I own two Stomps. I just don't get the fervent love. I think he is good, fine, whatever. He is just Sludge by the numbers. Sometimes I don't think FTs really captures the spirit of the character. I just think it's well executed but lacks the art.

 

Interesting. To me the Dibots - and not only lookwise - are EXACTLY those characters I loved the most from the cartoon. When I pose them it's like I can hear them talk to each other in their G1 cavemen voices. Stomp somehow evokes that nostalgia even more than the others - even though Sludge never has been my favourite character of the 5. I really think that the Dibots capture the essence of the characters and that's what makes them pieces of art to me. Plus Stomp is one of the 3P figures to be built even better than an official toy.
KFC Crash Hog almost gives me the same feelings. That's why I appreciate him so much.

 

For now, here are my candidates based on what I own:

Cloud 9's Quakeblast
Early 2016 so this guy seems to have been forgotten. People can say whatever they want, but his paint and menacing look is why I chose him over any other offering.

FansToys' Willis
May be my pick for best 3rd party figure of the year based on being the best quality feeling car-bot I've ever handled. Really embodies the G1 character with great add-ons. It's one of those figures that I think the official Masterpiece line cannot do any better.

KFC's Crash Hog
The best figure of the year when it comes to the translation from cartoon to toy. I am still amazed to see how great both modes look.

KFC's Opticlones
Not perfect, but great looking bot modes and (IMO) the best looking Reflector out with the better set of accessories.

X-Transbots' Arkose
Again, not perfect, but he captures the look from the G1 cartoon so well.

FansToys' Mercenary & Forager
Did I ever forget these guys. The last 2 members of the best set of Insecticons figures out. For FansToys, these guys are a bit more on the sensitive side when it comes to some parts, but the look and "brick" feel to each one of them has to be praised.

BadCube's Sunsurge
Another one I forgot about. Say what you want about the transformation, but BadCube did a great job making his car mode switch to a nicely modeled G1 toon Sunstreaker. Great accessories with nice optional chrome parts.

 

I'm going to have to update my previous list. All of these were game-changing in some way this year:

MMC Carnifex - just an all around fantastic 3P product - quality materials, design, etc - sets the bar going forward for large 3P bots
MakeToys Striker Manus - finally a dynamic, well-articulated Optimus Prime, though IDW in design style. The Cross Dimension line fills an important niche for those who value dynamic posability and hopefully brings some engineering lessons that can be applied to future MP-scale products
MakeToys Pandinus - a massive citybot done right. super posable, strong materials, etc
Cloud9 Quakeblast - high quality Shockwave at a low price - one of the first 3P products to demonstrate just how over-priced other offerings are when they can deliver high quality at practically half the price
Iron Factory EX18 Lord Scorpion - best Legends-class figure, period. No other company producing figures in this scale comes close to IF for materials, design, and overall thoughtfulness
MMC/OcularMax Sphinx - Showed that 3P can do MP carbots just as good as Takara, if not better
MMC/OcularMax Jaguar - Finally a fun, posable Ravage and it actually still scales very well with MP Soundwave thanks to the cartoon's mass shifting when Ravage is in jaguar mode!
GT J4ZZ - Another example of a high-quality MP carbot, this time in IDW form
BB7/YM MP-11SW Skywarp KO - better quality than the official MP Takara Skywarp at less than half the price. This is KO done right.
WeiJiang MPP-10 - over-sized Optimius Prime. This is KO over-sized done right.

 

WeiJiang MPP-10
WeiJiand M-01

 

Won't know til we have him in hand, but if Sovereign is half as good as the reviews so far say he is...

 

The only correct answer is Maketoys Pandinus, but with its price and size it's not a surprise that it will be passed on. 2nd place is MMC Carnifex

 

Mp-10v the voyager prime we have all waited for since 1984!

 

For me:

1) crash hog
2) ToyWorld constructor
3) forager
4) stomp
5) FT mercenary

 

Yeah that's how I feel about Soar. Probably top 5 transformers ever for me. Except no toy face....

 

I totally forgot about FansToys Insecticons. Editing list now.

 

I collect mainly autobots but my pick for figure of the year would be Despotron. He was made to go with MP10.

 

Gigapower Grassor.
This is the way Transformers are supposed to be.