Phil's
Armada & Universe Prowl,
Micron Legend Prowl & Kingbolt,
Micron Booster Groove,
Transformers Universe Prowl,
Galaxy Force Quaasr
and
Cybertron Checkpoint
Review


Prowl

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.

Prowl is a police car - as was his G1 namesake. The majority of the car is moulded in clear blue plastic with the tail and sides white plastic. The front bumper, wheels & robot legs are black.

His one Minicon socket is on his roof. I'm afraid mounting him by this just makes him look like an upside down car !

TF (to weapon mode) Turn the car upside down and point the front to your right. Pull the side of the car the faces down away from the body so it projects downward. Pull the bottom half of the body down and to the left. Fold the rear of the car back so the wheel at the top if against the body and the wheel at the front faces out. Fold down the bottom half of the bumper to form a handle.

Prowl's now in gun mode - and it's a hefty weapon. The bumper folded out gives him a peg that can be held by any TF with a 5mm peg hole fist. The Minicon socket - now on the side of the gun - will allow it to be mounted on larger toys.

TF (car to robot): Fold both halves of the bumper out to the sides. Fold the bonnet of the car forward to form the legs. Stand & look at the underside. Pulls the sides of the car out to form the arms.

Prowl's robot mode isn't bad but is dominated by the huge head. The head itself ain't so bad but what surrounds it really bulks it out. He has moveable knees & hips (he can kneel down) and ball jointed shoulders.

Good toy in all three modes.

In Japan Prowl retains his name and is sold in the Emergency Team set numbered MM-20. The Emergency team do not feature in a Micron Legend giftset.

From the original Emergency team review " The Emergency team are great, 3 nice vehicles, 3 good robots.

Prowl's headpiece look like it should fold back behind the head - but doesn't. His weapon is the only hand held one of the 3 - very strange slide bits sideways TF to this mode but good looking gun.

As I intimated above Overload has these at the moment - the white and transparent blue on Makeshift and Prowl match him well, and while Firebot (Firebolt ?) is a different shade of red (more cherry) then Overload the shape works well with him.

Good set, recommended. "


Unicron Battles Prowl

The Emergency team were one of the last pair of Minicon repaints issued in Unicron Battles. This is the first time that Hasbro's love for smokescreen was seen later to be shown on Cybertron Crosswise, Movie Jazz and Universe Classics Prowl repaints. White becomes blue, clear blue becomes opaque red and black stays black. He acquires the number 38 on his bonnet and gains some gold paint operations.

This repaint has consequences for the Makeshift in the same set ....


Dimension-X Prowl

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 Emergency team were numbered MM-21 and were the last Micron Legend Micron team release.

Here white become orange and clear blue become black. Nice race colours I suppose.


DVD Kingbolt

The Emergency Team become the Hazard team which were released with the Micron Legend DVDs numbered 11-13. Kingbolt came with volume 11. For this released white again becomes orange, clear blue becomes opaque white and black becomes a burgundy brown.

This toy automatically makes me think of G1 Chromedome.


Micron Booster Groove

The Emergency team all sell in Micron Booster V2. White becomes bright white, clear blue becomes clear green and black becomes green.

Why ???? I can see little reason for this set. The green makes me think they were aiming for a military set but it just doesn't give that feel. They just feel like odd random repaints.

From the original Micron Booster V2 review: "I don't know of anywhere that has Green emergency vehicles but there we go." says it all !


Transformers Universe Prowl

The Emergency team along with the Air Military team each have a repaint in Armada that's distributed through three toys sold in the Transformers Universe repaint line. Prowl comes with Magna Stampede (repaint of BM Battle Unicorn), Stockade (repaint of BM Tank Drone) and a repainted Military team Terradive. (The other two members of the team can be found with Whirl & Fireflight.) This release swaps white for one of the Universe favourite colours Burgundy, and the clear blue for off white, while black remains the same.

Once again I can't see any reason for the colours chosen for this set !


Galaxy Force Hellflame Quasar

The Hellflame Microns were released to promote the release of Galaxy Force Beast Convoy

Each of the Hellflame Microns is exclusive to different stores - Quasar (Prowl) was an Ito Yokado exclusive, Graviton (Firebot) was a Justco exclusive and Bulge (Makeshift) was a TF Station exclusive.

Here white becomes black and the off white becomes grey along with the black remaining the same giving a monochrome appearance to these toys


Galaxy Force White Hellflame Quasar

The white Hellflame Microns are as the name suggests and all white version of the Emergency team exclusive to the Justco store. Quasar was availible with the purchase of Galaxy Force Convoy.

Cybertron Checkpoint

Prowl becomes Checkpoint in this Cybertron minicon 2 pack where he's paired with Sunstorm - a repaint of Energon Wreckage who's a remould of Armada Runway.

At last the Emergency team acquire a theme to their repaints and are renamed (and labelled) the SWAT team. Checkpoint is SWAT team member A02. White becomes blue and clear blue become black with black remaining black. The colours work with the name & theme for the team and breathe a life into this set of repaints that the others just haven't had.

Checkpoint is a clever play with the name. He was originally Prowl, and of course Prowl and Checkpoint were an Energon exclusive combiner set. I now associate Checkpoint with a white police vehicle - indeed I think it's an ideal name for the Sunstreaker police car is it ever gets made as an E-Hobby exclusive. Here however he's black with blue sides and back - it makes him look a bit like MM Seawatch, but with wheels ! His robot mode looks a bit flat - all black bar the blue arms and head, with no new paint details apart from a stripe of red over his visor. Gun mode looks functional enough in these colours though.


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Phil's TF Review Page