I loooove Blurr’s auto mode. It’s a super sleek futuristic car with a ton of character and a lot of sculpted detail. And hey look! Clear windows. As if the car design wasn’t cool enough, Blurr has a rather unique and extremely awesome Minicon gimmick. Instead of just pegging Incinerator onto a Port, you plug him into the slot in the back of Blurr’s car mode and the side panels spring out to reveal not only missile launchers, but a very cool flying car mode. It’s not a crappy flying car mode either where little white wings fold out (sorry, Tracks) and that’s it. No sir, the back wheels actually fold down to look like VTOL engines. The whole thing works really well.

Transforming Blurr is a bit of a fidgity affair, especially for Armada where none of the toys were overly complex. There’s a couple of crucial shifts you need to do to make everything work, and a couple of spring-loaded movements, which I’m generally not fond of. But when you’re done Blurr looks really cool, even if he does have some severe backpack kibble and as a result is rather backheavy. The upswept shoulders look really nice and he can hold his missile launchers in both hands as weapons, which is a nice little plus. His head isn’t really a traditional Transformers design, but overall I like it, and a lot better than his animated counterpart that actually looked like there was a human head under all that. Blah, I hated that cartoon.

As already noted, Blurr’s Minicon is Incinerator, which is rather an odd name for an Autobot orientated Minicon. It’s even stranger when you consider that he’s not some evil looking war machine, but rather just a little racecar. I’m tempted to hate him because in robot mode he has the whole front of his car mode hanging off of his right arm, but the rest of him looks so darn good, it’s easy to excuse the unsightly kibble. Especially in a Minicon. Besides, I suppose that can count as a weapon if he punches you in the face with it.

Oddly enough, Blurr never got the Powerlinx makeover, but that didn’t stop Hasbro from getting their money’s worth out of the mold. He was repainted as Swerve in the Universe line, and later released in the Cybertron line, this time named Blurr again, but with a new and more G1-inspired head sculpt and tooled to take a Cyberkey. Of these my favorite is Swerve, just because the snazzy red paintjob really suits him. The mold had yet another outing as part of the 2008 Botcon Exclusive Shattered Glass set, and the only version of him that’s not in my collection.

Hot Shot’s auto mode is not that bad. Yes, it looks very toyish, maybe a little super deformed. The painted windows don’t help much and the blinding bright yellow plastic is a bit much on the eyes. I do kinda dig the removable engine that sits exposed on top of the hood. The car holds together really well and rolls great, and it has a chunky, sturdy build to it that seems like it would stand up really well to kids crashing it and roughhousing with it. You can’t say that for a lot of Transformers that have come since. Pressing down on the engine springs open Hot Shot’s front bumper into what I assume is supposed to be a capture claw or something. He has three Minicon Ports on his spoiler, but none of them are live.

Transforming Hot Shot is pretty easy, and what you get is one really goofy looking robot. His blinding canary yellow is now accompanied by a bright red, which doesn’t help things along much, but is probably helpful if you’re trying to get a little kid with ADD to play with it. The engine block plugs into his chest for a little added detail and while he has ball jointed hips and decent articulation in the legs, his arms are totally worthless. His head features a flip down visor, which is nice because it covers that, dopey “hey guys, come steal my milk money” look he’s got on his puss. Jamm, indeed.

In robot form, Hot Shot’s Minicon gimmick is actually pretty cool. His rear axel springs out and turns into a missile launcher. It’s a really clever design and concealed really well. In a toy that doesn’t show off a lot of good design, that gimmick is pretty impressive.

Hot Shot’s little Minicon buddy is the red helicopter Jolt. He’s definitely one of my favorite Minicons, because his helicopter and robot modes are both pretty solid. He’s also really sturdy for a Minicon. I’ve yet to have tiny bits fall off of him while transforming him.

As expected, Hot Shot was repainted and re-released (with a little bit of remolding) as Powerlinx Hot Shot. I know I originally said I wasn’t going to include any of the Powerlinx figures this week, but I really had to because Powerlinx Hot Shot is a fine example of how a great paint job can take a lacklustre toy and make it much, much better. As for regular flavor Hot Shot. He’s definitely not a figure I would produce if I was looking to show someone why I collect these things. On the other hand, the next time my 5-year old nephew comes over and demands to play with one of my toys, chances are pretty good he’s going to get Hot Shot here.

While technically regarded as a Minicon, Rollout is a heck of a lot bigger and chunkier than any of the other Minicons in Armada. He’s actually closer to the size of a Basic or Scout toy. On his own, he’s a little red truck that transforms into a pretty simple robot.

