Transformers: Armada (toyline)
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Transformers: Armada marked a fresh start for the Transformers brand, a reinvention that introduced a whole new universe and backstory for the robots in disguise. The franchise also introduced a new faction, the Mini-Cons, the line's most distinctive element, as every larger toy included one or more Mini-Con partners.
The line was a hit with kids; the simpler, cleaner transformations made the toys more accessible than prior lines, plus the wealth of action gimmicks gave every toy more to do. The numerous Mini-Cons in particular proved popular with fans and children alike, and have continued on into many subsequent toylines. It did so well out of the gate that the line had to be expanded beyond its initial offerings pretty quickly, and began the next four-ish years of direct sequels, an era that would come to be known as the "Unicron Trilogy".
Overview
The toyline marked a sharp change of design direction from the intricate, sometimes frustrating complexity found in the prior Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and Robots in Disguise lines (that last one being a particular point of contention with parents). The early offerings in particular are blocky, easy to transform, sturdy and colorful. Articulation tends to be reduced, sacrificed to keep price down in light of the need to add a Mini-Con partner and multiple intricate gimmicks to every mold. Ball joints largely disappeared from the non-Mini-Con toys in favor of permanently-joined swivels. The aesthetics of larger robots hearken back more to the blocky concepts of Generation 1, while the Mini-Cons tend to be more experimental, with odd facial designs and non-standard limbs.
Each larger toy features a "central" gimmick which can only be activated by attaching —aka "Powerlinxing"— a Mini-Con to the appropriate hardpoint; the socket on each Mini-Con has a central pin that presses a recessed button within the hardpoint. Though most transformation schemes are simple, many of the "Powerlinx"-activated gimmicks are quite complex and innovative, such as Hot Shot's "axelzooka", Scavenger's stompy-stompy action, and Megatron's turret-mounted twin-missile launcher. Electronic lights and sounds also became standard on nearly all toys larger than Deluxe/Super-Con. Most non-Mini-Con toys also have multiple hardpoints that didn't activate any gimmicks, but as many Mini-Cons have working missile launchers or third "weapon modes" or other combat-style gimmicks or can be oriented to resemble guns and blades and so on, these hardpoints allow robots to be kitted out with all kinds of gear, a play pattern that would be revived in later lines like the Takara version of Transformers: Prime with its Arms Microns and the War for Cybertron Trilogy with the "C.O.M.B.A.T. System" and its successors.
As with Robots in Disguise, the back end of the series featured same-character redecoes of toys in "powered up" modes, and this practice of heavy mold-re-use would continue on into the future to combat the ever-rising costs of production. The line was further bulked up by redecoes/retools of several Beast Wars Transmetal toys, reworked to be Mini-Con compatible (despite a lack of any kind of action gimmicks), as early sales and subsequent retailer demand exceeded expectations, and they had to get something out relatively quick.
Towards the end, the line veered in an unexpected direction, with the introduction of the massive Unicron, a huge toy based on the character from The Transformers: The Movie, and arguably the greatest wish-fulfillment yet offered to fans from Hasbro, as no toy of this monstrosity had yet seen release. To promote this massive toy, the ongoing storylines of both cartoon and comic changed direction to feature the character as their central plot element, and the toyline itself gained a subline imprint promoting him in "The Unicron Battles". The initial wave of this subline imprint used the original red and blue Armada packaging with an added "The Unicron Battles" logo sticker, whereas the second version sported a new color scheme in orange, blue and black that had the "Unicron Battles" logo as an integral part of its packaging design for the larger toys. Some toys ended up being available in all three packaging variants.
Armada saw a bit of a price jump (production costs again), as the $20 "Max-Con" size replaced the $15 Mega class of past lines, while the $25 "Giga-Cons" replaced the $20 Ultras. This was offset by the fact that Armada toys overall tended to be somewhat more bulky and massive than their predecessors, plus contained much more intricate internal mechanisms and electronic features as well.
