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The year 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of the Transformers franchise. To celebrate this incredible milestone, Seibertron.com will look back at a quarter-century of great Transformers toys, bringing back into the limelight some brilliant figures that have fallen through the cracks over the years. Once a week, a fan (be it a member of the staff or a user on the site) will have the opportunity to write about one of their favourite "hidden gems" of the Transformers Universe, and have their review posted on the site's front page.

We hope this feature will be a great success, and that many of you will be encouraged to look back at the last 25 years of Transformers and perhaps take a worthwhile second-look at some real unsung classics of the Transformers universe.

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Buried Treasure - Emergency Mini-Con Team (Armada series - 2003)

By Nekoman

The Mini-cons are something that are starting to be forgotten in the Transformers franchise. The current Universe line has updated Jolt, and offered a set of Mini-cons exclusively to K-Mart stores, but that would be about it. Mini-cons are really cool, and in some cases probably the closest things to Transformers accessory sets this fandom may see for a long time (well, as far as official products go anyway). So that’s why I’m looking at the Emergency Mini-con team, a set that is truly more than meets the eye.

Each of the three figures included in this set have three modes. Firebot Transforms into a fire engine, a robot (surprised?) and a missile pod. Prowl the police car has the third mode of an blaster/gun, and Makeshift transforms into a V-22 Osprey and a twin barrel gatling gun. Out of the three, Firebot is definitely my favorite, so I‘ll start with him.



Let’s look at his fire engine mode. It’s pretty simple, but detailed. There’s even a small translucent hose in the front of the truck. He has two Mini-con ports to combine with a larger figure on top of him. Unfortunately their positioning is a little poor, and he is not as flattering when combined in this mode.



His robot mode is nice, it's well detailed and articulation is good for a figure of its size. He doesn’t have any hands, but what appear to be guns in their place. Thus, he has a little more firepower than the average Mini-con or small-sized Transformer. A creative touch if you ask me.

There’s lots of little mechanical details that garnish this mode. There’s also good use of different colored plastics and paint applications. Little things like his visor, and chest details get painted, which makes him look less bland.



Now in missile pod mode he’s truly a gem. Transforming him into this mode is rather simple. You push his arms down, which also moves the position of his Mini-con ports, then fold him in half. Now the positioning is much better for his Mini-con ports. He looks just like how a missile pod should, and not much like a fire engine. Simply plug him onto any Mini-con port and voilà, extra firepower for any Transformer (with the Mini-con ports, of course). He’s pretty much an accessory like this, but I think that’s exactly what makes him so interesting.



Onto to Prowl, he has the vehicle mode of a police car. Again, he’s detailed, but the translucent blue doesn’t blend well. It works, but I would have preferred a solid color instead. Regardless, the color scheme goes together pretty well, and the blue plastic is dark enough to not be that noticeable.



In robot mode he’s pretty good. Not as interesting as the other figures included in this set, but nice none the less. He has ball joints in his shoulders, and hinge joints in his legs, so he can pose pretty well. I somewhat dislike that his head is one piece with his upper body, but he does plenty to make up for it.



His third mode is a gun, and this is how I like the figure best. He can be held by any Transformer with 5mm holes in their hands, so he’s not limited to just figures with Mini-con ports. He looks better as a gun than he does as a robot, and I find him most useful in this mode. His head is as stated above, one piece with the part of him that becomes the barrel of the gun. This makes his face somewhat less noticeable, which is nice.



Then last but certainly not least is Makeshift. He transforms into an Osprey helicopter in vehicle mode. It’s well detailed and the propellers even spin. The cockpit is painted silver, and there’s even this neat little emblem on his rear wing. There’s not really any kibble in this mode and he looks clean.



In robot mode he almost looks imposing, which is a little uncommon for an Mini-con. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the little things, but it’s sort of the same with the Generation 1 Mini-bots. Bumblebee for example isn’t the least bit imposing, but this guy is different. He’s real bulky in some aspects and the fingers he has adds to his badass-look. He’s just not that “innocent little guy” most Mini-cons/Mini-bots come off as.

His articulation in this robot mode is decent, with joints in his fingers/claws, shoulders, and kind of in his legs. Unfortunately, his legs are pin joints that only bend to the sides, meaning he can’t strike too many poses. But he looks good enough in static poses to make up for it anyway.



He also transforms into a gatling gun as stated at the beginning of this review. While not quite as recognizable as say, Firebot, it’s still an imaginative and detailed alternate mode. There’s many little orange details that can be seen here, it’s nice that they went trough the trouble of making him so detailed in this mode. As a weapon, he works as that nice little bit of added firepower, perfect for an larger figure.


(Armada Emergency Mini-Con team with 2004 Universe repaints)


All in all, this is a set Mini-con collectors should pick up, and more casual collectors should carefully consider. These three Mini-cons are loads of fun that compliment very well the larger figures you might find in you collection.

Links:

Visit the Makeshift gallery by clicking here.
Visit the Firebot gallery by clicking here.
Visit the Prowl gallery by clicking here.
Visit the Universe Makeshift repaint gallery by clicking here.
Visit the Universe Firebot repaint gallery by clicking here.
Visit the Universe Prowl repaint gallery by clicking here.
...Or find your own buried treasures by visiting all the toy galleries here!

