Dave's Transformers Legacy Rant: Evolution Commander Class

Armada Universe Optimus Prime (Truck)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/CArmadaPrime

Legacy's Commander was Motormaster/Menasor, and they stick with the
"truck and combiner" motif...sort of...with this update of 2002's Armada
Optimus Prime. As with that one, the smaller cab/robot combines with the
trailer to make a Super Robot. But unlike the 2002 toy, it's not a motorized
gimmick that generates a brick with arms.
Oddly, unlike a lot of Evolution toys by the end of 2023 and beginning
of 2024, the QR code for this one still worked.

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Armada/Super1 - Original toy, since I
do compare to it occasionally.

CAPSULE

$80-90 price point (I got it on "sale" for $80).

Armada Universe Optimus Prime: Based on a $40 toy I only mildly
recommended, but largely due to disappointment with the gimmick. So, not a
huge hurdle to be a more satisfying toy. And given that the price I paid in
2002 would be more like $65-70 in 2023 dollars, it really only has to be
about 20% cooler to justify the price increase. Is it? Eh, a lot of the
appeal of the original was in play pattern stuff absent from this homage, but
as an actual toy to play with on its own (rather than a Mini-Con platform) it
is noticeably better. Still, I only mildly recommend it, primarily because I
find the animation design it reproduces to be aesthetically lacking (if
better than old Battle Pants).

RANT

Packaging: Big windowless box, very sturdy. 13" (33cm) across, 11"
(28cm) tall, 4" (10cm) deep. The front has art of the super robot mode
standing in a wide-legged Marvel Stance. The right side has the left half of
the Evolution diptych, the top shows a render of the vehicle mode and the QR
code. The left side has "MOTORMASTER" across the top in Cybertronian script,
showing that someone reused a template without double-checking that the
Cybertronian wasn't decorative gibberish. Anyway, below that are stylized
pseudo-painted renders of the small robot leaping outward on top, combining
with the battle base in the middle, and in full truck mode on the bottom.
The bottom panel has the usual legalese.
The back has renders of all the modes. Super robot in the upper left,
combined vehicle in the upper right, trailer to battle station in the lower
right, small robot and cab with an inset showing the Matrix chamber in the
lower left.
Inside, instead of a simple tray with a bunch of ties, there's a
structure made of corrugated cardboard that splits the space the long way
into three equal chambers. The top and bottom chambers are empty, the toy in
truck mode is jammed in the middle chamber with various spacers to keep
everything secure. The cab, trailer, cannon, and rocket launcher platform
each have their own compartment. The instructions start with ten steps of
finishing assembly of the vehicle mode (for instance, the smokestacks are on
the sides of the main cannon, because that keeps them more secure, and they
need to be moved). Most of the steps involve getting the rocket launcher
into the front of the trailer, which makes the trailer too wide to fit in the
box. (This also suggests an optional "more road-legal" mode where you just
leave the rocket pod out and leave the trailer narrow.)

Note, when I compare to animation I'm going mostly off the images on
TFWiki, I'm not about to spend the time rewatching. I mean, say what you
will about the somewhat crude CG of Energon and Cyberverse, they stayed on
model pretty well. Armada...did not.

AUTOBOT: ARMADA UNIVERSE OPTIMUS PRIME
Assortment: F6160
Altmode: Truck
Transformation Difficulty: 20 steps (cab to robot), 22 steps (trailer to
battle station), 71 steps (robot and battle station to super-robot)
Previous Name Use: None with the "Armada Universe," sooooo many without.
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Commander
Special Unit: None
Origin Universe: Armada
Signature Weapon: Battle armor - Trailer converts and combines with Optimus
Prime into indestructible battle armor
Evo-Fusion: (None on webpage or on box, apparently the combined gun is
supposed to be it)

Optimus Prime leads as a force of wisdom and goodness, but shows his
powerful battle capabilities when facing enemies.

STR 10 INT 10 SPD 10 FRB 10

Packaging: As noted above, no strings or ties, just cardboard wedges and
rectangles. The box renders of truck mode use some serious perspective
cheating to make it look like the trailer is snug against the back of the cab
instead of there being a significant gap.

