Army-building
Army-building is a nickname for a toy-collecting habit that involves buying multiple identical toys which represent generic or mass-produced characters (for example, Cobra soldiers or Star Wars Stormtroopers), with the intent of displaying them as an imposingly large cohesive unit. Some army-builders have hundreds of figures, arranged in elaborate dioramas or military-style formations.
The practice is somewhat less-common in Transformers fandom than in other fandoms, primarily due to the relative lack of mass-produced, identical, "generic" units, but there are notable exceptions. Perhaps due to the relative dearth of toys representing multiple generic characters, some fans amass armies of non-generic characters (like the Jumpstarters).
Generation 1
Generation 1 cartoon
Generation 1 offers many possibilities for army building, usually by using multiple figures of named characters to represent an army of similarly-designed drones.
- The pilot mini-series featured a fleet of nameless Seekers colored differently from the primary three. Two decades later, toys of these "Air Warriors" were finally made in the form of Heroes of Cybertron PVC figures. They were sold in multi-packs featuring three identical Air Warriors alongside the aforementioned three named Seekers.
- The Insecticons can be represented by Bombshell, Shrapnel and Kickback. This is probably the cheaper option than using multiples of the actual drone-unit Insecticon toys Salvo, Zaptrap and Shothole, and more show-accurate to boot.
- Multiples of the Scourge toy can represent the Sweeps. This can work especially well if Targetmaster Scourge is used as the proper Scourge.
- Multiples of Gnaw can be used to represent the Sharkticons. This works particularly well with this figure, as Gnaw received very little characterization in most official fiction.
- The Guardian robots/Dark Guardians are potential army builders, though as an e-Hobby exclusive they would be costly ones.
- Kremzeek could be considered an army builder, albeit a costly one, as he has only been released as a pack-in with the large Autorooper and Masterpiece Megatron toys.
- Though there are multiple Junkions, each one has a different character model, and thus using multiple Wreck-Gar figures to represent them is not common. Also, he can't really ride himself well.
The Headmasters
In Headmasters, Sixshot demonstrated the ability to create temporary duplicates of himself.
Super-God Masterforce
Super-God Masterforce was good to army builders, as it provided several good opportunities.
- The Seacons had multiples of all the limb-units; Turtler was the only non-cloned individual of the group. Thankfully, the Takara versions of these toys are identical to the Hasbro versions, reducing the need for costly importing.
- The Sparkdash Javil, Guzzle and Sizzle are all drones with multiple copies. Though Javil and Guzzle's toys are colored differently from their Firecon doppelgangers, the Masterforce cartoon gave all three Sparkdash the Hasbro colors, making for cheap army-building for those who'd rather be show-accurate with their hordes.
- Legions of black Guardminder drones appeared, led by a single golden one. The black drones can be represented by Fasttrack, while the leader can be his upgrade Black Roritchi. However, while collecting a single Black Roritchi wouldn't be too hard, as he comes with BlackZarak, collecting an army of Fasttrack toys, which were only sold packaged with Scorponok, would be expensive.
IDW Comics
During Devastation, the Machination sent multiple Sunstreaker clones after Hot Rod and Wheeljack. However, there is no toy of Sunstreaker in that particular form, let alone as a Headmaster, requiring a substitution. There are also multiple Sunstreaker bodies in black, white and red; though there are no Transformers toys of these, if one were so inclined they could track down the Diaclone red and white Sunstreakers Countach LP500S. Alternatively, the Sideswipe version of Sunstreaker's Universe toy has been produced in those three colors, although the prospect of an army of BotCon 2010 Sideswipes takes this page to an entirely new level of prohibitively expensive.
G.I. Joe vs the Transformers
G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue #3 features a pack of Ravage units.
Timelines
- The Virulent Clone exclusives of BotCon 2005 were army builders, and in fact were only sold in pairs. However, being convention exclusive toys, building up an army of them is a little expensive.
- BotCon 2009 featured an exclusive three-pack of Sweeps.
- Similarly, BotCon 2010 featured an exclusive three-pack of Sharkticons.
Kiss Players
The Earth Defense Command's Kiss Players had 48 of the human-created Autorooper models in service. In what can only be a move designed to encourage army-building, the large Autorooper toy came with a decal sheet with specialized markings for all 48 units, not simply the ones given to pack-in pilot character Atari's Autorooper.
Alternators/Binaltech
With the introduction of the GT System in that series' fiction, Smokescreen can inhabit four bodies in unison, so some collectors might take to buying all four Smokescreen variants (or, more precisely, both Smokescreen variants and both Smokescreen GT variants) to represent him in his four bodies at once.
Toy Bios
E-Hobby exclusive Overcharge is a Quintesson military product with multiple units available. This backstory, along with the multiple different faction insignias he is packaged with, encourages army building, though like the Guardian Robots he would be costly to collect.
Beast Era
Beast Wars Metals manga
An army of Scorpion Soldiers could be built with numerous Scorponok toys, if one considers the minor differences between the two characters to be simply due to an artistic interpretation of the character model. Considering how other characters have been... stylized in these mangas, it might not be much of a stretch. Additionally, Cobra Soldiers could be created out of Cohrada toys. Unlike the Scorpion Soldiers, however, one would have to slightly alter said toy to be more faithful to their appearances in the manga.
Beast Wars Neo anime
Multiple ships in the Cybertron fleet share a design with Fortress Maximus, which would undoubtedly make him the most expensive army builder of them all.
Beast Wars Neo manga
The Blendtrons Elephorca, Drancron, and Rartorata have many duplicates.
