With the recent leaked info about the Aerialbots getting new toys in 2025, I wanted to look at the various Scramble City characters we got about ten years ago (wow, time sure flies) and the ways I feel like the previous releases could stand to be improved. They definitely got there with almost all of the Stunticons, so I think this is a realistic ask.

We can talk about the Protectobots later, perhaps, but for now I'm just focusing on the members of the two teams who actually appeared in retail listings.

AERIALBOTS

AIR RAID: I would love it if the next Air Raid more closely resembled an F-15 Eagle. But, the last version they did honestly wasn't that bad. The head sculpt was good, and they got reasonably close to his robot mode design and colors.

ALPHA BRAVO: Should not exist.

FIREFLIGHT: The Combiner Wars toy had a toy sculpted to resemble the G1 toy's head, so he had sort of a Nautilator mask instead of the happy-looking face he got in the cartoon. I'd also love it if he came closer to resembling his original F4 Phantom jet mode.

SILVERBOLT: The Combiner Wars release had a LOT of undercarriage junk under his fuselage and wings. I almost wonder if they could think outisde the box a little, like what they did with Legacy Motormaster, and have a good chunk of that real estate detach so he ends up with a cleaner jet mode, and the other chunk could turn into a weapons platform or something. Also, Superion's legs are identical to each other in the cartoon eexcept for the styling of the jet parts on the back, so a framework that at least partially made up Superion's body wouldn't be entirely out of place.

SKYDIVE: If they could get him closer to something resembling an F-16 Falcon, I would be happy. Also, the new version really needs the lightning bolt designs on his wings, since that's a pretty disinctive aspect of his vehicle appearance. Also, his robot mode in the cartoon has rounded curvature for his forearms, and distinctive trapezius "muscles," but those are less important to me.

SLINGSHOT: The Combiner Wars version (marketed as "Quickslinger" for trademark reasons) was a redeco of Fireflight with a different head. They gave him blue eyes, when actually in the cartoon he had an all-orange face, eyes included.

SUPERION: I didn't have any major qualms with the Combiner Wars Superion design, though the hinge on the Superion head was extremely fragile on early releases. Obviously, the new toy will have all-new engineering, but this is a specific mistake I hope they learn from. I'd also like to see the jet parts end up on the back of Superion's legs instead of the fronts, to be more screen-accurate. Finally, I would love for him to have an arm cannon like he's got in the show. However, there's virtually zero way to reconcile the fact that the two characters who form the arms (Air Raid and Skydive) and the two characters who form the legs (Slingshot and Fireflight) inexplicably swap colors when combining into Superion mode. There's no getting around that whatsoever!

COMBATICONS

BLAST OFF: The Hasbro version we got was a Slingshot redeco, and Blast Off absolutely needs to be a space shuttle, not a jet. (The redesigned Takara version ended up being a bit better, but it still had its flaws.) There are a lot of contentions about Blast Off's cartoon design that probably cannot be realized as a toy... specifically, his rear thrusters appear to form his feet, and his shuttle nose cone somehow splits into his chest plate as well as both his arms. I don't expect this to happen, but I would love it if his new toy at least had styling that suggested this (i.e., feet shaped like thrusters).

BRAWL: I feel like Brawl was actually one of the better toys to come out of Combiner Wars, though his pelvis never really locked together correctly. I do want to see some of those cartoon details like a red mask, orange eyes, and those tiny little turret guns mounted to either side of his chest in robot mode.

ONSLAUGHT: The Combiner Wars toy was just the Hot Spot toy facing backwards, and it wasn't that good. In the G1 cartoon, Onslaught's robot styling suggested that his chest formed the roof of his vehicle mode and his pelvis formed the front grill, even though they didn't animate him transforming this way. I still want to see this kind of styling on a new toy, with little headlights and such on his pelvis. And, needless to say, a vehicle mode more closely resembling his G1 form would be amazing. I'm not sure how they would address the required bulk, since it wouldn't make a lot of sense for only part of the Onslaught vehicle to transform into the robot mode, the way they designed Legacy Motormaster.

SWINDLE: I would say Swindle is the character I most want to see redone from Combiner Wars. His cartoon design had absolutely nothing to do with his G1 toy... in the cartoon he was realized as a Willy Jeep, and they completely invented a transformation in which the windshield formed his chest and the front grill formed his pelvis. Even if the new toy doesn't accomplish this specific transformation, I really want him to have styling that matches the robot design. He can have a big backpack full of Jeep parts, but I still want to see a faux windshield chest.

VORTEX: The Combiner Wars toy was way too colorful, a seeming result of somebody trying to liven up his boring grey look with colors inspired by the G1 toy stickers. But, he had way too much yellow and red and purple on him. The character really was almost entirely grey in the cartoon, with just a touch of teal.

