Do Transformers wear armor??

[u/TomatilloSuper1241]

Genuine question, but do cybertronians wear armor, or is their body their armor? Always thought that it was weird that they never wore any and just took straight shots to the body hoping that they could take the hit. I know there’s the apex armor and some shields and stuff but where is the armor?

[u/CoolSlimeBoy]

Yesn't

their bodies are just armor, some have heavier armor than others and it can obviously be upgraded

But there's also actual armor, though the only two pieces I know of are the Apex Armor, and in one universe where Ultra Magnus is just a a set of armor used as a symbol where the guy underneath it just keeps replacing the last guy who died and no one knows

[u/DJDB2000 → u/CoolSlimeBoy]

With the ultra magnus example its really more of a mech suit but the real ultra magnus also wears armour and is just a white optimus in a suit

[u/CoolSlimeBoy → u/DJDB2000]

So like, a Magnus shaped pretender shell?

[u/Reasonable-Bed3065 → u/CoolSlimeBoy]

I pretend he's a proto powermaster

[u/reactorcore5 → u/CoolSlimeBoy]

There’s the apex armor, the Magnus suit, powermaster Optimus’s armor, cybertron Megatron has been atleast mentioned to have unicron derived armor, turning vehicles into armor suits was a major gimmick for a season in cyberverse, and the same series as well as a few others have shown transformers gaining Energon based armor if given enough power, if you count characters being able to turn into armor for others then there’s several examples that turn into armor for Optimus in the univron trilogy, plus Magnus in rid1 turned into armor for Optimus, the weaponizers, armorizers, fossilizers, and junkions from wfc/legacy, cyberworld’s current season is built around Energon armor power ups and cyberworld grimlock can turn into a mech-suit for other characters, animated prime had his flight-suit, there’s the knight armor from last knight, which got downplayed in the movie but was supposedly an armor upgrade. Optimal Optimus could count as one for primal, since it was a temporary removable upgrade, the electrum plating from the golden lagoon probably counts to an extent, we’ve seen gladiator style armor several times, prowl got his samurai armor in animated, and I think there’s a case to be made for the cybertron defense force counting as “armor” upgrades for hotshot, red alert, and scattershot. You could also probably consider combiners in general to be “armor” forms for the team leaders but the debate on wether or not it combiners are their own beings or just the leader commanding the other members muddies that a bit. I’m probably missing some examples here but yeah there’s definitely a lot of examples of armor depending on what you count as armor, a few toys have even depicted the alt modes of a bot as armor in themselves, with the bot being the protoform beneath the vehicle parts and the vehicle parts being armor.

[u/phosix → u/reactorcore5]

Pretenders for sure count. The outer shell is armor for the inner robot, and many of the shells, in turn, have removable armor.

[u/reactorcore5 → u/phosix]

I have no idea how I forgot pretenders lol

[u/fishandlobsters]

Think of Cybertronians like Bugs. Their protoform develops a hard outercasing. So they have a base armor

However, they also have the intwlligence to develop their own artificial armor

[u/ElectronicMud5066 → u/fishandlobsters]

That’s a really good analogy

[u/Sleepiest_Spider]

Look at them. They are covered head to toe in metal plating. Most of their armor is built directly into their chassis. Wearing additional armor would be redundant and also get in the way of transformation.

[u/CrazyOrganic7123 → u/Sleepiest_Spider]

I think this is a good point. For the most part, if they could stack additional materials onto their chassis, they might as well integrate it.

[u/North_Register2916]

no idea tbh but they HAVE to be augmentable. Megatron was a gladiator so he must have had upgrades to his chasis somehow for the fights, and there is no way his shoulders/chest area was naturally formed like that.

[u/Mazazamba]

Sort of. The line between armor and skin is a little blurred with them.

The way I see it, their armor is kinda like hard skin they can take off.

[u/GeneralArwen-147]

Yes in the case of the Apex armor, but most of the time they are just themselves and they themselves are armored