Steelshot

Steelshot is an Autobot Commander from the Power Core Combiners portion of the movie continuity family.

Steelshot was a master of long-range combat long before being made a Commander. Now, working in unison with his Mini-Con spotter Beacon, he's twice as powerful and able to soften up targets 100 miles away and prepare an area for a full-on Autobot assault.

Toys

Power Core Combiners

• Steelshot with Beacon (Commander Class, 2010)

• Known designers: Eric Siebenaler (Hasbro), Andrew Scribner (deco artist)

Part of the third wave of Power Core Combiners Commander Class figures, Steelshot is a redeco of Bombshock (without the drone-limbs), transforming into a military cannon-transport truck of undetermined model. He also has a third "power up" torso-mode compatible with all Power Core Combiner drone-limbs. As his mold was originally created for a Power Core 5-pack, he lacks the chestplate Powerlinx port that would allow him to use a Mini-Con as chest armor. Despite this, he comes with the Mini-Con Beacon, who can instead use the Powerlinx port on his vehicle gun turret.

All known samples of Steelshot have assembly errors in the legs. First, the lower legs are attached to the wrong thighs. While this doesn't affect either robot mode at all, in vehicle mode it makes the wheels uneven, plus difficult to snap the vehicle side-panels properly into place. Thankfully, this is a simple swap since the legs are not "permanently" affixed to the hips. Less easy to fix is that the "power up" mode knee drone-connectors are backwards, giving them a full 90-degree bend in the wrong direction, and limited movement the way they should bend. This requires unscrewing the leg, swapping the joints, and placing them reversed in the opposite leg, but due to the balance issues most power up modes have, few fans really bother with this fix anyway.

This mold was also used to make Combatmaster.

• More information on Steelshot at TFU.info

• Power Core Combiners Special Value Offer (Value Pack, 2011)

Steelshot was also made available as part of a Walmart-exclusive Black Friday "Value Pack", combining a 5-pack team with a Commander 2-pack via packaging tape and a couple of stickers, for the whopping price of ten bucks, merely a third of what the two toys would normally cost.

So far, Steelshot has been found attached to the Double Clutch/Rallybots and Over-Run/Stunticons sets.

Notes

Colonel Mustard.

• Steelshot's stock photography has quite a few differences from the final product. Aside from the more immediately obvious changes made to his partner Beacon, the pictures show Steelshot in a much brighter coloration, using a mustard-yellow rather than the final sandy-tan. His Autobot symbol also is in a different location, on his cab roof rather than his arm; presumably this changed so he wouldn't be stepping on the mark of his allegiance. The vehicle mode image is also mirrored, putting both his cab and Beacon's arms on the wrong sides, but that's kinda no biggie.
• In Step 9 of Steelshot's instructions, it is indicated that the robot's right foot should be folded into the lower leg. However, that is contradicted by both the illustration and all stock photos of the vehicle mode, which shows the right foot as a cab. Plus it's impossible to fold the foot into the lower leg. Oops.