Development
Armada was driven by Brian Goldner wanting a collectible play toyline as seen in Japan and wanting to bring Takara in as co-developer. Takara, for their part, was extremely eager to come in as a co-developer on Transformers again to have some control on what the new toys would be and make sure they were commercial for the Japanese market as well. They brought in a horde of toy concept ideas that would shape the line, and a small team of Hasbro and Takara staffers were given leeway to develop the new idea.[1][2]
One early idea from Takara was individual Mini-Cons would work at unlocking features on specific Autobots and Decepticons, rather than working for all of them. Aaron Archer argued that American kids would just jam any Mini-Con into the slot and get frustrated it wasn't working.[3]
Hasbro Armada toyline
Mini-Con 3-packs
Mini-Cons were sold in carded three-packs at the Basic/Scout price point, each team defined by a particular gimmick or theme. Though only slightly larger than their closest precedent, the Micromasters, they generally featured greatly improved articulation, complexity, and originality of design.
| Wave 1 | Wave 2 | Wave 3 | Wave 4 |  | ||||
| Wave 5 (The Unicron Battles) | Wave 6 (The Unicron Battles) | Wave 7 (The Unicron Battles)
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Super-Con Class
Wave 1
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Wave 2
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Wave 3
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Wave 4
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Wave 5
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Wave 6 (The Unicron Battles)
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Wave 7 (The Unicron Battles) | Wave 8 (The Unicron Battles) |
Max-Con Class
Wave 1
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Wave 2 | Wave 3
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Wave 4 (The Unicron Battles)
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Wave 5 (The Unicron Battles)
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Giga-Con Class
| Wave 1 | Wave 2 | Wave 3 | Wave 4 (The Unicron Battles)
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| Wave 5 (The Unicron Battles) |
Super Base
Wave 1
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Wave 2 (The Unicron Battles) |  |
Supreme
| Wave 1 (The Unicron Battles) |  |
Role Play
| Role Play Triple Changer | Deluxe Role Play (The Unicron Battles) |
Exclusives
- K-Mart (The Unicron Battles)
- "Battle for the Matrix"
("Powerlinx Optimus Prime", "Corona Sparkplug", "Powerlinx Jetfire", Comettor, Adventure Mini-Con Team, Longarm)
- "Battle for the Matrix"
European-only releases
| Tiny Tins | Super-Con Class
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Takara Legends of the Microns toyline
Takara's take on Armada, hitting stores a bit later than the Hasbro version, has some small but significant differences, largely in the decos. With a closer tie to the animation, the toys had their colors tweaked to make them closer to their animation counterparts. This ranges from the small and subtle to completely different color schemes.
Takara also went nuts with the Mini-Cons. All but one of the three-pack teams got "Exdimensions" redecoes at normal retail, and some of the earlier molds got multiple redecoes as limited-edition store-exclusive promotional giveaways.
Regular retail
Store/event exclusives
Aside from the deluge of limited-edition Micron giveaways, Takara released a lot of the Hasbro line's non-cartoon-based toys as "USA Editions" through numerous outlets.
| Ito Yokado | Jusco | LaOX
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Hello Mac |  | ||||
TF Station affiliates
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Toys"R"Us |
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Toy's Dream Project/Toy Card
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| World Hobby Fair |
Media exclusives
| Theme CD pack-ins | Legends of the Microns DVD pack-ins |   | ||||||
| Legends of the Microns Year Book 2003 | TV Magazine
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TV-Kun magazine | ???
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Sonokong Eunha Yeongung: Cybertron toyline
From 2003 to 2005, Takara licensee Sonokong released a smaller selection of Legends of the Microns toys in Korea, under the name Eunha Yeongung: Cybertron (은하영웅 사이버트론 Eunha Yeongung Saibeoteulon, lit. "Galactic Heroes: Cybertrons").
| Cybertron | Destron | Other
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Multi-packs
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Cancelled toys
- A redeco of the Street Speed Team seen at OTFCC 2003—one-off "color shifts" of the Japanese Street Speed Micron Overdrive Edition—was intended for mass release, but never saw the light of day.
