A to Z Challenge: eXo Squad

I have to do a little fudging for X.  So sue me.

In the early-mid 90s there was a toy line from Playmates called Exo Squad.  They were little figures with transforming body armor.  Sort of like that big construction machine Ripley gets into in Aliens.  I didn't really pay attention to those.  By that time I wasn't really paying much attention to toys in general as Transformers, GI JOE, and Star Wars were all dead or mostly dead.

Around 1995 though the Exo Squad line issued a bunch of Robotech toys.  Most of the toys were the "Destroids" or civil defense mecha that could not transform.

These came in two sizes, about a 3-inch size and a 7-inch size.  These included:

Excaliburs, which had a big gun for each arm and missile batteries.

Gladiators, which had sort of Battloid-like hands and missile batteries.

Spartans, which had big round missile battery arms.

Raidar-Xs, which were anti-aircraft mecha with two smaller guns on each arm.

The 7-inch toys also included Zentraedi power armor

Invid Scout ship

and Robotech Master Bioroids

Robotech Master Bioroid

In addition to this they came out with some larger models:

Battlepods, the common Zentraedi mecha.

Officer's Pod, the Zentraedi mecha used by Khyron the Backstabber.

Invid Shock Trooper, the elite mecha of the Invid.

"Veritech" Hovertank, the Hovertank used by Dana Sterling and her platoon in the second series.

Veritech VF-1S, the Skull Leader one flown by Roy Fokker and then Rick Hunter.

While the Hovertank did transform at least from Gladiator to Battloid, the Veritech was stuck in Fighter mode, which is pretty disappointing.  While the Exo Squad figures were smaller than the old Robotech ones, I crammed Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes into my Veritech, reenacting their escape from Alaska Base.

Another disappointment is they didn't make the Cyclone.  That would have seemed a natural fit but they never came out with one of those.  While they made the mecha, they did not make any Robotech characters as figures to go in them.  I did buy an Exo Squad figure or two on sale at Target around that time to put in in them.  I still have one at least:

This old site has a complete list of the Exo Squad toys, though not all have pictures.  According to that site, it was Playmates who came up with alliance, not Harmony Gold the shitty owners of the Robotech property.  Which makes sense with how inept Harmony Gold is; I mean, they've been half-assedly been working on a live action movie for like 25 years now and the closest that came to it was the piece of shit Shadow Chronicles animated movie.

Anyway, I had all of the Exo Squad Robotech toys at one point.  I still might have most of them somewhere.  The Destroids I kept in their boxes and hung on the wall for decoration for a while.  I had the boxes of the bigger ones for a while but I think I eventually threw them out.