the left wingtip. It's 43mm tall and 43mm wide (about 1.75"). Like Hawkbreast, the short 5mm peg is behind the top edge. However, unlike Hawkbreast, the bat head is facing forwards in this mode, and the ears flank the robot's face.
Komori Cannon mode is just the breastplate mode with a barrel folded out from under the bottom edge. Near as I can tell, this is identical to the barrel piece from Leo Cannon.
To turn into the beast partner form, first fold the head all the way up, which will nudge the wings up enough to make it easier to fold them the rest
of the way out. The connector peg ends up between the ears, although you can fold the head back down and stand it up on the bat feet. The wingspan is
2.75" (7cm).

Transformation: Obviously pretty similar to Gaihawk's, although the backpack is a little harder to free up, and the tail has to be split into two as part of separating the boots. Mind you, this removes some of the
stability that Gaihawk has, so you might want to fold them back out halfway (octagonal soft-ratchet hinges) to add heels.

Robot Mode: So, from the front it looks much like Gaihawk but with a different head and breastplate, and blue instead of magenta. The helmet has sort of batwing flares, and triangular eyes on the forehead of the helmet, making him look four-eyed. The face is a faceplate with chin block, and the eyes are "normal" rather than being a visor or oversized. Obviously, from
the side the wings are rather different.
5.5" (14cm) tall at the head, 5.75" (14.5cm) tall at the shoulder
scoops, just like Gaihawk, in mostly darkish blue and very light gray. The light gray and almost-black plastics are in the same places as on Gaihawk,
with one notable difference. The right and left chest panels are very light gray plastic instead of blue. Everything else is darkish blue plastic.
The face and biceps are painted very light gray, all four eyes are red, and there's golden yellow on the kneecap vents and the rectangular strip on
the pelvis front. There's almost-black paint on the tops of the toes.
There's a purple Decepticon symbol on the belly just like with Gaihawk,
covered up when wearing the breastplate.
The neck is a ball joint with more of an actual neck molded on and no
cut in back, so it can only wiggle a little outside of rotating, unlike Gaihawk's neck. Othewise, identical articulation. Connectors are also identical except for the lack of the 5mm peg on the back.

Combiner Mode: Basically the mirror image of Gaihawk in terms of transformation and the function of the limb, other than the tail section
being snapped together. The hand has trouble holding Komori Cannon because
of the bat ears, though. As with Hawk Cannon, it officially goes on the forearm socket on back of Liokaiser's shoulder.

Overall: The wings are a bit more awkward in robot mode, but otherwise
as good as Gaihawk for obvious reasons.


DESTRON: DEATHCOBRA
Altmode: Attack Helicopter (Mi-24 Hind...not a Huey Cobra)
Transformation Difficulty: 17 steps (vehicle to robot), 15 steps (robot to
arm), 14 steps (robot to shoulder cannon)
Previous Name Use: None
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Doomed Replacement Left Arm
Special Unit: Breastforce
Origin Universe: Japanese G1
Signature Weapon: (TFWiki has nothing, but probably Cobra Cannon)

So, this was a "stretch goal," technically speaking, and some people
have claimed that as a result its design was an afterthought. I don't think that's a viable excuse, though...the HasLab crowdfunds are more like
imitating the forms of a crowdfund, but I'm certain all of the extras are planned out and expected before the campaign launches. Certainly, none of
the Transformers HasLabs has failed to hit the final "stretch goal" in its campaign, even if it took an online retailer ordering a hundred or so at the last minute. So, yeah, Deathcobra was part of the plan before they even announced this, budgeted in from day zero.

Since it needs to replace Ellbat as the left arm for one of its tertiary modes, one expects it to share some parts, although fewer than you might
think. The chest front, the Liokaiser arm joint pieces, abdomen, pelvis
front, elbow joints, outer parts of the knee hinges, right boot inside face door, toes, toe joints. The boot fronts are "same starting point, but added
a bit" with tabs sticking out on the outer edges of the kneecaps for the helicopter landing supports. The pylon connectors in both modes work the
same despite their mold pieces being slightly different. The Liokaiser fist
is new, lacking any molded thrusters on it, but the finger joint pieces are
the same. The combiner socket is altered to add little hooked tabs to let
you pull it out more easily, as it's not as attached to the neckplate.