Vehicle Mode: Well, the whole thing is sort of a tractor trailer. But
the trailer has tank treads instead of wheels, and with the rocket pod piece
inserted there's blocks sticking out the sides like an RV that has stopped
for the night. The cab on its own is weirdly proportioned, flat and wide and
the back end is way too long and chunky with obvious super robot fists on top
in back. The cab area is almost a "sports car"-ification of a longnose
tractor. The trailer on its own has kickstand bars that come out of the
backs of the "RV pop-outs" and on its own the rocket pod is visible in front
(which are animation-accurate to the extent the show can be, although the
tabes sticking up on the sides of the trailer top need to be folded
horizontal to be show-accurate). Ultimately, there's a LOT of compromises in
this mode in favor of making the super robot mode work better, but fully
assembled it's...okay, I guess.
The whole thing is 11.75" (29.5cm) long in more or less traditional
Optimus Prime colors, but with a lot more blue. The cab alone is 7" (18cm)
long, 3.25" (8.5cm) wide and 2.25" (6cm) tall. The trailer alone is 7.75"
(19.5cm) long, 5.75" (14.5cm) wide, and 4.25" (11cm) tall without the rifle
mounted on top, 4.75" (12cm) with the rifle. The cab can turn 45 degrees
either way before the pop-outs hit the cab, the turning angle is better if
you go with the narrower trailer version.
The windshield and side windows are clear colorless plastic. Oddly, the
Autobot symbol plug on the roof is also clear colorless plastic, just painted
over entirely except for the peg (and if you don't know it's pegged on, it's
not obvious...that's something I learned from the instructions). The grille
and center bumper are light gray plastic, I think, but they're very
effectively covered in silver paint. The smokestacks are definitely light
gray plastic since their pegs are left unpainted. Light gray is otherwise
used for some visible robot bits but not intentionally used for this mode.
Most of the rest of the cab is a slightly desaturated red plastic, and most
of the back end is dark blue plastic (which is also used on the obvious robot
forearms on either side of the cab). The six wheels are black plastic.
Lots of silver paint: grille, center bumper, side bumper corners,
headlights, smokestacks, swoosh designs on the hood, all six wheel hubs.
There's red paint on the borders between windows. The Autobot symbol plug is
painted gold with a white center and red on the raised Autobot symbol.
There's gold paint on the back end, basically just on super robot details
(shoulderpads and fists).
5mm sockets on the rear top corners of the front fenders, two each on
either side of the top of the hitch area, and two on the back (undersides of
the robot feet). There's also spoken-for 5mm sockets on the roof (Autobot
symbol plug) and the sides of the cab (smokestacks). A 7mm socket is formed
between the robot legs in back for inserting the trailer hitch peg. The cab
section rolls VERY well on six pinned-axle wheels. Like, I have to be
careful where I set it down, or it'll roll off the edge of the table.
And now for the trailer.
The pop-outs and the thing in back that pretends to be the rear wall are
made of blue plastic, with a little red plastic in the middle of the rear.
The tank treads are black plastic, as are the little wheels under them. The
rifle stores on top, and it's also black plastic. Pretty much everything
else is medium-light gray plastic.
The sides have a lot of blue paint (a little lighter than the plastic)
in patterns vaguely approximating the usual side stripes. Raised panels near
the back have printed red Autobot symbols. There's some silver vent details
on the outer faces of the pop-outs, and red and silver paints on the weapon
pod poking out the front. The rear has some gold paint, but it's really
there for the super robot.
There's 5mm sockets on the outer faces of the pop-outs, on the
undersides of the pop-outs, as well as the underside of the hitch area
(usable when this is unhooked). There's three on top, including one on the
centerline intended for rifle storage. A pair of struts fold down from the
backs of the pop-outs, and are used to let the trailer stand on its own
without tipping over when disconnected from the cab.
More on the rifle under regular robot mode.

Cab Transformation: One of the first steps is to pull the bumper corners
aside on double hinges to free up the center of the nose end to fold down.
Unfortunately, only one hinge on each is pinned, the other is snapped on, and
is REALLY easy to snap off, not terribly easy to snap it back on. Why?
Because it's difficult to grip it evenly enough to move it only on the hinge
axes, some twisting is almost unavoidable and that's when it pops off and
potentially sails across the room. And no, the instructions don't suggest a
better way, they just assume you can pull them straight out without any
twisting. Fortunately, it turns out there's a trick: pull the forearms out
from the sides of the cab, then tilt the shoulders back. This will get
enough room around the pieces to make them easier to fold back.
From there, it's reasonably straightforwards. Open up the panels on the
shins to fold out the toes, then exert Excessive Force to separate the
boots. The rear wheel chunks unhook from the hip panels and rotate around to
get them fully onto the sides of the boots.
Moving the faction symbol plug from the roof (now the back) onto one of
the upper arm is one of the short optional things in the instructions. This
uses the front fender sockets, and has the badge off to the side rather in
front...it doesn't really look good there, don't bother.

