Toy review - JP Arms Microns (TFPrime) AM34 Jet Vehicon General

(Please post photos, comments or even a fully comprehensive review - these are just brief details to get you started)

SAM-34 Decepticon Jet Vehicon General (Minicon)
Size/class - Deluxe
New/remould/redeco - extensive remould (Minicon is a redeco)
Released here - Not here (Released in Japan 2012-2013)
Approximate Retail Price - ?yen
Approximate Size - 14cm (Vehicon)
Allegiance - Decepticon
Alt-mode - Winged Car (Vehicon), gun
Main Colours - silver / grey (Vehicon), Dark metallic grey (Minicon)
Main Accessories - Micron

http://www.toycollectors.com.au/tftoys/jp2013a41.jpg

Jet Vehicon General is an extensive remould of the very well constructed Vehicon. It is missing all wheels, which are replaced by long forward facing wings.

Overall the jet is all the same matte grey/silver colour with black windows and some red/maroon highlights on the wings. The wingtip colours are provided by stickers.

In robot mode, the colours remain mostly the same matte grey, with some gunmetal grey parts around the elbow and knee joints and the hands. The chest has a translucent black section as well. Light piping does not work.

Transformation is similar to the regular Vehicon, if not a tithe shorter due to no wheels needing to be displaced, move the wings back pull out the side panels, a few folds of the chest/hood to become legs and voila.

Pros: Sleek looking in both modes, metallic paint on the head and chest, has a great "swooshing" ability in alt mode and nice articulation. minicon is fun to build.

Cons: bland as any figure I've seen in recent memory, stickers are annoying to place, minicon is very meh.

RE: my previous AM16 Jet Vehicon review.

This toy is a straight up repaint of AM16 Jet Vehicon, mouldwise it's identical.
Colourwise I like this figure - it makes it stand out from the other Vehicons and makes him feel more "elite." I think calling it "General" is a bit of a misnomer, I always felt that these Vehicons were more like an elite group of flyers that serve directly under Starscream - like his own personal Seekers; kinda like the 501st in Star Wars (a legion of Imperial Clone/Stormtroopers who directly answer to Lord Vader).

Now the thing is... the head. The Jet Vehicons originally had a different head, as seen toward the end of Season 2 (let's called this "Armada Vehicon Mk I"). Then the toy came out, which was a straight up repaint of the regular Jet Vehicon, and thus uses the regular Vehicon head. Then when Season 3 came out, we see that the Armada Vehicons' head has changed to look more like the regular Vehicon head, and more like the toy (let's call this "Armada Vehicon Mk II").

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...psb26bd0b8.jpg
L-R: Armada Vehicon Mk I, Armada Vehicon Mk II, AM34 Jet Vehicon General

So the end result is that this toy looks like the Mk II Armada Vehicon. Will they bother retooling this mould to look like the Mk I? I wouldn't hold my breath. :rolleyes:

Just adding on the correction there about Jet Vehicon General being a redeco of the earlier Jet Vehicon... The Micron/Minicon is also a redeco, but it should be noted that the Micron with the first Jet Vehicon (reworked) mould, was also a reworked mould.

On the left is the micron for the original (car) Vehicon (from the Micron 5-pack), on the right is the modified minicon that comes with the two Jet Vehicons. Note the mirrored mould layout, the re-sculpted gun-barrel part, and the missing parts in each.

http://www.toycollectors.com.au/blog/a561.jpg

The result is that the beast mode is turned completely around. The original version has the triangular gun barrel becoming the snout of the boar (see below), while the Jet Vehicon version has the barrel at the back to be the tail (see first post above).
That's quite clever actually, as it pairs up well with the "modified" concept of the main toy, and still works in both versions thanks to a couple of parts that are different in each.

http://www.toycollectors.com.au/tftoys/jp2012a31.jpg

Comparison pics w/ AM16 Jet Vehicon. Vehicle mode...
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...ps60a5e8f8.jpg

Robot mode...
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...psf7378392.jpg

Posted some action shots w/ Jet Vehicon General here :)

Also, official web page for this toy is here. The official RRP is 2100JPY ($21); I paid 1480JPY ($15) for mine. :cool:

Vehicon General
I really liked this figure! Yeah, the vehicle form looks kinda... stupid. But if you are buying this figure you are buying it because it's from Season 3 of TF Prime and in that regard the vehicle form is very true to the cartoon.

The robot mode - beautiful! Looks awesome - very well proportioned, very stylish, very menacing. Makes you think that if the Vehicon General was an individual rather than a group of Cons that are there to get shot by the Bots, this figure would be selling like mad!

Colour scheme, very good, some great paint apps. And for the first time in years I didn't mind sitting there and adding the stickers.

Transformation - very nice. Not too easy, not too time consuming, just how I like'em

Igu-S
Wow, even though he looks funny, damn does he make my animal based Action Masters Targetmaster animal partners look like crap, particularly in weapons mode as a Beam Gun. I haven't combined him with any other AM characters yet, so will be interesting to see how that works. Ironically I think I spent as much time putting Igu-S together and adding his stickers as I did his Jet Vehicon General Master.


Overall a great figure! Kinda embarrased I spent twice as much as Gok did but still happy to have these two :)