Time for another review!
After a quick taster with the Promotional Polybag, it’s time to get into the real Power Miners sets, starting with the smallest of the first wave: the Stone Chopper!
While in the past I’ve started by looking over the figures in a set, these reviews will be changing things up - we’ll take a look at the instructions first instead! I would’ve liked to do this for the Exo-Force reviews as well, but I own hardly any of those instructions. For Power Miners, on the other hand, I own all of the manuals aside from those for the polybags.
The front of the booklet shows a nicely edited photo of the Stone Chopper speeding past, as it’s driver looks over to the nearby Meltrox. I especially like the jets of fire spewing from the engine block.
The instructions themselves are the usual affair, aside from the back pages. Firstly, we have an advertisement for all the wave 1 combo models, which we’ll take a look at later on.
There’s a nice double-page spread of the wave’s sets in action.
And finally a Rock Monster checklist which little Monopoly has helpfully filled in with sharpie. This was a set from my childhood collection, so from a time when I didn’t have the Mine Mech or Claw Digger. I felt inclined to tick the Claw Digger’s box anyway as I had a loose Sulfurix minifigure at the time.
This set includes two figures: a Meltrox and an unnamed Power Miner.
Despite having no name, the miner still has plenty of personality with his giant grin and stubble, looking almost like a Lego city criminal. He’s got a blue mining helmet to protect his head, alongside some blue overalls over a grey vest. He’s got a few tools hanging from his belt ant some grey gloves over his hands. His overalls also have a symbol in the middle - the outline of a drill. This marks him as a regular miner, not a part of any specialist division.
This symbol is seen again on his back, this time displayed within an orange saw.
His head is also double-sided, showing a very expressive screaming face on the opposite side.
Meltrox, meanwhile, is a recolour of the Sulfurix we previously looked at in trans-red, but this time a crystal is included. Meltrox are characterised as being very aggressive, and will be the first to attack the miner’s vehicles even if there are crystals for the taking. When superheated, their body blackens and sets alight with a red flame, becoming an Infernox.
His hollow body allows you to make him ‘eat’ crystals by placing one inside and closing his jaw. Meltrox become supercharged with rage upon eating red crystals, which they then use to cause violent destruction. How will our poor nameless fellow ever overcome this great threat?
With the Stone Chopper, of course, decorated in the Power Miners’ signature orange and lime colour palette! When these sets first released, many saw these colours as garish and unrealistic, claiming that Rock Raiders’ colour scheme was far more suited to a mine, a sentiment which some still hold to this day. Mark Stafford gave an explanation for the colour choice in a 2009 interview:
We had been to a mining museum in Germany and saw most mining machines were yellow or white with cutting tools painted red or orange, and a few were bright green or light blue, (mining equipment has to be bright because underground it is very dark!) then we looked at LEGO’s existing line up: Mars Mission was very white, and City’s construction was yellow and Coast Guard orange, and an underground theme in dark colours would disappear into the dark background. So we had already decided green was probably the main colour to focus on and most of our colour schemes revolved around a green main colour.
This notion carries on into the theme: on every set, only the actual mining equipment is ever coloured orange, inspired by the real mining equipment in use today. If anything, Rock Raiders has a more unrealistic colour scheme, as it many consists of brown and grey, which are the colours of rocks. also they had a helicopter underground but let’s not talk about that
Up front, we see a pair of large circular saws connected to a central wheel. When pushed along the ground, these saws spin, lending the vehicle its name. Two exhausts extend from the main engine block, while a large black ‘1’ adorns either side, marking this as the first Power Miners vehicle. White hazard stripes are seen directly below, with printed on scratches.
These stripes glow in the dark when charged with light, presumably for maintaining visibility in particularly dark areas of the mine.
From a side profile, we can see the extreme angle the vehicle sits at. A 2x2 platform is provided for the driver to stand on, a long with some handlebars to steer the bike. A small red crystal is stored on the side of the vehicle, as is presumably why the Meltrox is intending to attack.
From the rear, we can see the single rubber tyre driving the vehicle, alongside some stickered vents with further scratch detailing.
That’s it for the set, so let’s take a look at pricing.
This set represents excellent value for £3.99, only 50p more than today’s collectible minifigures, especially considering you get two figures, one of which is a special mold. This set hasn’t suffered much of a price increase since it’s release, now worth about £5. This still represents good value, so I’d recommend this set if you’re just getting into Power Miners. It’s a quick impulse purchase which introduces all the necessary play elements of the theme. 7/10.
Next time…