Regular Robot Mode: An Optimus Prime in football pads and a sort of
skirt. Where the vehicle mode's proportions are a bit off in places, this
mode comes very close (to the extent Armada itself stayed on-model), with the
belly sticking out a little farther than in the cartoon, and the panel behind
the head rising up higher (the animation just shrinks it). Also, they went
with the gold of the toy rather than the bright yellow of animation, but
that's not unusual for Legacy.
6.5" (16.5cm) tall at the head, 6.75" (17cm) total, which is slightly
shorter than the original core robot. In mostly the standard Optimus Prime
colors, but with gold in several places. Slightly dark blye plastic is found
on the head, forearms, pelvis, skirt, boots, and feet. A slightly
desaturated red plastic is used for some of the chest layers, part of the
backplate, the shoulder roots, shoulders, and upper arms other than the
wheels on them. Light gray plastic makes up the rest of the torso, the
elbows, fists, hips, thighs, knees, and arm blasters. The wheels and rifle
are black plastic.
Lots and lots of silver paint. The front and back layers of the chest
are dipped in it, and the middle layer has a lot as well once you open up the
front. The arm blasters are mostly covered in silver paint, there's some on
the shoulder tops for vehicle bits as noted earlier, some vents on the shins,
and the usual faceplate. Gold paint is used for the helmet crest, the fake
headlights on the chest, details on the forearms, and the side panels of the
skirt. The eyes are yellow, and there's three think horizontal gloss black
stripes on either side of the chest core. There's no Autobot symbol, as
noted they just expect you to transfer the one from the roof.
The neck is a restricted ball joint, but due to the super robot
transformation there is no waist joint. The shoulders lift up to the sides
via hinges at about eye height and have swivels at the ends of those joints.
The shoulder roots aren't really locked in place well, and add a little
motion to the lifting (which is actually more organic than merely moving at
the joint). There's swivels above the double hinge elbows, which can bend
almost but not quite double. The wrists are swivels, but forearm armor
covers two of the four sides which can make it tricky to get them rotated if
you go too far. Universal joint hips, with the skirt flaps on the side and
back hinged to get out of the way, upper thigh swivels, really stiff
ratcheting hinge knees (these are the super robot elbows). The ankles have
the usual instep hinge to keep the feet flat, and the toes have stiff
soft-ratcheting hinges.
The fists hold 5mm pegs, and as earlier mentioned the front fender
sockets end up on the outer sides of the upper arms. There's the one socket
from the roof which is freed up if you move the Autobot symbol plug to one
arm, and one on each forearm that normally holds the arm blasters (but those
can be attached to the rifle as well). There's two on the butt skirt, and
the super robot fists are visible on the backs of the boots.
If you fold down the front layer of the chest, there's a small Matrix of
a new design (the original had a pretty similar design, but it was just
molded and painted, not removable) made of clear colorless plastic and
painted mostly gold. It's held on by a 5mm peg, but the figure can't hold it
otherwise. It's difficult to get the frontmost panel to fold down, though,
since the middle layer is connected more loosely. Folding THAT down reveals
a sort of spark chamber with the armored doors like Megatron has late in
Beast Wars.
The forearm blasters, which are the smokestacks in truck mode, are about
1.5" (4cm) long with the top barrel a little longer than the bottom. They're
mirror images of each other, with each barrel ending in a 3mm stud. The
attachment pegs are a little too short to be held securely in the hands or to
go on the upper arms.
The rifle is a pretty good match to the original's, albeit without any
paint and done in black rather than dark blue. It's basically a beefy cannon
with a little bit of a bit at the back evoking the stock of G1 Optimus's
rifle. 3.5" (8.5cm) long with a 5mm peg grip at the back, a 5mm socket
muzzle, and a 5mm socket on either side near the front of the gun for
attaching the smokestack cannons. This is supposedly what its Evo-Fusion was
supposed to be. The combined gun is just shy of 4" (10cm) long.