- Redecos of the Adventure and Space Teams surfaced from China, but were likewise not released.
- At OTFCC 2003, it was announced that the more show-accurate Japanese version of Wheeljack and Wind Sheer would be released in the North American line as a running change. That never happened.
- Likewise, the red version of Powerlinx Thrust was supposed to hit North American shores as a running change, but never did... although it DID see release in Japan, Europe, and Israel(!).
- A Powerlinx Blurr toy was supposed to see release alongside Demolishor, but was canned; the deco (or some variation thereof) was eventually released as Universe Swerve.[4][5] Not only that, but three more Powerlinx redecos were planned for later waves that never happened; it's likely that these were shuffled into Energon as Rapid Run, Treadbolt, and Ultra Magnus.[6][7]
Post-Armada releases
Though it does not quite (yet) have the nostalgia-pull of older series, Armada has nonetheless had a number of toys released based on its characters, and even several all-new characters put into its universe since the Unicron Trilogy closed up shop. (Obviously, we're not counting toys from the direct-sequel series here.)
- Hasbro
| Universe (2008) |
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| Kre-O | Generations | Combiner Wars | Titans Return
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| Legacy
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- Hasbro via Fun Publications
| Transformers Collectors' Club |
- TakaraTomy
| Robotmasters | Legends | Unite Warriors |
Notes
- According to Aaron Archer during his stint as ORSON, the Armada Autobots and Decepticons had intentionally different design aesthetics. The Autobots were designed to be symmetrical with clean lines and detailing, while the Decepticons had asymmetrical sculpts and details to invoke a more foreboding and battle-worn feel. A good example of this would be Hot Shot versus Cyclonus.
- The official Hasbro press releases for Armada used the pricepoint titles from the Beast Wars era - Deluxe, Mega and Ultra - instead of Super-Con, Max-Con and Giga-Con, the designations specifically created for the toyline. Confusingly, one press release[8] even referred to the "Mega Figure Assortment" as consisting of "MAXCON figures"...
- While early toys in Hasbro's Armada line used insignias without painted outlines (AKA "blob symbols"), starting with some shipments of Sideways and all later waves, the insignias received painted outlines like Takara's versions.[9]
- There were two different types of "Unicron Battles" packaging: The first version was simply the original red and blue Armada packaging with an added "The Unicron Battles" logo sticker, whereas the second version sported a new color scheme in black, orange and blue that had the "Unicron Battles" logo as an integral part of its packaging design for the larger toys. Some toys were available in all three packaging variants.
- For the Japanese version of the line, Takara took the unusual step of picking and choosing package art from the Hasbro line, with just about all of Don Figueroa and Guido Guidi's art being carried over, while the rest was replaced with new work. No explanation has ever been given, although most of the replaced art originally depicted the character incorrectly (Megatron's treads being mounted on his back instead of his shoulders) or just very inaccurately (Jetfire's everything).
