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A great list! And I never knew that demolishers minicon could fit like that in alt mode! Not suprised by 1# but unicron is an awesome toy so I don't mind (though I prefer the sleeker Energon redeco)

Stargrave wrote:Remote controlled pants wins every time.

Not unless the gimmick never worked. Always had to do it manually.

Sabrblade wrote:Was honestly expecting to see either A) Unicron excluded since he's the obvious automatic #1, or B) Jetfire somewhere on this list.

Excluding him wouldn't be fair to myself or to you guys and it would turn the entire discussion into whether or not that was the right thing to do instead of just discussing the toys we love. And yeah, Jetfire is a contender for best armada toys for sure, but this is how the top 5 ended up for me personally.

Windsweeper wrote:Interesting article as always though I have to respectfully disagree. Starscream/Thundercracker should definitely be on this list, same for Bendy Prime and Hoist.

Starscream still holds up today. His only flaw is not being able to turn his head. The Armada and Cybertron Seekers nicely bulk up the ranks of the Siege Seekers.

Firstly, thanks for your kind words (yours and everyone's, it's always appreciated). While I do agree that Starscream is one of the predominant characters that come to mind when thinking of Armada, his toy is not something I would personally recomend over the others. I really don't like how the cockpit is not lined up with the rest of the body and how his arms end up rather blatantly there as nubs in alt mode. Plus, I don't feel the ingenuity of the fold out wingsword makes up for how both the weapon and robot ends up looking, now with one less wing.

Hoist is cool but I was more impressed with the longrack homage it got later, and thats not part of this line. As for Bendy Prime, he's fine but I thought Demolishor was a much more interesting deluxe, especially with the minicon interaction, which this whole series is about. He's also a new character with a cool design and alt mode. I love those missile fingers too, its very diaclone-like.

YRQRM0 wrote:Oh man, great picks but there's a lot missing in the shout-outs. Both bendy Prime and Leader Prime are great - Leader because his base mode is so much fun to set up and put mini-cons all over.

I think most of us are saying the same thing though, bendy prime is good but more worthy of a mention than actually being on the list. I just didnt want the mentions to be too long and preferred highlighting some minicons since I didnt want the main gimmick of the line to go unmentioned. In the end, the comments always serve as an extension to the list.

And yeah, that police car minicon is pretty awesome!

I'd lean more to Rollout(Overload) for the minicon honorable mention for being a Headmaster and a Targetmaster, plus has both a minicon port(trailer hitch/weapon handle) and a socket...

A solid list, I'd agree with based on the reasons given. It is funny when I briefly browsed the Wiki, the only two figures I liked and recall owning from the Unicron Trilogy, came from Energon. As such I have no horse in this race.

That said, scrolling through the comments, not every list needs a Prime... Just saying

It’s like a Joker in the deck. Wild card. You could just as well say hey here’s my top five but because A-B-or C is always great and a given I’ll exclude them from the list. I usually do that in my mental lists.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:A solid list, I'd agree with based on the reasons given. It is funny when I briefly browsed the Wiki, the only two figures I liked and recall owning from the Unicron Trilogy, came from Energon. As such I have no horse in this race.

That said, scrolling through the comments, not every list needs a Prime... Just saying

I tend to crap on Energon as much as the next fan, but in reality its just because there is a whole subsegment of that line that just hasn’t aged well and just isn’t very good. But there are still amazing toys from that line and I look forward to writing that list. Just curious though, what are those two toys. And haha about OP. I just felt there were better toys that encompassed what Armada brought to the table. And I think most agree, since the discussion is more about Optimus being mentioned rather than him actually being on the list. If the one squabbles are over the honourable mentions, then I think it’s a good indication that the list itself is solid.
Also, just so people know, my honourable mentions are really the most subjective part of all my lists. It’s where I write about a toy that I would want to write about but that wouldn’t make the list. It’s not necessarily 6th, it’s just a toy I want to talk about, hence why it’s just a mention. I didn’t really have anything to say about Optimus.

Stargrave wrote:It’s like a Joker in the deck. Wild card. You could just as well say hey here’s my top five but because A-B-or C is always great and a given I’ll exclude them from the list. I usually do that in my mental lists.

I make it a point to be true to myself with these lists, so I don’t exclude anyone. I don’t feel it would be fair to that toy. Hence why I have no trouble including MPs in lists and them turning out on top if they are the best. It makes it extra special when they aren’t number 1, as is the case with Shockwave, Hot Rod and Movie Optimus.
Though I am still unsure how to handle RID 2001 and that Optimus Primal figure.

william-james88 wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:A solid list, I'd agree with based on the reasons given. It is funny when I briefly browsed the Wiki, the only two figures I liked and recall owning from the Unicron Trilogy, came from Energon. As such I have no horse in this race.

