Favourite Subgroup/gimmick/concept?

[BigTransformerTrev]

My fav subgroup when I was a kid for setting up battle scenes was always the Combaticons!

Despite the 'Robots In Disguise' concept, I had never really understood, when they were in the middle of a civil war, why more Transformers did not have combat oriented alt-modes. So I used to have my Combaticons set up on the loungeroom floor arranged against the few combat-oriented Autobot alt-mode vehicles I had such as Guzzle.

[GoktimusPrime]

Despite the 'Robots In Disguise' concept, I had never really understood, when they were in the middle of a civil war, why more Transformers did not have combat oriented alt-modes.

There was also a deliberate decision by Hasbro in early G1 that the Autobots would be more "peaceful" civilian vehicles, whereas the Decepticons would be weapons of war or instruments of espionage (cassettes etc.). If you look at the 1984 line up, that's how they were. A similar thing happened with Beast Wars -- most of the Maximals were "warm bloods" and Predacons were mostly "cold bloods," and in Bay's 2007 movie you had Decepticons being "authoritarian vehicles" (army, air force, police) whereas the Autobots are all civilian vehicles. So it's often a thematic choice -- the Combaticons are typical Decepticons, "nasty war vehicles", whereas say the Protectobots are their antithesis as vehicles of search and rescue. As Neil Kaplan once said, the cool thing he loves about RiD Optimus Prime is that he's always a hero - when he's not fighting Predacons and Decepticons, he's helping to put out fires.

[griffin]

That's the Hasbro explanation... he's commenting on the story explanation, or the lack of. As in, if they are in a multi-million year old war, why would would ANYONE have a non-military alt-mode.
That's where the fan-speculation comes in to explain Hasbro's toy decisions, within the context of the story universe.

[GoktimusPrime]

Oh right, well... canonically the alt modes on Earth are typically portrayed as their disguise modes and the robot modes as their fighting/warrior modes. The way I see it, it's similar to a predatory animal that disguises itself as something else, but then drops the feint when pouncing on its prey (some fighting styles do that too, like Drunken Boxing). So for example:
+ Bumblebee used his alt mode to get close to Sam Witwicky in order to monitor and protect him. He only transformed to robot mode as a last resort when he had no choice but to stand and fight Barricade to protect Sam and Mikaela.
+ Soundwave used his alt mode in DotM to get close to Carly (and thus also to Sam). The deception of his alt mode allowed him to easily capture Carly as a hostage.
+ DotM Laserbeak uses his varying alt modes to infiltrate all sorts of places, but transforms to robot mode when he needs to do some killin'.
...etc.

Those who happen to have weapons/military vehicles for alt modes are able to fight in thsoe modes too, but that's more by chance -- i.e. they happen to have a diguise that can fight. But ultimately the alt modes' purpose is disguise. On Cybertron the alt modes don't seem to serve the purpose of disguise ('cept for G1 'toon Soundwave) but more as a faster means of locomotion. Or as Trailbreaker once said, "It sure beats walking." So I guess on Cybertron the alt modes' purpose is more of versatility rather than disguise.

[ITZTRU]

Fav gimmick:

Mech tech / Powerizer!

(Sorry...I just HAD to. Couldn't resist.)

[GoktimusPrime]

I like Mech Tech. It's a fairly non-obtrusive gimmick and I like how some of the toys have those "pop up covers" that plug up the 5mm holes. (Not personally fond of the LED gimmicks in PRiD though)

[Magnus]

My favourite subgroup would have to be the Aerialbots - the Autobots finally get airborne firepower, Concorde is one of the coolest planes ever built, and they combine!

In terms of gimmicks, as a child it would have been combiners (robots that come together to form a bigger robot = awesome); as an adult collector, Automorph/MechAlive (a good showcase of the movie CGI models' complexity).