He also looks kind of awesome and/or ridiculous hooking up to the huge Overload trailer and dragging it along. On it’s own, it’s kind of hard to figure out what the hell the trailer is supposed to be, but Hasbro sure went apeshit with the detail. Every tiny part of this toy is sculpted with something. As for function, well if you happen to have Armada Jetfire, it sure makes a handy little carrier for Jetfire in his shuttle mode.

The tailer transforms into Overload’s body and you basically just plug Rollout into it and he becomes the head. Plugging him in also activates a cool little G1-inspired transformation sound. The sound has been added to a number of Transformers since (Silverbolt and Powerglide to name a couple), but I’m pretty sure Overload here was the first figure to use it. I love just about everything about this sculpt. it’s big and powerful, the colors are perfect, and I particularly love the flip up hatches that reveal banks of missiles. Alas, the only downside to Overload is that he is what we used to call in the days of Generation One… a brick. You can move his arms up and down at the shoulder, but that’s pretty much it. But hey, you don’t need good articulation when you look this cool just standing there.

Like Tidal Wave, Overload was an Armada figure that got repainted for the Energon line. In this case, however, he wasn’t just called EnergonOverload. Instead he was repainted into Ultra Magnus with a G1-style paint scheme. The homage works pretty well with the mold in both vehicle and robot mode. Not to mention the fact that G1 Ultra Magnus was just a white Prime cab that plugged into armor made out of the trailer. Kind of makes me think Hasbro had this planned out all along. Oh yeah, Energon Ultra Magnus tends to sell for an assload of money these days.

Something else you should know about Overload is that like Armada Jetfire, he can combine with Optimus Prime (or Prime and Jetfire) and he can also combine with Prime’s trailer to form a beefier base. You could also daisy chain Prime’s cab with his trailer and the Overload trailer, and heck why not throw Jetfire on top to boot. By the time you’re done you can get one pretty big ass toy going. Unfortunately, I will be showing you none of these combinations in today’s entry or any entry in the near future because I fear the amount of liquor it would take to motivate me to attempt these combinations would also rob me of the motor functions I would need to actually execute them.

Red Alert’s alt mode is an Ambulance and it’s a bit of a mess. I like the styling on the hood and the front grill, and the red, white and gray color scheme is appropriate, but the bits of brown here and there are really out of place and ugly. You may recall me saying how much I like clear plastic windows on my Transformers cars. You know what I don’t like? When Hasbro mixes that with painted windows. Red Alert’s windshield is translucent red, but the side windows are painted. It looks bad.

Red Alert has two live Minicon Ports on his alt mode. One is on the light bar, which flips out a huge, firing cannon and also activates his electronics. His lightbar flashes red and he says “Red Alert” which is followed by a siren. The siren doesn’t sound so much like a siren as it does a guy going “Wooooo Wooooo Wooooo.” The other live Minicon Port is on his hood, which springs the grill open to reveal a giant disc shooter. Hasbro, disc shooters went out with the 80’s and early 90’s, please stop putting them on my Transformers.

Transforming Red Alert into robot mode is fairly easy and what you get is a design that in theory is pretty much classic Autobot, but in execution has some problems. His chest is made up from the front of the Ambulance, and compared to his little head and arms, it looks way too big. Red Alert also has no abdomin, just the big boxy chest that terminates into his legs. A little redesign could have made this figure amazing, but as he is, he just looks badly misproportioned. And then there’s the head. I find it hard to believe that Hasbro wasn’t intentionally going for a Robocop look, because it looks so obvious that it’s just weird to see it on a Transformer. I could be the only one that sees that, but it really bugs me for some reason. I do like his colors in robot mode, though. The added blue on his arms and legs look good against the red and white of his ambulance parts.

Red Alert still has access to both of his Minicon powered weapons. You can flip his missile launcher onto his shoulder, which looks pretty good, and you can still activate the disc launcher.
Red Alert does have pretty good articulation for an Armada toy. He has universal movement in his shoulders and hips, double-hinged elbows and hinges in his knees and ankles, and his head swivels 360 degrees. He also has a number of different attachments that can be socketed into his left arm. Cleverly, these can be stored in a compartment in his leg, but that didn’t stop me from losing most of them.

Long Arm is a pretty cool little Minicon, although he really doesn’t look like he belongs with Red Alert. Besides being a crane, the black and brown color scheme doesn’t match his big bot buddy at all. Nonetheless, Long Arm’s robot mode is solid enough and his crane is actually articulated.

