Have any of the individual bots been released yet? I'm kinda late to the party. I have not decided on which Bruticus I want yet. Been thinking about going for this guy. I enjoy the Ocular Max line (and it's also a big bonus that their releases are so affordable!).

 

No, not even up for pre-order yet, and at least several months away.

 

I think that when it comes to scale with combiners, one should look at what the function it has within the team. I thought about this. To make a combiner look in a certain may, I would say leg bots should be taller than arm bots, but not bigger than torso+upper leg bots. Given the creativity of the engineering team, this could also be applied to alt mode. Of course, if a designer wants has a different, less "perfect human" proportion in mind, it could scale all bots the same size like what is the current trend.

This way, one actually could pull off somewhat of a real life looking alt mode scale within a team. In case of Bruticus, making a huge Blast Off and smaller other bots/vehicles could work, but then Blast Off would have to be the torso. I would not mind such an approach. Could be interesting.

In case of the Stunticons, like how TFF made them, the alt modes of the sport cars look good, but the race car looks out of place and all of them compared to MM are too big. I said this before in its corresponding thread, if their MM was bigger then you would have a better looking team scale wise and a bot with better proportioned upper legs in my opinion.

I also believe that for the sake of a good looking gestalt it would be wise not to scale your torso bot with MP-10 or any bot else. Make it its own size to fit what is needed for the gestalt best.

 

I have Armageddon, just stay away from it! Ragnaros is quite good but it has QC and design issues... Mine is alright but I don't touch it!

 

Cons

It's very top heavy, he stands ok, but don't expect him to be in very dinamic poses!

1- The leg connections suck, they are prone to disengage from the leg bots quite easy (Swindle is the main offender) and they tend to have stress marks due to the force needed to move the joints.

2- The connection of the arm bots to the main body is not very good, the post tends to pop out from the port every time you move the rotational joint. The arm bots' legs / hips don't lock into place in arm mode very well, so you will have some play near the combiner's elbow.

3- It's a pantsformer... No, it's a pants & torso former!

4- The individual Combaticons are not very good either...

Pros

1- It's cheap, but you get what you pay for...

2- The alt-modes are top notch!

3- The combined mode is big and looks good, but that’s it...

I hope it helps!

 

If Ragnaros was a bit bigger, so that its current arms were in proportion instead of looking like enormous gorilla arms, I might not be keeping an eye out for a new Bruitcus.

 

And if UT released revised parts to fix the stuff that reportedly breaks easily on their Combaticons like Blitzkrieg's waist swivel and the weirdly textured plastic of the upper thighs on a couple of them. Low quality and terrible customer service. At least MMC can beat Ragnaros pretty easily just by using quality materials and being diligent with their quality control process. I don't ever mess with mine, they're just A-stanced on a shelf until a better set of Combaticons comes along. Kind of a shame, the set is kind of decent design-wise and I like their size (not as big as Zeta's), they just dropped the ball on quality and customer service so gotta be careful with them until eventually something better comes out.

 

They can beat UT on quality, but will they? I have Mirage, Inferno, Hoist, Artfire, and yellow Trailbreaker from their OX line and it's like quality has gone steadily downhill.

 

I like his big arms, they make him look powerful!

By the way, I hope MMC revisit Vortex's knee design again, in arm mode, the friction knee joints are no locked in place, I don't like that, I want all of the important combiner joints to be ratchets!

 

I didn't have problems with any of those MMC creations. Was I the only one?

 

You've had no problems with Ocular Max Artifex? It transforms properly and everything?

... Are you selling?

 

Mirage was mostly fine. Inferno had some fit and finish issues. Artfire was much the same. Hoist took those fit and finish issues to a new level. Yellow TB was a mess.

If all of yours are good, grats. You got lucky.

 

correct, no problems with Artifex.

 

Nobody said it was impossible (at least not in a literal way). A lot of us said it wouldn't work well and typically never has. We still have yet to see proof that it works well. The thighs and shoulders will be two of the biggest telltale points, depending on how they turn out. Feet too, perhaps. Also keep in mind that we assumed Assaultus would be around 50cm tall like Constructor, but he is 40-45cm tall (I'm not sure if MMC have confirmed an exact height yet).

Please keep in mind that BIOMEC is heavily biased against Zeta (or at least their Combaticons), despite owning them all. He's been very vocally against them this whole time, and exaggerates the problems of the combined mode. I'm really not sure why but he seems to be the most vocal voice against them.
Armageddon does have some issues, but they're nowhere near as bad as he says. At least they don't break like UT Onslaught's hips (which are sometimes broken in the box).

Personally, as someone who was against them for a while and still has many criticisms of them despite now owning them, I love the set. It's also the only Combaticon set so far that actually scales properly (and Assaultus is going to be the same size or smaller than UT Ragnaros). Still, I'm quite interested in Assaultus regardless, provided MMC don't screw it up somehow.

 

It looks so nice!!! I can't wait to see how it transforms!

 

Source?

He looks decent but those feet don't look amazing, the chest looks patchy, and... he looks pretty small.

I'm still at least interested in this set, but that's about it for now.

 

Nice! I love the shade of yellow-beige and purple and how you can see his chest tapering down from his shoulders to waist.