Bot a Day: Daily Drawings

Armada has the distinction of finally bringing a toy incarnation of Unicron, the massive enemy entity from the 1986 Transformers: The Movie animated production. Almost 20 years after the fact, toy engineering had evolved to the point of doing the enormous villain justice. Unicron the toy is loaded with articulation, lights and sounds, and a transformation scheme that turns him into a ringed planet. He is covered with connection points for Mini-Cons -- over 25 of them -- meaning you can festoon him with all sorts of sidekicks and captives. He came bundled with Dead End, a "moon" that can fit onto his rings or other fixtures, and also serve as a turret for his planetary mode. With this illustration, that marks the end of my run of Armada drawings, bringing us to 2004 in the brand's history.   

Laserbeak is an unusual toy in the Armada assortment in that it's a 1:1 roleplay scale, like the old cassettes from the original line. While the classic Laserbeak is famously a Decepticon, the Armada Laserbeak is an Autobot. He turns from a bird into a camcorder, and has an in-between weapons mode where a pistol grip extends from the camcorder. 

Perceptor is the combined form of the Street Action Mini-Con Team . Grindor, the skateboard, forms the upper body. Sureshock, the scooter, the lower body. High Wire, the bicycle, forms the head and backpack. 

The last of the three quest-object style weapons showcased in Armada mythology, the Requiem Blaster is the combined form of the Space Mini-Con team . It is the most powerful gun in the universe, but can be deflected by the Skyboom shield . 

 The combined form of the Race Mini-Con Team , the Skyboom is a mythic shield in Transformers Armada lore which pairs quite nicely with the Star Saber for a classic knight look on any 'bot who should wield both. Fabled to be nigh indestructible, it can withstand a blow from the Star Saber. 

The combined form of the Air Defense Mini-Con team , the Star Saber is a weapon wieldable by larger Transformers toys in the Armada line, and also a powerful McGuffin in the Armada mythology. A redeco'ed version of the team -- tainted by the evil of Unicron -- was also released in 2003, and their combined form is known as the Dark Saber. In addition to these Mini-Con teams, Hasbro released  kid-scaled roleplay versions of the Star Saber and Dark Saber. 

Though the Mini-Cons are presented as their own unallied faction, the search-and-rescue nature of the Emergency Team definitely paints them more as Autobot than Decepticon allies. The trio consists of Prowl (left), who turns into a police car of futuristic/Cybertronic designs, complete with high tech-looking translucent plastic parts. In the middle is Makeshift, a tilting twin-rotor rescue helicopter similar to an Osprey. And on the left is Firebot, a crash response truck of futuristic design. Each of these Mini-Cons also has a weapons mode that can be carried by larger Transformers in the line.