Allegiances: Decepticon
Set Price (in addition to membership): $87 (U.S.)

(NOTE: Because this is set a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the set and the color scheme, and merely compares it to the previous iterations of these molds. For a review on the Giant Minicon Team, the molds used for Astro-Hook, Astro-Line, and Astro-Sinker, go here. For a review on Armada Jetfire w/ Comettor, the mold used for Astrotrain & Starcatcher, go here.)
 

Astro-Hook

Size: Mini-Con
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: "Cheese" yellow, gray, and some black, silver, light red, and royal purple
Rating: 6.5

    Named partially after the first member of the Unicron minions "Hook, Line, and Sinker" from a few issues of the original Marvel G1 comics, Astro-Hook has a more realistic color scheme for a construction vehicle than the mold's previous paint job did-- a orangish yellow color is certainly more appropriate than a light green affair. The gray is also pretty realistic and goes well with the gray. The purple is an interesting color to add to the mix, though since it only shows up in robot mode it doesn't hurt the realistic colors of the vehicle mode. The purple does provide an excellent contrast to the orange-yellow, though, I'll give it that, and the black is another nice dark color to add into the mix. The silver doesn't really go all that well with the orange-yellow, but it doesn't outright clash and it's used sparingly, so I don't mind it much. Still, overall the toy just doesn't catch the eye as much as Longarm did, even if it has a more realistic color scheme.
    No mold changes have been made to Astro-Hook.
 

Astro-Line

Size: Mini-Con
Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: Royal purple, gray, "cheese" yellow, and some black, white, and light red
Rating: 7.5

    Out of any of the members of this set, Astro-Line looks the most similar to his mold's previous paint job, though the two are still easily discernible from the other. Astro-Line's main color is purple, while his predecessor Overcast's main color was a dark blue, hence why they look a tad similar at first glance. Astro-Line's colors really contrast extremely well, though, even a little better than the already superb Overcast's. The "cheese yellow" on the front of the lower legs and the wings and chest looks really nice against the purple, and the gray helps to ground the color scheme in a more realistic sense at least a little.; The white lines on the back of the wings also look really great against the other colors, and although the black doesn't contrast very much with the purple, using it for the head and feet helps to differentiate those parts a bit more and make Astro-Line look more varied.
    No mold changes have been made to Astro-Line.
 

Astro-Sinker

Size: Mini-Con
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Black, royal purple, and some gray, "cheese" yellow, white, and light red
Rating: 6.3

    Astro-Sinker definitely looks the most evil out of the Minicons in this set, with a primarily black-and-purple color scheme that goes great with his light red optics. The "cheese" yellow looks fairly good against the black, though it doesn't go quite as well with the other colors here as it did on Astro-Line. The gray and white also go well with the black. However, though the purple looks pretty good under a strong light and helps Astro-Sinker fit in a bit easier with the other members of this set, it's too dark in comparison to the black. Under anything but a strong light, it's prettyhard to make out all those neat purple markings on the sides of his submarine mode.
    No mold changes have been made to Astro-Sinker.
 

Starcatcher

Size: Mini-Con
Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: White, gray, and some royal purple
Rating: 6.0

    Starcatcher has a pretty good color scheme overall, with the white accenting the gray very well. The purple wheels are a tad odd, but it's not like you're trying to blend in when you're a moon buggy with a gun, so there you go. What really bugs me about Starcatcher, though, is that he NO paint applications whatsoever, not even one. It makes his main body look very dull, especially the gray, and there's not enough color variation overall to make the toy look good without any paint apps.
    No mold changes have been made to Starcatcher.
 

Astrotrain

Size: Giga-Con (Armada size class)
Difficulty of Transformation: Medium
Color Scheme: Gray, royal purple, and some "cheese" yellow, white, black, silver, light red, and transparent orange
Rating: 9.5

    Based on a Toys "R" Us Exclusive Jetfire repaint named "Spacewarp" that was never released, Astrotrain certainly has a busy color scheme, but it's obviously meant to be that way. I mean, this Decepticon's got paint detailing out the wazoo, and it looks great. Astrotrain has the "classic G1" colors of the original Astrotrain-- namely, gray, black and purple. Both colors go great together, despite all of them being dark colors, though there's also a few light colors to help add to the contrast of the figure. The cheese yellow would look bad in large amounts, but it's used just enough on this figure where it doesn't make the toy overly loud-- the stripes used throughout the figure look really cool. The white also makes a great contrasting color against the other colors, especially as neat zig-zag stripes all over the wings. The transparent orange goes well with the other colors, though to be honest it's a tad disappointing they kept the those pieces the same color as the previous time this mold was used, as Powerlinx Jetfire. The only paint application I really don't like on Astrotrain is the freaking HUGE Decepticon symbol on the back of his shuttle mode-- I've never been a big fan of big faction symbols. However, Fun Publications asked its club members in a poll whether they wanted to keep the huge faction symbol that was on the Spacewarp toy prototype, and a clear majority said yes, so I can't fault the Collectors' Club for doing what the majority of its members wanted. Astrotrain keeps the electronic sounds that Powerlinx Jetfire had, which is a nice surprise considering that most limited-run exclusives like this forego the electronics.
    Astrotrain does have one mold change-- namely, the head has been remolded to be pretty much an exact duplicate of G1 Astrotrain's head. It's a rather poor head sculpt, however-- the "helmet" around the head looks fine, but the face is definitely odd. It looks too wide, or the nose is too big, or something but it definitely is "off" in a way I can't quite explain.

    Astrotrain and his Minicons make up a great set-- it's nice to have five seperate toys in one set that isn't a Botcon exclusive, and all of them have great colors, especially Astrotrain. Starcatcher is the only real disappointment of the set, given his utter lack of paint apps. Highly recommended, if you collect high-end stuff like this-- $87 is really a fairly good deal for an exclusive with this limited of a run, I would have expected the price to be a little over $100 given the pricing of most other exclusives.
 

Review by Beastbot

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