Vehicle Mode: Well, it looks credibly like a Hind...carrying a cargo box underneath it. It also lacks the under-winglet rocket pods of the animation design, and has the wrong number of rotor blades (Mil's attach helicopters famously have five rotor blades, this has two), but given that there's never been a proper toy before and Victory cheated by never showing a
transformation (and just had the rotors vanish in robot mode), they really
had to guess a lot on this toy. Like, G1 animation transformations often cheated by having bits just vanish, but Deathcobra was worse than average. Anyway, what distinguishes the Hind from the AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter, aside from the five rotor blades, is that the pilot and gunner sat on
different levels, so the cockpit has a sort of split-level effect with the
rear bubble higher than the front bubble (in most U.S. attack helicopters, pilot and gunner are about the same height and the cockpit top is a straight line). The Hind does have little winglets for weapon hardpoints more than
for lift/maneuver, but this toy leaves off the weaponry. As is standard for attack helicopters, there's a nose cannon (which, along with the main rotor, are separate in the blister tray, some assembly required). There's tabs on
the arms that go into slots on the boots, but on mine they don't really stick well. Speaking of the arms, the tops of the shoulders are molded to look
kind of like air intakes, although the actual air intake is molded on top
ahead of the rotor socket.
The main body is 8.25" (21cm) long including the nose cannon, the rotor circle is 7.5" (19cm), and the maximum front to back distance with a rotor pointed forwards is 8.75" (22cm). That makes the scale somewhere between
1:80 and 1:90.The color is mostly olive green with bits of very light gray, almost-black, and golden yellow. The main and tail rotors are almost-black plastic, as are the winglets, robot toes on the underside, and nose cannon.
The visible very light gray plastic is mostly hinges. Everything else is
olive green plastic.
There's pale green paint on the cowling opening of the shoulder air intakes and on the leading bit of the forearm chunks. The intakes themselves (shoulders and ahead of rotor) are painted almost black. The biceps on the sides are painted very light gray. The windows of the cockpit bubbles are painted gloss golden yellow.
The rotor spins nicely, thanks to having an axle built into its main barre-peg. While there's a 5mm peg on top that's used for robot mode
storage, the main peg is 9mm in diameter and goes into a large socket on top (as well as an arm-mode-only socket). The tail rotor is a simple pinned connector that also spins decently. The winglets are hinged and a little looser than I'd like since they don't really stay in their proper position in this mode. The horizontal tail fins near the back end of the tail strut are hinged but only meant to go between straight across and straight up. The
main rotors themselves are hinged to fold together for storage in robot
mode. I suppose because it's pegged in place the nose cannon can traverse
side to side.
Lots of connection points, in no small part because it's meant to hold
all seven Breast Cannons in its shoulder-carried mode. There's a dedicated
one under the nose for the nose cannon, one on the outer face of each arm,
one on either side of the boots/cargo box (not very accessible in this mode, though), one on top of the tail, two on the underside of the tail (one partially blocked by the thighs in this mode), and technically four on the underside of the front end. One is meant to hold Cobrabreast in this mode,
the other three are from the chest mold shared with the other two arm dudes. There's no hardpoints or sockets on the winglets. The slots on the kneecaps for the pylon t-slider are on the underside of the cargo box at the back.
It is possible to mount this mode on one of the side pylons in a front slot while Liokaiser is on the center-read pylon as long as the relevant arm
is lifted up a bit. I like the look of putting it on the left side with the Ellbat arm lifted to smash him to pieces.

Cobrabreast: Except for the peg piece in back (which is very light gray plastic), it's all olive green plastic. It's sort of a flat-pack cobra here, with the usual wings being the cobra hood kinda stretched out to be wider
than tall, and a smooshed head is folded into the chest. The general shape
is a T, 39mm (1.5") tall and 42mm wide. The hood sections are painted golden yellow, and the snake eyes are painted red. There's a purple on silver Decepticon symbol printed on the snake forehead. The peg in back rotates to allow for short and long versions, the short version is for chestplate mode
and the long version for Cobra Cannon mode. It doesn't really stay in
position well on the chest, the peg might need a little thickening since there's no details to otherwise lock it in place.
Cobra Cannon folds out the longer peg, and folds a slender barrel out
from under the bottom part of the T. The hinge for the barrel is a soft- ratcheting octagonal hinge to give it more stability in snake mode, although the hinge between the cowl piece and the body piece is smooth. The barrel
tip has the shape of a Fire Blast stud, but goes from 3.5mm diameter down to 1.8mm, like a resized knockoff. The entire length of the cannon mode is 54mm (a little over 2").
Beast mold folds up the body and flips the head out, revealing fangs painted very light gray. The head is on a hinge, the cowl to body connection is a smooth hinge, and the last bit of tail is the gun barrel on its soft- ratcheting hinge. If you pose the figure in a rough Z-shape it can balance
on the tail bit with the root of the hinge forming the crosspiece that keeps
it from falling over sideways. Okay, so the result is a kinda flat cobra
with a hole down the middle of its body, but it's not bad for a simple figure like this.

