Armada Overload

It's funny, in collecting, how one thing can easily lead to another. I first saw Overload over a decade ago, and thought it looked like crap. Like most of Armada, it seemed to be oversized, unnecessarily bulky, lacking in both detail and articulation... Basically, an easy pass.

I'd felt much the same about Jetfire, even after buying the Collectors' Club's usage of the mold as Astrotrain back when I first joined, and it was only more recently - having finally replaced my broken Armada Optimus Prime cab - that I rediscovered how cool that toy actually was, and set about tracking down Jetfire just so I could create the proper Jet Optimus (aka Superpants Optimus Prime), which then led me to reconsider Overload.

Since, throughout 2018, Overload - and the Energon repaint, Ultra Magnus - turned out to be ridiculously expensive on the secondary market (upwards of £100 boxed, or in the region of £50 loose and not necessarily complete), I decided to have a quick shuffle through The Spacebridge's tubs at TFNation 2018... £20 later, I walked away with this figure, missing only the missiles for his spring-loaded launchers.

Power of the Primes Evolution Nemesis Prime

The moment I laid eyes on Evolution Optimus Prime, I knew that it was a foregone conclusion that I'd also buy a Nemesis Prime repaint of the mold, should it appear. It wasn't long before it was announced, and the real surprise was that it had not one, but two unique head sculpts - one for the Leader class figure, and one for the Deluxe class cab robot, named 'Nemesis Pax'.

Then came the bad news... In the wake of the collapse of Toys'R'Us, he would be an Amazon exclusive, to be released on Prime Day 2018. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but previous Prime Day exclusives had become difficult - if not impossible - to find in the UK except at hugely inflated prices on the secondary market. But then he turned up as a preorder, at the surprisingly low price of about £35. I put in my preorder, and waited.

And waited.

Prime Day came and went, and I received a series of emails from Amazon, apologising for being unable to locate stocks... Despite the figure being widely available in the States (just not for shipping to the UK). Several months later, I gave up. Feeling like he'd never come to Amazon UK (but with the nagging sense that it'd be in stock the very day after I cancelled my preorder), I bought one via eBay for about £60 (cashing in a whole bunch of Nectar points to soften the blow) and cancelled the Amazon preorder... Only for the figure to magically and suddenly be announced as available via Amazon UK less than a month later.

The path of a dedicated Collector is seldom a smooth one... and almost never cost-effective. But let's not get hung up on the negative... Let's have a look at the Nemeses instead...

Armada Jetfire

It seems strange to be revisiting Armada - in the sense of actually adding to my Armada collection - but I'm pretty sure my few purchases of this year will be the last from that particular toyline. At the start of the year, I bought a replacement Optimus Prime cab to replace the one I broke while trying to photograph Timelines Astrotrain in Superpants mode the first time. In doing so, I was reminded of how much fun Prime was, and so felt compelled to get Jetfire so I could get some shots of the proper Jet Prime/Jet Optimus, and so spent a while trawling eBay.

Since a brand new, boxed Armada Jetfire turned out to be pretty expensive at that time (prices in excess of  £100 - far more than this toy is worth!), I decided to go for a second hand one, as complete as possible. Many of those available unboxed on eBay were missing parts, partially broken (the accompanying Mini-Con in particular) or both. The most likely one I found was without its missiles/bombs, but I was later able to obtain these separately.

I already know the mold and its shortcomings thanks to Timelines Astrotrain, but let's have a closer look at the original version of the mold...

Armada Skywarp

While Takara Tomy made two versions of Micron Legend Starscream, Hasbro took the colourscheme of the Supermode version and released it as Thundercracker. Since Armada happened back in the days where Hasbro would happily feed the fans' Seeker OCD, they also released a Skywarp to complete the set (following up with a nonsensical Ramjet repaint in the Universe line, then neglecting to round out the Coneheads with an Armada-style Dirge or Thrust).

Unlike Thundercracker/Supermode Starscream, however, Skywarp got some remolded parts to properly differentiate himself from the others, beyond a simple change in colourscheme... but how big a deal was it really?

Superpants - Really This Time!

