Smokescreen & Liftor - Armada - Figures

Sharing a name with an Autobot of the past, Smokescreen joins the Autobots in their potentially never-ending quest to secure the Mini-Cons. Gotta catch ‘em all!

Tech Specs
Autobot: Smokescreen

Quote: "Strike hard, strike straight."

Smokescreen is a big, strong warrior that moves with slow deliberation and packs a lot of power. He makes every move count in battle. He doesn't waste time on fancy fighting styles - he plows in with all his might - fists and weapons swinging with full force. Smokescreen channels all his energy and skills into the fight and tries to predict what the Decepticons will do next. Can the strength and insight of Smokescreen help the Autobots win the battle to claim the Mini-Cons?

Strength: 9.0 Intelligence: 7.0 Speed: 6.0 Endurance: 8.0
Rank: 5.0 Courage: 8.0 Fireblast: 6.0 Skill: 6.0

Sounds like Smokescreen here is quite the brawler. And if one cannon constitutes “a lot of firepower” I hesitate to imagine what they think of Armada Megatron’s weaponry.

Vehicle Mode
Primarily orange and gray with blue and red highlights, Smokescreen is a rather small vehicle. From bumper to bumper, Smokescreen measures 5 1/8” long, 2 ¼” wide and 2 ¾” high to the top of the highest point on his boom while resting down. The boom is 5 ½” long, can rotate 360 degrees and be raised to an approximate 35 degrees in height. It also features a swiveling hook to grab offending pieces of debris or other robots. Smokescreen also features a working winch on the rear of the vehicle. Extend the hook, which has a spot to connect a Minicon to, and roll Smokescreen forward. The winch will automatically wind up, bringing the Minicon closer. You can disable the function through the flip of a switch on the rear passenger side of the vehicle.

Placing a Minicon on the boom’s hard point and sliding it forward will extend the boom to 7”. A little further and the cannon flips out making the boom just shy of 10” in length. Pressing the blue button at the back of the cannon portion will fire the missile. If you do not retract the boom completely, you can extend it at will without the Minicon. There is a small tab that retracts when the Minicons are inserted to the hard point. This clicks into place when the boom is fully retracted.

Transformation
Flip the side panels forward and bring the front section, sans the windowed section down and back. Push the front wheel section up, separate down the center and swing them around so that the tires face back. Flip the feet tabs down and bring the windowed sections around and down to form the arms. Swing the boom around front to reveal the robot head and you're done.

Robot Mode
Standing at 4 ¾” high, Smokescreen is fairly puny by Armada standards. Even Hot Shot has him beat, even though it isn’t by much. He rotates at the hips, knees, shoulders and neck and bends at the elbows slightly. I’ll have to admit that I am a little disappointed in his face. He doesn’t look anywhere near as cool as he does in the Armada comic book.

All the features from vehicle mode carry over into robot mode. There is a static Minicon hard point on his right arm and the Autobot symbol on his left flips up to reveal some unpainted detailing.

Liftor
Liftor is a forklift, or at least that’s what we’re told. In truth, he looks more like a snowplow with two blades in the front than a forklift. He shares the same color scheme as Smokescreen although he has much less orange and it sticks out amidst the black, gray and blue.

Flip the rear gray sections back to form the legs. Separate the front blue section and flip down the front orange piece. Fold his forearms down and you’re done. Liftor features hip, knee, shoulder and elbow joints and is quite a handsome looking little robot. His face is slightly reminiscent of Optimus Prime with a Demolishor eye-patch.

Overall
Smokescreen isn’t bad. He is certainly better than I anticipated. His chest may be a little to squat for my tastes, but it seems to work on him and he does have some nifty gimmicks. Liftor is definitely worth while and is now my reigning favorite Minicon.

Reviewer	ViceGripX
Date	September 30th 2002
Score	(8 out of 10)
Reads	8128