Silas Breakdown AM-24

Way back in my review of Cyberverse Breakdown, I mentioned my hopes of getting a larger sized version of Breakdown here in the US. Shortly afterward, I saw Takara-Tomy's take on a voyager-class Breakdown and assumed we'd see it here stateside soon enough. Well, Hasbro said we won't. Rumor has it that "not made to our standards" means "too expensive to retool to not include the roughly nine-hundred 5mm ports intended for Micron figures" the Japanese mold sports. This somewhat makes sense as the Prime toy line in Japan is heavily geared around the companion Micron figures whereas in America...it's not. Instead, we get normal weapon accessories, or on larger figures, clunky piles of junk that "transform" and light up and are still nowhere near as cool as just a little Targetmaster-style companion bot. Even though I liked the look of Breakdown, I waffled on ordering him because I wasn't sure how the mold was in hand, plus the hammer/rhino Micron he came with didn't interest me that much. That changed when pictures started to surface of a black repaint with a new praying mantis Micron, Silas Breakdown!

Now I admit, I haven't seen any episodes of Prime, but after reading up on Breakdown for this review, I really want to, as Silas Breakdown's story is quite an interesting one. Spoilers relating to the plot of the Prime series follow this picture, so you might want to skip ahead.

Besides the Decepticons, the Autobots in Prime must also contend with human antagonists, including the sinister M.E.C.H. organization that seeks to understand and reverse engineer Cybertronian technology the direct way, by ripping still living Transformers apart and studying their innards. Led by an ex-military operative with special forces training calling himself Silas, M.E.C.H. clashes with both the Autobots and the Decepticons several time in pursuit of their goals. After events lead to Silas crippled and Breakdown killed, M.E.C.H. recovers the body and directly grafts Silas' broken frame into Breakdown's systems, creating a Frankenstein-like Transformer of both flesh and metal. Calling himself CYLAS (CYbernetic Life Augmented by Symbiosis), this cyborg attempted to offer his service to Megatron as a true Decepticon and, well...it didn't go quite as he envisioned, I'm sure.

What strikes me as interesting about the packaging is that minus the obvious Japanese text, the layout is fairly close to the design of the US Prime line, the box is even the same dimensions as US voyagers. You could plop this guy on a shelf in Walmart among the Bulkheads and Primes and he would blend right in at first glance. The left side of the box showcases the toy transforming and has his tech specs across the bottom.

The right side displays his mantis Micron in both beast and weapon mode and provides a small statistics chart for him as well. This is a nice touch as most Hasbro releases that include a smaller companion figure are lucky to have a single line in the larger figure's bio mentioning the sidekick, never mind individual stats.

Even though he's packaged in robot mode, I'm going to start with Breakdown's vehicle mode to mess with you. Like his Cyberverse counterpart, Breakdown is a massive truck that still looks like lovechild of an off-road SUV and an armored car to me. Black replaces the blueish-purple of the first release with a bit more color added by a few stickers. Additional bits of blue are present in his windshield and windows, whereas silver appears on the painted mirrors and chromed grill piece. The grill is one of the three pieces that make this mold not just a repaint but a retool, as the standard Breakdown lacked this shiny accoutrement.

One thing that makes American fans (myself included) wary of collecting Japanese Prime figures is that Takara-Tomy uses an included sticker sheet to provide decos on a lot of figures that are simply painted on for US releases. This is most prevalent on deluxe class figures who often have windshields and windows that lack paint and must rely on large stickers instead, and applying these in an even slightly sloppy manner can ruin the look of a toy. Thankfully as a voyager, Breakdown has only a few stickers to apply and most of them are for vehicle mode details like headlights, side windows and the rear windshield. As I applied these stickers however, I was struck by how involved Takara-Tomy got with them as many of the details highlighted by stickers would have been left completely unpainted on a Hasbro release. An excellent example is in the decals for the headlights behind the edges of the grill piece. You can barely see these lights in vehicle mode and they're irrelevant in robot mode, but just the idea that they took the time to make stickers for them is a sign of the amount of dedication Takara-Tomy's designers put into this.