- Armada continued a habit from the Beast Era and Robots in Disguise of reusing "G1" trademarks for characters who fit the vibe but were otherwise unrelated to those '80s characters. Hasbro designer Aaron Archer had been tasked with re-securing key trademarks and iconography that had been allowed to lapse, and so he'd usually pick several names for each toy in case his first choice didn't clear legal, but the names chosen were decidedly a secondary consideration to the toys themselves. For example, had the first choice of "Blurr" not been available, the second choice option was "Silverbolt", followed by "Groove".[10][11]
References
- ↑ "Brian Goldner wanted to get back to basics, and he wanted a 'collectible' kind of concept. He was familiar with what was happening in Japan prior with various types of collectible play, small play, micro play, things that- years before anything like that came to the western markets. [...] So he understood the potential, and to that end I'll just say, he put a lot of trust in me to make this happen—tremendous amount of trust, when you think about what he was trying to do, because it was really a very small group of us and I was really the only designer that made this happen at the time. So his goal was to have the collectibility, that presented Takara the opportunity to pitch a lot of different ideas that they have had over the years, they were very much happy to- well, let me take a half step back. What Brian also wanted was to bring back was that co-development. [...] For a few years, they were kind of like a partner-vendor; we would come up with ideas and what they would want for the Beast Wars stuff, and Takara would kind of make that happen, even though it wasn't necessarily an item they were going to sell in their market. [...] So they were eager to get a better partnership, we were eager to get a better partnership, just to make better overall product: co-develop the animation, co-develop the products, co-develop all of it."—Aaron Archer on The Toy Armada, 2021/12/14
- ↑ "Hasbro did 60% of the character designs, all the colors, names and background info and many of the heads. Takara did the toy eng. some bios and rough design and models work."—Aaron Archer, TFW2005, circa 2002
- ↑ "Takara, if left to their original concepts—each Mini-Con would have been unique to unlock that car's feature. They were always very, 'particular key fits a particular lock', where I always had to defend the dumb American kids—is how I used to refer to it—that would just try to jam any key or any Mini-Con into the port and be upset that it wouldn't work."—Aaron Archer on The Toy Armada, 2021/12/14
- ↑ "With Armada selling well we are still making Blurr so we pushed out the PL version till late next year. I hope to find a home in the TF:Universe line for it."—Aaron Archer, TFW2005, 2003/08/19
- ↑ "I don't know if Blurr ever came out in that red [Powerlinx] deco."—Aaron Archer, The Toy Armada, "Toy Armada Friday Night LIVE - Armada BLURR and more!", 2023/03/17
- ↑ "In his answer found here, Orson provides us with the information that three PowerLinx figures are expected beyond PowerLinx Demolishor and PowerLinx Blurr."—Tim Formas, TFW2005, 2003/05/13
- ↑ "Not really, they are not a large part of Energon if part at all."—Aaron Archer, TFW2005, 2003/09/10
- ↑ http://groups.google.com/group/alt.toys.transformers/msg/b11879ad57a742ca?hl=en
- ↑ "Up until now, the insignias have been painted with no background detail. Starting with some shipments of Sideswipe and all figures in later waves, Hasbro's Armada insignias will be painted with background detail much like Takara's Micron Densetsu take of these molds."—Tim Formas, TFW2005, 2003/03/11
- ↑ "I like the use of the name. "Blurr" was a great name from back in the day. Again, this is an era where I'm not- I'm just trying to regain the assets of the brand, and not really caring at all about how it played with G1 or what came before, because that really wasn't something we had to worry about at all. That was not under our purview, to keep the heritage going, so to speak. That kind of came later. So I was just trying to use cool names, Blurr is obviously a great, simple get. I love names that sound like what they do or what they are."—Aaron Archer, The Toy Armada, "Toy Armada Friday Night LIVE - Armada BLURR and more!", 2023/03/17
- ↑ "'Sleek Car. Type: rocket on wheels, Ferrari-type.' This is the notes from our working rollout. 'Triple change, flight mode, hand-held weapon. Mini-Con partner race dragster. Main character role. Interceptor. October '02.' So that's how we thought of that character. Alright, names, Sleek Car... first choice was... was what it was, I guess, so I guess we went with the first choice we had. Choice #2 was Silverbolt, choice #3 was Groove. I did not have a choice #4. Mini-Con names: Drag Strip, Crashor, Overdrive. Those were the options. Why we had so many options was, on this sheet, I went down the line, if something didn't get approved by legal, we dropped that one out, and moved the next one up. So because this went through, we never had to then search 'Silverbolt' to see if that would work."—Aaron Archer, The Toy Armada, "Toy Armada Friday Night LIVE - Armada BLURR and more!", 2023/03/17