BRUTICUS: The combined mode was patterned closely after the look of the G1 toy, which meant he had an all-silver chest shield. In the cartoon, Blast Off's wings actually detached to form the Bruticus chest, so the wings were colored brown and purple, like the rest of Blast Off. A new toy doesn't necessarity need to include that piece of functionality, specifically, but the colors should at least match more closely.

Zob (it's almost like Hasbro saw that I was spending no money on them in 2024 and went, "Hmm, let's see what we can do about that...")

I think one of the major flaws in Combiner Wars, and with the whole Prime Wars trilogy was it's heavy focus on interconnectivity, such as all the Combiner limbs being interchangeable or all the Titan Masters being interchangeable.

The Combiner limbs being interchangeable was probably the reason why they were all the same 5 molds over and over again.

So I really hope they don't try mass interconnectivity again

Swivelbot (my display name now being Swivebot still really bothers me)

The CW bots were fun but cheap. I'd like to see them become mini-Masterpieces, with better plastic quality, more heft, more accurate sculpts, and better paint applications. Bots worthy of display, in other words. The CW toys are great deskbots for fiddling; now it's time to bring the quality.

I loved Combiner Wars. It was one of the most fun toylines, with the mix and match play pattern, and nearly every toy being at least decent as a toy.

There were a lot of redecos, but if you skip all the toys that weren't part of a traditional combiner, it's a lot less.

I won't defend using the same mold for Wild Ride and Dead End, and two of the Aerialbots, or making Blast Off a jet. I think they would have at least done some remolding to separate the duplicate Stunticons and Aerielbots if they were to attempt it today.

Swindle... I like Swindle, but if they are going to take this many liberties with the design, then they should have done the same with the other Combaticons, or just made Swindle a normal jeep.

What I would really want for new Combaticons or Aerialbots -- or really any new Combiners -- is interoperability with Combiner Wars. Give them the same connectors, and give them the right dimensions. If they then plug into some frame like Legacy Menasaur for cartoon accuracy, sure, whatever.

I was delighted with Power Of The Primes revisiting the Combiner Wars style, I just wish it wasn't such an aborted mess of a toyline. But, it gave me Hunn-Grr and her litter of Sinnertwins, with Baby Daddy Weirdwolf hanging out from the last toyline, so it certainly wasn't all bad.

And, rather than the Aerialbots, I'd prefer them to do another pass at the Seacons, but actually designing the toys to be those characters rather than the weird remolding with massive backpacks and stuff that they did. Or the Technobots. Or Monstructor. Or Predaking (claim he is in scale with Core class...).

Combiner Wars will have its 10th anniversary in a few years, so it could happen! Add in some reissues of the main teams.

And maybe a random Stunticon, Aerialbot and Combaticon to fix the problems with Combiner Wars.

I loved the interoperability aspect of CW, but my money is on Hasbro forcing us to buy whole new sets all over again, rather than potentially just upgrading one or two bots. For example, all else being equal, I'd only upgrade Slingshot and Sky Dive, but I'm happy with the other Aerialbots.

Swivelbot (not Swivebot!) wrote:

> I think one of the major flaws in
> The Combiner limbs being interchangeable was probably the reason why they were all the same 5 molds over and over again. So I really hope they don't try mass interconnectivity again.

I don't think that's the direction they're going in. I seen to remember when the Legacy Stunticon were being developed, Hasbro said something about how they wanted to do teams that could only combine with other members of the same team. So I think it's likely that sets like Legacy Menasor will become the rule, and not the exception.

Zob (I mean, it was good enough for Devastator and Predaking...)

GustavoWombat wrote:

> There were a lot of redecos, but if you skip all the toys that weren't part of a traditional combiner, it's a lot less.

I can't think of Combiner Wars without thinking of the redeco fatigue. Some of those toys, they were having us buy five or six times. That's a lot.

But, I still feel like it was one of the best toy lines of the modern age. It was a precursor to what we got for Siege, and a real effort to finally dig into the cast of G1 and give us something other than Optimus and Starscream and Bumblebee and Megatron over and over.

> I was delighted with Power Of The Primes revisiting the Combiner Wars style, I just wish it wasn't such an aborted mess of a toyline. But, it gave me Hunn-Grr and her litter of Sinnertwins, with Baby Daddy Weirdwolf hanging out from the last toyline, so it certainly wasn't all bad.

I have no idea what happened with Power of the Primes, but I can practically guarantee that what they actually ended up doing probably was not the original plan. That toy line was all over the place.

> And, rather than the Aerialbots, I'd prefer them to do another pass at the Seacons, but actually designing the toys to be those characters rather than the weird remolding with massive backpacks and stuff that they did. Or the Technobots. Or Monstructor. Or Predaking (claim he is in scale with Core class...).

