The last two original Minicon teams released in Armada - Emergency and Air Military - are both triplechangers - each member has a vehicle, robot and weapon mode.
Thunderwing pairs nicely with Terradive - the Stealth Jet - in that he's a Stealth Bomber, a Minicon sized version of the ATB that was successful in G2 (and BWII, RID and Robotmasters) Thunderwing is mainly composed of a light grey/brown plastic with gold highlight painted on it - this colour also forms the majority of Gunbarrel. He has some of the dark blue seen on the rest of the team on his robot arms and legs. His head is the same black as Terradive and he does not use the paler grey of the other two Minicons in this set.
Pinned to a larger toy Thunderwing looks like a bow or an arrow mounted on arm. If there was a larger toy with a chest peg dead centre and high up he could be attached as a piece of body armour. Unfortunately because the only Minicon socket on him turns (located in the centre of the jet underneath) he has a tendency to end up back downwards which negates any attempt to do anything interesting with him.
His weapon mode is formed thus: Fold the robot arms - on the outside of the tail fins - up and unfold them so they lie on top of the wings. Fold the back and points of both wings back to form an additional point out of the back of the jet. Together with his nose and wing tips this now form a four pointed shuriken/throwing star which can be attached to a larger toy and spins round the aforementioned Minicon socket. I said the vehicle mode tied in nicely to Terradive: this strengthens the pairing by making them both Ninja weapons.
TF (from jet to robot) Put the underside of the jet towards you. Fold the undercarriage out the front of the nose to form the robot legs. Fold the arms out from under to behind the jet and then fold the trailing edge of the jet towards the Minicon socket to expose the head, form the chest and bring the arms into place.
Thunderwing's robot mode is dominated by the Minicon socket in the centre of his chest - I suppose you could think of it as some giant cannon. His articulation is excellent - his knees & elbows bend and his hips & shoulders turn. Great for a toy of this size.
Decent toy in all three modes, but the Minicon socket hampers it a little
In Japan Thunderwing is named Flame and appears in Micron Legend Micron pack MM-11. They also appears in giftset MS-06 with Strato (Thrust).
It's a completely left field choice of colours for a somewhat macho team but somehow it works !
My eyes ! My eyes ! It's nearly that cyan blue again that's ruined every toy it's touched. This time the team up with bright orange is too much !
A promotional image at Transformers Wiki shows Flame with either a blue or black body and yellow limbs !
Thunderwing's grey/brown now becomes a light brass like beige. The blue becomes white as does the black used to make the head, although in this case it's painted black.
The lighter colours suit this toy less well.
Like Mugen(Terradive) this toy looks great repainted in white. The colours here are a pretty close match for Sonic Bomber
The most important feature of this release is that they are remoulded - Transformers Wiki's Ichibi page clearly shows the remoulded Minicon socket which now form 5mm pegs that can be used as handles. The entire jet can now be held as a throwing star. The first amusing aspect to this is that Sonic Bomber does not possess fists with 5mm holes in so cannot hold Ichibi. (see also Overload for a similar problem) but as a bonus they've eliminated the toy's one Minicon socket meaning he can't be mounted on the larger toy either. D'OH ! This makes Ichibi the only Minicon with no Minicon socket
Ichibi was available from Ito Yokaido or Hello Mac stores in Japan.
My original review says "Razorclaw's the Stealth Bomber that turns into a spinning shield/sheriken. Hmmm, maybe Razorclaw might have been better used on the plane that turned into a claw ! The main body of the plane is now a gloss black and the overall effect is very close to X-Dimension Flame - surely the definitive version of these toys." What I didn't spot at the time is that he Minicon socket "cannon" on the chest and the slanted nature of the tail over it make this toy a much better match for the Shockwave name.
Disappointingly (perhaps ?) this release uses the original version and not the Hellflame one modified so that it can be hand held (that version of the mould has never appeared in the west) On the other hand it does mean that Razorclaw can still be attached to larger toys..
