Since combiner wars is just about wrapping up, thought this thread would be fitting. Post your favorite and least favorite figures.

 

Worst: Brawl.
Best: As an individual, I'd say Sky Lynx. Shuttle mode is undercarriage-y, but he still has two (three if you consider his lynx fan-mode) excellent modes and is just a lot of fun. Onslaught's probably second place. He's such an amazing G1 update. And then Rook in third. So much fun.

 

I have a lot of Faves but these guys top the list.

There haven't been too many "worsts" but Sunstreaker/Breakdown qualifies.

 

Favorite limb-bot: One of the Rook molds - maybe UW Nosecone? Love the bulk and rollerskate mode
Favorite torso-bot: Onslaught, hands down.

Least favorite limb-bot: Breakdown, probably. Dragstrip is my runner up.
Least favorite torso-bot: Optimus Prime. Hate the combined mode legs.

 

Brawl is the doodoo on a stick for me as far as CW deluxes go. I've come close several times to just gluing that dude together into permanent limb mode since he just crumbles whenever he's slightly jostled. Next thing that irritates me most after Brawl in the CW line is "ratchet joint tooth spacing". Not so much a bot as it is an "itis" that seems to affect every CW bot with a ratchet involved.
Of all the other bots in the line, I find myself really enjoying all the jets as well as the Rook mold bots.

 

My top 5 woulg goes like this:

1 -Scrapper.



2 - This mold.



3 - Swindle.



4 - Air Raid.



5 - "Ghost" Starscream.





Other like Vortex or Hook are not far away... And I'm sure some Technobots or some Breastforce could be in ma favs, but I don't have them yet. So yeah, my 5 major.

Also, if we cheat.

 

Best limb: Alphonse Braveaux
I think this mold captured everything the CW architecture was intended to do, it looks the best in robot mode of the whole lot. I grew extremely tired of it by the end of the line though.

Best Torso: Skylynx.
It's not the most dynamic Voyager class figure that we've ever gotten, it has cost-cutting written all over it...but it's different, quirky and interesting. The torso mode is the best by a good margin in my opinion.

Worst Torso: The white Optimus Prime
a tacky repaint of a pre-tool of a fairly weak mold.

Worst Limb: Smokescreen.
Yes, I'm betraying my favorite G1 dude...and yes, the mold is a pretty solid one...but it was such a low-effort repaint. Had they molded a smooth roof at least or made it look like a racing car in any way at all, I wouldn't be so bitter.

 

Best: Armada Megatron

Worst: As much as it pains me, Legends Groove.

Overrated: Dead End mold. It's okay but it doesn't really do anything fantastic to wow me.

 

Best Limb: Blue Bluestreak (the Dead End mold in general)

Best Torso: Motormaster

Worst Limb: Brawl

Worst Torso: Hot Spot

 

I like a lot of the CW figures, but my all-time absolute favorite has to be G2 Motormaster. I love everything about it.

 

Best Limb: Tie between Prowl and Swindle

Best Torso: Right now Onslaught (that might change when I get Sky Lynx)

Worst Limb: Blast Off, the lack of any similarity between him and the G1 version stinks

Worst Torso: Optimus Prime

 

Worst figure is easy. Hello Brawl. Thank goodness he makes a decent leg. His robot mode is as bad as you've heard. His tank is functional but disappointing. There's absolutely no reason his turret doesn't rotate. None. Nothing else I've got at the deluxe scale is as bad as he is. Runner up is the Optimus/Motermaster mold. I've watched review after review and read post after post about it. I didn't buy him because I had no reason to. At the legends scale? Powerglide is a failure in 2 of his 3 modes. His gun mode is a mess and not very useable by most of the gestalts, and his jet mode is kinda a flop. But he's a decent robot mode at least.

Best? I'm surprised to say it, but at the deluxe level it's either Rook or Alpha Bravo. Alpha Bravo is a heck of a figure with a good altmode, good robot, and good limb. Total package. His repaints are all good too. Rook is the missing Protectobot. He's an example of where the idea of new team members actually worked. He's a great arm/leg, robot, and vehicle. His remolds are "ok". As Swindle he's a bit too beefy, as Hound he mostly works. But he is really great as Rook. I seriously considered army building him.

At the voyager scale I think it's Onslaught. Yeah his vehicle mode is a bit weird, but his torso mode and robot mode are awesome even with their short falls. And his detailing is awesome. Runner up for me is Silverbolt. Arguably the best torso and a good robot mode. His vehicle mode has the usual shortfalls for Silverbolt.

