New Combiner Wars toys revealed at Botcon

[Hursticon]

I'd like to thank Fatbot for Live-Tweeting the Hasbro Panel earlier this morning, it was a fun way of experiencing the excitement vicariously through someone so candid!

For me, though, Hasbro delivered a freight train of disappointment, but who's caboose was suitably surprising and welcomed.

Sky-Lynx is superb, I don't even care that he doesn't seperate, and I will buy that toy with great eagerness - But, that's it, nothing else that I saw is really worth my money or attention at all.

The woeful padding out of the Combiner Wars line with a fleet of retooled/repainted Autobots shows 2 key things:

• Hasbro has an inability (fear) of producing Decepticons in the line, owing to;
• Hasbro is almost entirely adverse to producing a toy with even a CYBERTRONIAN Beast mode.

...guess what makes up 3 of the Classic G1 Decepticon combiners?

With that in-mind, unless Hasbro has some miraculous hidden set of reveals for SDCC 2015, it is reasonable to conclude that there will be no Western celebration of Beast Wars' 20th Anniversary, no Predacons/Predaking, no Terrorcons/Abominus, no Seacons/Piranacon, no Pretender Monsters/Monstructor...

Bruticus looks alright, but not enough to warrant my spending to supplant my FansProject-enhanced, Cybertron-based Universe 2.0 Gestalt - Buzzsaw is curious but an oddity, Shockwave is commendable but late to the party...

TakaraTomy will again receive the bulk of my Transformers spending for another year it seems and so too will the Masterpiece line; more money saved really but to those who have found more excitement than I from the 2015 Botcon Hasbro Panel? - Good for you, I hope you have fun with CWs in 2016.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

I am curious as to why Hound is part of a combiner when he is part of the Lost Light crew (MTMTE) and the CW Storyline is part of (RiD).

There are theories....
I mean, Cyclonus doesn't look to be part of CW either, but you know...teh monies.

Actually will the two parts separate in this combiner version ?

It doesn't look like it will.

Being combinerwars it is clear it is not a good scale if it is in line with other body sections and cars are limbs. Also what is the relationship with Wreckgar and SKYREIGN ?
Why Hasbro ?

See above.

Anyway, my 2 cents...
I won't be getting many if any of these (I already have pretty much all the characters from earlier lines and I'm happy with them - same thing for MP Ironhide and Optimus Primal), but I do think there are some really good remolds in there (Swindle and Hound look great), and it's a pretty good line up. Love that they made a Sky Lynx, though I don't see where Wreck-Gar goes in combined mode.

Like a lot of others, Vortex' colours look kind of awful, and I really wish they'd molded him so his gun could mount on the helicopter nose like his G1 toy. I'm also a bit puzzled about why they used the Slingshot/Quickslinger mold for Blast-Off when the head on the Fireflight/Firefly mold looks more like pretty much every character model he's had so far. Sure, no visor, but the head shape and the mouthplate are both a much closer fit than the Slingshot mold. And yeah...space shuttle mode plase @TakaraTomy.
Besides that though, major kudos to Hasbro for clever use of remolding, and especially for nailing Bruticus' torso/chest-plate so well.

[Bidoofdude]

The woeful padding out of the Combiner Wars line with a fleet of retooled/repainted Autobots shows 2 key things:

• Hasbro has an inability (fear) of producing Decepticons in the line, owing to;
• Hasbro is almost entirely adverse to producing a toy with even a CYBERTRONIAN Beast mode.

...guess what makes up 3 of the Classic G1 Decepticon combiners?

With that in-mind, unless Hasbro has some miraculous hidden set of reveals for SDCC 2015, it is reasonable to conclude that there will be no Western celebration of Beast Wars' 20th Anniversary, no Predacons/Predaking, no Terrorcons/Abominus, no Seacons/Piranacon, no Pretender Monsters/Monstructor...

Bruticus looks alright, but not enough to warrant my spending to supplant my FansProject-enhanced, Cybertron-based Universe 2.0 Gestalt - Buzzsaw is curious but an oddity, Shockwave is commendable but late to the party...

