Phil's
Battlestars & Micromaster Collection Sixliner,
Operation Combination & Micromaster Collection Sixtrain
and
Universe Rail Racer
Review


Battlestars Sixliner

Sixliner isn't the first train combiner - that honour lies with the Japanese released Raiden but he is the first Micromaster combining robot. Sixliner was first sold in a Japan in 1991 as a giftset that contained the six members of the Liner team:

D-Go (Diego ? - the English is unsure)
Alan
Spark
Leaf
Joe
Night

Also included are a number of additional parts used in the Sixliner combined robot - a Head, a left & right fist, a a left & right foot, a body piece & uppperlegs and waist. Sixliner - like Grandus - does not possess a Micromaster trailer like all the other Japanese Micromaster releases this year.

The Sixliner pieces do no combine in the same way as the parts for the three new 1992 combiners do. Instead they attach to the trains as carriages. The right foot has a peg in it's rear allowing it to be towed by one of the three trains with a hook while the left foot has a hook allowing it to be towed by one of the three trains with a peg. Onto these can be placed either the Gripper probe - made from taking Sixliner's gun with the fists on either side & the head on the back *or* the Wingard vehicle - the body piece for Sixliner. The Giga-Techvolt weapon formed from Sixliner's robot waist & legs can be comfortably mounted on D-Go, but will with some manipulation work with a couple of the other toys.

To form Sixliner each of the individual Micromasters must be transformed: Alan & Leaf need to be transformed to robot mode, then have their hoodies folded down over their chests. A hand slides into the base of the figure's legs (traditionally Alan gets the right fist but it doesn't matter). Fold down the clips at the front of Joe & Night. Insert the back of each train into one of Six Train's feet. Joe gets the right foot with Night taking the left, they have to be this way round due to the feet having different shaped connectors on them. Take Spark in robot mode, bend the arms up, bend the legs forward at the knee and fold the arms down. Then push Spark backwards into the chest/Wingard Booster so he locks in place with the nose pointing forwards. Plug the waist & legs into the bottom of the chest. Stand D-Go on the back of the legs - locking the chest piece in - and fold him up behind Spark. Attach Alan & Leaf as the arms to the 5mm pegs on the shoulders of the body piece, then Joe & Night as the legs onto the clips at the end of the upper legs. The super robot head then goes over Spark's head like a helmet - similar to the Scramble City / Special Team combiners and Ultra Magnus's super mode. The difference here is that Spark faces backwards (like Leozack in LioKaiser) Place the gun in Sixliner's right hand.

Like many Transformers of the time Sixliner is a little lacking in the articulation stakes compared to modern Transformers, but he does better than most. The head turns as do the shoulders. The arms can bend out to the sides and have two bending joints in the middle allowing them to both clear the wings on the chestplate and fold round them. The hands each have a 5mm peg hole which allow them to hold many other Transformers weapons. Sixliner is a bit of a mishmash of colours - lots of white and black but the orange on the chest and just one shoulder looks a little lopsided while the red used for the head - very decent combined robot head - doesn't appear elsewhere on the toy.


Operation Combination Sixtrain

Sixliner returns the following year as Sixtrain which was numbered TF-05 in the Operation Combination toy line. He's basically a recolour but different enough to make you want him. The exception is Windy, a new mould introduced to this set while the other 5 toys in the set are renamed:

D-Go becomes San D-Go (or possibly San Diego)
Alan becomes Atlan
Spark becomes Desire
Leaf becomes Raise
Night becomes Convertor
Joe is replaced by Windy a largely new mould

As a basic guide Orange becomes grey, grey becomes bright blue and dark blue (which is found only on Night) becomes red. Black *mainly* becomes dark red, the exception being the black used for D-Go which stays black. All the red becomes orange , but the combined robot head & the legs for Windy are new and made of dark grey plastic. Finally all the white pieces are extensively remoulded with those used for Windy's body now being cast in the same dark grey used for the combined robot head. If Sixliner was odd then Sixtrain is a complete train crash in the colour dept with two different conflicting reds and the blue all working against each other. The only plus point is the new head colour works better.