At the legends scale I really like Groove. He's a lanky weird robot, but his alt mode is at least close to scale with his team and he interacts well with his gestalt. The Protectobots is one of the few teams where I actually buy the idea of a six man team and it's because of how well he works.

Worst Gestalt is Menasor.

Best is Bruticus.

 

of what i've actually got on hand (still awaiting UW Computron and Bruticus)

Best:
UW Scrapper and Bonecrusher: just pure, upgraded G1 awesomeness.
Streetwise and First-Aid. Improved Re-shells of their already solid Stunticon fore-bearers with fantastic head sculpts, nice updates of their OG versions.
Drag Strip. Nicely different then most of the other 4 wheel limb molds.
UW Scattershot. Takes the already best torso mode and improves on the plane over a box alt mode Silverbolt suffers from and the "lame red Superion" torso mode CW Scattershot suffers from.

Worst:
The Helicopter mold. Fine enough for the blank slate that was Alpha Bravo, but just a terrible alt-mode fit for either Vortex or Blades: a "altered enough to avoid licensing issues" Blackhawk would have been a MUCH better fit for both characters and already exists as both military and rescue/Coast guard variants and provided the mass for a beefier limb, the current mold makes a solid arm but a weak leg.
Skydive: his arms are just hanging there in alt mode. at least the Air Raid variant tries to hide them a bit.
Long Haul: in every way that Bonecrusher and Scrapper are awesome, he's not. Just too compromised for the combined mode.

I don't have anything particularly AGAINST Onslaught, but have to knock him down below Hot Spot for being such a low effort repaint/remold. New, accurate guns and actually doing some work to his vehicle mode to make him NOT look like a firetruck going in reverse with a giant robot head in the middle and we could talk, but as-is Hot Spot rolls circles around him.

 

My favorite mold was Blackjack.

Least favorite is the Breakdown mold.

 

Least favorite Off-road
Favorite deadend

 

Worst thing about cw in general is the crappy ratchet joints. The loose hips that make your dude keep falling over are the ones that really piss me off, especially on cool molds like sky lynx . There's YouTube fixes, but damnit.

 

Worst - Breakdown/Sunstreaker. I'm torn on this one since it's just not that great a toy toy wise, with a number of compromises and issues I think could have been avoided with slightly smarter kibble management, but I love the alt. mode and the look of robot mode. But his inexplicably dumb crotch...joint doesn't seem to do anything but make anything to do with posing more difficult.

Honorary Worst: Brawl. I actually don't have nearly as much problem with this mold as others do for some reason - to me, the biggest design flaws are his arms being impossibly stubby with the elbows all in the wrong positions for no reason when a straight adaption of the G1 toy's arms with some fold out elbows and hands would have been ideal. Then he could hold his HFG and bend his elbow at the same time. And while it compromises the lock in the waist, he just looks so much more filled out if he's slightly mistransformed to have the combination strut filling his chest as opposed to the weird void on the official transformation.

Best - Swindle. Absolutely dead on update and I got lucky enough to get one featuring the secret joint from the Hound retool. This undocumented hinge allows for the gun to be shoulder mounted, which looks GREAT for Swindle even if it's ripping off Hound's look in the process.

Personal second best: Blast-Off. This toy caused a war in the fandom by being a straight Slingshot repaint but my god the rich colors more than make up for no spaceship mode.

Actually, there's strong evidence it was meant to be secretly Nova Prime from the TF Devestation game - same colors for the most part, only difference is in-game he uses Motormaster's chest instead of the Optimus Windowbra. That's at least the background for why I keep a Battle Core (found dirt cheap at a TJ Maxx, god bless that store) MISB in the back of my Classics Autobots.

 

Best Combiner: Bruticus

Worst Combiner: Menasor

Best Limb: Deadend mold

Worst Limb:Brawl mold

Best Legend: Bombshell

Worst Legend: Pipes

 

In terms of molds, the Dead End mold was my favorite due to his fun transformation and solid modes, and the Motormaster mold was my least favorite because of his poor proportions and bad stability.

 

Of the one's I have (all CW):

Best: Hot Spot
Best not taking into account combining ability: Motormaster

Worst: ummm, I like them all, but I'll say Air Raid

Best Combiner: Devastator
Worst Combiner: again, I like them all, but I'll say Menasor