Unicron Trilogy toy discussion

Dazzimus · Post by **Dazzimus** » Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:13 am

I am still trying to find the instructions for CYBERTRON Wing Sabre. There seems to be no actual instructions released to the internet. Very annoying. I want to know how to attach him to Optimus.

blastoff · Post by **blastoff** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 8:03 pm

I have Cybertron Defense Hotshot
Its a very nice toy

poyguimogul · Post by **poyguimogul** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 4:01 am

Armada - targetmaster prime and his subsequent repaints were the cream of the crop on the autobot (and decepticon) side. Unicron is a great figure that can stand with any line. Red alert is a real nice toy, albeit a bit big. Tidal Wave is a fun base-former figure, though maybe not as in scale or as interactive as the original G1 base-formers, but is still a fun multi changer, squad carrier. The Headmasters, Overload & Doubleface (sideways) were nice toys for there nostalgic gimmick, but neither had the articulation to truly shine. The mini-cons were awesome to me as a micromaster fan. Some of the randomness of the attachment was mildy odd, but weapons & drills,etc made alot of sense. The Mini-con street team are detailed and articulated.

Energon - Bulkhead is probably the best mold in the line, sans mustache. Towline and his botcon brethren are pretty nice as well, and more G1 then the current classic versions. Jetfire and Ironhide aren't too bad. Unicron looks a little more like Dark Nova then himself, but still a good mold. Arcee saw alot of use for sure, and is a decent representation, but not the strongest figure. Alot of the Deluxe figures have the same or better articulation then a classic seeker. Omega Supreme/Sentinel are pretty interactive and the robot mode has more play ability then a Fortress Maximus. Rodimus Prime suffers from some bad legs, but looks nice, and shares the same gun style as the current classic version. (It's my classic Rodimus Prime in spirit). Starscream wasn't bad, the G1 colored version should have been the only version other then other characters..(oddest seeker line up ever, SS, Leozack, Skyquake)

Cybertron - I didn't get alot of the bigger figures sadly, But the Legends were a nice addition. Primus is probably the best figure of the line. The seekers are really nice representations of the war within comic forms, better then the titaniums by a long shot. Thunderblast is a pretty solid addition to the fem-bot line up. A boat alternate mode is pretty odd choice but works for the intent of hiding a girl robot inside of a boat shell. The Minerva repaint is a holy grail to many collectors, as is the Shadow Striker esque repaint of Override. The Blurr is nice, and Kup (brakedown GTS) re-unites most of the gang from the movie, sans poor wreckgar. I have one of the cancelled scout Backtrack toys in the box, I couldn't resist a classic Night Ranger.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 8:15 am

Ah the Unicron Trilogy. Beloved of children, not so much by grown ups who should know better.

With Armada, I really liked the designs that a lot of the toys had going for them. I also really like Dreamwave's profile book they did for the toys which is preferable to the comic they produced. Anyway, I loved Megatron and the huge Optimus playset (its a trailer! that transforms! on its own!) and thought they were great. The Seekers were a bit rubbish. Skywarp is easily the best looking of the bunch, but i do have a fondness for Thundercracker and his big red face. I liked Demolishor too, but beyond them and Unicron I didn't own any others. Although I did quite fancy a Thrust toy, he looked pretty good.

I liked that they were big colourful bricks and were fun to play with. I did find them a bit of a shock coming after RiD, as they do seem like a massive step backwards in terms of engineering, but I wonder if part of that was due to the interactive features they were given?

The Mincons I do find to be pretty poor in the main. The use of ball joints and so on to make these tiny figures super poseable seems unnecessary and I don't think kids would have felt they'd have missed out were they not so flexible. i just disliked that you got an outwardly good looking figure spoilt by silly joints that would pop off. I did own a set that also turned into weapons (fire engine, police car and a helicopter type thing) which were decent, but weird looking.

Energon I thought seemed to be an improvement of sorts. The Autobot toys were all largely trash, but some of the Decepticons were excellent - Starscream, Divebomb, Mirage, Scorponok, Sharkticon, Slugslinger - as were the gestalt limb bots (the torso robots and actual combined forms were terrible, with just a little more thought, these could have been excellent). I liked the mixing in of transparent plastics too. Great fun.