Silas Breakdown has a lot of 5mm ports in vehicle mode, fourteen to be exact, meaning he can carry a lot of weapons and Microns. Additionally, the posts on either side of his spare tire are the right size to plug weapons or Microns/Minicons with the proper holes onto, raising his potential number of weapons to sixteen. I can see how Hasbro would find retooling all these spots to be a bit daunting. I should note that there are Decepticon logos on the sticker sheet meant to be placed on his doors, but I personally think he looks better without them. The sheet also includes some extra silver stickers that resemble scratches and dings to replicate the beat-up nature of Breakdown's body when it was recovered, as well as some M.E.C.H. logos. I didn't apply any of these bonus stickers, but again it is nice to see a company offering you a little variation and the ability to customize your Transformers without needing painting skills.

Whereas the first version of Breakdown came with a rhino Micron that transformed into his hammer, Silas Breakdown includes a new purple mantis Micron. I haven't seen a translation for this little guy's name yet, so I'll just refer to him as Mantis (Toboggan.)

Mantis resembles his inspiration close enough that you know what he's meant to be just from a glance. He sports giant scythe-bladed arms and the cyclopean red eye customary of Decepticon Microns. Mantis sports about five points of articulation, having lightly ratcheting joints at the shoulders and elbows and the ability to bend forward or back at the waist. His spark crystal is on the top of his abdomen and is a light blue in color. Mantis is a bit larger and bulkier in beast mode than most Microns which fits well with the nature of his wielder.

Mantis folds up into a bladed gun of some sort. It's somewhat odd looking, but fits with the brawler nature of Breakdown, I imagine him using the blades like double bayonets to impale enemies then blast them off his gun with a squeeze of the trigger.

In theory, you could attach Mantis to any of the multiple ports in vehicle mode, but the instructions suggest the one on the right side of Breakdown's hood and I'm inclined to agree.

Before getting into the full robot mode, I wanted to point out the second mold change made to Silas Breakdown, the inclusion of Silas himself. It would look a whole lot better with a few licks of paint, but you can definitely make out Silas' mug buried in the middle of Breakdown's inner workings, nestled between two piston-like details. This is another great little touch as you never see Silas normally, this piece is only visible during mid-transformation before you lock the chest into place.

Robot mode is where Silas Breakdown really shines, the black and silver paint scheme looks great and the figure itself is nice and bulky with a air of menace about it, this is one mean looking cyborg. Articulation includes ball jointed head, shoulders and hips, outward swinging shoulder hinges, upper arm and leg swivels, hinge elbows, knees and feet and a swivel waist. Breakdown has even less stickers in robot mode than in vehicle mode, just a few added areas of silver and black for his legs and feet and some black and blue details at his waist. He honestly looks just as good without them though, making this a figure you could display straight out of the box without applying a single sticker (though Mantis would look a bit plain without his.)

The third and final mold change for Silas Breakdown is the addition of an all new head sculpt showing how beaten and battered he has become. The right eye is gone, replaced with a round lens that is incongruent with the otherwise organic design, which makes sense as this eye was ripped out by M.E.C.H. and replaced with human technology during the series. My picture is too fuzzy to see it clearly, but the rest of the head also has an asymmetrical design with chunks missing from his armor or plates of a different design replacing original parts. The effect is pretty cool and really sells the "Franken-bot" nature of the character.

Silas Breakdown can wield Mantis (or any correctly sized weapon/Micron) in either hand and can still flip his wrists around so weapons appear to have extended directly from his actual arm. In robot mode, Breakdown sports a whopping eighteen 5mm ports with which to attach weapons or Microns and even a single C-clamp rail on the left side of his backpack section to attach Dark of the Moon/Generations weapons to. This is fantastic, I'm not even sure you can have each spot occupied at once without everything banging into everything else, but you can really outfit him if you want...