Beast Machines
The Vehicons of Beast Machines are undoubtedly the most popular army builders from the Beast Era, possibly from all of Transformers, with virtually every Vehicon representing thousands of identical drones. (Megatron was the main exception.)
The Beast Machines cartoon featured legions of Thrust, Tankor, Jetstorm, Obsidian and Strika drones, each commanded by a general. Note that the character model for Tankor was much closer to the Tank Drone toy.
The Wreckers comic Departure further featured drones of Scavenger, Blastcharge, Spy Streak and Mirage. Additionally, an on-model depiction of the original toy for Tankor was repurposed to represent drones for Quake (who had the same bodyform, but in different colors).
Universe
The 2003 Universe comic "Homecoming" featured multiple Piranacons, toys which would be eventually released by Transformers Collectors' Club as new decos of the original Seacons.
Unicron Trilogy
The Unicron trilogy offers multiple possibilities for army building.
Armada
In Armada, Unicron's interior is patrolled by swarms of Dead End Drones, commanded by Dead End General units. This was originally an expensive toy to army-build, being a pack-in with the $50 Unicron toy (though eventually some Target stores clearanced them for as little as $13). In the Galaxy Force toy line though, the fourth Micron Booster assortment featured "Bug Drones" at a mere 300 yen a pop (very roughly $3). Unfortunately, the blindpacked boxes meant you either had to buy opened samples, or an entire case of twelve toys to ensure getting a single Dead End Drone... and the General came only one per every two cases.
Energon
Energon offers the largest number of potential army builders of the Unicron Trilogy.
- In both the Energon cartoon and comic continuities, the Decepticons send thousands of Terrorcon drones to combat the Autobots and steal raw energon ore. In the comic continuity, these drones were based on four living, fully-sparked Decepticons: Battle Ravage, Cruellock, Divebomb, and Insecticon. In the cartoon continuity, the four drone-types also had color-changed variants sold as limited-retail toys.
- In the cartoon, there were also countless identical Omnicons split among the three body types; Strongarm, Skyblast and Signal Flare. The fourth Omnicon type from the cartoon, Arcee, however, was a unique being, serving as the Omnicons' "queen bee". In the comic series, the Omnicons never became mass-produced Transformers.
- The bio for Omega Sentinel says he is the commander of the "Guardians of Cybertron", though nothing has ever come forward to indicate just what that group is made up of. Hasbro representatives at OTFCC 2004 indicated that they had intended for groups of Omega Sentinels to appear in the cartoon, but ultimately not even one did, just the original iteration of the mold, Omega Supreme. No canon has specifically made the Omega Sentinel toy, a clear homage to the Guardian Robots of Generation 1, an army-builder. However, Hasbro's original intent and the Generation 1 allusion has led some fans to collect several of him.
Cybertron
Cybertron offers a few good army building opportunities.
- Technically a Terrorcon, Scrapmetal is an excellent army builder from the Cybertron franchise. In the Takara line, it was available in three different colorations; red, yellow and blue. Hasbro would later release both the red and yellow versions in their own line, but blue remained exclusive to the Galaxy Force toyline, ramping up his secondary market value outside of Japan.
- The inhabitants of Planet X are represented by hundreds of gray clones of Sideways and attack bird-bots. Both are cost-prohibitive army-builders, as the "Noisemaze-Mass Production Version" was a DVD pack-in exclusive in Japan (and DVDs are not cheap there even without limited-edition toys packed in), and the only way to collect a horde of Laserbeak drones was by buying multiples of the Voyager-class Soundwave toy (which is still less expensive than the Noisemazes).
- Throughout the cartoon series, "clones" of the Blurr toy are seen both as part of the civilian Autobot ranks hiding on Earth and inhabiting Velocitron. These were never seen in robot mode, and sometimes came in red and yellow varieties as well as the toy's blue (no red or yellow versions of the toy exist, though the Universe Swerve toy is a red-colored pre-Cybertron-retool version of the mold). This doesn't exactly inspire too many to army-build him, but the canon is there to support it.
Movie
The video games and subsequent comics for the live-action movie universe feature numerous models of mass-produced robots for both the Decepticons and Autobots. Though there are several toys based on these models (designed primarily for the version of the game for the Playstation 2 and 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC), the accuracy of the toys' coloration and head design to the game models varies, but most are geared towards being the Decepticon drones. Interestingly enough, the toys that got redecoed were given original decos, not opposite-side game-decos.
- Swindle's toy is nearly-accurate to the console game's Decepticon Swindle drones.
- Dropkick's toy has the Decepticon drones' deco, but the face is only somewhat like the Autobot face, leaning towards a more unique design.
- Longarm's toy is only barely accurate to the drone design, owing to timing issues. In the game, both Autobot and Decepticon versions are primarily white. The non-lenshead makes it a little more Autobotty, though.
- Dreadwing is fairly accurate to the Decepticon version of the drone.
- Payload is similarly very close to the Decepticon drones' design.
- In the movie comics, Landmine lent his form to a series of L.M.-1 drones.
Transformers Animated
- Transformers Animated Starscream had multiple clones of varying colors. In "Dino-MIGHT!", they were all colored like him, making him an army builder. There were also sparkless, inanimate clone bodies colored like him in "A Fistful of Energon".
- Soundwave's multiple VR clones from "Human Error, Part II" make electrostatic Soundwave an army builder.
Revenge of the Fallen
Potentially, every Constructicon from the movie is an army builder, because multiple characters with the same body model are either destroyed, merged into Devastator, or are fighting the army at the same time.
Transformers: Prime
Vehicons make quite a Decepticon army, with Starscream as their leader.
