POWERLINX HOT SHOT WITH POWERLINX JOLT MINI-CON

By the time I started getting hooked onto the Armada series, Hot Shot was already becoming a rare item & difficult to find in retail outlets. Hence, once this came out I knew that I just had to get hold of it.

This Powerlinx version is identical in every way to the previous Hot Shot (Yellow), except for the paint job.

Here's taking a look at a gimmick. All you have to do is to press down on the external overdrive engine to flip the front bumpers out into what looks like an open jaw/blade.

Hot Shot's assistant, Jolt can carry the overdrive engine to Hot Shot whenever needed on the battlefield.

Combination of Powerlinx Hot Shot & Jolt in vehicle mode looks funny with the tail of the copter sticking out like a sore thumb at the rear or the vehicle.

Let's take a closer look at Jolt.

Jolt carrying the external engine.

With a couple of simple transformation steps, we now have Jolt in robot mode.

An up close angle of Jolt.

In robot mode, the engine can be attached onto the chest of Hot Shot. Jolt on the other hand sits at the lower back of the body. It's as though Hot Shot has a yellow tail in bot more.

When the Mini-Con is placed at the lower back, a rocket launcher will flip out at the top of the head.

Here's how Hot Shot looks with the launcher flipped out. Initially it looked fine to me, but over the years it's starting to look a little weird.

The ball joint of the waist are not that tight so I had some trouble posing my figure around. Nevertheless, here's just a couple of examples of Hot Shot with some additional Mini-Cons attached. Even though this figure isn't that huge, there are a couple of holes for you to place Mini-Cons around to make Hot Shot look stronger when facing off with the Decepticons.

BLURR WITH INCINERATOR MINI-CON

Among all the Transformers series I'll say that this is the line that I started off with, the Armada series. Back my in my heydays when I was still studying in Australia, you'll have trouble looking for Gundam toys. It was then, that I slowly diverted my collection to Transformers.

There are many reasons about why I'm fond of this series. One main reason in particular is because the bots come with a miniature assistant, known as Mini-Cons. These Mini-Cons usually come in smaller sized vehicles & they can also transform. In addition, some of them can combine to form weapons for the larger bots. I'll tell you more about this in another post.

Here's a look at Blurr from another angle. Besides the usual place that each specific Mini-Con attaches onto, the Armada robots come with pegs located on numerous spots on their body frame. These pegs are for you to attach other individual Mini-Cons onto. From the image above, you'll be able to see that Blurr has two pegs situated at the rear spoiler.

The original slot for Incinerator is for it to be attached to the rear section of Blurr. Once you insert it Blurr transforms into what looks like a hover car, revealing both his rocket launchers. Both the launchers each have an additional peg for you to attach even more Mini-Cons onto it. Later you'll see that the weapons may be removed to be held on Blurr's arms.

The transformation for my bot was a little difficult as it has been on display, untouched for a couple of years. Certain joints were very tight & I had trouble pulling out the legs for transformation.

The Mini-Con transforms with easy & can be seen here standing next to Blurr for height comparison.

If you don't like the idea of having the Mini-Con sit on either one of the weapons, you could just transform it back to vehicle mode and stick it back to the designated slot behind Blurr & it functions as a rear stand to help balance the heavy rear portion of Blurr in bot mode. Lastly, you would need to attach the Mini-Con onto the launcher to activate the firing mechanism. Otherwise, the launcher will not release the two long orange missiles. For this matter, any Mini-Con would do the work.