Episode Review: Transformers Prime S02E10 Armada

[KillinSpoon]

Wow, did NOT see that coming..

[KaRNiV8L PRiME]

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Very enjoyable

[GoktimusPrime]

Yeah, lots of interesting twists!

[liegeprime]

Well now, that's one way of shooing off old characters to introduce new ones to keep the budget still within limits love the ending hehehehe guess who's got his altmode back next time

[Cyberwing]

Yeah but now he has to worry about a 'swarm', a legion and autobots.

[Shirokaze]

Just watched it, and it was a pretty good episode. The highlight for me is that this means the end of their boring rivalry where the exact same thing would happen every time there was contact.

[Hursticon]

Another thoroughly enjoyable episode ; My only gripe was that the Insecticons seemed to of gone from being extremely difficult to manage individually, to being nothing but cannon fodder...

For instance; when we're 1st introduced to the Insecticon, Arcee is basically being pummelled all over the shop & later Megatron even finds them to be a considerable handful - Enter Bumblebee and they're now able to be picked off with a single gun blast.

It's also been suggested elsewhere, that Airachnid and the Insecticons were relegated to being nothing but a sub plot (Playing back-seat to Starscream's clones and Bulkhead trapped on the Decepticon Warship) and that this portion of the story should've really been handled in it's own episode; I have to admit, I agree with that suggestion.

Still, the action was awesome and quite jam-packed (Almost too much); Bulkhead's line at the end was hilarious and Starscream suffering the pain of his clone's woes due to Binary-Bonded sparks was an intriguing twist too!

[GoktimusPrime]

Another thoroughly enjoyable episode ; My only gripe was that the Insecticons seemed to of gone from being extremely difficult to manage individually, to being nothing but cannon fodder...

For instance; when we're 1st introduced to the Insecticon, Arcee is basically being pummelled all over the shop & later Megatron even finds them to be a considerable handful - Enter Bumblebee and they're now able to be picked off with a single gun blast.

Fansplanation: perhaps these Insecticons have different types like hive insects; so maybe the ones that Arcee and Megatron fought were soldier bugs, and the ones Bumblebee picked off were worker/drones. They seemed to have accepted Airachnid as their Queen -- now Megatron. Aaah, that brings back fond memories of BW Inferno! (it'd be pretty kewl if they brought that running joke back and had the entire swarm addressing TFP Megatron as "Our Queen" -- maybe some of them could yell "For Queen and Colony!" as they attack ).

It's also been suggested elsewhere, that Airachnid and the Insecticons were relegated to being nothing but a sub plot (Playing back-seat to Starscream's clones and Bulkhead trapped on the Decepticon Warship) and that this portion of the story should've really been handled in it's own episode; I have to admit, I agree with that suggestion.

Well they could have done so if the last ep wasn't a recapper! :/

Still, the action was awesome and quite jam-packed (Almost too much); Bulkhead's line at the end was hilarious and Starscream suffering the pain of his clone's woes due to Binary-Bonded sparks was an intriguing twist too!

I was hoping that at least two of the clones would survive and become Skywarp and Thundercracker (at very least Skywarp since there is a toy of him)

[Hursticon]

Fansplanation: perhaps these Insecticons have different types like hive insects; so maybe the ones that Arcee and Megatron fought were soldier bugs, and the ones Bumblebee picked off were worker/drones. They seemed to have accepted Airachnid as their Queen -- now Megatron. Aaah, that brings back fond memories of BW Inferno! (it'd be pretty kewl if they brought that running joke back and had the entire swarm addressing TFP Megatron as "Our Queen" -- maybe some of them could yell "For Queen and Colony!" as they attack ).

You know how to play to my favour Goki; If I hear just one utterance of "You shall burrrn!" out of them I think I'll explode!

Yeah... I've also heard the theory that it could also be due to the fact that these ones had 'just' awoken and hence had "Booted-up Cold".
This falls short though as the one that Arcee faced on Cybertron had only just awoken too... Admittedly this was the episode writer's 1st Transformers skript so there could be a number of factors going into it.

Well they could have done so if the last ep wasn't a recapper! :/

Perhaps, but I see the clip-show episode as being utilised to tie up a couple of narrative strings whilst also introducing a couple of new pieces of fiction; One could also surmise that this episode allowed the production team to build new assets for future episodes - That can't be a bad thing IMO.

I was hoping that at least two of the clones would survive and become Skywarp and Thundercracker (at very least Skywarp since there is a toy of him)

That would've been cool but I think it would be too much of a direct rip from TF:Animated, though the idea has merit I'll admit.
Who knows what we'll see down the track, but at least we now know how Screamer will get his T-Cog back.

[GoktimusPrime]

Yeah... I've also heard the theory that it could also be due to the fact that these ones had 'just' awoken and hence had "Booted-up Cold".
This falls short though as the one that Arcee faced on Cybertron had only just awoken too... Admittedly this was the episode writer's 1st Transformers skript so there could be a number of factors going into it.

I think the "specialised castes" theory makes more sense here and is more similar to the eusociality we can see in colonial insect species like bees, ants etc. If the Insecticon that Arcee and Megatron encountered were Soldier-Class, then it makes sense that even as new hatchlings they'd be hardcore fighters. If the swarm that we saw in this episode were a different class of Insecticon (worker, drone etc.), then it would stand to reason that they wouldn't be as combat-hardy as the Soldiers. Their hive mentality and slavish loyalty to a dominant individual "Queen" (Airachnid/Megatron) suggests that these Insecticons are hardwired for eusociality (much like BW Inferno ).

That would've been cool but I think it would be too much of a direct rip from TF:Animated, though the idea has merit I'll admit.
Who knows what we'll see down the track, but at least we now know how Screamer will get his T-Cog back.

Ooh, I never thought about Starscream cannibalising that clone's T-Cog! Good call.