Transformation: The legs don't need to be pulled out of the boots,
because this one instead has an extra hinge in the thighs to let the legs
just bend over to form that cargo box. The only thing the boot-collapse
joints are used for is arm mode. A LOT of stuff just folds back, most of the transformation is "straighten the legs, turn the upper torso swivel 180 degrees, fold out fists, toes, and heels." The rest is shoving vehicle
kibble backwards and pulling the head out of the cockpit. You can leave Cobrabreast in place during transformation, but will want to move it to the front at some point. Going back to helicopter mode you'll want to unsnap the thigh bends before snapping the boots together, it's hard to get them to both unsnap properly if you wait until later.
For arm mode, you do need to collapse the boots and get the fist out, which takes a fair amount of force on mine. Fairly similar to Ellbat, just more vehicle kibble to deal with. Unlike the other two, the combiner socket doesn't automatically fold out as you bend the torso and stow the head, hence the little tabs on it.
For shoulder cannon mode, the instructions show starting at robot mode, but it's a lot easier to start from vehicle mode. It's really just unbending the thigh hinges, rotating the waist and positioning the boots to point backwards, placing Cobra Cannon under the tail, and messing with the winglets and rotor blades. Then decorate with Breast Cannons to taste.
Interestingly, while the horizontal fins on the tail are hinged, they never get bent at any point in the official instructions.

Robot Mode: So much backpack. Like, you could lift the tail up higher
if you wanted, but it really needs to act as a third leg because so much of
the vehicle mode is just hanging off the back (the entire double cockpit, the rotors, and the tail). Like, there are little fold out heel tabs, which are surprisingly enough to stop the figure from falling over. There's a lot of backpack kibble, but it's pretty hollow. (On mine, one of the heels wasn't quite seated properly, which warped the boot slightly, something that became obvious when I moved to arm mode. It also tends to pop out easily during transformation, so it might have been permanently damaged by its time not-quite-in-place.) The helmet is significantly narrower than the animation model, but it has to actually git inside the cockpit section, so the cowl
ears need to be shorter (in animation, the proportion is closer to Cobrabreast's hood). There's a full face inside the helmet, with fangs on
the brim and cheekguards. The new thighs play up the snake motif with snake belly scutes molded onto the fronts.
5.5" (14cm) tall with a bit more of the non-green colors than vehicle mode, but still mostly olive green. The collar area, chest ratchet
(Liokaiser upper arm) shoulder hinges, elbow joints, thighs, outer knee
joints, and toe joints are very light gray plastic. Almost-black plastic is used for the fists, toes, heels, and various vehicle bits as above.
Everything else is olive green plastic.
There's almost-black paint on the abdomen (done well enough I initially thought it was the plastic color) and the tops of the shoulders. The face, helmet fangs, and biceps are painted very light gray. The eyes and the eyes
of the snake helmet are painted gloss red. The eyes are a bit sunken in the face and the light gray paint doesn't extend to the sockets, so he has dark (well, green) rings around his eyes, The helmet hood fronts and kneecap vents are painted golden yellow. The pale green mentioned in vehicle mode is now
on the tops of the shoulders and the bits of the forearms nearest the elbows. There's a purple on silver Decepticon symbol on the abdomen.
The neck is a ball joint with the socket in the head, with decent up and down wiggle room. The collar area takes a LOT of force to snap into place if you don't want the whole thing flopping up. All of the torso articulation is the same as in Ellbat, since it's there for left arm mode. Pinned hinge and swivel shoulders, swivels just above the hinge elbows, ball joint wrists like Ellbat's. However, unlike Ellbat, there's little tabs on the discs inside
the bicep swivel that seem designed to keep the arms from swinging outward, possibly meant to help with vehicle mode stability...but a snap-in-place
notch would've been much better for that. Pinned hinge and swivel hips, swivels just above the hinge knees, and the same sort of toe joints as
Gaihawk and Ellbat. There's also hinges in the middle of each thigh for transformation, but they stay snapped shut very firmly in robot mode.
The fists hold 5mm pegs, there's 5mm sockets in the outer faces of the forearms, the outer faces of the lower boots (these are more D-shaped), the three on the chest that Gaihawk and Ellbat share, the pylon-compatible 5mm socket in the butt, and several on the vehicle kibble.
In addition to using Cobra Cannon, Deathcobra can also use the
helicopter mode nose cannon as either a pistol or a forearm cannon. It's a single piece of almost-black plastic 1.25" (3cm) long molded as a turret,
with a 3mm stud barrel tip and a 5mm peg under the center of the turret
body. Removing it from the nose lets you fold the propeller blades closer together in back. (The rotor blades can also be mounted on a forearm socket
as a rather unwieldy weapon.)