Well, it's only taken me a little over five years since I first posted my write-up of Timelines Astrotrain, but I've managed finally to get a handful of photos of his combined mode with Armada Optimus Prime. The new images have been added to that original post.

As I mention there, I'm now fairly keen to get my hands on an Armada Jetfire and either Armada Overload or Energon Ultra Magnus, so I can put together the 'complete', 3-part upgraded Optimus Prime... Though that would leave his trailer unused, and I don't really have space to display it in base mode...

Superpants!

...or, more specifically, an update on my Armada Optimus Prime situation.

Way back in 2013, when I posted about TFCC/Timelines Astrotrain, I tried to get some photos of Astrotrain in his Armada Prime-compatible 'Superpants' mode, only for Optimus to fall off and break. I'd planned to get a replacement at some point, and have spent the intervening time periodically debating whether to get a new, complete (and preferably boxed)  'Super Base' Optimus Prime, or just get a junker of the cab and replace the broken parts of my existing figure.

It's taken me almost five years, but I finally made the choice to spend a mere £15 (including postage) on a mostly complete cab junker, rather than £40-50 on the whole thing, when the trailer/base is currently in perfect working order. After switching a few parts, I'm pleased to report that I now have a fully working, complete cab (the electronics in mine and the junker were fully functional, so that's a bonus).

So... sometime soon, I hope to drag Astrotrain back out of his box for a new photography session, to replace the images currently still hosted by Photobucket and add the Space Pants Optimus Prime images that have thusfar been missing.

...And since I've rediscovered what a fun toy 'Super Base' Optimus Prime actually is, I'm half tempted to get either Armada Overload (or Energon Ultra Magnus) to fill out the cavernous back section and make him look a bit more 'complete' in and of himself. We shall see... I didn't pick up Overload back in the day because it's basically a brick, but stranger things have happened...

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2016 Members Incentive (Timelines) Ramjet

(Members Incentive Monday #12)

This is very likely to be the last ever Members Incentive Monday on this blog, unless Hasbro license a new Collectors' Club or, y'know, set up one of their own. These 'free' figures, given away since the very first year of Fun Publications' tenure at the helm of the Club, have been a welcome benefit of international membership to a club which is, awkwardly, based in the States and primarily geared toward the domestic market there. They haven't always been awesome figures, but they frequently exceeded my expectations.

Ramjet arrived a few days before Roll Out Roll Call, and was one of those Membership Incentive figures I had very low expectations of - I quite like the Armada Seeker mold, despite the massive protrusion from the back of its shoulders, but the Generations remake seemed pretty pointless. Based on a 2003 Toys'R'Us exclusive Universe repaint of Armada Skywarp, this is probably one of the more obscure homages the Club have released. Is it as dull as I was expecting?

Unite Warriors UW-06 Combiner Haunt Leader Grand Galvatron

Combiner Wars and Unite Warriors have both had a very strange approach to some of their characters. One of the earliest releases was a very G1-styled standalone Leader class Megatron, followed by a Voyager class Optimus Prime who could combine with four other Autobots to become 'Ultra Prime'. We later got a standalone Leader class Ultra Magnus and 'Galvatronus', a gestalt whose limbs could be whichever mind-controlled Autobots or Decepticons he cared to subjugate... neatly removing any need for Hasbro to provide Cyclonus with his armada, or even a ramshackle team of his own. Hurrah for Hasbro and their amazing talent for never releasing enough Decepticons!

As a result, while I had high hopes for Takara Tomy's take on Bruticus, I had been all set to get through Combiner Wars with no other Decepticon gestalts aside from this year's Collectors' Club Subscription Service combiner, Thunder Mayhem. Then Takara Tomy announced their Unite Warriors Grand Galvatron set, with a positively opulent repaint of CW Cyclonus as its centrepiece, and a rag-tag team of cross-continuity limb-bots of his very own, which combined to form a version of Galvatron based heavily on the G1 toy and, as is my wont, I put through a preorder almost immediately because my hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Armada Laserbeak

Obviously this is going back a few years in my collection but, unless I'm very much mistaken, Laserbeak was one of the first TransFormers: Armada figures I ever picked up... and so is quite possibly responsible for getting me back into collecting the mainstream toy releases.

