 |
 |
 |
 |
|
By Daniel Suh
While I've greatly enjoyed all of the Mini-Cons, I have found that some of them, especially the Street Action and Street Speed Teams, make strange-looking accessories at best. Not so the Air Military Team. As one of the last two original Mini-Con teams in Armada, the AMT can turn a larger TF into a slashing, slicing, blasting mechanoid of doom!
GUNBARREL
Aircraft
Mode: Gunbarrel
is some type of four-engined military transport plane, 7 cm (2.8")
long with a 7 cm wingspan. His main colors are gray and metallic red-orange
with some metallic silver and black. His faction symbol is on his back
and his PX socket is on his underside. The tiny windows of his cockpit
indicate that he's based on a BIG plane. He has upturned wingtips and
his tail bends upwards.
Weapon
Mode: Fold back the cockpit and fold up the wings to turn
Gunbarrel
into a six-barrelled gun emplacement. The top gun is painted metallic
silver. Judging from the turbines, they probably crush their targets with
blasts of compressed air.
Transformation: From weapon mode, rotate the panel on the bottom 180 degrees, swing the wings back into place, swing down the arms, and detach the legs.
Robot
Mode: Gunbarrel
stands 5.5 cm (2.2") tall as a robot. His head is black with a metallic
silver mouthplate and slanted orange eyes that make him look rather sinister.
The top of his head is a turbine/gun, which probably results in him being
called "Airhead." His arms are black and his thighs are silver.
His arms swing out at the shoulders, his hips are ball-jointed, and his
knees bend slightly.
While his robot mode isn't too poseable, Gunbarrel's plane and weapon modes are pretty sweet. 8.5/10
TERRADIVE
Aircraft
Mode: Terradive
is a high altitude spy plane similar to an SR-71 Blackbird. The longest
of the trio, he measures 8 cm (3.1") long with a 5.1 cm (2")
wingspan. His main colors are black, light blue, and silver with a metallic
silver cockpit, orange vents, and metallic light blue stripes. He has
two PX sockets on his underside and fold-down front landing gear.
Weapon
Mode: Seperate the sides of the cockpit and flip up the wings
to form a three-bladed gauntlet, and a vicious-looking one at that. All
three claws are long and pointed and the outer two are serrated, so it
takes little effort to imagine how deadly they could be in a skirmish!
Transformation: Fold the wings back down, fold the claws up against the back, swing down the legs, and flip out the heels. The claws may pop off during transformation, but they snap back on with ease.
Robot
Mode: Terradive
stands 6 cm (2.4") tall at the head, 8.5 cm (3.3") with the
claws on his back. In this mode, he's still mainly black and light blue
with metallic silver panels on his arms, an orange panel on his chest,
and his faction symbol above it. His head is angular with a silver face
and narrow orange eyes. He has molded fists and what appear to be missiles
mounted right underneath them. Between his name, colors, face, and the
claws on his back, Terradive
seems far more like an evil Decepticon than a neutral Mini-Con. He also
features ball-jointed shoulders and hips and hinged knees.
Terradive is definitely the winner of the trio. 9.5/10
THUNDERWING
Aircraft
Mode: Thunderwing
is a stealth bomber similar to a Northrop B-2. He measures 4.5 cm (1.8")
long with a 7.5 cm (3") wingspan. He's mostly gray with some light
blue parts on his underside, gold accents, black cockpit windows, and
a rubberized gold nosecone. His faction symbol is on his left wing and
his PX socket is on his underside. He has four bombs/missiles mounted
on his wings.
Weapon
Mode: Rotate Thunderwing's
arms up and fold back his wings to turn him into a shuriken (ninja throwing
star). Naturally, he's not intended to be thrown, but his PX socket is
actually designed so that it spins freely when attached to a larger TF!
Yikes!
Transformation: Fold Thunderwing's wings back into place, swing down his legs, fold down his chest, and unfold his arms.
Robot
Mode: In robot mode, Thunderwing
stands 6 cm tall. He's mostly gray with light blue forearms and shins,
gold accents, and a black head with a gold mouthplate and yellow eyes.
Looks kind of like an evil Optimus Prime minus the crest and antennae.
He's articulated at the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees, and features
triple-barrelled missile pods mounted in his upper arms. Unfortunately,
his short feet and lack of heel spurs makes him prone to falling over.
Instability aside, Thunderwing is probably the most fun member of the trio. 9/10
Overall, Susp Sez: This is easily one of the coolest, most fun Mini-Con teams of them all. Great aircraft modes, awesome weapon modes, evil-looking robot modes. A must-have. 9/10
Susp
"Why waste good fighting time in thinking? Just BLAST your way in!" -Terradive (G2)
