Phil's
Armada Starscream, Thundercracker & Skywarp,
Universe Ramjet
and
Energon Starscream
Review


Starscream

Starscream is larger than the old Megs size, maybe not quite as big as an Ultra but still.....

The wings, launchers and robot lower legs are grey
The nose, robot upper limbs & missiles are red
The hands, shoulders, head, u shaped surround to the cockpit and the cockpit canopy are cast in black

Starscream's got a quite simple Tf - pull the legs out and down, fold the nosecone over and fold the arms out.

Plenty of articulation here, sadly the minicon is a little lacking in that dept.

Powerlinx peg at the back of the jet activates some sounds, as does pushing on the jet's cockpit canopy. There are additional pegs on the arms which are just for attaching stuff....

One of the wings becomes a sword, but as is well publicised the hand stretched when you put the sword into it....

Starscream comes with Minicon Swindle.


Thundercracker

Thundercracker is a nice repaint of Starscream in the original Thundercracker colours - though why the painted red face ??? He makes the following colour substitutions:

Grey plastic becomes blue.
Red becomes grey.
Black stays black.

The grey looks good on the upper limbs, and works well with Zapmaster - best version of the Armada minicon Racecar.


Skywarp

Skywarp is a repaint and a remold of Armada Starscream and completes the set of original G1 jets in Armada (the 2nd being the Thundercracker repaint of Starscream) Unlike Thundercracker Skywarp is not just a repaint of Starscream:

Grey plastic becomes black.
Red becomes purple.
Black becomes a pale grey.

The tail fins at the side are new, and have fans molded into them similar to G1 Thrust
The fin in the middle of the jet is new.
The wings on the nose are gone replaced by guns.
The car Minicon (Swindle/Zapmaster) is gone replaced by a spacecraft minicon called Thunderclash
The robothead is new.

The remoulds together with a fabulous paint scheme - his black and purple with grey screams bad Decepticon at me - this is a much improved toy.

Skywarp himself really come into his own in robot mode. The new head with it's fin on top and the colour scheme combine to give this the appearance of a really nasty robot. The colour scheme itself lends itself to using the Black Dimension-X Air Team and they arm him up nicely. The Dimension-X Sea team might also go well here, and he's crying out to be wielding the Darksabre.

Full marks on reusing a toy with a great new colour scheme and good alterations to produce a great newer toy.


Universe Ramjet

Ramjet used the modified Skywarp mould:

Grey plastic (black on Skywarp) becomes white.
Red (purple on Skywarp) becomes grey.
Black (grey on Skywarp) becomes bright blue, with the cockpit painted..

The colours used here aren't really those used for Ramjet - his G1 form is cream with dark red and black.

He came with Thunderclash and slightly modified versions of the Air Military team minicons: Gunbarrel, Terradive and Thunderwing.


Energon Starscream

Starscream & Zapmaster come with Prowl (an armada Red Alert repaint) & Longarm in a HUGE box about the size and shape of the old Superbase Op set. Originally a Sam's Club exclusive in the USA a quantity of these were sold through the Entertainer in the UK cheaply. Not bad value for 20 quid

Starscream goes back to the original Armada version of the mould and at first sight looks very reminiscent of the original and hard to find Armada version. However virtually everything that could have been changed has been - black is now red, red is now black and there's gold highlights on the wings. For me red doesn't work as a head colour though. I'm told that the repaint is meant to resemble the Energon version but I'm not so sure. What's actually going on is this:

Grey plastic becomes dark grey.
Red becomes black.
Black becomes red.

Almost an inverse version of the Armada toy. A nice job, and as I said should satisfy anyone who wanted the Armada version and didn't get it.


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