While Laserbeak is traditionally a Decepticon, the Armada version was an Autobot. In the TV show, he was little more than a drone - somewhat similar to TF Prime Soundwave's minion - so, on the surface, he seems like a strange choice for a standalone toy, particularly since he could easily have been made as a Mini-Con.

Armada Thundercracker

Hasbro and Takara/Takara Tomy are an interesting pair of companies: they are ostensibly working on the same toyline in TransFormers, but frequently handle them in a very different way (and often with a very different story coming out the redubbing of the same TV series). One case in point - rather ancient now, being from a toyline that appeared 14 years ago - was the Decepticon jets in TransFormers Armada, where Takara Tomy introduced Starscream and had him later develop a 'Supermode', while Hasbro evidently took one look at Supermode Starscream and decided he looked sufficiently similar to G1 Thundercracker to turn him into a unique character for their version of the continuity...

Micron Legend Scourge (TV Magazine Exclusive)

There are plenty of folks who like to own every available version of Optimus Prime, and both Hasbro and Takara Tomy are happy to keep up the supply. A friend of mine has had a similar 'thing' for Bumblebees since the first live-action movie, and Hasbro in particular are happy to release a multitude of that character, either refining and improving the model or just repainting the same thing until people realise they're buying literally the same model over and over again. By and large, I have no such compulsions... other than a mild case of Seeker OCD)... and I do like a good Nemesis Prime.

When I first spied this at Memorabilia, on The Space Bridge's stand, they were quick and keen to impress upon me that this was the infinitely superior Takara version, which featured none of the ugly beige plastic of the Hasbro version. Knowing nothing of the Hasbro version, but having an aversion to beige, I was instantly sold. Sure, it's yet another reuse of the Armada/Micron Legend Deluxe class 'Bendy' Optimus Prime, but it's one of a few well-regarded molds in a much maligned series and, let's face it, Nemesis Prime still has a long way to go before he becomes as ubiquitous within the TransFormers toyline as Optimus...

Armada Megatron

One of my biggest problems, as a collector, is that I often end up buying things I had originally intended to ignore. So it goes with all my TransFormers: Armada (and Micron Legend) purchases, which basically happened because the first one (Laserbeak, if I remember correctly) was kinda fun. That was the only one I really intended to buy, in part because it was broadly 'to scale', making it the distant ancestor of things like the Real Gear subline of the 2007 live action movie toyline.

Some years ago, when Woolworths still existed as a real world shop and before it became impossible to see a movie in Harrow without it being interrupted by people talking all the way through, I often ended up buying old TransFormers toys that were on clearance in Woolies, and much of my small Armada collection - in particular, Optimus Prime (for about a tenner) and Unicron (for not much more) - is from there.

Some, though, I chose to buy because I ended up wanting them... After all, when one has Optimus Prime, one must surely have Megatron as well...

Micron Legend Starscream

The TransFormers toyline has always taken artistic license with its depictions of aeroplanes. From those models with the whole robot folded up into a block on the underside of an otherwise immobile plane, to the strange, bulky craft that could never become airborne. In more recent years, the designers and engineers have taken a few more risks with the way a plane could turn into a robot, such as Reveal the Shield Lugnut, but Micron Legend/Armada was known for its bulky and simplistic models... How could such clunky engineering tackle the requirement for svelte, elegant lines required for aircraft?

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2007 Exclusive (Timelines) Astrotrain

One of Fun Publications' stated aims when they took on the license as Official TransFormers Collectors' Club was to release two Club exclusives per year, and to pick up some unreleased store-exclusive repaints from the much-maligned Universe subline. Their first choice was 'Spacewarp', originally a straight repaint of Armada Jetfire packaged with three space-themed Mini-Cons. For several reasons, changes were made along the lines toward getting it made, including a whole new head sculpt to go some way toward explaining the name change. Astrotrain was eventually released about a year late... and met with a rather tepid reaction.