* If you would like to write a review for our "Buried Treasures" feature, please send a private message to Skowl on the Seibertron.com forums!

Previous Buried Treasure Reviews:



Cannonball by Skowl



Snapdragon by Jeep



Cybertron Downshift by Chuckdawg1999



Frostbite by Duke of Luns



Octopunch by Jeep

finally a review i agree with, i luuuuuuuurve these guys, they've got such practical use's

i use firebolt as henkei primes shoulder missle barrage attachment, sits on him quite nicely and the reds are pretty much the same

prowl as wheeljacks gun, i like to think wheeljack invented prowl, his sort of mad scienist experiment

and makeshift goes on armada prime as the gattling gun attachment

i hope hasbro make some more practical minicons

great review guys

Makeshift is actually one of my favorite Mini-Cons. I actually used to attach him to the Requiem Blaster.

Nice review Nekoman!

Nice review.

Triple-changing targetmasters? Very cool. I bought a few minicon teams but never saw that one.

Awesome review Nekoman I wish I had these little guys.. I love Mini-Con's with weapon modes..

Hopefully I can track these guys down one day

yeah i remember when i picked these up when they first came out and was surprised at how cool they were compared to the other teams of the day!

Ahh... brings back memories of Armada!


p.s. great review!

I love this set. I have the Armada and the Cybertron Repaints of these guys and they are fantastic.

I also have a couple of the Japanese repaints of Prowl, though not of the other guys.

You have to love a police car that turns into a Gun

I really like that set too. Good review.

The Mini-cons are something that are starting to be forgotten in the Transformers franchise. The current Universe line has updated Jolt, and offered a set of Mini-cons exclusively to K-Mart stores, but that would be about it.

Not to be too picky, but how about the Mini-Cons that come with Universe Vector Prime and Heavy Load?

had these guys last week.they are sure fun.they look really nice on megalo convoy aka metroplex IMO

Scaleface wrote:I really like that set too. Good review.

The Mini-cons are something that are starting to be forgotten in the Transformers franchise. The current Universe line has updated Jolt, and offered a set of Mini-cons exclusively to K-Mart stores, but that would be about it.

Not to be too picky, but how about the Mini-Cons that come with Universe Vector Prime and Heavy Load?

Repaints (I think) of the figures they came with back in Cybertron.

Not counting the new sculpt of Hot Shot's Jolt, the last new mini-cons to come out were the 3-packs that came out during Classics, which I believe were the same that got repainted into the K-Mart set (some of which since got single-carded for places like Big Lots). I agree with Nekoman; Mini-cons are starting to be forgotten. That bothers me because, while there really isn't really a place for them in Animated or the movie-verse, IMO (in spite of the TRU-exclusive repaint of Armada Red Alert), there could at least be more of a presence than Jolt, the K-Mart set and a few repaints. Quite a few figures perhaps, but the majority repaints, and the only truly new figure is a new sculpt of one of the originals. (Oh, wait...don't leave out the TRU-exclusive reissue of Unicron; the in-package chaos-bringer holds Dead End in his left hand, as i remember.)

Nekoman wrote:His third mode is a gun, and this is how I like the figure best. He can be held by any Transformer with 5mm holes in their hands, so he’s not limited to just figures with Mini-con ports. He looks better as a gun than he does as a robot, and I find him most useful in this mode. His head is as stated above, one piece with the part of him that becomes the barrel of the gun. This makes his face somewhat less noticeable, which is nice.

This point about Prowl is a big part of why I wish there would be more truly new mini-cons. Figures like Prowl and Over-Run (super-con Optimus Prime's mini-con) can supplement older collections by becoming weapons for older figures that have lost their weapons and can hold the mini-cons in weapon mold. (The same can be done for larger figures, like combiner teams and voyager-scale figures, using combiner weapons like the Star Saber and Requiem Blaster.) No fair calling foul if they do a single-carded reissue of Over-Run, either, not after they gave super-con Optimus the "Galaxy Force Optimus" deco and released it with a cyber-key replacing the mini-con.

Yes, the Mini-Cons from Vector Prime and Heavyload were repaints, but so were the K-Mart Mini-Cons, and he mentioned them, so I figured repaints were fair game.

The only new mold we are getting so far for a Mini-Con is Jolt, nothing else has had a new mold since Classics, and those were leftovers from Cybertron who were stuck into Classics.

Also, the movie Longarm from TRU Inferno was a Mini-Con. It's been rumored he was supposed to be a Universe toy, but TRU wanted to cash in on the movie line, so he became the ONLY Movie Mini-Con (a repaint from Armada)!

Great review, my thoughts exactly! This was the first M-C set I ever bought, and it's still my favorite. The weapon modes are excellent, and they really pump up whatever lucky figure gets to brandish them.

Mini-Cons rule, weapon modes or not.

Nice review!

I think this is the only Mini-Con team I got aside from the blaster, Dark Sabre and shield teams.

I actaully like the clear blue on Prowl. In weapon mode, I extend both of his arms to get a sort of crossbow look.

Makeshift is my favorite of the three. He is one of the shortest Mini-Cons, yet he looks tough.

I can't get him to fit on Armada Prime's gun though, like in the pic. The peg on the gun is too short.