The combiner teams, pardon the pun, are a mixed bag. The Constructicons are probably the more developed characters although none of them really stood out. The Combaticons were one my favorites because they had distinct personalities and each of them had a different function. The Autobots didn’t have anything close to that until the Technobots appeared. Although they’ve never been well developed as characters, I did see them as one of the best Autobot combiner teams since each of them has a different specialization. They haven’t been remade officially. Lucky for us, there’s always third party companies.
Enter Maketoys and their new team of not-Technobots. They’ve been on the market for a while, and nowadays they’re usually found sold together. I resisted as much as I could, having heard a lot of things good and bad about these guys and their combined form, Quantron. In the end, it took a sale at TFsource to finally make me take the leap. They ship in robot form, so I left them on robot form for a while. Now it’s time to see what they can do.
MTCM-03A Blindfire (Strafe)
The Good: He looks amazing as a jet/starship. Not too complex transformation, since I went in order this was my first which was good. You’ll see why, but this one gets the easier transformation of the bunch and is instantly relatable to his older self.
The Bad: Some parts are really loose. Namely, the two pincer-like wings that are taken out and just hang off his shoulders in robot mode can fall to the floor easily. Also, you’ll notice that in combine mode his waist is supposed to turn. This is pretty tight in my copy so if this happens in yours, you’ll panic the first time thinking you’re about to break the figure.
The Ugly: Nothing is really ugly about Blindfire, but he’s the easiest of the lot.
MTCM-03B Celeritas (Lightspeed)
The Good: Amazing alt mode, really cool looking car. The robot mode is just ok, but heck he’s still a lot better than his classic G1 toy which was barely a brick.
The Bad: Really convoluted transformation where you don’t know where things go. The instructions are not that good and even watching a video will require incredible patience. My frustration was nothing compared to changing into leg mode.
The Ugly: Changing into leg mode. These guys are not interchangeable, Celeritas has to be the right leg. Took a lot of patience not to give up because the transformation has a zillion things that need to be done to precisely get it right.
MTCM-03C Metalstorm (Scattershot)
The Good: Very good look in both robot and alt modes, amazing transparent parts, amazing paint. A lot of detail and extra moving parts. A lot of parts from Quantron can be added for extra armor for the robot mode or armor for the alt mode.
The Bad: I found that when transforming him to his alt mode, there is no locking his legs on the center. You can’t quite nail his starship shape since one side seems off. It might just be my copy but the ship ends up looking askew.
The Ugly: When you add the cannon but the balance is severely compromised. He will fall. You have to either make him hunch over or forgo the cannon on his back altogether. You can use the feet as extra armor to help him stand. The head of Quantron just hangs around on his back and only gets hidden when he’s got the cannon attached.
MTCM-03D Overheat (Afterburner)
The Good: A cool homage to Tron‘s lightcycles. Looks really good, transformation is inventive, definitely an improvement on the original G1 Afterburner which I recently broke trying to transform since the bad allowance issues it had become critical on old, weakened plastic. Afterburner has been crazy glued in robot shape which can still transform into an arm but he’ll never ride again (sniff!).
The Bad: Overheat has other, newer allowance issues? Seriously! Better make sure you don’t transform him too much, some parts have to be literally forced and half-bent to end up in the place you need them.
The Ugly: The worst are these thin plastic sheets in his legs that must rotate around the wheel until they click on a new spot. Time is not going to be kind to those, so make sure you leave him in the state you’d rather display him on.
MTCM-03E Sonicdrill (Nosecone)
The Good: Really inventive transformation, far superior to his G1 Nosecone one. You’ll notice I can’t fully transform G1 Nosecone and he looks like he’s kneeling. That’s because there’s an allowance issue in his legs that I don’t want to force otherwise I’ll end up breaking. Fortunately, MakeToys Sonicdrill does not have this issue.
The Bad: Way too inventive transformation. You sometimes are literally hanging one piece on a thin strip of wire to get it to the opposite side.
The Ugly: Unfortunately this makes his combined leg mode a bit of a mess that doesn’t seem to lock into place. Not only it is weak and unstable but the foot uses two of his spare pieces that lock fine into the foot but not into Sonicdrill, so it keeps getting disconnected and potentially brining down the entire combined mode. I’ve opted for carefully connecting him last when everyone else is combined but a feather’s touch and it’s disaster city.
Quantron / Computron
The figure has lots of presence, looks amazing, and hopefully you won’t have any issues with your copy. That being said, I’ve managed to get mine in one pose where he will remain if nobody breathes, and that’s that. Definitely it has very limited playability due to being easily topped and I’m pretty sure it will break if the allowances on your copy or a quick turn are too much for the material. That being said, there’s a lot to be said about handling it with care and being patient goes a long way to get the finished product to look amazing even though one or two pegs are not fully locked.
Conclusion: If you want to make your life easy, don’t. If you love the Technobots, it’s hard to say no to this one but know what you’re getting into, set up a rainy weekend to start and stock up on patience. I got my copy very late in the game when the set was being sold as a whole and at a discount price. Paying the full price is definitely not worth it given the amount of risks involved. This is one that you’ll need to watch videos to learn how to transform (specially Celeritas and Sonicdrill) but it does make an impression on the shelf once completed. I just dread the day it will fall because I don’t like the odds of its survival. Fortunately, the combined form has good balance. That cannon is not even resting on the table.
That will do for now.
Never Think Impossible 