Brimstone

“Recently, the minor border skirmishes between the Triax & V-Rocs countries erupted into full scale war. Hundreds of land and air combat vehicles battle across the land. With their huge fighting machines, they stage the most massive battles ever. The largest armies in the world are in your hand. Take Command!”

Kenner’s 1989 Mega Force line was an amazing but short lived toy line, lasting only one series. Mega Force was one of the earliest toys I remember having when I moved to the US in 1991. I distinctly remember being hungry, and my Mom said she would buy me a Mega Force toy at the mall if I could wait until we got home to eat. Guess what I did. While there are no specified good and bad countries, the V-Rocs do seem to be inspired by the Allied forces while the Triax may be the Axis forces.

The Brimstone is a V-Rocs tactical missile launcher. With a crew of 20 and carrying a 25000kg HE warhead that contains 900 shaped charges with effective radius of 1000 meters, the Brimstone is tasked with eliminating enemy armor. Packaged in a carded blister, the Brimstone comes with its spring firing not nuclear gigantic tactical missile and an anti-aircraft tank.

The small anti-aircraft tank has a die cast body and plastic turret. The round turret design seems reminiscent of older style American tanks, and while the multi-barreled AA gun may be more familiar in the media, a wide variety of range of anti-aircraft weaponry exists. While the AA tank does not rotate, it does feature this neat gimmick where the tank will ‘stand up’ to become some sort of gun emplacement. As a kid, I thought this was awesome, and as an adult, it’s still awesome.

Unlike many other Mega Force vehicles, the Brimstone does not have any secondary weapons other than its giant tactical missile. The launcher can rotate and fires from a lever on the rear. The spring firing mechanism is actually a little weird, and requires a uniformly directed downward push to fire. Tapping the lever from the end creates a moment and prevents the lever from going all the way down. A slot at the front of the Brimstone allows it to carry a single AA tank which can be deployed for defense.

While short lived and not very popular, I have a lot of nostalgia for Mega Force and really do think it’s an incredible toy line. I always loved how large the scale of combat was; where tanks and aircraft are the smallest vehicles and gigantic land and air battleships duke it out. I happened to stumble upon a bunch of carded Mega Force at a toy show over the weekend, and managed to grab 5 sealed and 2 opened sets for pretty cheap, but I’d honestly pay twice as much if these were still made today. The cards still had TRU clearance stickers marked at 1.50, but I’m not sure how much these sold for originally. I’m now on a quest to track down all the other Mega Force sets but many of the larger lots on eBay are pretty outrageous.