The Energon Pub

I've been fiddling about with the arms microns, and it got me thinking. Are minicons from earlier lines like Armada more articulated than arms microns, or less so? It's just that the one that came with Hasbro's MP Rodimus looked more poseable than any of the microns that came with the Takara Prime toys.

I entered TF collecting quite late, during the 2007 Bayverse craze, and know little to nothing about earlier lines.

That would depend on the miniicon. But overall I'd say the are about the same. Of course the old minions were never model kits, so they may have ad a bit more general articulation. But ball jointed shoulders and hips were pretty standard across the board, bar a few exceptions.

The MP accessory "Offshoot" is not a Mini-Con. He's a Targetmaster.

The Armada Mini-Cons were more articulate, especially the ones that combined, like the Star Saber and the Requiem Blaster. This is the reason I never got into the TFP Microns. They just look like hunks of plastic, not real detail to them. And I only own the Deluxe Prime and Megatron figures anyway...

Generally speaking, Mini-Cons and Microns don't have articulation as a high priority, just the basics for their transformations. There is one exception to that rule however:

Street Speed Team
Every Team in Armada had a certain gimmick, the Street Speed Team's was superior articulation compared to other teams; ball-jointed hips and regular elbow joints for every member. Considering most teams had far less at times, I'd say they succeeded, at the cost of decreasing their overall height.

Liftor, Smokescreen's Mini-con also has some pretty fantastic articulation, his head can even rotate.

But, as a general rule, articulation is hit-and-miss. For example, Pan-Handler and his wavemates Brake-Neck, Swashplate, and Drivetrain(retools of Energon's Recon Mini-con team) all have very limited articulation.

Armada > Arms Microns

Thanks for the all the info, guys.

Personally, I prefer the Decepticon microns to the Autobots ones. Maybe it's their humanoid forms; the limited articulation kind of ruins the coolness factor, if that makes any sense. I mean, humanoids have a massive amount of articulation, but the Autobot microns are so limited that some of them can be stiffer than a G1 toy. PRID Bulkhead's micron seems to just sit there, and barely looks moveable at all.

The 'Con microns, on the other hand, with their animal forms, seem a lot more acceptable, even though they don't technically possess any more articulation that the Autobot ones. I know none of them show nearly the same kind of articulation their animal inspirations possess, but being on all fours, their lack of articulation is less obtrusive. Autobot microns, though, look horrible standing there with ramrod straight arms and legs.

I guess I'm just used to the idea of humanoid figures being posed in various extreme poses, but expect animal ones to either stand there or just sit, or crouch.

Rodimus Prime wrote:The Armada Mini-Cons were more articulate

You mean they were better at expressing themselves through words? Or perhaps you mean more articulated

Mykltron wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:The Armada Mini-Cons were more articulate

You mean they were better at expressing themselves through words? Or perhaps you mean more articulated

Both.

The Mini-Cons talked some trash in the comics, anyway.