honestly, they were a total disappointment to me. Right off the bat Barricade broke out of the box, had to get another. Individually I like them, however their combined modes are pure crap. They look good, just like their G1 counterparts, as display figures, however as actionfigures their combined modes suck. It is almost impossible to get them to stand decently. They fall over on me all the time. I have the japanese Giftsets as well as the american version. I got the giftsets 1st as I thought they were cool, however once I got the US versions and cracked them open i was like, Damn, I should have just stuck with the giftsets and left them MISB.

 

Honestly, the only issues I have with them are:

1) Superion's waist... the peg never stays in place. He just flops around a lot.

2) Superion's Non-A-10 Warthog arms... they little red and black jets have MAJOR issues with the energon bits. They never stay locked in place with those little pegs and support flaps. They just pop right off or don't fit depending on the angle of the robot legs. Always drove me batty.

I love them, I do, but they could use a bit of work, especially in comparison to the engineering we have now.

 

I say again...  

 

just needed proper hands.

didnt get devy because of gimp shoulder kibble.

 

Oh I know which ones we are talking about, I was hoping people would share their pics of them...what makes them so great/not great. Seeing them integrated into people's collections and all.

 

The combined modes are mediocre. As individual robots they work better. The Blight, Barricade, Sledge molds are pretty fun to tinker with. Steamhammer, and the Skyshadow molds aren't too bad.

 

I did bruticus and superion but constructicon was a let down

 

I still like them alot. The only thing that still bugs me to this day is that damn loose chest peg on Stormjet.

 

I never bought any complete sets of them. I also didnt like the repainted limbs idea, so I decided to just make a Frankensteiner. Barricade body, both constructicons (green crane and yellow sledge), the (purple) helicopter, and the (red) a-10. I wanted the tank and the jet too, so that I could mix and match and see what I liked best, and now that we're getting a Devestator repaint I want those 2 even more (because Bruticus with constructicon parts and Devestator as a full constructicon isnt gonna jive).

But to answer your question, yes I like them. I think that all of the limbs make for very good basic sized figures in robot mode, and the vehicle modes arent bad either for the most part. The torsos make good but not great deluxes. I like the gestalts even if they arent perfect. They're large and intimdating and they're more aritculate than their G1 counterparts, so as far as I'm concerned they accomplished what they set out to be

 

Only complete combiner I got was C. Maximus. He was pretty good but I still wanted to get the the last 2 limbs for Bruticus. Never got Superion but still want it too. Gotta say I love combiners  

 

heres mine and how I like them setup. Sky Shadow is missing off Superion Maximus, hope to get another soon.

 

After having seen them again up close in my brothers collection over Christmas I'm still glad I never bought into these. Some of the individual limbs are not bad but the combined gestalts as a whole are meh at best in my opinion.

Quite franky this is the one aria they really havint done well at since G1 which is weird considering how far TF's have come since then. I love my G1 gestalts but ever since just a string of disappointments.

 

I love all of the individual Energon combiner robots... except Stormjet, who is a bit weak. As basic and deluxe sized TFs, I think all the other molds are really cool, and have some great robot modes.

HOWEVER... as combiners... whoa... problems!

-no hands!
-9 molds spread across 15 robots? Weak!
-some of these guys make REALLY lousy limbs (I'm lookin' at you, little jets!)
-over-dependence on energon kibble for "hands" and feet

Grrrr. Fortunately, there are some fan-modes and fan-mods that can improve these combiners a bit... but it still doesn't change the fact that they kind of dropped the ball on these figures. They could have been much better.

The old-style scramble-city foot-panels would have improved the feet. if designed properly, they could have been cool shields for the smaller robots. Fists also could have been incorporated. Imagine if the tank guys had racks of missle-tubes that folded into blocky fists (taking a cue from that Armada Firebot minicon). The energon weapons/hands/feet we got were pretty bad I think.

Anyway, in the interests of sharing pics, here's my current take on ol' Bruticus Maximus. I generally find that these combiners look better symmetrical... if you're gonna use repaints after all, might as well go for that symmetrical look.



zmog

 

Sigh... Two years later, and my Superion and Bruticus still aren't complete... I did finish Constructicon Maximus, and I like him (that doesn't mean I'm buying the Classics Devastator repaint, though). In regards to his shoulder kibble, the piece attached to Steamhammer is annoying, but Sledge/Bonecrusher's scoop folds in nicely for armor on both sides..

I find that the combiners are better when you use the alternate transformations for the limbs. Constructicon Maximus is improved quite a bit when you give him elbows. Duststorm/Wideload is kinda cool with a clamp hand made from the truck cab and the crane arm as an auxiliary weapon of sorts. Unfortunately, I don't have pics as my combiners are at home while I'm at school.

Speaking of alternate transformations, aren't there a few for Bruticus and Superion's arms?

And for the record, I like the hands (at least on the Decepticons). Constructicon Maximus has this "engine of destruction" vibe with the claws, and Bruticus is all about his gun fingers.

 

You ever try the "giant shoulderpad, crane hand" method instead? After toying with the clamp-hand, I wanted to do something more relevant with the crane itself, but not as Hasbro had it. I folded up Duststorm's body (probably only works as Const Max's right hand, due to the shovel on his left) into a ball and left the crane arm fully extended and with the blue Energon claw attached, and it looked decent.

I've also tried leaving Steamhammer's shovel arm untransformed, such that it removed the need for a fourth combiner limb. It's just long and thick enough to work, especially with the other arm being the alternate mode I mentioned.

 

I jumped the gun on my combiners and I just got two of whatever the first limb bots were for each team. So my Superion has two black jets, and two red warthogs, etc. I can't decide if I like the more unified looking schemes or the ones with the 4 different limbs.