Phil's
Armada Leader-1 and Clench,
Micron Legend Barrel & Sparkbarrel
and
Botcon Caliburn
Review


Leader-1

From my 2002 Megatron review:"Better talk about Leader One - a sort of buggy thing with laser cannons - not unlike one of Breast/Rescue Force. TFs into a 6 cm high robot that won't be unfamiliar to Micromaster fans and a double barrelled gun for the robot. His Minicon socket is just about at waist level."

Leader-1 is Megatron's Minicon. He's a cab with a pair of weapons pointing over the top of them. As I said in the earlier review he's not unlike Jaruga. The gun barrels can bend down a little, and the entire supporting mechanism for them can be folded back to turn Leader-1 into a flat bed truck. If you turn this mode round the other way then it makes a good double barrelled gun for mounting on a robot using the Minicon port underneath. Additionally one of the front wheel mudflaps can be folded back to give a handle so he can be held as a hand weapon.

TF: Fold the guns & support structure straight back behind the cab. Fold the guns up onto the back of the support structure to form the legs. Stand. Turn the mudflaps to bring the arms attached to them forward.

The robot mode bends at the knees and the hips & shoulders turn. That's it for articulation. And yes, I still think the Minicon socket is badly placed in robot mode. You can see most of the colours on the toy here. The gun barrels are hidden - but coloured orange the same as Megatron's missiles, the upper legs and arms are a dark blue/green like Megatron's gun barrel and the lower legs and body are grey like Megatron's forearms.

A bit of an odd vehicle, and the hand gun mode fails by having the handle off centre. But attached as a weapon and as a robot it's good.

The western name for the toy is of course reused from an old Gobots toy. In Japan Leader-1 is called Barrel (as in Double Barrelled Gun) and is available with Megatron as MC-01


Clench

Clench is packed with the Megatron recolour Galvatron. Clench swaps gold for orange, purple for blue/green and black for silver.

In Japan Clench is Sparkbarrel and sold with Megatron Super Mode as MD-08


Black Barrel

A recoloured version of Megatron with barrel was offered as Lucky Draw prize in Japan. Orange becomes bright green, blue/green becomes olive green and grey becomes a darker grey. Just forget even trying to find this toy !

Caliburn

Megatron become the Botcon 2004 exclusive Black Zarak and with him came the recoloured Minicon Caliburn. Orange becomes bright cyan blue, blue/green becomes dark blue and the grey becomes a very dark grey.


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