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Post by The Doctor on Apr 9, 2018 21:22:51 GMT
I did not appreciate this toy enough at the time.
-Ralph
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Post by Pinwig on Apr 9, 2018 21:26:03 GMT
This is something else I'd totally forgotten about. I must get mine out and see if it still works. If it worked in the first place.
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Post by reilly2040 on Apr 10, 2018 9:09:34 GMT
I’ve had mine down from the attic a few times for my kid to play with. I’ve always had a soft spot for Armada Prime and both versions still work great.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 17, 2018 11:19:23 GMT
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Dezzeh
Thunderjet
Wait, what?
Posts: 4,888
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Post by Dezzeh on Sept 17, 2018 11:26:19 GMT
I think I prefer the prototype!
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 17, 2018 17:56:10 GMT
Very nice.
-Ralph
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Post by Shockprowl on Sept 17, 2018 19:23:42 GMT
Wow, that's brilliant! I always bothered me that Armada Laserbeak was an Autobot. I was just getting back into Transformers toys, and good ol' LB being an Autobot confuselled me no end it did. It does look like a superb toy actually.
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Post by Shockprowl on Sept 17, 2018 19:29:00 GMT
You know what. Reading back over this thread, Armada was bloody good, wasn't it?
I... I miss my Big Bag of Minicons. Funny how things, you know, 'come back round'...
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Post by Shockprowl on Sept 17, 2018 19:30:40 GMT
I'VE STILL GOT THE BLACK WOLF ONE! He's 'Baby Ravage' now, and regularly features in our Play.
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 17, 2018 20:16:15 GMT
Armada was a great toy line. I think this was obscured due to the poor reaction to the cartoon, which comes from a time when a primary focus of The Fandom was on whatever was the cartoon at any time.
-Ralph
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Post by Pinwig on Sept 17, 2018 20:23:05 GMT
16 years ago that was. 16 bloody years. I liked armada. I still have an almost complete set. I'm just missing a few of the Beast Wars interlopers and some of the powerlinx recolours.
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 17, 2018 20:28:01 GMT
All of my Armada toys are long gone for various reasons, alas, though my recent acquisition of Unicron has reminded me how good that line was. Big chunky solid fun figures and a good mix of homages and new characters.
-Ralph
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Post by legios on Sept 17, 2018 20:41:12 GMT
Armada was a great toy line. -Ralph It was indeed. Some really fun toys in that line. Still have a soft spot for the Starscream. He was great fun, especially one he was laden down with armed mini-cons like special weapons in a Bullet Hell shooter. Most of my Armada toys are gone - with the exception of some Mini-cons repainted as Rack, Ruin and the Wily Old Buzzard himself. I do miss some of the Armada stuff though. They were chunky, boldly coloured and fun to play with. Really good robot toys. Karl
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Post by Bogatan on Sept 17, 2018 21:00:29 GMT
I could never get past what I saw as a backwards step in the articulation.
Now that its far enough in the past I can view it for itself, like g1 which I dont feel the need to compare to better articulated later lines. Even then though im bothered by what still feels like articulation lost for budgetary reasons or hindered by poor design or gimmicks.
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Sept 17, 2018 21:17:56 GMT
I think the early days of G1 aside Armada is hands down the best kids toyline Transformers has ever done.
Andy
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Post by Toph on Sept 17, 2018 21:19:25 GMT
In fairness to hasbro, they learned their lesson on articulation, and corrected it as soon as possible, which unfortunately coildn't kick in until the end of the line.
But even without articulation, I think Armada may have been the best toys in the franchise. Self transforming Optimus Prime Scavenger was great stomping fun. Terrible display piece but an absolute blast to actually play with. The minicons being completely bonkers.
Armada gets such a bum rap, for being the most innovative line we've ever had.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 17, 2018 21:38:43 GMT
I could never get past what I saw as a backwards step in the articulation. A BIG problem for many people in the early days of the line and one many never got over.
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Post by Bogatan on Sept 17, 2018 22:15:37 GMT
I do actually think its great for kids, but it could also have been great for older fans too and coming out at a point there was a big fuss about older fans rediscovering Transformers and Dreamwave selling huge numbers it just seemed like a mistake.
I can't fault them with aiming for a new generation of fans and so I do now look back on Megatron and Tidalwave more favourably than I did and understand why hip and knee joints were sacrificed, it bugs me but I get it.
Sorry, Leader class Prime though remains truly awful. Mostly becasue the gimmicks take prioroty over all other considerations and they dont work. And even if it did Im not convinced it would have been fun. The whole thing felt to fragile. If you are going to have a giant robot brick it needs to be nice and solid like Powermaster Prime.
Edit: It also just doesnt look very good. One thing Armada did have going for it more than any line till probably Animated is that the toys looked good, so good I kept buying them long after I realsised I was never going to like them that much. But Prime looks bad. Supercon Prime is what it should have looked like, but it something went horribly wrong on the leader version.
But really the one that sums up what went wrong with Armada for me is Supercon Prime. Supercon Prime is hands down my favourite armada mould and one of my all time favourite deluxes. But out of the packet it has no hip articulation, not because they cut it for budgetary reason, but because they added a pointless nubbin at the top of the thigh that removes the clearance needed to raise the leg. Unscrew the thighs and swap them and you've got perfect levels of articulation. But the designers prefered to include a design flurish at the expense of working legs. For me that pretty much summed up the design priorities of the whole line.
