Having picked up the 2015 RID minicon wave 1 figures, I thought I would share some thoughts and (poor) phone photos of what is in store for the collectors.

Without warning… I think they are a mixed bag and there are more cons than pros.

First nail in the coffin – these are minicons with no minicon ports. Seriously? They can attach onto RID deployers and… that’s it? Would it be so hard to mold a traditional minicon port?!

Second one - these don’t immediately look much like transformers to me. If I was given these to check them out without knowing these are the new “minicons”, I would have guessed Bakugan or something similar.

Articulation? Even less than Rescue bots, although they retain the auto transformation. And then there are couple more gripes below.



Slipstream
There is not much to say about any of these. From the little I’ve seen of the show, Slipstream is one of Drift’s assistants, you push his arms inside/outside and he curls into a loaf of cheese with feet and spooky eyes peeking at you (the head will not fully push into the body).
The one feature/attraction of these toys is a set of extra parts you can arm the figures with. The execution on poor Slipstream, though, is questionable: the swords’ handles are too wide and it will take some force to push them into the hands (how long until the handles break off?). The bucklers’ connectors are too thin and only so-so stay pegged on the arms. Prepare yourself for losing a piece every now and then.
With the weapons attached, he can transform into the loaf mode and roll down the hill with the weapons attached. Alternatively, the swords can be clipped on his chest, revealing the third chariot mode.

Sawback
I like the wolfie a bit better. With a different color scheme and parts remolding, he could be turned into Sondwave’s / Blaster’s minion (I’ll admit, then these will do look like TF). He can also turn into a loaf (fold out / in the tail) and roll down the hill, but only in unarmed mode. Once you arm him with translucent bits, his battle mask will clog the mechanism and will not allow to fully transform. Armed without the mask, he reminds me of those flying killer gadgets from the 1979 movie Phantasm.


Dragonus
Another beast, this time a dragon. His tail hides beneath when in sunflower seed mode (?), does that count as articulation?
Clear weapon bits as usual. Two of those don’t stay pegged at all, if you lift up the dragon, two parts will stay lying on the shelf.
Transformation with the extra parts attached works and turns him into an armed sunflower seed, spaceship, mole with grabby paws (or whatever).

Divebomb
By this time the pictures suffice. Has the auto transformation feature, although his alt mode shape totally fails to hide the robot mode. Comes with many bits, they attach securely. Worth mentioning, two of the bits – chest armor and mask actually clip together and allow the mask to fold/unfold. And yeah, feet have articulation thanks to transformation.


All in all, these are weird. I like them for being cute, not for being transformers. I am wondering how many repaints/remolds will we see from Hasbro and Takara down the line.

 

You had me at "LOAF" mode. From now on, I will pay more attention to your posts.

Loaf mode...

There is some genius in that Chariot mode.

Didnt all the transluscent bits from the wave merge to form 2 characters? I thought I seen something about all the clear parts making something.

They...Kinda look ok. Like the drift minion, kinda looks like him..but ZERO articulation? Drag. And they DO, spring open huh?

 

I can't wait to get Slipstream, Jetstorm, Divebomb, and Airazor.

 

These don't sound as fun as they've looked in display cases.

 

They... should. There's those big Mega Step (?) Optimus & Bumblebee that they can attach to

 

I'm suddenly in the mood for a loaf of cheese with sunflower seeds.

(goes well with a wheel of bread, apparently.   )

 

LOL... I loaf of cheese mode, indeed. I guess these guys are the spiritual successors of the FoC "data disks" then. I did not know they would auto-transform.

And yeah, Minicons don't have ports in RID - they are rather just simply small multi-functional robots.

Do they have any arm/feet articulation at all, by the way? I was surprised how small they are.

 

The Bot and Con parts of all 8 characters merge to a shark and a lion - so you'll have to get the other 4 coming in the next wave to make them.

 

NO articulation. Zero. Zilch. Unless you're counting the parts that need to move for transformation (e.g. the tail of Dragonus which folds out from underneath his belly).

The transformation feature is also not automatic, you have to use force to do it. Sawback has a bit of spring mechanism incorporated, so as soon as you unclip the tail in loaf mode the spring will help with the unfolding, but it's not like "hey, I unclip this part and tadaaaaa the wolf automatically transforms". You know what I mean?

And they are surely not worth the price of 8 EUR.

 

Buy wave 1 (the 4 guys in this thread), and you can form the rainbow-colored lion.

Buy wave 2, and you can form the shark.

 

There is actually a port on each minicon but not the usual armada minicon port. It is actually a rectangular shape hole that plugs onto the pegs on Fracture and Drift (and one of the upcoming forgot-his-name Optimus Prime).

I don't know what you consider to be fully pushed in, but to me, it looks flushed enough on mine.  

Maybe you are not doing it right. On my set, with the translucent bits, the head still transforms fully and does not impact the transformation in any way.

My only gripe with Sawback is that one of the translucent bits on the underside of the disc mode will definitely fall off when you plug it into the launching pod of Drift because of the design. And this is the only instance where the translucent bits caused problems in play.

Overall, it is true that many of the translucent bits are too loose and they break easily, especially when they are meant to be fired from the deployers.

 

I couldn't get slipstreams rear Helmet piece on to save my life. I got all of wave one on a limb.

Here is my review : These completely suck - don't get them. Send a message. That is all.

 

Man these suck. Like FOC discs, but way shittier. Too bad a few of them are show characters, necessitating purchase...sigh...

 

Yes, "necessity"...

 

I got these guys yesterday, and I have the same problem getting Slipstream's round things to stay on his arms. I got them tight at one point, but it started separating the plastic at the seam and they fell out again. Not sure how to fix that.

The dragon's little fire pieces (or whatever they are) don't stay either. I think a little super glue will tighten that up.

Cute little figures, but very little play value. I wish they were like other minicons. Actually, I wish they had just made them legends like Fixit.

At least you can build the lion and not really need those parts for the Minicons.

 

Ugh, why can't they release these guys as Legion figures? The reviews are troubling to me.

 

I picked up Slipstream and Sawback. They're both fun little one-step style toys - as long as you don't come in with very high expectations.

While these are not minicons in the same sense as the UT Minicons, I agree that a standard Minicon port would have been nice, or just a 5mm hole instead.