DAY 06- Landmine (Transformers: Energon)

January 6th, 2015. Day 6 of 365.

I'll be blunt: a lot of the Unicron Trilogy era of Transformers (Armada, Energon and Cybertron) does nothing for me in terms of toys, but naturally there are a few exceptions. Today we'll be looking at the biggest exception for me: Energon Landmine.

Energon Landmine's robot mode is nothing special, and basically the standard of the time he was released. He's mostly composed of basic ratchets and swivel joints and that is basically it. He doesn't come with any weapons for this mode, however...

He also comes with a turret. The top cannon part can swivel in a limited range (mostly for transformation) and I'm almost certain there was a spring-loaded missile for him at some point. Couldn't tell you where that ended up. The two cannons can also be moved up and down, and have limited rotational movement independent of the turret itself.

Hey guess which photo I'm actually reusing from two years ago because his vehicle mode wouldn't properly fit in a lightbox that I really need to replace before something arrives this week.

His turret can actually combine with him to create a giant Snowplow/Wrecker vehicle mode. He's pretty hefty and large in this mode, with a single gimmick: The giant orange and dark gray "cannon" from earlier actually has a working tow hook that can extend and retract with a press of a button.

But those modes don't matter.

There's one reason to buy Energon Landmine (Or Landquake. Or BotCon Landshark.)

CHUNK. GLORIOUS, GLORIOUS CHUNK.

For you see, Energon Landmine was one of two Energon Brute Mode Autobots alongside Energon Bulkhead (Who, two Transformers conventions later, I still haven't found for a decent price.) In Transformers: Energon, the core gimmick of the Autobot cast was being able to combine with other members of the same faction. Bulkhead and Landmine weren't like that though, they didn't need to rely on combining with some random Autobot to be useful. These two were man enough to rip parts of their vehicle mode clean off and just slam them down and use them as armor and weapons.

And hey, turns out when you slap big parts of a giant truck unto your body, you end up looking pretty intimidating. Unfortunately, that's kiiiiiinda all Energon Landmine can do. His arms remain uninhibited thanks to his newfound arm claws (oh, also the claw fingers can move), but while the same could be said for his legs, the sheer weight of his backpack kinda... makes him topple over. He's still great though, and an impressive display piece. Shame about the whole topheavy thing, though.

Day 6 Complete, 359 Days Remain.