Combiner Modes: This has two ways to interact with Liokaiser. One is as Leozack originally intended, a replacement for Hellbat. However, to let all seven be in use at once, they also cobbled together a sort of shoulder cannon mode.
In arm mode, the instructions say to swing the tail back down at the
end, but I prefer it sticking straight up. The pile of vehicle bits on the shoulderpad can't really be minimized, might as well lean into it. The helicopter rotor can be left on the shoulder somewhere, or moved to the newly available 9mm socket on the back of the forearm, but I can't find a pose in which it can spin without hitting the shoulder. Anyway, identical
articulation to Ellbat and Gaihawk, and more 5mm sockets.
The cannon mode attaches using that peg on Gaihawk's underside going
into the Cobrabreast chest socket and one of the knee tabs on Deathcobra
going into a slot on Gaihawk's wing. Both of Gaihawk's wings have to be flattened for this, although technically the shoulder articulation on
Liokaiser remains usable. Then attach all the breast cannons to taste,
making this sort of a Power Rangers combined weapon. Despite only two attachment points, it's pretty firmly attached once it's on there. (I was
half expecting the mystery 5mm chest sockets to be involved in this
attachment, but nope, they serve no purpose at all.

Overall: For a guy who didn't survive the episode in which he was introduced, it's surprising he got a toy at all. Could it have been better? Sure, with a much higher budget, same could be said for most of these (except Killbison, who I think could've been better without needing more money). There's some clever choices made here along with the usual missed opportunities, but it definitely didn't feel like an afterthought to me.
Still leaving it off Liokaiser for display, though.


DESTRON: LIOKAISER
Transformation Difficulty: 8 steps to assemble the parts, 3 steps to replace
the left arm with Deathcobra, 7 steps to add cannon mode Deathcobra Previous Name Use: Combiner Wars
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Super Robot
Special Unit: Breastforce
Origin Universe: Japanese G1
Signature Weapon: Electromagnetic Nunchaku (well, more of a four-section
staff, but they called it Nunchaku)

Assembly comments scattered throughout the individual entries. The 8 steps above are after you have each part in its combiner mode, and they're mostly "put this peg in that socket" except for the slightly more involved connection of Jaruga to Leozak.

Robot Mode: Well, it looks good, in that standard neo-G1 "looks like the animation model but with extra molded details," while sticking to animation- simple colors. You don't need the stand, the big feet and extensive use of ratchet joints in the legs ensure a decent range of stable poses. Mind you, the lack of front-to-back ankle articulation means both feet will need to be flat on the surface, making use of the instep hinges. The toe hinges are nowhere near stiff enough to support anything. If you want a more dynamic pose, you'll need to use the stand (which can support the whole combiner without the feet touching down). While you have to fiddle with Leozak's
wings a bit, the arms have a pretty full range of motion despite all the bulk and kibble.
As noted in the individual entries, these guys stay together VERY firmly. Like, removing limbs takes an unreasonable amount of force. Detaching Leozak and Jaruga isn't that difficult, but there's multiple connections there from multiple directions, so while any one bit is easy to undo, the whole thing holds together well.
12" (30cm) tall at the head, 13" (33cm) tall at the wingtips, it's your basic super sentai combiner color scheme, but oddly both the left arm and
left boot are the same blue. I could've sworn they'd made Ellbat darker than Drillhorn, but putting them next to each other shows them the same. By comparison, Combiner Wars Liokaiser was about 10.5" (26-27cm) tall at the
head, but a bit less solid-looking.