Five of the Seacons were acceptable, but they weren't great. And Snaptrap is honestly one of the worst official Transformers toys to come from Takara or Hasbro in a really long time. He was just unacceptably bad.

I'm all for Monstructor finally being addressed in some shape or form. It needs to happen. Pretender shells, no Pretender shells, whatever it takes. At least make the attempt. If they're bad, we can clamor for a do-over!

The Technobots I'm kind of undecided on. We got a Hasbro attempt, a different Takara attempt, and in choosing between them I found myself asking which versions I objected to the least. (The Takara versions usually won.) How many times do you think they would be willing to address those characters until they finally got 'em right? Are the Technobots important enough to warrant a third set of toys in their likeness?

The good thing about redoing the Aerialbots, at least in Hasbro's mind, is that they know they can sell the toys to us a second time in G2 colors. Same with the Combaticons. Same with the Protectobots, really, if they want to use the unreleased colors. The Technobots don't really have a built-in redeco version, so I think they would be less profitable.

Zob (unless they did Shattered Glass Technobots or something, but that's just stupid)

Zobovor wrote:

> We can talk about the Protectobots later

Okay, it's later!

PROTECTOBOTS

BLADES: The helicopter toy they used for Combiner Wars was weirdly skinny, so Blades also ended up being weirdly skinny. His helicopter mode was also pretty much all red, which looks less like a rescue chopper than his G1 color scheme (white with red nose and tail). I wouldn't hate it if some of his distinctive design elements were retained, like the guns on his legs or the way the helicopter blades form a "V" on his back.

FIRST AID: Along with Swindle, I think First Aid is the other Combiner Wars toy I most want to see redone. His 2015 toy was completely the wrong shape of vehicle; he should be a more box-shaped ambulance, closer in shape to Ratchet. Nothing about the Combiner Wars robot mode was designed with First Aid in mind, but I will admit that his robot configuration is fairly generic compared to some.

GROOVE: So we got two versions of Groove for Combiner Wars, a tiny motorcycle that mounted on Defensor's chest, and then a Deluxe-sized Takara replacement who was the same size as the other team members. The large version was actually really, really good. It had pretty much everything... the engine-for-arms look, the correct chest, the way the rear wheel split in half for the robot legs... it was right up there as one of the best Combiner Wars toys. It will be hard for them to top him.

HOT SPOT: As I said, Hot Spot was just Onslaught facing backwards. His fire truck configuration looks more like Sentinel Prime from Dark of the Moon. It's completely wrong for the character. Something closer to a Mitsubishi Fuso (so, Inferno, basically) is necessary.

ROOK: Like Alpha Bravo and Off-Road, he should not exist.

STREETWISE: Streetwise is a really hard character to address, because the cartoon design for his robot mode cheats so much. The G1 toy uses the front half of the car mode as the chest and body, but in the cartoon, he's just a robot made of boxes with some of the details from the car mode slapped on top. You just can't get a police car out of that robot body shape. So, for Combiner Wars they just took the Dead End toy, spruced it up a bit with some remolding, and colored it as close as they could. I honestly don't blame them. But, he's kind of like the Datsun brother, or at least cousin, that nobody talks about. If they could get him closer to a Nissan 300ZX, I would love it. It's perhaps not as iconic as the Datsun Fairlady Z, at least in Transformers circles, but it's still a cool car!

DEFENSOR: I don't know if Hasbro plans to necessarily do a Commander-class version of Hot Spot or not, but if they did, then there could be a core fire truck component that could also combine with some extra stuff to form a bigger and more elaborate repair bay configuration, one that wasn't just the robot mode doing the splits. And then that extra piece could build up some of the bulk needed for Defensor's body. The downsize is that his parts wouldn't be integrated in every mode, of course. But, Defensor is another character whose look would be hard to achieve because of the somewhat cheatsy way in which he was designed. He's just got blocks for legs that have police car and motorcycle parts stuck to them. Once again, you can't take his left leg and get a police car out of that shape. It will be interesting to see how they address this, if they ever get around to updating Defensor.

Zob (I'm down for a version in the aborted G2 colors, though)

Zobovor wrote:

> ONSLAUGHT: ....... needless to say, a vehicle mode more closely resembling his G1 form would be
> amazing. I'm not sure how they would address the required bulk, since it wouldn't make a lot
> of sense for only part of the Onslaught vehicle to transform into the robot mode, the way
> they designed Legacy Motormaster.

When I'd play with G1 Onslaught in vehicle mode I would pull the back half of the trailer/lower legs out at the joint where the legs extend so the front cab could pivot a little. So for me the front six wheels belonged to the tractor part and the rest was the trailer. It looked more like a cab pulling a trailer that way and made a slight degree of turning possible before the legs wanted to separate. If they made the missile trailer detachable they might be able to work some sort of gestalt framework out of it a la Legacy Menasor.