TakaraTomy will again receive the bulk of my Transformers spending for another year it seems and so too will the Masterpiece line; more money saved really but to those who have found more excitement than I from the 2015 Botcon Hasbro Panel? - Good for you, I hope you have fun with CWs in 2016.

I find it weird that they're adverse to beast modes, yet made a whole line of them in Beast Hunters, without ANY media (for most characters, let alone in the right colours) to support it.

e.g.

Generations:
-"Lions, tigers? With a relatively strong fanbase?! Too risky."

BH:
-"Dragon dog bird thing? With no appearance in any media?! Hot dog, we can't afford not to do this."

[UltimateGalvatron]

There are theories....

LOL
But hey, that's just a theory...

A toy theory!

[CBratron]

Weird that Razorclaw was made but the obvious repaint that appeared in a comic book, Ser-ket, was completely forgotten.

But I'm drifting off topic.

[prjkt]

those TFCC double targetmasters look damn interesting, but why didnt they show the vehicle mode, something looks suss

That was just photoshopping, no actual figures with those colour schemes yet, but looking cool...

As for the mainline;
Skylynx. Too stupid/insane for me not to get him. Not only do we have a dinosaurish thing that turns into a shuttle with wheels like G1, but he's a combined too? How can I resist?

Bruticus - oh hell yes. Especially with the new mould for Brawl, and the excellent retool of Swindle - I actually thought Hasbro would retool Rook into Brawl, and use Off Road for Swindle, but I am pleasantly surprised. Brawl even looks to transform like his G1 self.

Autobot limbs - ehhh not sure. I already have the classics-verse version of each one of those guys, but some of them look pretty sweet. The wheeljack retool actually works quite well for his vehicle mode. Reserving judgement for now.

Optimus Maximus - sadly not Thubderclashy enough for me (come on Funpub...) so I might cancel this preorder, as I've got no attachment...

[Defcon]

I would like to see a Computron please

[Zommael]

It'd be daft to think that we've seen everything that's coming next year from this panel. While wave 5 and wave 6 of Combiner Wars might be listed as 2016 toys, what that really means (and what Hasbro certainly hopes that means) is holiday 2015. This is the way it is every year - the "next year" product always gets out somewhere in time for Christmas. Add to that the fact that Hasbro prefer to show off new stuff at SDCC rather than Botcon because of the additional mainstream exposure, and the Titan Wars teasers we've already seen, and you know they are holding back most of their reveals for next year for SDCC.

Whether or not that will be Beast combiners is another matter. On one hand it's doubtful given that we already have a different theme for next year in Titan Wars, and TakaraTomy have already said next year is "the year of Masterpiece Beast Wars" which Hasbro might have more than usual involvement with given the relative unpopularity of BW in Japan compared to the West. On the other there is at least one combiner who we haven't seen as a wave yet in Victorion, plus Titan Wars suggests huge toys which might be out of scope for a mainline. I'd say it's 50-50.

[Paulbot]

FunPub gets so close to giving us this team as a subscription Combiner Wars set but for some reason reuses Onslaught to give us Bludgeon, instead of retooling Cyclonus into Thunderwing.

[Lord_Zed]

I like the way they have made a Legends Shockwave for Bruticus, much like what that Warbatron 3rd party did, seems they do listen.....sometimes.

I suppose somebody had to be *that* guy, but i'm really not impressed. Sure, there are some stand out figures like Sky Lynx and Brawl, but the rest are just lazy, half arsed attempts at padding a line out until the movie hits in 2017.

No, your not the only one. Its good to see a Sky Lynx toy and Brawl too, but most of the other Combaticons are the standard minor re-tool and repaint deal. As for the Autobots they seem to be lesser versions of Autobots we already have, although at least Trailbreaker is slightly bigger and has a less sci-fi alt mode, than the previous toy.

Guess that means he will miraculously resurrect in the IDW comic further eroding what tension is left that a Geewun character can ever die.