Originally written March 2019.
Since the nostalgic collector’s side of Transformers really kicked into gear back in 2006 (under the name of Transformers Classics), it’s slowly but surely been making modern updates of every single toy in Generation One, the slow part mostly due to it having been a side-line most of the time, and the periodic need to loop back around and create better versions of old favorites, something that its latest iteration, Transformers: Siege, has mostly been doing.
Well, it’s been 13 years (longer than the original run of the G1 toyline!) and we’ve finally reached the Micromasters, classic Transformers figures first released in 1989, in the second-last year of the original series. As the name implies, Micromasters are micro-sized Transformers, smaller than Hot Wheels, and about the size of Micro Machines, which they were likely created to compete with. While the original Transformers cartoon was long off the air when they came out, they managed to make their way into the original Marvel Comics. Micromasters originally came in themed “patrol” teams of four, and the line would expand to include bases and bigger vehicles for them to interact with, as well as various kinds of combining Micromasters.
For Siege, they’re being released in groups of two instead, and in addition to their robot and vehicle modes, can combine into weapons for the larger figures in the Siege line to wield, thanks to Siege’s gimmick of weapon expansions for all its characters. Since these are such tiny figures, I’m going to review them all at once. Also, forgive the iffy pictures, a lost SD card meant I had to reshoot the entire set at the last minute.
Autobot Race Car Patrol
Swindler
I’ll start with the positives: Swindler’s got a very nice-looking and nicely-colored robot mode, cast in silvery-grey with bits of blue and yellow that really pop, on a pretty classic Autobot Car design, what with the legs being chunky boots made from the backs of his car mode. His lower torso is shockingly poseable for a microfigure, with his waist, hips and knees all being jointed.
Now for the problems. Unfortunately, he’s really backheavy, making him hard to pose, since anything other than him standing up straight will make him tip over. His arms, jointed at the shoulders, are just a mess, too. They’re located too close to his body, and are a struggle to move, since they collide with his body really easily.
He’s simple enough to transform, and has a really slick car mode. Famously, Swindler originally changed into a DeLorean in grey, like in Back to the Future. Thanks to modern licensing, though, he had to be resculpted into something more generic here. Curiously, the Micromasters don’t seem to follow Siege’s normal aesthetic of alien alternate modes, and still look like Earth cars. Whatever he is, he’s well-painted, with an Autobot symbol on his side. Things like his headlights and wheels aren’t painted, but on this scale it’d be shocking. What is shocking, though, is how he fails at doing the one thing a car’s supposed to do: He doesn’t have a lot of ground clearance to roll without his torso scraping the ground.
Roadhandler
Right out of the gate, Roahandler is very back heavy, more so than Swindler, to the point where my copy actually can’t stand up unless you lean him forward like in the above photo, a massive design issue. In the image of the pair at the top of the review, he’s actually leaning on Swindler for support. At least he looks nice, in red and black with bits of yellow and blue, with what looks like a tiny Gundam crest on his head. On the upside, he’s got the same poseability as Swindler, but his arms are way more mobile, thanks to being on ball joints and having better clearance. It’s all a bit pointless, though, since he can’t use most of that poseability, lest he topple over.
While he transforms the same easy way as Swindler, the ball joints on his legs really like to pop off, and will probably come apart during transformation. At least you can pop them back on. And while he transforms into another slick, well-painted red sports car, he’s got even worse ground clearance than Swindler, and really can’t roll at all.
Combined Mode
Officially, these two make a blaster that can be wielded by larger figures, but in reality, it’s just two robots flopped on top of each other, held together by a peg, with patterns on the bottoms of their feet to suggest a weapon mode. It’s not terribly convincing at all.
At least it can be held by larger characters, and holds together alright. And if you want to get clever, you can always split them up, and turn them into a pair of car-shaped pistols.
Overall
Siege has been knocking out of the park so far, but for the first time, I need to say that these are not good figures. They’re good-looking mini cars that can’t actually roll, and they transform into robot modes that can’t stand well, and combine into a weapon that’s an afterthought. Skip these ones, unless you’re a completest, or really want a pair of car-pistols for your larger figures.
Autobot Battle Patrol
Topshot
Compared to the fairly basic race cars, Topshot is a colorful mixture of brown, beige, blue, grey and silver (in fact, nearly all of these guys have blue faces, for some reason.) He’s nice and detailed, too, and feels more solid and less flimsy than the cars. He has what I’m recognizing as the standard Siege Micromaster articulation of a weirdly poseable lower torso, with knees, hips and a twistable waist, and a weirdly non-poseable upper torso of just shoulder articulation. While he does have a big backpack with a gun turret on it, unlike the cars, he can actually stand up well, thanks to big grey ankle spurs. Speaking of that gun, if you want, you can rotate the turret so it pops out over his head, like I’ve done in the above photo.
Topshot’s got a surprisingly involved, tough transformation, thanks to those big heel spurs of his needing to get shoved out of the way. His vehicle mode is a weird brown, grey and beige tank-like thing. I’m not sure what it is, but it looks neat. It’s on six wheels, two of which are fake, and is well-painted. Most impressively, his turret rotates, and the gun on it raises and lowers, something a lot of bigger figures don’t manage to do.
