While the number of choices for a Masterpiece size/style Devastator seems to grow with each passing week, my previous experience with 3P combiners was less than stellar.  Bot’s like TFC’s Hercules and Uranos didn’t have the look or quality of a masterpiece team, and Fansprojects Intimidator was a fiddly nightmare.  I had come to the conclusion that maybe 3P combiners just weren’t right for my collection.

However, when I looked at my TF Season 1 shelf display, there was a Devastator-sized hole in it that really needed to be filled.  As the number of 3P Devastator choices grew, the decision became even murkier.  Generations Toys offering seems nice but too small.  There is always a persistent rumor about FansToys producing a Devastator, but that has been lingering for years with no movement.  As more and more reports of people being impressed with ToyWorld’s first combiner rolled in, I decided it was worth a look.

While the first release of these figures had some small QC issues, the second version with fixes offered as a box set was just too tempting to pass up.  I knew if I hesitated much longer, stock would dry up and I’d regret missing the opportunity to add this beast to my collection.  So I plunked down my benjamins, and here I am.

First of all, these guys look fantastic.  While ToyWorld is known for not being slavishly G1, these guys look the part.  I know there are some fans who could freeze-frame the cartoon and give me a laundry list of all the places where these figures deviate from proper G1 designs, but they’re close enough for me.  All the visual cues and important features of each character are there, and that’s all I need.

In case the pictures don’t effectively convey the size, these guys are MASSIVE.  They’re really larger than I thought they’d be, but as construction vehicles, you’d expect the bots to be larger than the bot made from a car.  But they are big, beefy, heavy, and generally solid.

As you can see, there is no shortage of articulation with any of the team members, and they’re a big step up from TFC and Hasbro Devastators I’ve handled in the past.  The only downside I encountered was that many of the joints were exceptionally tight.  The hip joints on Long Haul and Hook were absolutely stuck to the point that I was certain they’d break if I tried to force them.  I ended up removing a few screws and injecting some treadmill-belt silicone into the joints to lube them up.  That seemed to cure those issues.

“What’s a Renegade anyway?!”

Transforming these guys was time-consuming.  I had not watched any videos or read a lot of forum posts, so I really had no idea what I was in for.  It was clear from the beginning that the instructions were written for the original releases of the figures, which presumably came in vehicle mode.  In the box set, they came in robot mode, which meant that all the instructions were backwards.  Not a huge deal, but not exactly the easiest way to learn the transformation sequence the very first time.  Add in the fact that the instructions were not the clearest I’d ever seen, plus the fact that some key steps are glossed over, and I definitely had a slow go of it.

But I got there… eventually.  Again, stiff joints, tight tolerances, and half-hearted backwards instructions are not the most fun.  They can make you question your sanity.

However, they do look great in vehicle modes, and while they might not scale *perfectly* with sports cars and such, they are substantially larger than the cars.  Given that construction vehicles generally can range in size pretty widely, I’m not sure there is an absolutely correct scale.  These however look the part and nothing jumps out as being grossly inaccurate.  That’s a good thing.  Toyworld put a lot of great detail into these figures, and the end results are impressive.

Getting to combined mode was more of the same: tight tolerances and instructions that leave out key bits of information.  I found omissions for pretty much every character to the point that I finally started watching videos on youtube.  In fact, the instructions don’t even tell you how to combine him.  I knew where each character fit in the grand scheme, but the rest of the assembly phase was simple trial and error.  Not exactly the most satisfying experience, but such is life.

Poor instructions aside, the end result is massive and awesome.  He has a surprising amount of articulation in combined form, and he’s reasonably stable too.  I wish Scrapper’s arms and scoop would lock in a bit better (maybe they do and the instructions didn’t bother to tell me), but overall, he’s solid and sturdy.  But more importantly, he’s beautiful, imposing, and everything I could ask for from an aesthetics standpoint.  The G1 head/thighs included in the box set really do look much better than the V1 parts, in my opinion.

While not exactly 1:32 scale, he still looks great with my homemade Mega Bloks GIJoes too.

Final thoughts… it’s a great set, pure and simple.  It’s foolish to think that some company won’t top him eventually, but ToyWorld really did an outstanding job.  Poor instructions and tight tolerances notwithstanding, it’s hard not to recommend this guy for anyone in need of a G1 Devastator that scales nicely with official and 3P masterpiece figures.  He looks the part, the individual bots are fantastic, and the build quality is solid.  A little patience is necessary, but the end result is completely worth the price of admission.

‘Til all are one, collecting is half the battle!