Name: Tank Drone
Function: Ground Attack
Motto: "The ground of Cybertron will thunder in our wake!"

Tank Drone units are a specialized Vehicon element of drones under Tankor command. Formidable front line fighters. Often attack in chaotic formations, firing destabilizer missiles in unison, then rapidly retreating in all directions. Anything caught in their path is destroyed. Alloy armor plating protects them from most types of Maximal artillery, but firepower drops significantly after firing missiles. Not effective during lengthy firefights.

When the mega sized Tankor was released for the Beast Machines Transformers toy line, many agreed it was a nice toy, but many also agreed that it did not faithfully represent the Tankor shown on the Beast Machines Transformers television show. From color scheme to design, the mega sized Tankor toy looked more like a toy with influences from the television show. The Tank drone will receive no such complaints. This toy faithfully represents Tankor as featured in the television show.

Vehicle Mode:
The Tank Drone vehicle mode is combination of dark grey, light grey, silver and blue. Translucent red plastic composes details on the front, sides and cannon. Vacume metallized silver is used on the main body of the tank and the cannon. Gold stripes adorn the middle of the tank and the missile in the cannon is translucent red plastic with gold detailing at the tip.

The design of this toy follows that of the television show very well. The only departure from the design is the size of the cannon. In terms of proportion, the cannon on this toy is much larger than it appears on the television show. To me, this just makes the cannon look more dangerous and cool, but others may disagree.

In tank mode, the Tank Drone only has two points of articulation. One is the robot head which can look to the left (and a bit to the right). The other point of articuation has to do with the tank's action feature. Push down on the section with the Spark Crystal on the cannon which will connect the gear on the cannon with the gear on the main body of the tank. Now holding this down, roll the vehicle forward and the cannon will spin a bit before firing its missile! Fans of the television show will note that this is very similar to the way the tank drones fire their cannons on the television show. The ends of the cannons usually spin a bit while the weapon charges up and then fires seconds later.

The Tank Drone's vehicle mode is a great piece of work. It looks great and has an action feature straight from the television show.

Transformation to Robot Mode:
Begin the transformation by folding down the sides of the front. Rotate that entire section around. Pull the sides outwards and swing up the translucent red piece in the middle. Now position the treads at an angle and swing out the heel piece in the rear of each tread "foot". Push the tread feet back in. Swing out the claws at the rear of the vehicle. Fold the rear blue and translucent red pieces to the sides and bring the robot arms forward. Fold back the panel connected to the cannon, then fold up the robot head. The Tank Drone is now in robot mode.

Robot Mode:
As a robot, The Tank Drone shows much more light grey showing, mostly on his waist, upper arms and claws. Metallic red is used as paint detailing on the robot chest. Those who own the mega Tankor toy or who watch the television show will recognize these details as the gun/missile ports on Tankor/the Tank Drone's chest component.

In robot mode, Tank Drone has thirteen points of articulation. One of the nicer points of articulation on this toy is the cannon. It can be positioned as pointing straight up (in an "unused" position), or upwards at an angle or directly pointed forward. In any of these positions, just rotate the gear at the end of the cannon to fire the missile.

This toy looks fantastic and gets the look of the CGI model down perfectly. Just as with the vehicle mode, the shoulder mounted cannon looks big and threatening. The only thing which would have made this toy perfect would have been to have it be on a larger scale such as a deluxe or mega. Highly recommended. A