Minicons were also really annoyed me loads of them had ball and socket joints but clearly they were only there because they were the cheapest way to meet drop test targets and not to make the toys more fun.
With a few exemptions (Over Run and .) Micromasters were better.
Rant over.
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Post by Shockprowl on Sept 17, 2018 22:27:25 GMT
Yes I remember being frustrated by the lack of articulation. Coming back into Transformers, the figures LOOKED like they should have had better articulation. I was surprised when they didn't.
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 18, 2018 7:59:00 GMT
I've never understood why articulation = better toys.
-Ralph
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Post by blueshift on Sept 18, 2018 8:45:15 GMT
I've never understood why articulation = better toys. -Ralph It depends on the figure and the context I think. As a child I liked toys more who were able to sit down and turn their heads, as I liked to have figures sitting down a lot (do not judge me). This is why Visionaries were superior to Supernaturals, and MASK was better than Star Wars. As an adult in reflection, I think it's more about 'rule of cool' and 'does it add/detract'? Sure it can be frustrating if a figure looks like a brick as there's *less you can do with it* but if it's because of a decent gimmick I'm fine with that. Overarticulation can hurt a figure, make it a wobbly mess that looks like it's made of broken glass. But so can under-articulation, especially if there's no reason. For example, I remember at the time I was annoyed at Armada Megatron's lack of knees, as there seemed to be no possible reason for him NOT to have knees - but then you slap on Tidal Wave and yeah, that makes sense. As a counterpoint, the new really big Cyberverse Megatron figure. Looks great, great gimmick, fine with limited articulation, but... he has no neck. Necks have been standard on figures for decades. There's nothing on the figure that would hinder adding a turning neck. Hasbro's prices are mindbogglingly high, and we know they can do more with less, it's just more and more cost cutting.
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Post by blueshift on Sept 18, 2018 8:46:26 GMT
Also, Supercon Prime, I can... understand why they did what they did. It was just a shame that the autotransform gimmick only worked properly about half the time, the rest it just collapsed into a clicking mess, and it would only transform on a hard flat surface, not carpet!
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 18, 2018 8:50:06 GMT
You mean Superbase, the Leader, not Supercon, the Deluxe!
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Post by blueshift on Sept 18, 2018 8:51:20 GMT
You mean Superbase, the Leader, not Supercon, the Deluxe! Wait, what was the leader class called then? There was uh, Minicon Supercon Maxcon And uuuuh
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 18, 2018 8:51:29 GMT
But really the one that sums up what went wrong with Armada for me is Supercon Prime. Supercon Prime is hands down my favourite armada mould and one of my all time favourite deluxes. But out of the packet it has no hip articulation, not because they cut it for budgetary reason, but because they added a pointless nubbin at the top of the thigh that removes the clearance needed to raise the leg. Unscrew the thighs and swap them and you've got perfect levels of articulation. But the designers prefered to include a design flurish at the expense of working legs. For me that pretty much summed up the design priorities of the whole line. Assembly error? I've never noticed this, and I've got three flavours of this toy! Must dig my Supercon Prime out to check.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 18, 2018 8:52:25 GMT
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Post by Bogatan on Sept 18, 2018 9:05:42 GMT
I've never understood why articulation = better toys. -Ralph Its not that it does. I dont think every G1 toy is inferior to everything after Laser Rods came out. I was happily buying repaints of G2 gobots and reissue micromasters in 2004/2005. As I said I'll take most micromasters over most minicons. G1 toys are built a certain way that Im perfectly happy with that. But if Hasbro release a new version of one, for example Rippersnapper, Im going to be happy if it retains all its orignal elements but also comes with an added range of movement. On the other hand if a toy is built using modern design methods and clearly has the capacity (or should have) for articulation, but doesnt then I view it as being less than it should be.
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Post by Bogatan on Sept 18, 2018 9:14:07 GMT
But really the one that sums up what went wrong with Armada for me is Supercon Prime. Supercon Prime is hands down my favourite armada mould and one of my all time favourite deluxes. But out of the packet it has no hip articulation, not because they cut it for budgetary reason, but because they added a pointless nubbin at the top of the thigh that removes the clearance needed to raise the leg. Unscrew the thighs and swap them and you've got perfect levels of articulation. But the designers prefered to include a design flurish at the expense of working legs. For me that pretty much summed up the design priorities of the whole line. Assembly error? I've never noticed this, and I've got three flavours of this toy! Must dig my Supercon Prime out to check. Its not an assembley error. Thats what makes it so annoying. At the top of the leg are 2 circles one on top of the other. They are a design element on all Armada Prime. But on Supercon the top one sits raised off the otherwise rounded leg. Because of that bit of moulded detail you lose about half or more of the range of movement you would expect from a typical hip joint. By swapping the upper legs around you regain the expected range of movement.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 18, 2018 9:24:07 GMT
Yes, I'm saying "should they have been that way round all along?"
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Post by blueshift on Sept 18, 2018 10:25:24 GMT
I remember there was an assembly error on Battle in a Box Ultra Magnus's arms which meant you had to swap them to make them bend
And Titanium Ultra Magnus' legs were widely believed to be assembled the wrong way round too (I swapped mine at least!)
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