Micromasters Sixtrain

Prelude: Many thanks to fellow TF-Fan BlackZarak, who loaned me Sixtrain here for this review.

Micromasters: The Train Team is composed of six Micromasters. Now the G1-style Micromasters all shared several characteristics in that they were all more or less the same size and their transformation usually entailed nothing more than unfolding the legs and standing the vehicles on end. Done. Given that, I won’t go into the various individual team member’s robot and vehicle modes, just doing a short overview of each of them.

Going alphabetically, the first team member is Atlan, a blue and grey French TGV train that transforms into a mostly blue robot with red highlights. Atlan’s head is in near perpetual shadow due to the nose of the train remaining up as a sort-of helmet. Like all MMs, he can move his arms at the shoulders and, as a transformation requirement, bend his legs. That’s it.

Next is Converter, a dark green EF66 electric train engine. As a robot he gains some blue and red highlights and much like Atlan, his head remains in shadow due to the train’s nose on top of his head. Same articulation, too. A pretty nice head mold, though.

Next comes the strangely-named Desire, a white Japanese Hokkaido bullet train who becomes a white, blue and red robot. Desire is apparently the leader of the Train Team in Japanese continuity, which might explain his slightly Optimus-Prime-like head (sans a mouth guard). Same articulation as the others, but – being the only one of the team where the train nose folds onto his back in robot mode - a much more visible head.

Next up is Raise, an Asagiri Special Express bullet train engine with the same color scheme in robot and train mode as Desire. Only difference being that he has the train-nose-over-his-head thing that Atlan and Converter have, too.

Number five is San D-Go, a golden D51 steam locomotive that becomes a mostly golden robot with orange and blue highlights. Head in shadow, check. Same articulation as the rest, check? Best name? Quite possibly.

And finally there is Windy, a dark grey Yamagata Tsubasa bullet train. Basically the same figure as Raise, just in much darker colors. Also a very nice face mold for so small a figure, but that’s about the only thing worth mentioning here.

The six individual Micromasters can’t do much in robot mode, but as trains they can either combine into three larger trains thanks to pegs on the rear ends of their train modes, or they can link up with the additional parts that are included to form the combiner robot (see below). As seen in the fourth picture above, for example, Conductor can pull one of the combiner feet with the chest plate on top, San D-Go is saddled with the combiner pants, and Atlan pulls the other combiner foot with the gun, fists, and head on top. While none of the combiner parts really look like anything but combiner parts here, it’s still nice that you can incorporate them this way.

So bottom line here: six more or less average Micromaster robots. Not bad, but odds are you wouldn’t buy them for their individual play value, but only as part of the comber.

Combiner: Sixtrain, the combined form of the six Train Team Micromasters, is a bit of a cheat as far as combiners go. I’d say roughly half of him is actually made from the extra parts I mentioned above. The actual Micromasters only form the arms, the lower legs, the upper chest and the back. The hip and thighs, belly, head, feet, and fists are all extra parts. Still, the resulting combiner robot looks pretty spiffy.

Looks aside, Sixtrain doesn’t have much to offer in terms of articulation. He can move his arms at the shoulders and that’s pretty much it. Then again, most of the G1 Combiners really couldn’t do much more than that, either. The member robots are interchangeable only to a degree. You can switch the legs around, same with the arms. You can also mix and match (to a degree) with the other Micromaster Combiners.

The bottom line here: a nice-looking combiner robot and if you don’t mind the fact that half of him is extra kibble and that he’s barely larger than a modern-day Deluxe class figure, he’s not bad. Certainly not the worst of the various combiners to be found in Generation 1.

Remarks: While Micromasters had taken over the Transformers toyline almost wholesale in 1989 and 1990, they were forgotten soon after. Not so in Japan, where Micromasters still ruled in ’91 (Return of Convoy) and ’92 (Operation Combination). And the big thing were combining Micromasters, six little bots that could join up with some extra parts into a big combiner robot. These Micromaster combiners were reissued multiple times, the latest being the 2002/2003 “Micromasters” Reissue line from Takara. They were extensively repainted and came with several single-color chase variants. In Sixtrain's case the chase variants were fire engine red.

Whatever color variant of these Micromasters you may look at, the basic premise remains the same. Six individual robots that are okay for their size, but little more than that, and use a lot of kibble to combine into a nice-looking combiner robot. I guess it’s a matter of a) whether you like Micromasters and b) whether you like combiners with many extra parts. Personally I probably won’t buy Sixbuilder (nor his Devastator-homage counterpart) unless I get a really, really good bargain, but that’s more a thing of me not being a Micromaster / Minicon fan in general. Objectively speaking: not a revelation, but not bad, either.

Rating: C+