Trailer Transformation: Really just open it up and rotate bits until it
looks like the picture on the box, there's really only a few little bits that
require looking at the instructions because they're kinda arbitrary. There
were a few bits I even disagreed with (see below).
Going back to the extra wide trailer from either battle station or
Battle Pants mode requires a LOT of force applied to the parts that are the
lower legs (or the RV pop-outs in trailer mode).

Battle Station: The instructions and box back render suggest that the
tread part is at the back of the battle station and the guns that fold out
from inside the legs (the stabilizer legs in trailer mode) are just to help
lock the legs in place...not that they need it. I suggest the tread part is
in front, the stabilizers become cannons, and this way the thing that looks
like a seat is facing the right way. (The seat doesn't work for Titan
Masters, but is just right for knee-having Mega Construx figures.) This is
basically the mode for which the weird rocket pod chunk exists, and it's not
even symmetric, with plates on it that don't seem to do anything, and really
just exist to stabilize the wide-mode trailer (the gap in one plate doesn't
appear to have any function either). The stability of the battle station is
so-so, the tabs in the bits that have the big Autobot symbols don't really
lock down, and there's tabs in a bit of blue plastic (the super robot's skirt
front) that I just can't get to stay in the slots they're intended for.
Regardless of which way you face it, it's about 14.75" (37.5cm) wide and
the hull is 8.5" (22cm) long. Total effective length depends on how you pose
and place the weapons, but that can add an inch or so (2-4cm). The colors
are basically the same as trailer mode, but with a little more red and gold
visible. There's a bit of red plastic on top of the treaded part of the
centerline deck that's not really prominent in other modes, I guess. The
fake cab bit that goes on the belly button area in super robot mode forms a
sort of control seat, and is made of red plastic as well. There's red paint
on the front of the rocket pod and the fronts of the cannon barrels flanking
it, with silver on the warhead tips.
The turret is connected via a peg that acts as a swivel, and has a
couple of hinges for elevation. There's two 5mm sockets in the plate on top
of the weapon, and the cannon barrels are also 5mm sockets. The very top
center has a 7mm peg with a 4mm socket in it, that's just the trailer hitch
peg. The sides have one 5mm socket on top of each and one 5mm socket in the
part that's the sole of the super robot foot (officially the back side). The
center of the top of the tread piece has a single 5mm socket, and the plate
at the end has 10 5mm sockets in two rows of five. Oddly, there's a
horizontally aligned 7-8mm socket on the piece that's the root hinge of the
tread piece, but because it's on a sloped surface the rocket pod can't
connect to it at all. I wonder if it's just meant to be decorative?
Anyway, it's one of those "gotta do something with the trailer when it's
not being Battle Pants" designs. It's not all that impressive and it has
fairly low play value (about as much as the Laser Optimus Prime's battle
station, just bigger and more solid), but it doesn't really have to do much.
It's likely to spend the vast majority of its time in Battle Pants mode,
after all.

Combination Transformation: I managed to figure this out without the
instructions, eventually, although I did find a much harder way to attach the
cab part to the trailer part (you're supposed to attach the back and then the
waist, I did the waist first which made the back a lot trickier). Otherwise,
it's mostly a matter of making sure all the tabs go into slots, this design
doesn't have any of those "are you positive it goes here?" steps like the
hiding of Studio Series Ultra Magnus's head.
When separating, there's buttons on either side of the waist that
release the bottom connection, but I needed to use a knife to pry up the bits
that pegged onto the top of the torso.

