DIA Commander or Powered Commander is a 3rd party add on to make Henkei Convoy or Classics Prime to be more beefy and intimidating. It is created by FansProject not related with Takara nor Hasbro. Just from Fans to Fans kinda operations.

Not to forget, Henkei Convoy or Classics Optimus Prime sold seperately. You need to have either Henkei Convoy, Classics Optimus Prime or Classics Ultra Magnus to complete DIA Commander.

I got mine after deciding to make my Henkei Convoy more intimidating. Powered Commander is inspired from the City Commander, and add on to Classics Ultra Magnus to reflect its G1 roots. Other than that I do not recall any canon story line of any Transformers that include Powered Commander.

The packaging of the DIA Commander is simple, not illustration or elaborated box art. It reminds me of those CD Crystal Box of indie bands or indie singers.

Seriously, there is nothing special about the DIA Commander box at the back there is some quotes and paragraph. If the package has an outline of the DIA commander that would be cool. I guess having elaborate outline will add on more cost to this add on.

Upon opening the package, there is a comic, stickers set and of course the DIA Commander in its alternate mode, a truck trailer. And there is an additional DIA Commander Illustration.

Wait, where is the instruction set ?

FansProject has made the comic as part of the instructions on snapping on the armor part to make Convoy powered up into the DIA Commander. The comic has a story which luckily there is no dialogues. So it is locality and regional neutral. Let the pictures do the talking 🙂

2 soft symetrical plastic shell which is snap on to encompass DIA Commander trailer.

Some part of the DIA Commander is painted with chrome paints. In which it is originally made to have chrome paints to complement Henkei Convoy. The construction of the DIA COmmander toy is strudy but light. It can be attached to Henkei Convoy in truck mode and act as its trailer, it has a female peg that fits into Henkei Convoy.

The connection between DIA Commander trailer and Henkei Convoy is fixed, it does not offer articulation to simulate natural join between a conventional truck with its container.

During the transformation process. Henkei Convoy needs to be transformed into robot mode first. The DIA Commander Trailer then needs to be disassembled into 2 major parts before it can be converted to respective parts which is add on onto Henkei Convoy to for DIA Commander. First the trailer is seperate into the upper parts and lower parts.

Upper parts forms the shoulder, chest, head and arms. The lower part turns into the legs, crotch and the Big Fucking Freaking Gun (BFG).

At the time of the picture taken, the missile pack (which is still wrapped in plastic) for the shoulders is part of the lower part of the trailer.

Transforming the lower part into its legs, BFG and crotch piece is fairly simple.

Transformation of the upper part of the trailer into the shoulders, hands and torso is as simple as the previous transformation. The problem of DIA commander, you will need to remember proper how to disassemble in order to reassemble the parts back into the trailer mode.

Once all the part is transformed into the DIA Commander armor and part, it is time to beef up Henkei Convoy to DIA Commander.

First recommended step is attaching the parts is just snapping in the DIA legs onto Convoy, which is similar like a person wearing a boot. The plastic should be flexible enough to have Convoy legs snapped in. Do not apply too much force.

To snap in the torso and head, Henkei Convoy head needs to be place into his body. Beware that the torso/head part of the DIA Commander is the weakest compared to other parts. Do not apply excessive force.

In the nutshell, the DIA Commander/Powered Commander transformation is like having Convoy to wear elaborated armor. Similar to guys wearing tuxedo 😛

Not forgetting you can attach the Big Fucking Freaking Gun (BFG) only to its right hand.

Unfortunately, the weight of the BFG is too heavy for the joints of Convoy to support.

There is significant reduction of Convoy´s articulation after Convoy is beef up into DIA Commander. It is a good as a display piece.

As a summary DIA Commander or Powered Commander from FansProject is meant for DIEHARD fans only. A thing that I have left out is the weapons of Henkei Convoy are able to fit into the hands of DIA Commander.

Please be reminded that DIA Commander is created by an indie group called FansProject. Hence do not ecpect precision engineering like the major and mainstream toy makers. The only problem that I find in my DIA Commander is the hole to place the secondary Convoy blaster is too lose and unable to hold the secondary blaster as illustrated.

Lastly, thanks to FansProject for creating this project.

Stay tuned for the next post 😀