That said, scrolling through the comments, not every list needs a Prime... Just saying

I tend to crap on Energon as much as the next fan, but in reality its just because there is a whole subsegment of that line that just hasn’t aged well and just isn’t very good. But there are still amazing toys from that line and I look forward to writing that list. Just curious though, what are those two toys.

^ This guy. I've mentioned a few times before. I bought him as soon as I saw him, back in the day and there is something about him I absolutely adore. Probably my favourite design for Ultra Magnus. I also had no idea he was a redeco previously either. Frankly I don't care as this colour palette is a lot more visually interesting.




^ The Bot Mode hooked me from first sight. Weird that his alt mode pays more homage to Overlord and Thunderwing than his namesake, in retrospect. Meanwhile, his Bot Mode design is was the update to Galvatron, I had patiently been waiting on, for nearly 20 years at that point.

My interest in the UT was minimal. While the PS2 game is arguably still the greatest singular Transformers game ever made. The cartoon largely completely soured me on collecting the toyline.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Windsweeper wrote:Starscream still holds up today. His only flaw is not being able to turn his head.

So you don't consider his entire back sticking straight out in robot mode (and making him ungainly and top-heavy) a flaw? If it wasn't for that, he'd be#1 on my list. But that's a very bad design flaw, especially when a single hinge could have fixed it.

I also don't get why the Armada Unicron mold is so loved. It doesn't even form a whole planet, and in robot mode he's top-heavy and his feet are too big. I do have the G1 25th anniversary version, but I'm not head over heels about it. I do like that he has individual articulated fingers.

That was how he looked in the show. Also, if you are popping out the backs of his feet properly (took me a while to realize you could do that), he doesn't have a problem standing up straight at all. Like Cybertron mudflap, he's surprisingly sturdy imo.

Unicron also did look that way in the show at least, and his feet were huge in G1 too. The feet on the upcoming Haslab one are also gigantic, it's just part of his design I think.

No bendy OP?

Demolisher was the first Armada toy I got, and it pretty much soured me on the whole line for a while. I just did not like him with his goofy hands and stuff.

Sideways, I feel was a great idea but with mediocre execution. I like the rider turing into double headmasters and working as a faction changer, and he seemed cool as hell on the show, but the toy just didn't quite live up to expectations.

Never had a Megatron, but had a Galvatron of that mold, and just thought it was okay.

Tidal Wave, now there was a great Armada toy. Hopefully he's being kept in mind as a future remake candidate for Commander class.

Unicron, hey, I was waiting for that toy since seeing the movie opening day in 86, and while there were some flaws, overall it delivered. And at an affordable price! Sure, all else equal I'd certainly prefer a HasLab version, but the Armada toy made me quite happy to have back when it came out.

Jetfire (well powerlinx or whatever they called the redecoed versions in Armada) I mainly got to make pants for the big version of OP. On his own, he was another okay one, but nothing too must have. I have to say Jetfire/OP/Energon UM make a formidable hunk of robots when combined.

Wheeljack, the name was wrong, but most of the rest was pretty cool. Not quite a faction changer, but with molded symbols for both factions and the bot symbol scratched out, it was close enough to count for me (I like faction changers, I guess )

I agree with this list!

No one's mentioned the coolest thing about Demolishor's gun-fingers?

Any upgrades you wanted to give him were limited to Minicons being mounted on his ports, being unable to hold any conventional weapons like the other Bulks, except for one uncanny reversal: Thunderwing. Any other figure had to just awkwardly mount that shuriken mode on them somewhere, but only Demolishor could actually be posed holding it like he was about to throw it, and he was even stable enough to display that way. So just ignore his affinity for Bonecrusher in fiction, and always equip him with the Air Military Team.

(Of course, Unicron's toy could technically also do this, but the scale issues would just evoke that scene in the last ep of Gurren Lagan where the two combatants were tossing around entire spiral galaxies like shuriken)

And Megatron's cannon was in his "ARMPIT"? TF anatomy can be subjective, but I always saw his design as an attempt to homage and outdo the original Megatron toy by making his primary cannon crotch-level, rather than just the auxiliary barrel. Long before the introduction of Tidal Wave's combination revealed the actual reason for being able to rotate the turret forward, the beginning of the episode where they found Sonar in Atlantis really hammered the idea home with "Transformation Evolution!" I need to watch Micron Legend sometime to see if he actually cried out "Mega-Kuratchu-Cyclone-Barrage!"