For a figure that I’m so ambivalent over, it’s kind of odd to think that I own three different versions of this same toy, but I do. In fairness, one of these was a Sam’s Club exclusive that came bundled with a real bitchin’ repaint of Armada Starscream. As for why I bought the Powerlinx version, well it just goes to show you how tightly the irrational grip of Armada completist fever had me back in the day. In my defense, there was a fourth version released that I did not buy, which was, ridiculously enough, released as Inferno in the 2008 movie line. Yeah, this mold looks right at home among the Bayformers, doesn’t it? My God, what were they thinking?

To start with, Tidal Wave actually has three separate alt modes, all of which are ocean going vessels and that right there puts him in the TF minority. Sure we’ve seen a Transformer boat from time to time, but they sure haven’t been plentiful and I can’t remember the last time I saw a Transformer made up of three separate alt modes. Reflector? No, he was one alt mode and three robots. Anyway, Tidal Wave consists of an Aircraft Carrier, a Hovercraft and a Battleship.

None of these individual ships are all that great, but I’m willing to forgive that because of what they become. All three of these craft merge together to form Tidal Wave’s giant battle cruiser mode, which not only looks right at home in the ocean, but works well as a Battleship-Yamato-style spaceship. I seem to recall him being depicted flying in this mode quite a bit in the cartoon, but then I spent a lot of time watching the cartoon while burning my arms with a cigarette lighter to help improve the experience, so I could be remembering that wrong.

In his alt modes, Tidal Wave has a few worthwhile and well thought out gimmicks. The hovercraft portion has seats that fold down so that some Minicons can sit there and these also work while he’s in his larger battleship mode. Placing Ramjet in the active Minicon port and pressing down makes all of Tidal Wave’s turrets shift back and forth. But best of all, his Minicon, Ramjet, fits nicely into a little elevator in the Aircraft Carrier section and can be stored in there until ready to launch.

Transforming Tidal Wave is pretty easy, and what you end up with is one really big and really cool looking bot. The head sculpt is pretty classical and foreboding looking, his hands are powerful claws, and he has gun turrets for nipples. Not too shabby. Since his arms are made out of his Aircraft Carrier mode, he can actually launch Ramjet while he’s in robot mode, which is a pretty cool design element. His color scheme is somewhat of a hodgepodge, but there’s a ton of great sculpted detail all over the figure. His articulation is surprisingly good for anArmada figure, as he has universal movement in the shoulders and hips, and hinges in his elbows. Alas, his head does not turn.

Ramjet is tiny, even for a Minicon he’s really, really small. He looks nice in jet mode, but he’s not the best in robot mode. This may be partially because of his smaller size, and also because he needs to fold up a bit in jet mode in order to fit through the elevator. Ramjet’s legs are just one solid piece and they aren’t really broad enough to look like separate legs, so he winds up looking like he might have to hop everywhere.

As with most of the molds in Armada, Tidal Wave was repainted and re-released, but in his case it wasn’t until the subsequent Energon line. Instead of becoming Powerlinx Tidal Wave, he became Energon Tidal Wave. I owned that one for a long while, but ultimately wound up pawning it on Ebay, probably for booze money because I needed the space. Either one are great toys, but the Energon version was a little more out there in that he had lighting bolts all over him, making the original release my preferred keeper. If you don’t have this guy in your collection, he’s definitely worth checking out even if you aren’t a huge collector of the Armada figures.

The shuttle mode is gorgeous. A little toyish looking? Maybe. But I really dig the overall design of this shuttle. He’s more of a battle shuttle with missiles mounted under each wing and a pair of guns as well. There is a ridiculous amount of sculpted detail on this thing, from the panel lines to the little grills and intakes and if you open his payload doors there’s even a bunch of shematics etched on the inside of one of the doors. I think I owned this toy for months before finally taking notice of that stuff, but it just goes to show you how much love went into even the smallest details of this guy. Unfortunately, I think it was pure hate that went into his electronics, as Jetfire has one of the most annoying electronic gimmicks I’ve seen in a while. Push his back tail fin down and the thruster cone lights up and he starts this long-winded countdown, followed by sensors beeping. It’s an infuriatingly long sound clip and it has a hair trigger.

Jetfire also has what I believe to be the best Minicon connectivity of almost any toy in the Armada line. He has three live Minicon ports: One on the top, which activates his spring loaded tail fins, and he has one on each wing that drops each missile. But the coolest thing isn’t really a port at all, its the way Comettor transforms into Jetfire’s front landing gear and plugs in under his nose cone.

