The movie continuity gave us different styles of sub-grouping between the factions. The Autobots it more of a team based thing with a small set of individuals. Twins- Skids and Mudflap Wreckers- Leadfoot, Roadbuster, Topspin The Decepticons its more of masses of clones. Constructicons Dreads There are also those with classified functions. Guardian- Bumblebee as protector of Sam. Seeker- Oldest Decepticons given the mission to search for the Matrix of Leadership like Jetfire. Devastator and Arcee sisters are a different thing as both have multiple components but a single consciousness.
I like the Constructicons the most, even though I didn't like the clones and Devastator problems. The Constructicons are just my all-time favorite Transformers characters. The Wreckers were pretty damn cool too
If they count I like Brains and Wheelie the best. But if thet don't then I liked the dreads the most especially Hatchet
I always saw the Autobots [on this continuity, at least] more as a formal army and more group-based, and in the groups, everyone has a job to do, you know, more like real-life armies [with Captain, Lt., Colonel, Medic, heavy-weapons specialist, Pilot, etcetera], with countless branches, groups and ranks, a more mutual army. The Decepticons, on the other hand, are like a rebellious militia: Lacking organization, their ranks are in a more pyramid-esque way: From lowest to highest [instead of group based], more simplistic. Following as [from lowest to highest]: - Common Soldiers [I.e Drones] - Stronger Soldiers [I.e Barricade, Bonecrusher, The Dreads]. - Strongest soldiers [Shockwave, Starscream, Soundwave, Blackout, e.t.c]. - Megatron. - The Fallen. Additionals: Minicons.
I saw it this way. Prime's team came with him as protoforms (they never had a ship, did they?) and was a ragtag group of his last surviving soldiers, so they were each specialists (commander, lieutenant, heavy weapons, medic, and a frontline soldier) who had proven themselves in previous battle. Likewise, Starscream's team was an elite unit of heavy hitting soldiers with a recon/infiltration attachment (Barricade and Frenzy). They were probably his handpicked elite aboard the Nemesis. The new bots in the second film were the Xantium crew, albeit without a new commander. We know that the Wreckers came with that ship and were kept working on it, so we can probably assume that Mirage and Wheeljack came with it but were not on operational duty yet during the events of ROTF. So that accounts for the varying classes - Sideswipe and Mirage were frontline soldier types like Bumblebee, the bike sisters seemed to be infiltration units, Jolt and Wheeljack seemed like scientific staff, the Wreckers were construction/engineers and the Twins were young soldier recruits. Whereas the cons in ROTF and DOTM consisted of the bulk of the Nemesis crew, or whichever protoforms were of "adult" age when the Nemesis landed/crashed on Mars. Those we saw in DOTM were most likely the majority of the Nemesis crew, having transported themselves from Mars to the moon to lie in wait for Megatron's signal. Most of these types were either construction/engineers (Constructicons), or soldiers (with a mix of heavy troops and infiltration units). The fact that they were mainly protoforms is just because most of them were being deployed to Earth for the very first time in the series. The Con ranks seem more divided into battle and construction troops and then subdivided by size class. Then of course you have the scrap drones like Wheelie and Brains at the very low end of the deck. The Dreads of course seem to be a crack unit, a black ops or assassination squad, which fits their packaging description. They would have emanated from the Nemesis too. And of course the Seekers are another class of infiltrators who had been around longer than the Nemesis crew and as such had different ranks and sizes etc. So it comes down to there being more Con survivors of the war, and thus a more coherent militia for them in terms of rank and type, whereas the Bots were ragtag survivors and starship refugees.
Decepticon Beast Bots: Scorponok Ravage Laserbeak Special mention again to Laserbeak for being the most effective 'Con.
The Nemesis didn't crash on Mars. Starscream's team landed on Mars finding the Beagle 2. They didn't know Soundwave was already on Earth and about the Seekers.