Choose not to see it that way if you wish, but at least Armada Megs was a better dick-joke than any lame attempts in the Bay movies.

And on Tidal Wave, am I the only one here who only ever acquired Takara's show-accurate Shockwave version of the mold because I just couldn't stand either of Hasbro's decos? All the green just didn't make sense; was it supposed to be algae that grew on him while he was submerged or something? Nope, nothing but good ol' grey and black will do for my Dark Fleet.

Great list as usual!

The purple version is still 1 of the few grails I need to acquire.

Rodimus Prime wrote:The purple version is still 1 of the few grails I need to acquire.

Just look at that Mandarake listing.
Not that expensive and easy to find.

That listing was there for ages and now it's gone. Are we TF collectors some kind of hive mind who all want the thing at the same time or what?

I don't have too many Armada figures, but what I have so far is a really good bunch.

My favorite is Jetfire. That is a fantastic mold that is a boatload of fun in every way, with a great robot mode, fun transformation, and that shuttle mode is simply awesome. He is so great! And he can form a pair of legs too! He would be my #1.

Megatron and Tidal Wave are great too. I wish both had some more leg movement, but they are both hulking monstrosities and are really cool.

Unicron mold is pretty good too. I have the Unicron of Light version, which is fantastic with all that green. Wish the planet was better, but it's still impressive as our first planetformer.

Minicon team Perceptor is really sweet, I adore him. Same with little Sparkplug.

The Prime mold is pretty good too (the larger one here), and the combination is cool. But he is definitely the weakest one to me in my collection of Armada guys. Bendy Prime is really good though, he is almost equal to Siege in terms of quality.

Personally, I would put Bendy or Superbase Optimus on this list above Sideways.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

Windsweeper wrote:Starscream still holds up today. His only flaw is not being able to turn his head.

So you don't consider his entire back sticking straight out in robot mode (and making him ungainly and top-heavy) a flaw? If it wasn't for that, he'd be#1 on my list. But that's a very bad design flaw, especially when a single hinge could have fixed it.[/img]
Except that 1. the top-heaviness is negligible in practice, especially with the strong hip ratchets and the big feet, and 2. adding a hinge there would have added more complexity and another stress point to the wiring for his electronics

Rodimus Prime wrote:I also don't get why the Armada Unicron mold is so loved. It doesn't even form a whole planet, and in robot mode he's top-heavy and his feet are too big. I do have the G1 25th anniversary version, but I'm not head over heels about it. I do like that he has individual articulated fingers.

It gave us a Unicron toy at long last, it has the ring-wings that the aborted G1 toys would have lacked, we get that the feet are big because A. they look big in some shots of the movie and B. they need to be big for balance), he does form a complete planet (it's just not a perfectly spherical one, because of the need to have a side he could be stably set down on), his planet mode has a the chomping mouth from the movie, he cuts an imposing figure next to most other Transformers, he's actually WORTHY of being such a honking huge toy (unlike Beast Machines Supreme-class Cheetor, the size class' decidedly inauspicious debut)...

Bumblevivisector wrote:And on Tidal Wave, am I the only one here who only ever acquired Takara's show-accurate Shockwave version of the mold because I just couldn't stand either of Hasbro's decos? All the green just didn't make sense; was it supposed to be algae that grew on him while he was submerged or something? Nope, nothing but good ol' grey and black will do for my Dark Fleet.

I only bought the Hasbro green one (years after Armada, even) to go with my BotCon 2014 pirates since their ship design was based on that version of Tidal Wave.




And a different version of this Tidal Wave, also in the Hasbro colors, also appeared in the epic finale of Beast Wars: Uprising.

Sabrblade wrote:

Bumblevivisector wrote:And on Tidal Wave, am I the only one here who only ever acquired Takara's show-accurate Shockwave version of the mold because I just couldn't stand either of Hasbro's decos? All the green just didn't make sense; was it supposed to be algae that grew on him while he was submerged or something? Nope, nothing but good ol' grey and black will do for my Dark Fleet.

I only bought the Hasbro green one (years after Armada, even) to go with my BotCon 2014 pirates since their ship design was based on that version of Tidal Wave.

The majority of his purple got changed to green for the Hasbro release because Hasbro's design team felt that throwing in another purple-dominated toy would have been too much on top of the amount of purple present in Decepticons already on the shelves.