When I think of Special Teams, it makes me think of a cohesive unit, a team assembled for a particular task or maybe just because they are cool and like to kick some ass.

The original Special Teams for the Autobots were the Aerialbots (Superion) and Protectobots (Defensor). The Decepticons had Stunticons (Menasor) and Combaticons (Bruticus).

In Japan, the special teams / new toy line were known along with Metroplex and Trypticon as Scramble City. The Scramble City Combiners were known for interchangeable limbs. Any of the four limbs could be used as an arm or leg, on either side of the core robot’s torso. Additionally, each of the four Gestalts could swap limbs with each other.

Takara had designed these four combiners as part of a wave of Diaclone toys loosely called Free Combination but put on hiatus. Takara later released these toys as part of the rebranded Transformers line – which were designed to interact in their 5th mode with the base modes of Trypticon and Metroplex.

Hasbro would downplay the inter-connectivity of the combiner torso-bots and ramps with the Citybot Base Modes due to the fiction of the two opposing factions, sometimes leaving entire features out of the manuals. Why would Autobot Hot Spot for example want to connect up to enemy Decepticon Trypticon.

WHY PLAYING TOGETHER IS WHAT GOOD BOTS DO

This inter-connectivity / play pattern for the Citybots would continue into the Micro Masters toyline, along with new small mini-bases allowing for a whole host of combination ramps and parts allowing kids to create small mini towns or cities.

The Japanese Transformers had this play pattern right through the toyline, while the US Hasbro version kept each line to its own thing, preferring distinct brand line specific marketing and downplaying backwards compatibility of the Citybots or toys from different lines.

This continued in Japan right up until the Return of Convoy (1991) line, where further compatibility had Grandus connecting to Metroplex as well as the various new and old Micromasters. For someone with the time and the will, one could theoretically connect many base modes into a small city such as in this amazing picture from Brr Icy’s fantastic blog. You can see Combaticon Onslaught in his base mode on the right of the picture below (click to see full size).

HOW MANY LIMBS DO YOU REALLY NEED ANYWAY?

The torso / four limb combination was used for all four Special Team combiners, and was a new design different from Takara’s six robot combination Devastator (Construction Vehicle Robo). It’s a very cool and appealing play pattern, I remember as a kid always wanting to have a complete combiner, but never owning anything more than Protectobot car Streetwise, and years later had a handful of random beat up bots that could not form even half of a robot. Combiners with more than five robots later made a return with Micromaster Combiners as well as Liokaiser.

The Generation One Combiners idea continued with later additions in America such as Abominus, Computron and Predaking who appeared in the post movie Season 3 of the Sunbow cartoon. The Japanese Generation One cartoon trilogy additionally gave us characters such as Raiden, King Neptune, Dinoking and Liokaiser among others.

Combiner appearances in the original cartoon were infrequent. The Constructicons

appeared often and were the first combiner to be featured in the show. Menasor

and Superion turn up for the first time in the two part “The Key to Vector Sigma”

where the Autobots and Decepticons both travel to Cybertron, and give life to new

robots they cobbled together from old earth vehicles, who became the Stunticons

and Aerialbots, each teams of five that also combined into a giant Gestalt robot.

Later in the episode “Starscreams Brigade” Starscream created Bruticus to be his pawn against Megatron from some old derelict World War Two era vehicles that became updated with Cybertronian technology (and inexplicably change the type of vehicles from one frame to the next). His plan to lead the Decepticons ended once more in failure, but Bruticus and the Combaticons would go on to become one of the most popular Combiners.

Actual battles with combiners in the show are often short and see the giant robots being beaten often all too easily, or show the combiners as relatively stupid or

ineffective in battle – their combined intelligence often less than that of the

individual robots. This goes in contrast to the long running tradition of Japanese Super Robots where often smaller robots or piloted vehicles such as in Golion or Combattler V combine into a larger robot that is MUCH MORE effective in combat than the solo robots or drone vehicles.