Armada Powerlinx Red Alert

Personal friends and long-time readers of this blog will no doubt be aware that I am no stranger to impulse buys. Pretty much every Armada purchase I made was an impulse buy, because I already knew that they were all a bit rubbish. Powerlinx Red Alert was an impulse buy on two levels - first, I was on a business trip and just happened to see it in a small, independent toy shop; second, while I was vaguely interested in the original, I wasn't remotely interested in this recolour until I saw it on that fateful day... So, do I regret this purchase?

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2006 (Timelines) Boxed Set: Dawn of Futures Past

For the most part, being a UK resident, I really didn't see the point of joining something like the TransFormers Collectors' Club. It's expensive, and it's run from the United States. Anything ordered from them would be hit by Customs and VAT charges, plus whatever extra ParcelForce decided to add on top as their 'handling fee'. If Hasbro UK don't see the point of forming an official UK or European branch of the club, then I'm just one more member they don't have. I didn't even really follow BotCon, even after getting back into TransFormers for the 20th Anniversary. That all changed in 2006, though, due to that year's pre-Beast Wars theme, and the boxed set 'Dawn of Futures Past'.

Armada Tidal Wave

Gestalts were nothing new to TransFormers back in the early 2000s. Even leaving aside the teams of five (or six, in the case of the Constructicons), there had been a G1 Powermaster, Overlord, who consisted of two vehicles - with individual functionality, but without individual robot modes - which combined into one larger robot. Armada took this a step further, paving the way for the Autobots' 'Superlink/Powerlinx' feature in Energon, with the Dark Fleet, also known as Tidal Wave.

Armada Optimus Prime

"Hi, I'm HEXdidn't... and I wanna tell you about the TransFormers..."

Specifically the Armada incarnation of Optimus Prime, on this occasion. Say what you will about the cartoon that accompanied it (what little I've seen of it can only be described as 'shit', despite using many of the voice actors from Beast Wars, though whether it was entirely down to the US localisation, or whether the Japanese original was just as bad, I cannot say), the toy line had some highlights. Many of the toys were big, clumsy and blocky, but they at least had reasonable articulation. In fact, the Deluxe-equivalent version of Optimus Prime - fondly named 'Bendy Prime' - is still roundly considered to be one of the best of that line, and among the best articulated TransFormers ever... So surely the Leader Class analogue should be better, right?

Armada Unicron

In the wake of the 1986 Animated TransFormers movie, numerous attempts were made to create a toy of the Dark God, the Planet Eater, the Chaos Bringer, the Multiversal Singularity known as Unicron. Most never saw the light of day, except as either resin prototypes or display pieces at toy shows. In the case of the first attempts, this can only be a good thing... but, having seen the grey resin prototype of Beast Wars Neo Unicron, many fans - myself included - hoped that would get a full production release.

Sadly, it was not to be... but TransFormers: Armada, which later became chapter one in the so-called Unicron Trilogy, brought the Planet Eater to centre stage and, finally, a toy was released. No surprises, it took the largest size class - Supreme - to do the character justice... but is this the toy fans had been waiting for..?

Transformers Collectors' Club 2010 Members Incentive (Timelines) Dion

Dion is a bit of an oddity. The character featured in just one episode of the G1 cartoon - part of War Dawn - and got killed off seconds after being introduced (serves him right for thinking Decepticons are cool just because they can fly). There was never a true G1 toy of Dion because he was just this background character who existed to die, giving Optimus Prime (rebuilt from Dion's friend Orion Pax) a reason to want to rise up and challenge the Decepticons. Even so, when Takara Tomy reissued Kup with Wheelie (one of the most maligned characters and toys from the days of G1), E-Hobby took it upon themselves to repaint the pair as Orion Pax and Dion, respectively. Then, the TransFormers Collectors' Club took it upon themselves to have Dion rebuilt in a new form...

...A new form strangely reminiscent of Armada Hot Shot.

Thankfully, this is the Classics/Universe 2.0 version of Hot Shot, with improved everything... and, furthermore, it's the Japanese version of the mold, which was slightly redesigned to accommodate a pair of spring-loaded missile launchers.

So, how does it stand up, this repaint of a remake?