Race Mini-Con Team (2002)

The Armada line's focus on Mini-Cons was, by some measures, a step backward for the Transformers franchise. Larger figures that had been getting increasingly complicated had to be made simpler to accommodate the special features and gimmicks the Mini-Cons would unlock. This was by no means a bad thing, as it returned a "fun factor" to the toys, making them more accessible to children (the target audience, after all!), and as a result, Armada was considered very successful.

Air Defense Mini-Con Team (2002)

While the addition of various gimmicks to the central theme of "Robots in Disguise" was by no means new to the Transformers franchise by the time the Armada line came into being, Armada could be argued to be one of the first times that a play gimmick (that is, a gimmick featured around something the toys could do, as opposed to something the toys resembled, as with the Beast era) became a central theme than an entire line would be built around. In the case of Armada, this central theme was the introduction of the Mini-Con.