In Japan, the TV special Scramble City aired that thematically tied together the Combiners, Metroplex and Trypticon into a single episode that was edited together from various episodes. It also includes Ultra Magnus along with Optimus Prime in the special, being a sort of bridge from early Generation One, to the post 86 Movie stories – however Japan had it’s own Transformers continuity and Optimus Prime went on to cameo in a number of other later cartoons along with other Sunbow/Marvel Season 1 and 2 characters who were mostly absent from Sunbow Season 3.

STYRENEASAURUS PLASTIMUS REJECTUS

Over the years, Hasbro has given us some half hearted modern combiners such as in the Energon (2004) and Power Core Combiners (2010) toy lines. These toys were okay, but not until Combiner Wars (2014) did Hasbro finally give the fans updates to the infamous Generation One Combiners / Special Teams that so many craved. Those toys along with CW Leader Class Megatron where what got me collecting Transformers Generations toys in the modern era.

In the Combiner Wars toyline Hasbro and Takara went beyond just giving us updates to most of those classic G1 Combiners. They also gave us some all new combiners like Optimus Maximus, Victorion and Sky Lynx, convention exclusive sets such as Predacus and redeco variants like Generation Two themed Stunticons and Combaticons.

In addition to those official sets, fans have come up with their own unique combos – which was encouraged by having several Voyager CW Torso figures with no dedicated limbs such as Cyclonus, as well as some fans doing some amazing customs such as Raiden and Starscream that I’ll talk about in an upcoming article. In the above picture you can see my versions of Galvatronus, Ultra Prime, Guardian and Defensor (with 3P C+ kit), Sky Racer and Sky Breaker (with KO PE feet).

The modern combiners have kept the Scramble City / Free Combination play gimmick meaning fans can mix ‘n match any limb with any torso, coming up with whole new combinations or mixing up official versions like fans who mixed parts of Hasbro release Computron with the Takara set. You can come up with many fun great combinations or some completely stupid ones – the choice is yours.

ALL YOUR POWERS COMBINED

The downside of the Combiner Wars combiners is that the torsos and many limbs are floppy as hell, giving them terrible stability issues and the standard hands and feet included are utter rubbish. So various third parties stepped in and made better feet/hands for the combiners, which were also knocked off and have become quite popular. In addition, several third parties have created kits for the Combiner Wars combiners that change their looks a little, while others rebuild nearly whole toys into heavily modified beastly bots.

Despite quality issues, the CW line proved very popular with many collectors adding five, ten or more complete combiners to their Generations Collections. Retools were a big feature of the line perhaps more than any other, and one that annoyed some fans. But I feel the retools were mostly justified and gave us some awesome affordable combiners. Sadly the same basic stability and hip ratchet issue plagued the entire line.

With this intro done, in this article series I’ll be taking a look at some of the combiner toys I’ve collected from the Combiner Wars line and also the various fan customs and third party kits that have become quite popular and I’ll also touch on some of the classic battles of various G1 Combiners in the cartoon.

MORE ARTICLES IN THIS TRANSFORMERS COMBINER TEAM SERIES:

IMAGE CREDITS

*Metroplex and Trypticon base mode pictures from Brr Icy Blog, read the full article at http://brr-icy.blogspot.com/2014/01/by-request-metroplex-and-trypticon.html

*Micromasters Base Mode and Citybots Generation One City image from Brr Icy Blog, read full article at http://brr-icy.blogspot.com/2014/03/g1-city-aka-afternoon-with-my-toys.html

*Official G1 product box art from Botch the Crab blog archive http://botchthecrab.com/archive/

*Official stock photos of G1 Combiners from UK Product Catalog 1986 – Botch the Crab http://botchthecrab.com/

*Transformers Cartoon images from the Sunbow/Hasbro/Marvel The Transformers (1984)

*Energon toys picture and Hasbro Defensor from Seibertron.com Transformers Toy Gallery

*TDW Defensor Kit from Transform Dream Wave stock photography