Not entirely happy with the Combiner Wars Stunticons, I had a look at the third party options. None of them I really care for, but then a few months later both Fans Toys and X-Transbots started putting out some new toon style Stunticons.

The CW ones I love in bot and vehicle modes – perfectly happy with them. But the combined mode sucks donkey balls. So I’m primarily buying these XTB Stunticons for the combined mode. I never expected the robot modes to be so damn stunning and impressive, and didn’t even transform them at all until yesterday – so I could take some pictures.

Wildrider arrives boxed in his vehicle mode, comes with a gun and an alternate face plate along with a mini-screw driver to change the face. I prefer that over the other style of faces that just clip in and inevitably fall out – and behind your damn shelf, good luck finding them.

Anyway, Wilrider is a smooooooth creamy colored criminal Lamborghini Countach (like Sideswipe). This car I remember from my youth as it featured in lots of TV shows and Film of the 80’s such as Miami Vice and Cannonball Run. This car continues to pop up too in modern films, it’s iconic not just as a car, but as a car we’ve all seen in films because of how it looks. It’s just a beautiful car that looks amazing in movies and even more impressive in real life such as at a car trade show (only time I’ve seen a real one). The Lambo Countach is a sexy sexy beast.

The cream color in the real world? Not so much, I’ll take red or black any day – but for Wildrider, it’s great. He’s usually depicted as white or off-white and the toy with faux windscreen wiper, the small intricate side details like air intakes /vents, shiny silver wheels and nice rubber tyres are truly stunning in hand. The little mirrors, everything about him makes him pass for an actual car and not a robot.

The windows are opaque, giving him that sinister slightly off look that the Stunticons are known for. The bad guys in films nearly always have tinted windows. It was a thing back then, a visual shorthand on screen – before it became more common and affordable for people to tint the windows of even shit looking modern cars.

Yup, it’s a damn nice ride. One could not help resist maybe taking it for an illegal test drive and smearing pizza grease all over the fine interior.

Not to be left out another dude has stumbled across a sweet ride with red tinted windows. The charcoal grey with tinted red gives the vehicle a rather malevolent tone and I love it.

Now how much would you pay for this luxurious sports car?

With fine leather interior and fuel consumption off any charts known to humanity.

The price is your life fool, that’s not how CONS roll!

Wildrider just looks amazing, that cherry metallic face, that indifferent glazed over look where he just does not give a flying fuck about anything. The chromed wheels and hints of off blood red on his shoulders are just gravy on my roast chicken dinner.

Stunticons won’t let filthy humans or mutant turtles drive them around, expect no mercy from these masters of mirth, chaos and kamikaze stunts.

I loved how in the cartoon the Stunticons would just run amuk, pulling off crazy stunts and usually not listening to Megatron’s orders or even each other. They were created to serve the Decepticons but like any good Con, rarely listen to anyone in authority and just do their own thing, content to leave the world to burn in flames while they get their kicks in.

These XTB Stunticons transform very cleanly, there is a lot of little fiddly bits and you can see an evolution over older MP style figures, and how companies today have learned from and improved upon other similar robot car transformations.

Standing together, these guys look great and I can’t wait for the rest of this wild bunch to be released. Next up is Dragstrip, as some mock up pics appeared online recently.

On the back is a bit of kibble as you would expect. But the roof / spoiler sections accordion down nicely, and stick relatively flat on their backs. Breakdown’s legs are a little fiddly and I can’t quite get them to stay all the way clipped in, but Wildrider’s legs are much better from the front and back – pretty much perfect in my book. He is one of the most stunning Transforming robots I’ve ever held in my hands.

At this point, I’m kind of glad Hasbro fucked up their Menasor, or I never would have bought these guys. Honestly, I like them so much I could happily buy two sets – one for combined mode – one for robot mode. But sadly my wallet ain’t going to stretch that far. Menasor and Bruticus are the two coolest Transformers combiners on the planet in my book, so I don’t mind owning multiple versions of them. Can’t say the same for any other combiner out there.

Quizzical strangely soulful eyes and face for a dead eyed evil paranoid robot.

Overall I’m more than happy with these guys. I’ve never gone all in on any 3P combining robot thing -due to price. But the price, and staggered release of these guys was just right. I don’t collect MP at all, so this big evil bastard will eventually be part of my CHUG collection in his combined form.

A bit of a photo cheat below and oh man – yeah I’d love to be able to get two of each, they are just so damn good. Stay off the roads people, with these maniacs on the loose it ain’t safe out there.

Click the grid faces right below and you can scroll through the full size photos at your leisure.

“You know the difference between YOU and Me? I make this look GOOD!”