Phil's
Armada, Universe & Cybertron Skyboom Shield
and
Micron Legend Cosmotector, Crystalector & Magnawing
Review

Skyboom Shield

From the original Race Team Review: "Pause while Philip forms Skyboom for the first time .... There, that was quite easy - Dirt Boss splits down the centre of his car mode - revealing 2 wings that I think could be sticking out the front of the toy in robot mode, Mirage plugs into the front of him. Downshift's arms fold along the front of the car and his legs clip into Dirt Boss.

I've seen worse jets, nice go boys and in a weird way he reminds me of BM Dlx Jetstorm.

Dirt Boss's head forms the peg for the Skyboom shield to be held, very nice. Holds together a lot better than Star Sabre did ! As a side note the instructions picture him being held by Op with the legend Optimus Prime figure not included "

That just about covers it. The Skyboom shield is actually two modes in one a jet - and it's a reasonable looking composite jet - and a shield. The shield is reasonable cohesive colourwise in this form as the light grey of Dirtboss isn't too different from the dark grey of the other two. However this will haunt us later

The Skyboom shield holds together so well you can use the minicon ports on the back of it to mount it on larger TF toys !

The three Minicons that make up the Skyboom shield were also available individually in Transformers Universe packed with a Tiny Tin storage case.

In Japan the Skyboom Shield was named Cosmotector and available in Micron Legend pack MM-05 and in giftset MS-02 with Grap (Grapple - the Japanese Version of Smokescreen)

Road Assault Skyboom Shield

The race team were repainted in 2003 as the Road Assault team but retained their original names. In this version yellow becomes red, light grey becomes black and dark grey becomes white

Here the colour for Dirtboss is the same as the colour used for the wheels which helps, but it is dramatically different from the white of the other two - it's like there's a black lump in the middle of the shield !

In Japan the Road Assault team were an exclusive to Ito Yokado.

Dimension-X Cosmotector (Crystalector)

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 Race Team are numbered MM-10. For this release yellow becomes white, the light grey becomes blue and the dark grey becomes light blue.

Just as the Dimension-X Star Sabre is called the Fire Sabre I recall seeing this referred to as Crystalector. The blues & white produce a lovely well colour balanced coherent form. Best version of the shield.

DVD Magnawing

In 2003 the Race team were the second set of Minicons to be given away with the Japanese Micron Legend DVDs. Unlike the Street Speed Team which all appeared with volume 1 these were given away at the rate of one per volume with volumes 2 to 4.

The name Magnawing seems to imply that this version is more a jet than a shield. It's neither: It's a total train wreck ! When talking about Tailslide I said that green & purple do not mix. Here we've got black running through the shield, large amounts of green at both ends and a purple blob in the middle. Awful. Black with green OR black with purple on all three Minicons would be fine. This is not.

Micron Booster Cosmotector

The Race team that form Cosmotector appear in Micron Booster V0. They are very similar to the original race team, except the plastic has some metallic flake added to it - I can't see it myself.

Change Micron Cosmotector

The Change Micron Race team were available in the second set of Change Micron toys with the Space Team. Essentially these are the same as the original Race team and the Cosmotector they form looks very similar

Cybertron Skyboom Shield

In 2006 the Race team were released as an exclusive to Wal-Mart packed with a Tiny Tin and a choice of Cybertron deluxe toys. Mirage came with either Hot Shot or Override, Dirtboss with Red Alert or Landmine and Downshift with Thundercracker or Dirtboss.(surely it would have been more appropriate to pack Minicon Dirtboss with Deluxe Dirtboss ?). This release is effectively a promotion for the start of the Cybertron Minicon VS packs.

For this release yellow becomes red, the light grey becomes white and the dark grey becomes a dark blue/black. . From this we get a black & red shield with a large amount of white in the middle.

The colours on this Dirt Boss & Mirage better match the Downshift of the Road Assault team better than the ones in this release. Swapping the Downshift's round when making the Skyboom shield will give you a more cohesive colour scheme on each shield..

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