Combiner Wars (Custom) Sky Reign

While there is an official team - and configuration thereof - for Combiner Wars Sky Reign, I feel that all the components, even in the Unite Warriors version, turned out very lacklustre. I'd been toying with the idea of picking up CW Wheeljack and sprucing him up with Reprolabels simply because he's was the only CW Stunticon mold reuse that I don't have a version of (well, him and Drag Strip)... but the Breakdown mold he came from wasn't one of the better ones, so I ended up procrastinating.

Then, trawling through eBay one evening, I found the perfect solution, from Fun Publications' now-defunct Collectors' Club's final Subscription Service set. The package containing Toxitron and Counterpunch also contained the somewhat random choice of secret companion, Shattered Glass Starscream, based on the CW Aerialbot Skydive - with the head coming from the same mold's usage as UW Grand Galvatron component Ghost Starscream.

So, now complete, my Sky Reign looks a bit like this:

He's a bit of a jumble - made up of the last two figures from Subscription Service 4.0 - Impactor and Bluestreak - along with SS5.0 SG Starscream and then the two otherwise unoccupied Combiner Wars figures on my shelves - Rook and, of course, Sky Lynx.

And it actually works out rather well... It's a bit awkward that it features two of exactly the same mold, but I can live with that. I'm also not entirely happy with Bluestreak as an arm - the forearm is too wide and, in common with Streetwise on my Defensor, prone to falling apart because it doesn't really clip together. Plus, the wrist is a very tight fit, making the hand difficult to rotate - it almost feels as though the socket is going to pop off its mounting.

On the upside, it seems as though SG Starscream's most effective position is as an arm, because his bio (another of the better-written ones, but more on that soon) describes his hand/foot gun as unleashing and attack called the 'Null Fist'. OK, it also mentions that he can traverse five miles in a single jump in leg mode, but surely that depends on the other leg as well..?

...So I think that's pretty much it for Combiner Wars... I have three complete gestalts for each faction (albeit one Third Party set on the Decepticons' side) and, aside from possibly picking up some of the upgrade sets (particularly the TDW set for Bruiticus, so I can then transfer the Perfect Effect set over to Grand Galvatron), I'm basically happy with the way they all look. It might be nice to have an upgrade set for Sky Reign as well, but there don't seem to be any in the works...