Something like this

All in all, Silas Breakdown is a pretty amazing figure with a ton of play value. It's a shame that as of this moment, the only way to get one is to import him, but perhaps Hasbro will surprise us and find a way to get this mold to US fans after all (and hopefully not through a Botcon boxed set.) If you just can't wait however, I'd highly recommend importing one version or another of this figure. Besides the Silas version,  there is the  standard Breakdown with a dark purple/blue color scheme and a rhino Micron, and also a repaint/retool of the mold as an Autobot named Swerve with an awesome rescue saw Micron. All three will probably run you around fifty bucks a pop and as I write this, Big Bad Toy Store is out of all of them minus Swerve. So looks like it's off to eBay with you!

"But...but you're DEAD!"

Arms Micron Dark Matter Caliber

Way back in 2002, Transformers: Armada introduced us to the idea of Minicons; small Transformers of a neutral third faction that unlocked and enhanced abilities in their larger cousins when utilized, typically by just smashing them onto convenient points on their bodies. Though Armada was geared specifically around the Minicons, both in importance to the plot and in the toys, they continued to serve a supporting role throughout the subsequent toy lines and cartoons for the Energon and Cybertron series. After that, they faded into the background a bit in North American markets, reduced mainly to occasional repaints of earlier molds and a brief resurgence in the sadly short-lived Power Core subline. In Japan however, the tiny robots kept going through a flurry of repaints, many of them extremely limited and related to in store contests. Until the latest animated installment, Transformers: Prime shook things up a little.

When Takara/Tomy started showing off their versions of the Prime toys, the molds had been retooled to include 5mm ports in various spots and in place of character-specific weapons, personal Microns (the Japanese name for Minicons) that transformed into character-specific weapons were included instead. This move intrigued me as one of my weaknesses is small companions for larger figures, but price and the fact that the proper Autobot and Decepticon figures relied on stickers in lieu of a lot of the more intricate paint applications of their US cousins stayed my hand. Released just this month however were the six individually packaged Microns pictured above. The bottom three are repaints of molds available only with larger figures before now and are a review for another day. The top row however, are three all new Microns in service of the Decepticons with a powerful secret, The Dark Matter Caliber Team!

These fellows are part of what's known as the Arms Micron Weapon Series, marked "AMW-0X" on the packaging where X is whatever number figure it happens to be. Said packaging is a simple plastic envelope containing the plastic sprue of parts, a small sticker sheet and a printed insert that serves as both package art/information and instruction sheet. Each Arms Micron is essentially a small model kit as you have to snap the parts off the sprue and assemble them yourself, adding detail with a few stickers.



I have yet to see any official names for the individual Dark Matter Caliber team members beyond their AMW designations, so I'm just going to refer to them as the animals they resemble. In this case, AMW-01 is a sting ray cast in an almost pearly gray plastic. Of the three, this Micron's animal mode is the biggest stretch. He has a long, pointed tail and "horns" near the mouth similar to those of a manta ray, but the rest is debatable. The "wings" have large holes in them due to their use in the other modes and no ray on Earth has a face that creepy. (Edit: I've since read that this guy is actually supposed to be a horseshoe crab and not a sting ray. This makes more sense in some ways, but less in others.)



Seriously. Look at that singular, red eye. Those serrated mouth parts. He's evil. This is a good place to point out that both his eye and the Decepticon symbol under the yellow crystal are stickers. Tiny, nigh-impossible to place with my giant sausage fingers stickers. The eye stickers for these guys especially are incredibly miniscule, I held my breath while putting them on.



The sting ray transforms into a crossbow like weapon, straightening out the ray wings into bow arms, flipping the tail around and extending a triangular bit at the front that looks somewhat like the head of a bolt. This one confused the hell out of me when I first saw pictures of it as when not in the context of being held as a weapon, it looks like nothing more than a bladed dradle of death!



It's actually a pretty nice weapon now that I've had it in hand to look over, holes due to the combination aspect of the team give it a dual-barreled appearance and there are a lot of technical details spread across the main section. It reminds me of bowcasters used by the Wookiees in various Star Wars media and anything reminiscent of Chewie and his laser-crossbow is a winner in my book.