Electromagnetic Nunchaku: They kinda go overkill on this. The official weapon needs four segments, three chain connectors, two spiked collars, and
two spearheads. There are, in fact, six of everything. The instructions do show using six segments and six spearheads to give all of the core six a
spear (and you could give them all spears with spiked collars if you want). There doesn't seem to be any particular use for all those connectors, at most you can use five meaningfully, but I guess they wanted to provide spares.
Two of each component store on the underside of each of the three stand base pieces.
The top tray of box A has all of the weapon pieces, plus three connector bits for the stand. All of the weapon pieces use a silvery bluish gray
plastic except for the chain links, which are black plastic...which suggests
to me why they maybe thought they needed spares of those pieces. The shaft segments are conical pointy at either end, 6" (15cm) long, and 4.9mm in diameter. The chain connectors have 5mm (or 4.9mm) sockets in the endcaps, with about 1.25" (3cm) of chain between the bits. The spearheads are a bit
of a hassle to get out of the blister tray, I found I needed to use a knife
to get just one out without popping the whole tray. The spearheads have 5mm sockets and then somewhat barbed triangular blades 1.5" (a little under 4cm) long and a little under an inch (23mm) wide at the widest. They also have
6mm by 2.5mm rectangular pegs, for storage purposes. Finally, the spiked collars have 5mm central holes to slide over a shaft segment, with six evenly spaced slightly blunted spikes and a total diameter of about 20mm.
The fully assembled four-section weapon is 30.25" (77cm) long. The
shafts snap into Liokaiser's fists, allowing it to be held a variety of ways, but there's no real attack option...they really needed to include some rigid connectors (molded but fused chains) to allow a "throw the end out at an opponent" sort of pose. I expect someone's already made such things
available through 3D printing.

Stand: As with the weapon, this is modular and can be used by the individual robots and vehicles. All of the pieces are made of "Decepticon Purple" plastic with no paints. There's three narrow triangular base pieces and three isoceles trapezoid pylons, plus two underside connector plugs to connect the triangles and a single adapter that can go on top of one of the pylons to plug into Liokaiser's butt.
Each triangle (technically a hexagon, the points are chopped off) is 7" (18cm) long and 5.25" (13.5cm) at the widest, plus 1" (2.5cm) thick. A grid pattern is molded into the top surface. There's two rectangular sockets on
top of each triangle, one near the pointy bit and one near the short side,
18mm wide by 50mm long by 10mm deep. The undersides have various pegs and slots for storing weapon pieces, each triangle can hold two shafts, two
chains, two collars, and two spearheads. There's large sockets on the underside along the long edges so that two or more triangles can be
connected. The full large base is a bit difficult to get together, I think
the connectors are a case of "needs Lego tolerances, does not get them."
Once you have them together, though, all the grid patterns line up and you
get a somewhat notched trapezoid 7" (18cm) wide in front, 11.5" (29cm) wide
in back, and 7" (18cm) from front to back.
Each pylon is a sort of hollow grid pattern seen from the sides but not the see-through sort. 6.25" (16cm) tall, with the bottom centimeter going
into one of the slots on the base. There's a 5mm peg pointed forwards with very little clearance on top, which works on some of the robot butts as well
as the Liokaiser adapter piece. There's also T-cross-section tabs above them that go into slots on the undersides of the rest of the robot pelvises and at least some of the vehicle modes. Either way, individual robots sitting on
top of the pylons tend to look a bit uncomfortable. The Liokaiser adapter makes the pylon about a centimeter taller and has two 5mm pegs for greater stability. There isn't anything to do with the other two pylons just like there's nothing specific to do with the spare weapon pieces, but you can put them into empty sockets to make it look like Liokaiser is standing behind a couple of towers, I suppose.
The whole thing doesn't hold together as well as I'd like. If you want
to pick up Liokaiser, doing it by the base is a good way to have part of the base fall off. They should've put two connectors per edge, not just one, to reduce torque-induced falling apart.

Combiner Overall: It looks good, holds together well, and while there's some missed opportunities here and there, I probably would've been okay with buying it as seven Voyagers (although the base wouldn't be included, the
weapon components could've been).


Set Overall: Was this worth three hundred bucks? Well, at current
prices, seven Voyager-sized toys would cost that much anyway, so locking in
the price before (gestures at the insanity of the current regime) happened probably saved me some money. As of writing this review, I couldn't find anyone reputable selling this, so I don't know what the reseller price level
is likely to be. If you can afford something like this now but couldn't
commit to the HasLab offering previously, I'd say it's probably worth going
as high as $350 before it starts becoming worthwhile to look for a third
party like Hades (or whatever the combined of Iron Factory's set is called)
to satisfy your Liokaiser needs.


Dave Van Domelen, hit nearly 1500 lines with this review. That's a bit much.



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