Cybertron was a line i was disappointed with. It basically seemed like a retread of Armada, with the Cyber Keys taking the place of the Minicons to activate the various gimmicks. The cheaper looking design and construction didin't help - Scoruge, Crumplezone that little red bike thing and that awful spring loaded autobot car thats supposed to be a girl are all disasters that shouldn't have gotten off the drawing board. In amongst this, there were a handful of good figures - Hotshot got his best toy in this line (seriously, its really cool!), Galvatron is great, Optimus firetruck, although suffering with a silly looking dual ladder/ blaster assembly is again a good toy, as is Evac and that tank one that was used loads in Universe is also pretty decent.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:47 am

well, this thread has rekindled my interest in the Armada line and I've gone to the no effort of picking some figures up second hand off of ebay.

Megatron w/ Leader-1- by crikey, I'd forgot how much I love this toy. Not much in the way of articulation (although clearly could have had a bit more done in the legs), but a fantastic design that spits all over the G2 Megs tank. I love all the little traps and mechanisms used for manipulating Mini-Cons on this toy. Really pleased and thought to myself I was silly to sell this guy on in the first place. Leader-1 is alright. Good robot mode, rubbish folded up robot alt mode.

Cyclonus w/ Crumplezone - This toy always looked awful in pictue, but he's actually a very nice figure. The front of the helicopter does look very flat and Crumplezone does help with this when attached, but its not totally horrible without him. Nice trigger activated blades feature. Its not totally convincing as a helicopter with some barely concealed limbs, but fun all the same. The robot mode is a nice, tall thing. He has articulation in all the right places, just can't move his head. Crumplezone activates a couple of neat features - missile launchers in the arms and guns popping out of his shins. Impressive level of moulded detail too. Crumplezone himself is only spoilt by having the front of a helicopter attached to the back of his tank mode which looks a bit silly.

Demolisher w/ Blackout - No one's favourite Armada figure, despite not really doing much wrong. Nice mini-tank alt mode, slightly gangly robot but a good, powerful looking chap all the same - a nice 'grunt' figure. Blackout is a bit feeble. The robot mode is pretty poor, but the alt mode is decent enough - being a cute wee version of Demolisher (pretty much).

Thrust w/ Inferno - Always liked the look of this guy, but his toy doesn't live up to expectations. The rotating wings gimmick is just silly and means that they don't stay in place on his back in robot mode making the robot mode itself feel like it could fall apart at any time. The inability to do much with the tail fins on the robot mode arms means they constantly get in the way and there's not really anywhere sensible for Inferno to go. Plugging him into his chest looks daft and he looks equally silly stuck on the wings in robot mode. The missile launchers on the shins coupled with attaching Inferno make the robot mode extremely cluttered and awkward. The blanket use of grey for the robot torso and head is very bland in comparrison with his excellent jet mode. The alt mode is the real selling point of this figure. Its a nice squat little thing and i like the tray at the back for attaching Inferno whom blends seamlessly into the jet mode. Inferno himself is an excellent little toy. Nice robot mode and cool little missile van alt mode.

Mini-Con Adventure & Land Military Teams - Okay, this is where I eat my words a lot as nom nom nom these are actually great little figures. I think my appreciation of the Mini-Cons ha been marred by some of the later rubbish that turned up in the Universe and Classic lines. All six of these are nicely detailed, well proportioned and fun little toys. I am particularly impressed that they all manage to incorporate an action feature of some sort too. Excellent work!

The Reverend · Post by **The Reverend** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 1:37 am

I liked Demolisher... more so the Energon repaint (KB, I found out), as I said above (something about that snot green!). All those gun barrels, I guess. And the Minicon isn't as bad as some others. The dumptruck version isn't too bad, but I don't think it's grand.

Leader-1/Clench I like too, but only because you can unfold his legs and make him a forearm-mounted weapon for Mega/Galvatron. I don't mind the large figure's lack of leg articulation, but I do wish the elbows rotated.

