Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

[GetRightRobot]

Outstanding article guys! I never realized how little I knew about this chapter of Transformers. Never a big Armada fan, I loved the game for PS2 and some of the figures easily qualify as personal favorites. Thanks for the awesome editorial you three!

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Armada... came about when I was getting a larger paycheck, and realizing for the most part I didn't really care what others thought about me buying TFs. Overall I like the line, found the series to be... meh, at worst. Like Sabrblade said, the potential for epicness was there, if unrealized.

The toys, I liked a lot of them. Although I prefer elbow joints to lights and sounds. Demolisher's one of my favorites.

[Protecticus Maximus]

Wow, amazing article guys. I remember when RiD ended and I first got into transformers, my dad found an RID Build King set somewhere and I got a G1 ThunderCracker from my uncle. I watched a ton of the G1 cartoon and was hooked. They were the coolest things I'd ever seen. Then the armada series started and I got into it like crazy. I had megatron, supreme optimus, jetfire, smokescreen, RED ALURT, sideways, unicron and cyclonus. I even had the 3 super weapon teams. As the series continued, I tuned into toonami or CN or whatever it was at the time and watched the show every week. But unfortunately, all things come to an end, and the line ended. My family moved and almost all my minions, missiles, and other parts of my Armada figures disappeared. The only complete figure I have is sideways, unfortunately the rest are missing minicons or parts. I also lost parts and a figure from build king and thundercracker is missing all but his main body. As blurrz did, I forgot about transformers. (AND I REGRET IT SO MUCH ) I missed out on classics and Alternators. I didn't know cybertron existed till it ended. Soon the movie line started and I was happy that I could get back into the fandom. As odd as the figures were, they were still transformers, and I remember the first time I went into target and grabbed a couple real gear robots. I got home, opened them, and felt like I had met an old friend again. SInce then even those movie 1 figures have been lost or damaged as I now have 4 siblings to deal with, and I casually pick up a transformer now and again from the CHUG or main lines. It really is hard to believe all this time has passed.

[xyl360]

Thanks for the history lesson guys . Fascinating stuff. Thanks also for confirming that there were only 4 Beast Wars repainst/remolds in Armada. I was never certain if there were more or not, but now I know .

[Sabrblade]

Thanks for the history lesson guys . Fascinating stuff. Thanks also for confirming that there were only 4 Beast Wars repainst/remolds in Armada. I was never certain if there were more or not, but now I know .

They said there were 5. four Deluxes as Super-Cons, and one Mega as a Max-Con.
Cheetor
Airazor
Rhinox
Terrorsaur
Predacon

[kirbenvost]

ARGH, curse you guys! I went from 'EW, ARMADA' to perusing eBay listings for Prime & Jetfire. I guess despite the blockiness and simplistic articulation, there's a lot to love about the line. Sounds familiar, eh? I guess coming into the hobby during Energon I was already spoiled by 'modern' figures and couldn't appreciate Armada at the time. But man, if I ever have a surplus of space and money...some of these guys are mine!

[Handels-Messerschmitt]

I got back into transformers after G2 and Beast Wars in my childhood with Armada. Most of the figures don't appeal to me as such but I think they were going for a younger audience than usual. I quite like the mini-cons even if many of them weren't as good as they could have been due to any combination of their gimmick, the need of a link socket or just the general chunky style.

It's funny how, in my eyes, the figures got better but the gimmick leaps and bounds worse as the trilogy progressed. I can forgive some clumsy pegs etc because having tiny robots to match your larger robots is perfectly worthwhile. They're accessories that are proper transformers in their own right (mostly, anyway). The energon weapons were at least beefy and worked nicely with each other. The planet keys, though? Oh my goodness. The worst gimmick in so long. A useless accessory that accomplishes nothing a simple button couldn't have done with far less hassle.

But anyway, how about that Armada. Good name, not my favourite line but it justifies its existence through tiny transformers and, I guess, Unicron as well. I can't believe it's been ten years. Ugh. That's what you get for taking a break for five years.

[Bumblevivisector]

The planet keys, though? Oh my goodness. The worst gimmick in so long. A useless accessory that accomplishes nothing a simple button couldn't have done with far less hassle.

You took the words right outta' my mouth; Force Chips/Cyber Keys also don't display or store too well, leaving collectors like myself who hadn't discovered tackle-boxes at the time with dozens of misplaced accessories. Minicons? Easy to keep organized.

If we're comparing Unicron Trilogy cartoons on the other hand, I'd be interested to hear any argument for Cybertron not blowing its predecessors out of the water, thanks to someone in Japan having the sense to cut ties with the end of Energon and do another 1 season = 1 continuity deal, like Car Robots.

Getting back to Armada, it's interesting that Cyclonus got judged a tad unfavorably, since he seemed to be a lot of people's first Armada toy; when the first Supercons came out, I'd routinely see pegs of just Hot Shot and Demolishor, and I doubt Cyc was shortpacked (though I held out to make him my first Bulk too). I think it's because his Minicon gave him the most visually obvious benefit before you even handled him: the front of his copter mode looked lame until you attached Crumplezone ("HUMP THAT TANK!") and made him a true gunship. Ironically, that first infamous mini-comic was the only time I recall him doing that in any media; he's attached that way at the beginning of the Dreamwave Armada profile books, but to his bulk's robot mode, giving Cyclonus a distressing beer gut. "AND I"LL TURN INTO SOME HUGE, DEFORMED THING!", indeed.

Never bothered with his neon green repaint, though. It started the trend of repainting every other new helicopter mold into Springer, which produced some neat (if non-triple-changing) updates for the Wreckers' leader over the last decade, but Powerlinx Cyclonus was not one of them.

Now, Demolishor did improve once you actually handled him, but it always bugged me that only one set of his shoulder missiles actually launched; it's Has/Tak's weird aversion to certain symmetrical action features that denied us an Animated Bulkhead with both wreckin' balls. Once I played with him, I also found it odd that he was most closely associated with the Land Military Minicons, since he works better with the later Air Military Team. His unique gun-finger design makes him one of many Supercons whose hands can't actually hold weapon-pegs, BUT they make him the only one who can actually hold Thunderwing in shuriken mode, and easily be posed like he's about to throw him! The Land Military Team looks better on Megatron anyway.

Did Armada end up 'forcing' adult collectors to actually play with their toys than any other Transformers line? Perhaps that should be its distinction down the ages.

[Hip-Hoptimus Rime]

What a great read! Thank you guys, that was informative and fun.

Armada is 4th in number in my collection, after the 3 Movie lines. About 79 Armada figs, including about 30 Minicons. All those little guys make it easy to pad the count, I suppose. Nonetheless, it's one of my favorite lines.

Jetfire was my first from this line, I remember being stunned and thrilled when I first saw him in the store. I've been a huge space shuttle geek for 30+ years, and Jetfire was an amazing nexus of two of my geeknesses. I'm going to go dig him out of storage now...

[xyl360]

Thanks for the history lesson guys . Fascinating stuff. Thanks also for confirming that there were only 4 Beast Wars repainst/remolds in Armada. I was never certain if there were more or not, but now I know .

They said there were 5. four Deluxes as Super-Cons, and one Mega as a Max-Con.
Cheetor
Airazor
Rhinox
Terrorsaur
Predacon

Ah, right, I forgot about Predacon (BW Megs repaint). I've got him too so I'm all set.

Thanks !