Thanks for the answers. Makes it very clear.

I bought two issues of the "Ninja Force" issues back in the day which I still have but I think I prefer to see Andrew Wildman draw robots than humans. I remember thinking the issues were so different to what I was used to from TFUK that I was put off, but it helped me know some of what was going on by the time Megatron turned up on a cover a few issues later.

I will definitely get volumes 6 to 8 even though I've read some of those issues in Transformers, they were the stories that I really liked. And I see 10 is scheduled to come out so I might buy 9 and see how that goes. I saw the Special Missions trades as well but might hold off on them at the moment.