This colouration is only available on the 1992 release, the Micromaster collection version is recoloured.


Micromaster Collection Sixliner

Sixliner's second release as Sixliner came in 2002 when he was re-released to complement the forthcoming Micron Legend line - I suppose the thought was we're going to do new small TFs let's re-release some old ones. This time Sixliner was released as it's individual parts - six micromasters plus a weapon/body part. There were two sets of six evenly distributed in each box of twelve with no alternately coloured or chase pieces. These boxes were numbered as follows:

1 D-G - Sixliner head & gun
2 Alan - Giga-Techvolt/Sixliner's upper legs & waist
3 Spark - Sixliner right foot
4 Leaf - Sixliner left foot
5 Joe - Sixliner right & left fists
6 Night - Sixliner chest

Some of these allocations are odd to say the least. D-Go should have got the waist/legs, Spark the chest, Alan & Leaf getting the right & left fists respectively with Alan also getting the gun and Leaf the head (I'd like to give it to Spark but the chest is large) and Joe & Night getting the right & left fists.

As well as having no chase variant there is no western release/recolour of Sixliner. However some stock was imported into the UK and sold to chains like the Virgin Megastore.


Micromaster Collection Sixtrain

Sixtrain was the fifth & final release in the Micromaster collection series. By this time changes to the base colours of the toys were being made as well as the insertion of differently coloured chase pieces in the cases of 12. You'd still be able to make two complete Sixtrains, it's just that one or two pieces would be a different colour. The pieces in this set are as listed as follows with their Sixliner name and the identity of which part came with them:

1 Desire (Spark) - Sixtrain's right foot
2 Atlan (Alan) - Sixtrain's legs
3 Raise (Leaf) - Sixtrain's left foot
4 San D-Go (D-Go) - Sixtrain's head & gun
5 Windy (Joe) - Sixtrain's right & left fists
6 Convertor (Night) - Sxitrain's chest

As you can see each mould retains the part it had for the Sixliner Micromaster Collection reissue, even if they don't have the same number - that would have been a nice touch, especially if it had been maintained over all five releases (1 is always the left arm, 2 if the body etc)

There's some repainting fun on this set: The grey of the original Sixtrain (was orange on Sixliner) becomes more metallic, the bright blue (was grey) becomes darker, the red of the combined parts (which were black) and the waist piece (which still was black on Sixtrain) becomes dark blue, the red of Night (was blue) now is green and the orange becomes red.

Overall this results in a more cohesive white, blue and grey colour scheme which is more subdued than the one for the previous release. However the colours on the opposite arms & legs still clash a bit and Convertor's green really stands out unfortunately emphasising his difference of shape compared to the other components. The blue for the hands and feet works much better than the red ! A little more tinkering would have produced a completely colour coordinated combiner which would have looked really nice.


Sixtrain Red Mode

Sixtrain's chase version (packed at slightly less than 2 pieces per case of 12) is a red repaint, I presume in slight homage to the red used on the original that's been eliminated but possibly also as a pointer to the Transformers cartoon episodes The Return of Optimus Prime where various transformers are infected with a hate plague that turns them red.

Railracer

The standard coloured Micromaster collection Sixtrain was later issued in the USA as a Universe toy and in the UK & Europe as either Energon or Cybertron. For the Western release of the combining Micromasters they were renamed after existing combined robots & their componenets. Since the only existing western train combiner has just 3 robots go into it's construction, extra names are drafted in. When you order the names according to the Japanese release numberes you find it alternates between a Robots In Disguise name and a new name which appeals to the Mathematician in me. Sad isn't it ?

The Universe versions of the individual robots are packaged with different combined ropbot parts to their Japanese counterparts making it annoyingly hard to complete a Japanese Sixliner using pieces meant for a western Railracer !

1 Railspike (Desire) - Chest
2 Tankor (Atlan) - Head & Gun
3 Rapid Run (Raise) - Left & right fists
4 Overload (San D-Go) - Upper legs & waist
5 Midnight Express (Windy) - Right foot
6 Swindle (Convertor) - Left foot

Essentially when combined Micromaster Collection Sixwing and Universe Railracer are the same toy.


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