Flak
Like Topshot, Flak is also really colorful, a mixture of green, grey, red and yellow. He’s got the same big backpack as his companion, and the same big heel spurs to cancel out its effects on him. He mostly has the same articulation, too, but lacks a waist joint.
He’s much simpler to transform than Topshot, and he changes into one of those big green missile tanks, with mean-looking launchers on top. It rolls on four wheels, beneath sculpted-on treads. It’s a really cool looking vehicle, and brings me back to playing Dune 2000 on the PC back in the day (Did anyone else here ever play that?)
Combined Mode
There was a lot more thought put into this form than the race cars, and as a consequence, it’s kind of hard to properly figure out how to put it together the first time around. This rocket-launcher-looking weapon’s got some stability and fitting issues, in that a number of parts that are supposed to peg together don’t actually do so, and just kind of hang there.
It seems that the designers accounted for this, though, and there’s enough secure connections between the two robots that, when a large robot holds it, it stays together just fine, and looks convincingly mean and powerful.
Overall
These two are really nifty pair, the polar opposites of the previous team. They’ve got detailed, good-looking robot and altmodes, a good transformation, and a combined mode that has a few issues, but looks nice. If you’re interested in some micro-Transformers, this is a good set to pick up.
Decepticon Air Strike Patrol
Storm Cloud
It’s tough to explain why, but a lot of Storm Cloud’s sculpt reminds me of a Targetmaster, one of the small companion robots from Generation One who changed into guns, and who were re-invented for the Siege line as Battle Masters. One odd thing about his sculpt is that he doesn’t seem to have hands, with his arms instead ending in little silver nubs that look like gatling guns. Storm Cloud’s definitely a Decepticon, rocking the stock colorscheme of black and lavender, with a yellow face and a few silver bits. While he lacks a waist joint like most of these little guys, he actually has elbow joints on top of his shoulder ones, making him feel infinitely more poseable, and let him aim his odd little gun-hands effectively.
Storm Cloud’s got a very involved transformation involving twisting legs, folding arms, and a lot of pegs. One of his legs doesn’t want to peg in, but the other one is fine, so it’s probably down to quality control on my copy. He makes for a very toy-ish looking jet, which looks cool, but comes with a ton of undercarriage in the form of his folded-up robot parts, though at least they use his gun-hands to make thrusters. He’s also got landing gear sculpted under his cockpit. He’s got no real features in this mode, he just makes for a swooshy jet.
Visper
Visper’s also got a nice-looking robot mode, and basically inverts Storm Cloud’s colorscheme by having a purple torso and black limbs. He’s got the same silver accents on him, but uses red for his highlights. In terms of his sculpt, he looks more like a stock Decepticon Jet, thanks to his triangular back wings. His overly large backpack is made up of a gigantic cockpit, but he manages to stay up thanks to really stiff knee joints, a part of the poseability he shares with Storm Cloud, including elbows.
He has a simple transformation, where you’re basically unfolding the backpack and pegging his limbs together, but he does have a neat trick to properly hide his robot face, so it isn’t peaking out. He’s got the better jet mode of the pair, and I really dig his black and read stealth jet design. A shame about his purple undercarriage, again, but there’s only so much you can do at this size.
Combined Mode
Basically, the two jets peg together back-to-back, with Visper not even transforming, and Storm Cloud’s cockpit folding away, and they make a sword, albeit a really thick, chunky one that almost resembles a bludgeon more than a blade. It’s vaguely reminiscent of the Star Saber and Dark Saber weapons from Transformers: Armada, which were formed out of three tiny jets, instead of two.
Out of all three weapons, this one’s the most stable, with connections that peg together tightly. It also looks surprisingly nice, and serves as a good alternate weapon for Siege Megatron. It’s also the most stable of the three weapons, once it all pegs together.
Overall
This is another fun set of Micromasters. Even if the jet modes aren’t as good as they could be, they make for nice-looking robots, and a genuinely fun weapon for larger figures.
Micromasters in General
Revisiting these pocket-sized Transformers, and equipping them with modern engineering and poseability was always going to be a fun idea, and reinventing them as weapons for the larger figures in Siege is a neat bonus. I’d skip out on the Race Car Patrol, though, they’re the only duds in the Siege line so far. The Battle and Air Strike patrols are both worth picking up, with the Battle Patrol having slightly better individual bots, and the Air Strike Patrol forming the slightly better weapon, so it comes down to which aspect of them you prefer, but you can’t lose with either set.
(2022 thoughts: Well, in the long run, the new Micromasters turned out to be kind of a dud, not managing to make it to the final part of the trilogy, Kingdom, due to low sales. Apparently, this first batch was one of the stronger sets, with the issues present in the Race Car Patrol being fairly common throughout the line. The size class also wound up serving a more popular purpose, as a delivery system for new Cassettebots, as seen in series 2, reviewed here. I’d still say it’s worth looking into the Battle and Air Strike patrols, if they seem interesting to you, as they’re still definitely some of the better releases in the line, and probably fairly cheap on the aftermarket, as Wave 1 releases.)