AMW-02 is a bird of prey of some sort, cast in a slightly metallic silvery-gray plastic. Personally, I think of him as a condor since he resembles Generation One Laserbeak both in appearance and transformation, he even has the same landing-skid feet that Laserbeak had!



The condor's spark crystal is located on his back, right between two intake looking details (another Laserbeak nod?) and above his surprisingly detailed little tail. I should mention that the stickers for these guys are on thick paper and seem to be holding well, but I worry about areas like the edges of the condor and sting rays wings where the stickers have to bend over curves as some areas are already peeling up.



AMW-02 folds up into a roughly rectangular, cleaver-like blade with a long handle at one end. This is the simplest weapon mode out of the team members, yet it is also the most effective in my view. This is a mean, savage weapon with no finesse or subtlety; you cleave skulls (cyberskulls?) with this blade and wipe the blood (oil?) clean on the corpse.



AMW-03 is an alligator, or perhaps crocodile judging from his long snout, cast in a dark gray plastic with his spark crystal housed near the base of his tail. He is fairly detailed with lots of mechanical bits, little accordion tube legs, a ridged spine, serrated teeth and the omnipresent cyclopean red eye of doom. He is also the most articulate member, being able to raise his head upwards a bit and to bend his tail up and down at the base and about half way along the length.

AMW-03 folds up into a stout, four-barreled weapon with a buttstock which makes it very unique looking, but hard for some figures to handle properly. Due to the short profile and added stability of the stock, I imagine this as being a grenade launcher of some sort, adding some heavy firepower to the Transformer who chooses to wield this gator.



Soundwave demonstrates that the Dark Matter Caliber Team individually are firepower enough, but these Microns have one more trick up their sleeves. Back in the days of Armada, a team of Minicon jets known as the Air Defense Team had the ability to merge together to form the legendary Star Saber Sword, a weapon coveted by Autobot and Decepticon alike (well, until they got the Dark Saber) and depending on the writer, this struggle for power represented in the sword was a key factor in why the Minicons wished to stay neutral in the first place. The actual toy versions of the Air Defense Team were cool enough, but the combined sword was a bit lacking as the connection points were too shallow or weak and the blade was likely to just topple off the hilt in even the lightest play scenarios. Well, ten years have passed and guess what? The Dark Matter Caliber itself is a sword formed by these three Microns. Has toy engineering advanced to provide sufficient support or will this be a repeat of the Star Saber?



I'm happy to report that the combined Dark Matter Caliber is quite sturdy and quite impressive. AMW-01 folds up into the point, AMW-03 reconfigures into a hilt and AMW-02...just stays in weapon mode to form the center length of the blade, merging the color and detailing of the three separate Microns into roughly six inches of pure robo-sword goodness. The combined Dark Matter Caliber suffers from none of the Star Saber's weakness, holding tight and being designed in such a way that each point of connection between the figures is reinforced for maximum stability. The sword is quite heavy, so not all your figures may be up to the challenge of wielding the Dark Matter Caliber, but those who can look quite intimidating with it.



Due to the transformations of the elements, the Dark Matter Caliber unfortunately only looks really sword-like from one side and the other is pure kibble. Kids won't care about this however and collectors can display it with the good side facing outward, so this isn't really an issue in my eyes. It is after all three small figures that turn into animals, weapons and parts of a sword, there's only so much a sculptor can do.



The Dark Matter Caliber is, as I mentioned, not available domestically. Each Micron is bagged and sold separately in Japan at most toy and department stores, but if you live in the US, your best bet is turning to an importer. I bought the Microns from Big Bad Toy Store for about eight bucks a pop and you're probably not going to score them for much less. I would strongly recommend them if you like Minicons already, were a fan of the smaller companions of Generation One figures like Headmasters, Targetmasters and Powermasters, or just need some additional firepower for your larger Transformers.