Super Robot Mode: Okay, here's the main event, the reason to even get
the toy, because while the other parts are kinda compromises here and there,
all of those were in service of making this mode as good as it could be.
After all, odds are this is where the toy will spend most of its time on
display.
So, it does succeed in looking like the animation model reasonably well,
down to what I personally consider to be the absolute worst-looking Optimus
Prime head outside of that storybook version that gave him a mouth in G1.
Sorry, dude, the hot rod exhaust pipes sticing out to either side look bad.
Leaving them folded back is a huge improvement, more of an Optimus Prime of
Thanagar or something. While we're talking retention of bad stuff from the
original, the long tuxedo tails buttcape does visually capture the look of
the brick tower battle pants of the original toy. It also has him pointing
the turret weapon from the battle station at his own butt. Fortunately, with
a little folding, you can ignore the instructions and get that turret pod up
on the back and pointed in the same direction as the ten-pack backpack
launcher (this does cover up what TFWiki seems to indicate is a spot
compatible with the decades-old Overload Mini-Con, and more importantly
blocks the waist from turning).
http://www.dvandom.com/images/ArmadaPrimeMod.JPG to see the result of
these tweaks.
At 10.25" (26cm) tall at the head (the backpack rises a little above
that) it's a little shorter than the original, which was a full 12"/31cm
tall. Mostly red chest, light gray on the upper arms, thighs, hip flaps,
backpack, and torso sides, blue on the shoulders, forearms, and boots, and a
lot of gold. Most of the parts were visible in the other modes, so I'm just
going to address the newly visible or prominent bits. The head is blue
plastic with a gold faceplate and crest, plus yellow eyes. The side pipes
are fully painted gold, to the point I'm not really sure what plastic they're
made of (and as much as I dislike them, I'm reluctant to go scraping the
paint off). The fists do seem to be made of blue plastic, entirely painted
in gold but with it being a little thin inside the 5mm sockets. The upper
third of each boot is light gray plastic rather than the blue of the rest of
the boot, with gold kneecaps. The front skirt is blye plastic with some gold
paint, and the toes are unpainted black plastic.
The neck is a ball joint with the socket inside the head. The waist is
a smooth swivel, but the front and side skirt panels need to flip up on their
hinges to allow much movement. Each shoulder has a lot of articulation since
there's a combination of the regular robot hips and new joints for this
mode. There's a ratcheting hinge that can lift the entire shoulder up, then
a ratcheting swivel between that and the shoulderpad box. The regular robot
universal joint can lift more out to the sides on its ratchet, but the
rotation part can't be used without popping the shoulderpad open. The
regular robots thigh swivel becomes an upper arm swivel, and the hard
ratcheting knees become elbows. The wrists are smooth swivels, and the hands
open up with a single joint for all the fingers (mitten-style). The hips are
universal joints, ratcheting forwards and backwards but smooth when lifting
out to the sides. Warning: the hip flaps with the big Autobot symbols on
them from the trailer tend to lock into slots on the thighs if you're not
careful, and this can block the lift-out motion in a way that could lead to
breaking something if you forget it's not a hard ratchet and just force it.
(No, I didn't break mine, but I can see it happening!) Smooth mid-thigh
swivels, hard-ratcheting knee hinges that can bend to 90 degrees. There's
instep hinges on the feet, the toes fold up on transformation hinges and the
heels bend down. These can combine to add a little stability to more dynamic
poses.
Lots of 5mm sockets, but no 5mm pegs so you can't otherwise cover it in
old Mini-Cons. Rather than trust to the finger hinges to hold things,
there's simply a full circumference 5mm socket nestled into the palm. The
regular robot toe sockets are now on the undersides of the forearms, and the
ones from the regular robot butt are now atop the shoulderpads. In official
mode, there's a 5mm socket available in the middle of the back and another
two on the buttcape (my tweak covers up the one on the back). The top of the
backpack has two rows of five 5mm sockets resembling a missile launcher pod,
and while they're too close together to fill all of them with Fire Blasts
(unless you're very clever about it, I guess), you can certainly do a
multiple launch appearance. The outer face of each boot has three 5mm
sockets, although two of them are very shallow and more decorative than
functional. Finally, there's a 5mm socket under each toe (the heel plates
have three molded thruster nozzles on the underside of each). There's no
integrated 3mm studs, but if you leave the smokestack guns on the regular
robots arms, they stick up on either side of the torso to provide two pairs
of 3mm studs.

Overall: Okay, keeping in mind that I wasn't really that enthused by the
toy that this homages, it does count as faint praise to say that this is
better. But better it is, even if it lacks all the play pattern stuff of the
original. Both regular and super robot modes are solid enough, and if the
vehicle mode is a bit weird and the battle station kind of "there," those are
both kind of secondary to the toy. And even those are really only aesthetic
issues, which are a bit on the "matter of taste" side, the actual engineering
is decent and if it has problems on that level they have to do with things
being too solid or stiff, rather than falling off or being floppy.

Dave Van Domelen, now needs to find space for this guy, having utterly
failed to put any Transformers away over winter break.