Phil's
Armada Ransack & Cliffjumper,
Micron Legend Winch & Torque
and
Cybertron Payload
Review


Ransack

Ransack is a green jeep with black tires & robot arms and grey robot legs.

He has a tow rope on the front that can be pulled out. Roll him along a flat surface in either direction and the rope retracts. Alternately clip him to the underside of Armada Cyclonus and Cyclonus' rotor spinning action powers the rope gimmick. The problem with doing this is there is only a small amount of rope available. Once it's reeled in there's no mechanism for letting it out again while still attached. You'll need to remove the toy to extend it again.

Ransack's Minicon port is placed in the middle of the spare tyre mounted on the back of the vehicle. Quite innovative way of hiding it ! However it does mean that Ransack sticks out rather when mounted on the pegs of most Armada toys. The only toy he works really well with is Hoist (who the Japanese version is twinned with) The toy can fit onto the end of Hoist's arm between the claws and used as a grappling line.

TF: Fold the back down to form the legs. Raise the arms. Pure Micromaster. Simple.

As is articulation on the robot - he bends at knee, hips and shoulders.

In addition to being packed with the rest of the Adventure team Dune Runner also appears in the TRU Bonus Minicon packs with either Powerlinx Cyclonus with Crumplezone or Powerlinx Hot Shot with Jolt. These were a Black Friday exclusive to TRU in 2003. The entire Adventure team and the Sea team are then packaged together in Energon as a Minicon six pack.

In Japan Ransack is known as Winch and appears with the rest of the Adventure team in MM-16 and also with Super Mode Grapple in giftset MS-07

My original Ransack review reads: "More geared gimmicks here, and some nicely hidden ports.

Jeep/Flatbed type thing with a towline out the front that winds up when you roll him forward. Quite fun. Minicon port is the spare tyre ! Blessed with hips, elbows and shoulders in the articulation dept. OK "


Cliffjumper

Cliffjumper comes with Armada Cheetor - a repaint of the Beast Wars Transmetal toy that's been remoulded to include Minicon posts on the ends of the boosters - inaccessible in robot mode, and pointing forward in "Vehicle" mode. Only certain Minicons would look right attached to this - ones with ports at the back. Sky Blast is one - see previous comments in other reviews about packing a combining weapon with the Armada Beasts. Another is Ransack of the Adventure Team.

He's been repainted as Cliffjumper using the same purple and red/pink as Cheetor (so not red and black as per G1). I seem to remember somewhere that Armada Cliffjumper is a she. The gear gimmick is intact - as it will be on all subsequent releases. More of the red/pink is visible when she's transformed to robot mode.

Not bad combination - especially in terms of how the Minicon attaches.

Unlike Airazor & Predacon's Street Speed Team packs ins this doesn't fall apart !


Unreleased Armada Dune Ransack

See also Remy's Act 232

Like the other two Wave 3 Minicon Teams (Street Speed and Space) there is an unreleased Armada version of the Adventure team. The same base colours of grey and black are used but the main part of Ransack is a sandy desert colour which is a good use for a green jeep repaint.


Dimension-X Winch

During Micron Legend limited edition repaints of the Minicon teams were released under the Dimension-X label but within the Micron Legend numbering system. The Dimension-X Adventure Team are numbered MM-19 For this version grey becomes black and black remains black.

Winch would be described as a nasty neon orange and would be worst coloured Micron in the set if only he wasn't packaged with the foul neon lime green Junk! Not Great.


Micron Booster V1 Torque

Torque is toy number 11 in Micron Booster V1. The Adventure Team repaints in this set swap white for grey and keep the black. Torque's body becomes a cyan blue on this release. Bright but decent looking - possibly the only decent repaint to ever use this colour !

Cybertron Payload

Wave 2 of the Cybertron Minicons pairs together both gear gimmick teams. The Adventure team swap black for grey, and grey for hideous neon green. They all have silver Decepticon symbols mounted on top of them.

Payload is packed with an Autobot Minicon Ascentor (Dualor from Destruction). Both Adventure and Destruction teams are referred to as Exploration Team on their members Bio sheets - I'll call them Decepticon Exploration team ( for the Adventure team repaints) and Autobot Exploration Team (for the Destruction team repaints).

Payload's blue jeep mode looks very nice. Keep it that way and you won't see the clashing monstrosity of said blue and aforementioned yucky neon green that is his robot mode !


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