A shift in focus for the Blog....I think for the better.

I am approaching the end of my third year blogging very sporadically about Joe-scaled vehicles under the notion that I was going to devise some way to measure their relative effectiveness as weapons in the real world.  I understood from the beginning that this would create a lot of attrition amongst the classic vehicles beloved by the fandom. This created bigger problems than I thought for a couple reasons:

One. over time I began to come to the conclusion that the original premise alone would tailor this blog for an almost non-existantly small portion of the fandom.  Most Joe fans aren't that interested in stark realism even if they do love things like the Sky Striker and Dragonfly for representing real-life military equipment.  I think most fans love to have their cake and eat it too, and why shouldn't they?

Two.  As my renewed interest in GI Joe expanded, more vehicles I personally started to like and want wouldn't fit the blog's original criteria.  While I struggled with these things I have more or less relegated the blog to being nothing more than a review site, with a post now and then with other thoughts.  I'd like to keep that portion of the format and move forward with incorporating some discussion of military realism with the toys we love, but I wish to stop short of losing portions of the fanbase 

Awhile back I gave a brief synopsis in an entry titled, "A Note About Realism" that this post essentially updates.  I was just too liable to find too much to criticize when I just wanted to re-enjoy my childhood obsession.  Under my original blog criteria, there's just too much to find fault with.

At this point I think I am prepared to shift focus from comparing vehicles with reality and instead start with the assumption that almost all vehicles have a place on the Joe vs Cobra battlefield (The POGO is going to present some challenges here) and then model them into something that might offer a framework for a Role Playing Game someone might make, or at least create the basis for "what vehicle would you want in a fight" discussions.  The limits of physics would factor in these discussions, but wouldn't dominate them.  Moreover, I think it grants me much more flexibility in how I can make assessments which will hopefully mean I can come up with more material to write about.

Power Team Elite: Battlefield Command Post Review

I have been looking forwards to buying one of these things for a few years now.  These larger Power Team Elite sets such as the Battle Command Post have been somewhat of a retail chimera over the last few years and eBay asking prices have been prohibitive.  This fall I stumbled into a local BigLots and to my good fortune, I was able to snag one of these at the normal retail price of $40.

To me playsets are sort of the odd man out of collecting, especially the larger ones.  Most of the collector focus is on figures first and then vehicles.  Granted, everyone pines for a FLAGG or a re-release of the Terror Drome, but without figures and vehicles to use with them and put them into some context their use is pretty marginal by themselves.

Typically only the most serious collectors of both vehicles and figures bother to afford the large spaces (and high prices) that premium playsets require.  Yet environment is very essential to proper dioramas and an enhancement to play.  Though I lacked any playsets while I was younger, I was able to improvise using Lincoln Logs, wooden building blocks, and Lego's to create a place for my Joes to interact with.  While building blocks offer more flexibility than playset do, playsets offer a more thematic solution that can look and feel more right along side your figures.

The glare makes it hard to see what's inside, so here are some pics with the outer box and clear film removed:

One nice feature of the packaged display is the interior of the building is tied to a grey cardboard floor that slides right out (below).  Of course, once you've detached the accessories it's just another throw-away piece of packaging..

Like the other PTE playsets I've reviewed, the packaging arranges everything in a nice little display revealing all the accessories that come with the set, and it comes with a lot.  Here is a list of everything apart from the structure itself and the figures:

1. sandbag emplacement half
2. sandbag emplacement, other half
3. loose sandbags (x3)
4. grenade launcher mount and tripod
5. what appears to be an oversized Mark 19 grenade launcher
6. ammunition belt for the grenade launcher
7. ammunition box
8. fold up chairs (x2)
9. whiteboard/blackboard with map
10. table
11. barrels (x2)
12. boxes (x2)
13.  Power Team flag
14. Barbed wire barrier
15. Metal barricades (x2)
16. Traffic cone
17. Binoculars
18. Wireless communications backpacks (x2)
19. Ammunition box
20. Shells for ammunition box (x3)
21. Mortar
22. Backpacks (x2) [one long, one square]
23. Axe
24. Shovel
25. Laptop
26. Recoil-less rifle
27. Rocket Launcher
28. Gas can
29. Small ammo??/MRE boxes?? (x2)
30. M-16 Rifle
31. M-4 Carbine (x3 . one stock, one with bayonet, and one with Grenade Launcher)
32. 4-wheeled off-road vehicle
33. Motorcycle

phwew!

There are just tons of stuff included in this set.  Much of the normal fare you find on my other PTE reviews are present and then some.  If you're a kid looking for an abundance of play accessories or a diorama creator looking for fodder, this set has a LOT to offer.  It's pretty much everything you need to sustain a small squad of soldiers at an isolated post.  Take a look at the spread below:

The main portion of the set, the building, is a small room with a guard post on top.  There are a set of stairs that go up part way up to a platform beneath a trapdoor that allows passage to the roof.  A ladder built into the structure allows figures to egress through the trapdoor.  One side of the building is the 'play window' that allows the user to put figures and accessories in the interior and on top, the other has a stone facade, a door that opens, a couple windows and a roof.  The main body of the building is a sturdy grey plastic, and the rails and ladder are in an equally durable dark grey.

The space is small but plenty flexible.  It makes for a good place to put the table and blackboard inside to lecture them about military procedures, hygiene, battle plans.  It can also be converted to a small barracks, storage area, first-aid station, or communications center.  However, It's supposed to be a "Command Post" and in that it largely fails.  I find the nature of the building to be too generic and nondescript to fit a type that you would expect to be the center of activity for your squad.  In addition, the stairs awkwardly points to the outside for some reason and the observation post up top is obscured by the roof from the front of the building in a way that I find strange.  I just don't think the layout is all that well thought out.  I would have also preferred that there were more than just one wall, just to get a better sense of enclosure to make it feel like a real building.  The stairs should perhaps be accessible from the middle of the room rather than from outside.  Plus, the stairs leave a small space behind that is difficult to utilize.  There's just too many things wrong with the way this toy uses it's space.

Invariably when compared to the venerable GI Joe Headquarters -a true command post with it's jail, communications center, and garages, the PTE Command Post is just bland in comparison.  The accessories don't interact well with it well.  Yeah, you can stack stuff on top of the building, but it doesn't do more than just there.  There is no place to peg the Power Team Elite flag into.  You can put the gun on top, but it has wedges on the bottom that look like they belong secured into carpet or the ground (for outdoor play). .  Nothing was apparently intended to natively work with anything else.  The accessories have no purpose except as diorama fodder or raw pieces to incorporate into your own imagination, and that may be enough for some.  Certainly it won't stop kids from using them effectively.  However it leaves the set without much in the way of synergy. 

Ultimately it's a decent set who's strength is the sheer amount of accessories it comes with.  However, if you have a number of PTE sets already, most of it is just duplicate stuff.  The more original pieces are the chalkboard, the table, and the fold-up chairs (which I would place as the single greatest highlight of the set).  If you can live without those pieces, the building itself is a let-down and kinda spendy at $40.  They say quantity is a quality of it's own, but this product I think takes that axiom past it's limit.

Quality: B

Solidly built.  Should endure rough play.

Appearance: D

Bland and boring.  nothing pops. Few things are new.

Play Value/Accessories: D+

Lots of quantity, but none of it works with the building itself.  A few new pieces and a quantity of old ones don't offset the mediocrity of the set's showcase, the building.

Summary/Final Grade: D+ (not an average)

Kind of a let down.  I was expecting more.  After some thought I don't think I'm being too tough on this, particularly since I have rated other PTE quite highly.  It's just that this set doesn't work well or function well..