I liked Energon Rodimus too. Despite his gigantic feet and silly kneepads, I thought he was a nice reinterpretation of the toy.

Terome · Post by **Terome** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 2:46 pm

I like my Armada Starscream. He looks like he's been cheating on his taxes all day.

numbat · Post by **numbat** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 4:05 pm

I love the Mini-Cons. Neat wee things, great fun, and the innovation in transformation and robot mode designs increase as the lines went on. (Alas, it looks as if Mini-Con engineering has taken a taken a turn for the worst with the Takara Prime figures...)

The Legends of Cybertron (LOC) figures were amazing as well - fantastic pocket-money representations of larger figures. Such a shame the subsequent Legends / Legion Class lines have been largely pretty poor by comparison, and are increasing expensive... LOC Starscream is probably still the best Legends Class mold.

I do, of course, love Supreme Unicron (although have upgraded to the more G1 film accurate Takara 2010 version, the original Aramda one is still awesome!), and Cybertron Primus is also very cool, if a bit deformed (he's armed to the friggin' knees - literally!).

Oh - and I really love the Energon repaint of Armada Tidal Wave. He looms happily over Classics/Generations style figures, but it's a shame he's a brick with limited articulation that doesn't even go the way you'd want (I'm thinking of his knees here...). It's his awesome design that's resulted in me keeping him (plus the fact he's one of just two Transformers my wife has ever bought me), but he suffers from the same issues as the rest of the line(s) otherwise.

I've gone off the other figures in the lines, though (ie the main ones) as Classics/Generations and Movie figures have really upped the bar way beyond the Unicron Trilogy stuff. Undoubtedly they were great for kids, and I think some of the RID Prime figures look like they're going back to redress the lack of more child friendly figures since Animated, but as an adult collector, I want more than most Unicron Trilogy figures can deliver.

Skyquake87 · Post by **Skyquake87** » Wed Jul 04, 2012 9:12 pm

I picked up another two the other day, Armada Scavenger and Armada Powerlinx Red Alert.

I'd owned Treadbolt (the Energon repaint) of Scavenger and thought he was silly , clompy nonsense. There's just something quite charming about the silly brick, so I thought I'd give the Armada version a whirl. I think I prefer the Energon repaint, in all honesty. Rollbar is decent and I like that he can sit in the cab

Red Alert. Oh Red Alert is just genius. If the very silly sound chip doesn't make you laugh, then you've lost all sense of fun. rather than a proper siren noise, its a bloke going 'woo woo woo'. Fantastic. I went for the much nicer looking Orange Powerlinx version, which is a very pretty looking vehicle. The transformation is basic, but the play features make up for this and he's very well articulated. I like the interchangeable tools on the left hand.

What I most like about Armada (and its been nice to rediscover) is their purity of purpose. These are specifically designed to played with and bashed about. They have nice designs, good detailing, fun gimmicks and are just full of life and colour. They're kind of like a smarter take on the colourful bricks of the old G1 post '86 line up.

The Reverend · Post by **The Reverend** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 6:06 am

And I did like Bendy Prime. The Armada Prime with his little jet/Targetmaster thingamajig and no trailer. Still have him out on my shelf. Simple, maybe a little flattened in truck mode, but I thought the robot mode was good in all the right places.

Post by **Warcry** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 6:17 am

Totally agreed. That Prime is easily my favourite Deluxe from the entire Unicron Trilogy, and still my favourite "modern" Optimus toy full-stop. I've always loved the Optimus design from Armada, actually. It's a very imposing, powerful look for him, and the smaller figure and it's lack of gimmicks really brings it off a whole lot better than the bigger, combining, autotransforming monster that they sold at whatever they were calling the Leader price point in those days.

In fact, I think he's one of the few figures in my collection that I've liked more and more as time goes on. He was tiny compared to the rest of the Armada line, where everyone else was was huge for their price point -- I think he was the smallest non-Minicon mold made for the line, actually. So he looked a little silly alongside his line of origin, but placed alongside modern Transformers he actually fits in really well.

[EDIT] It appears I've already raved about the figure two years ago at the start of the thread. I had no idea I'd even posted in here before.