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So this top 5 inevitably devolved into the old CW/UW Technobot debate. The only mix-and-match commonplace we haven't brought up is how some fans claim to have made their ideal Strafe by swapping the Hasbro head onto the UW toy, because they prefer the original toy design, and that's the primary new part that Hasbro did knock out of the park in their Computron box. And I'll admit, I got a powerful nostalgia-reflex when I first saw that visored face, and the color scheme on Afterburner and Nosecone, because they evoked childhood memories of opening my Technobots on Christmas morning in '87, Candy Claus on TV in the background, and all the epic battles they waged thereafter, my favorite of the 3 Autobot Scramble gestalt teams.

But then I rewatched a few late Sunbow eps, and appreciated just how hard Takara tried to make their set show-accurate. Swapping even a single piece out would just detract from that.

While I understand wanting toy accuracy in some aspects of MP and CHUGGURLetc figures (putting original toy colors on Sunbow-accurate sculpts often leads to semi-intentional Marvel-accurate toys, always a good thing), my philosophy on this has always been that if you want accuracy to the original toys, you can always, y'know, just hunt down the original toys! The general point any update to a classic toy character is usually to improve it in terms of media accuracy, even if that means more poseability than a design overhaul. Neither set got Scattershot's leg thrusters or Afterburner's alt mode right, so I couldn't care less about one set having a visor and two paint jobs that look more like the original set when they both fail miserably to reproduce so much of what I love about it.

And while the Prime Wars Nosecone face-off always focuses on drill-size (as well it should here, given the topic), can anyone who prefers Hasbro's Nosecone offer a defense of his robot mode? His tread-arms best the UW's Rook-arms, but the head and torso completely miss the mark. I can forgive everything about that mold as Brawl given the show-accuracy of the bot mode, but for Nosecone? Place that cordless drill in his fist instead of on his vehicle mode, and it ceases to be the saddest joke in his ensemble. (Still cool enough for what it is though; works for Preadicus Ramhorn)

Only the original toy is accurate to the original toy. The UW set took several HUUUUGE steps towards media accuracy, so there was more of a point to its direction than the CW set. Even an MP Computron wouldn't be "perfect" relative to the G1 toy.

But again, that's just why I personally don't see the point of swapping parts around. CW Computron is perfectly serviceable as an alternate reality Computron who appears during a multiversal crisis requiring him to escort Scrounge from Marvel continuity to Japanese continuity so he can save it from the influence of Machinima or something.




OH, right, drill tanks! Um...

Anyone else use Drill-Dasher to represent Corkscrew, and Rescue Force Drillhorn to represent Borebit? Because neither toy really had a proper name for the longest time?

-Kanrabat- wrote:For me, I prefer about all the Hasbro components for their unique moldings and toy colors. Only the drill tank suck.

I am surprised with the unique moldings comment. Only strafe and Afterburner had new headsculpts for instance, while the rest were all straight redecos of previously released toys. I get that it's a bit unfair to say about scattershot's head who is a redeco of retail scattershot but for the boxset, they couldn't even bother giving this combiner a new headsculpt, which was my default reasoning behind getting UW Computron instead.

Deadput wrote:And I love the drill from the Brawl mold version, tiny pointy drills are just as good as big drills.

That's just something fembots say to make the bots with small drills happy.

Bumblevivisector wrote:So this top 5 inevitably devolved into the old CW/UW Technobot debate.

As long as we are just having fun and distracted by the world going to hell, I'm ok with it. And thanks for your perspective on that debate!

ZeroWolf wrote:I'll echo others, Transmetal Scavenger needs to be on this list somewhere but I can appreciate it being hard to call with the other entries. Good job either Will!

Thanks! And he is here now that many have mentioned him. I agree that he is one of the best Transformers toys ever made and he got his due on my lists a couple of times, most recently here. For this list based on alt modes, I tried to keep it obvious, and I personally always felt his drills applied more to his robot mode. That's just me though.

Black Hat wrote:Hasbro Computron is a funny one. I actually prefer some of the more toy inspired deco choices, especially Afterburner and Scattershot's vehicle mode, and Strafe is kinda cool in his own right.

I think Hasbro even botched the toy decos. Afterburner is the wrong kind of orange. At least takara went all cartoon accurate while hasbro pulled their usual jack of all trades master of none thing with these guys.

I will say that I really love that Scattershot alt mode deco though, it's just a nice mix of red and white, highlighting the molded detail.

Windsweeper wrote:Always enjoy your lists.

Problem with 3 of these was availability. Drillhorn and United Nosecone were only available in Japan and Titans Return Twintwist had limited availability too.

Thanks! As for availability, I get the issue with the g1 toy (though one would argue that for any g1 toy for collectors who weren't even alive in the 80s), but UW Computron was available to any fan who wanted him and had acces to the internet. Hasbro computron was just as hard or easy to find, when thinking of global availability, with him being a boxset. In the end, both were boxsets you could buy from most online vendors and none were readily available at brick and mortar retail compared to the other retail combiners in the line.

Windsweeper wrote:As I said, I enjoyed the list. Considering the drill tank subject matter, it could have been boring...

Black Hat wrote:I'd be tempted to put Armada Drillbit in here as an honourable mention, largely because I do love me some Minicons, and Drillbit is a really cool one, with his drill arm and neat vehicle mode.

Drillbit is one of my all time favourite minicons, that's why I gave him a shout out on this list: https://www.seibertron.com/transformers ... oys/43762/

Someone on Facebook brought up Beast Wars Galvatron. I was never a huge fan of that toy but it's true he does have a drill tank mode, so that makes it yet another drill tank in the Beast Era.

Tuned Agent wrote:Interesting list! It's not every day drill tanks get the spotlight. Twin Twist is one I definitely want to track down sometime, and hearing him praised like this makes his unfortunate aftermarket prices that much more painful (or more palatable, depending on how you look at it).

Well you can get the gist of how good he is by experiencing Top Spin since it's inhetently the same mold with the same neat tricks.

Love your post Cruizerdave, though I have some stuff to add

cruizerdave wrote:BW II Galvatron's drill actually spins when you push the little button! LITTLE BUTTON MAN! None of those guys have an actual working drill.

They don't but I just thought of someone else who does:

Windchill the yeti bot!!!



He transforms into an arctic drill tank with a spinning drill when you push a button.

Or an awesome dragon mode!

Your right, they don,t have an awesome dragon mode, but neither does BW Galvatron

Anyway, always nice to read these lists. Better luck making us whiney BW II fanboys happy next time.

Haha, funny enough, I do have a top 5 Neo toys in the works, I hope that can be a decent enough consolation prize.

cruizerdave wrote:It was the finest dragon mode ever given to a drill tank!

I won't argue that

Deadput wrote:You could probably replicate that IDW drill Impactor with either Zetar or Hasbro Nosecone's drills.

You cannot since Zetar's peg is on his head, not the drill and the peg for Hasbro's Nosecone is perpendicular to the drill.

The only one that works is the powerdasher that uses the Brunt mold (but it's not a great look).