Transforming Jetfire is pure craziness. Stuff flops all over the place and for a while, he’s just a hollow mess. But he’s surprisingly easy to convert and the process is really clever. I’m not all that much a fan of Jetfire’s head sculpt, but it doesn’t go so far as to ruin the figure for me at all. I just wish they would have gone with something that looked a little more Transformer-y. Two of his thruster cones retract into his feet, which is really cool as it would aid in his ability to fly. The third thruster assembly becomes a rather unweildly, but serviceable weapon. You can position his wings in a variety of ways. I believe the official position is angled up over his shoulders, but I like to put them down, coming off his back. Jetfire has a good amount of articulation and he’s chock full of strong ratchet joints. His arms feature universal movement in the shoulders and hinged elbows. His legs rotate at the hips and his knees bend.

Jetfire’s Minicon is Comettor and as already hinted at he’s something of a triple changer. In addition to his landing gear mode, he also has a little moon buggy alt mode and can take on a cool wheeled robot mode. Afterall, how many Transformers have wheels instead of feet? At least outside of Beast Machines. Granted, his colors are a bit bland, but he’s definitely one of the more unique Minicons out there and his connectivity with his big bot buddy is fantastic.

Like most of the Armada molds, Jetfire was repainted and re-released as Powerlinx Jetfire. I really wanted to include some shots of the repaint, but the batteries in my camera had other plans. If I’m motivated enough, I may edit today’s entry with some additional photos, but chances are I’ll just save all the Armada repaints for a Powerlinx Week sometime in the future when I’m hard up for material. He’s also capable of joining with Armada Optimus Prime, but there just wasn’t enough alcohol time to make me attempt that for today’s entry. Either way, Jetfire here is a really fun an innovative toy, and certainly one of my favorites in the toyline.

A lot of Transformers continuity has come and gone, but man was it strange back in 2003 to get a brand new Transformer named Wheeljack and have him be an Autobot turncoat to boot. Like most of the figures featured this week, I don’t have a packaged shot, but Wheeljack came in his vehicle mode on a horizontal card and included a rolled up instruction sheet, a collectible card, and his Minicon buddy Wind Sheer. I actually had a MOC example of this figure for quite a while, but after searching through a bunch of totes to no avail, I later found that I sold it off on Ebay a few years back while doing some Spring cleaning.

The first thing to notice about Wheeljack is that while there is defintely an homage at work here, it sure as heck ain’t based off his G1namesake Wheeljack. Nope, with his Lamborguini style auto mode, this guy defintely looks more like G1 Sideswipe than anything else, and even more so when we get to the transformation. The next thing I tend to notice is the fact that his Autobot insignia has been violently scarred off of his hood and replaced with a smaller Decepticon logo. I could go on about how this played out in the cartoon, but the cartoon was crap, so, let’s focus on the figure. It looks pretty bad ass on the figure.

I’m not usually a big fan of painted windows on my Transformers cars. I like the use of transparent plastic, but Armada was big on painted windows and honestly, it sort of works with this figure. As with all Armada figures, Wheeljack has Minicon ports, and in this case three of them. Two of these are the dead ones on the spoiler, that don’t activate anything but still let you pile Minicons on board. Unfortunately, these ports are too close together to be much use with a lot of the Minicons. The live port on his roof activates his attack mode, which raises his gullwing doors and exposes his concealed missile launchers.

Wheeljack’s transformation is very simple, and very reminiscent of that G1 Sideswipe homage I mentioned earlier. He wears his hood as his chest, which places the scarred Autobot symbol in another position of prominance, and his trunk folds out to become his legs. Even his head sculpt is pretty similar to G1 Sideswipe, complete with the little horns too, although he does have an uncharacteristic gold face. [Certainly no surprises why he was repainted as Shattered Glass Sideswipe for Botcon 2008. -FF] He’s a pretty well proportioned figure, although he’s got some major hollow legs going on down there, and he’s pretty back heavy. We’ve also come to expect a lot more articulation in our Transformers since ball joints have become commonplace. Actually, I guess they were pretty commonplace in Beast Wars and Robots in Disguise, so in a lot of ways Armada was a step backwards in that respect, and Wheeljack here certainly proves it. The only really useful points of articulation are in his shoulders and elbows. He can also hold his missiles as swords or clubs.

Wind Sheer is a cool little stealth bomber that mounts nicely on top of Wheeljack’s car mode and thanks to the matching color scheme looks pretty good there. I really dig his transformation, partly because bits don’t fall off of him as with some other Minicons, and because he really does have a pretty solid robot mode.

There’s no doubt that Wheeljack here is a throwback to G1 in terms of sculpt, transformation and articulation. But then I make no bones about the fact that that’s why I like him. He’s a simple, sturdy toy with a nice classical look to him and his Minicon and gimmick are well designed and don’t do anything to ruin the aesthetics of the toy, unless you count making him backheavy. Granted, when it comes to defending my fondness of this figure, I usually find myself up against some overwhelming odds, so there’s a good bet your mileage may vary.