Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Air Raid is Something That Exists

War for Cybertron Air Raid’s wiki picture

Ah yes, the continual March of Time. Ever dragging the nostalgia window forwards to your eventual demise. As I've discussed before, 2012/13 wasn't a brilliant time for Transformers toys, as budget cuts kicked in and the bayverse had lost its shine. Around this time, The Fall of Cybertron video game had been released to general acclaim, but the tie-in toys were patchy, prompting a cottage industry of third party substitutes and add-ons. That was 11 or so years ago, so it now counts as nostalgia to think about. While the FOC line has largely been supplanted by the conceptually similar Siege, and the more recent Studio Series Gamer Editions, but it was influential in its way. The FOC toys were notable for their use of Retooling, foreshadowing Combiner Wars and modern Legacy toys. And this wasn't merely new heads either, it meant additional accessories too. Air Raid is one such toy. 

Given that Air Raid, is, well, called Air Raid, you'd probably think was he a jetformer of some description. Possibly a seeker repaint, and in the context of being an Autobot, part of the Aerialbots sub-group. He may very well be an Aerialbot, and he is a retool of a Decepticon mould. It's just that the base mould was Shockwave. He has wings, he flies a bit, but Air Raid's altmode is described as “Cybertronian mobile artillery”. Its a weird direction to go, not least because this toy is a legally mandated name-swap too. That's more a discussion for robot mode, but here its evident with the colours, burgundy, gold, silver and metallic grey. Its not a bad look by any means, with things being retooled significantly along the centre line. It has a different character from the Shockwave version, not least because of the additional sword weapon that folds out into decoration or wannabe control surfaces. What is less great is the remnants of Shockwave they didn't change, most notably a piece of faux kibble on top, and the cannon barrel is neglected. By the standards of Cybertronian altmodes, subset of Transformers that look like nowt specific, Air Raid tends towards the middle. Clearly alien, not a Siege style cop-out, but not something noteworthy in form or function. Its a gun with wings, one integrated weapon, one externally stowed weapon, a spare 5mm port if you need more gun, and an upsidedown Autobot badge. Its adequate, although the colours do look great. There's a lot more visual interest than the source material. It does however need landing gear.

 

 

In robot mode, I find there's more to talk about with Fireflight. What? Oh, yes, this is meant to be Fireflight, not Air Raid, but they couldn't secure the name. This is why the toy has absolutely no resemblance to the Air Raid from the preceding video game, and why it was cheating for me to use the wiki image I used above. But I didn't know that at first, and in my defence they did rework Optimus Prime's design completely in-between games. Fireflight is something of interesting one here, in that they've gone a few steps beyond a mere head replacement, but there's still a lot of Shockwave there. The head for example is a stylised take on the G1 version and sits like an ornate helmet atop a mess of cables. His chest plate is new, but otherwise retaining the thick-torso/thin-limbs look of the original. Sculpted detail is otherwise unchanged, but paint applications do help differentiate things here as much as with the alt mode, and he does have wings. The new weapons are of course a highlight, although the more I think about it, the less they seem to fit. Replacing the modular gunarm is a modular bladearm affair with a very large cutting edge and two small gun barrels inherited from the previous version. This didn’t immediately impress me, as the completely new components on this toy seem to be red translucent plastic painted over, thus foreshadowing some of the more worrisome of early 2020’s Transformers, but I digress. My example seems entirely fine with respects to cracking, but as a combined unit it feels a touch impractical given the overall dimensions and build quality. Splitting it up makes for a nicer pair of weapons, granting a rather large blaster with a fearsome blade attachment. The other sword is however immediately lovely; 9 out of 10, no notes. You can combine the accessories for an even more elabourate weapon, its a very modular set, but I've neglected to photo it here. Meanwhile articulation is a bit basic and smells of cut corners. The arms have some decent motion due to the transformation, but there's nothing in the waist, and the lower-legs aren't great. or indeed visually pleasing. Its no legacy deluxe is what I'm saying, although it does have a spring-loaded Dramatic Head Reveal, light piped eyes, and can certainly flourish its swords a fair bit.

I went back and forth with myself when writing this article. There’s two discussions to be had, the base mould, and what was done with it. As a case study in retooling, FOC Air Raid nee Fireflight, is very compelling. Play value is superior to the original, the colour choices are striking, its clearly a different character, and there’s the sort of trivia about the whole process that I enjoy as a collector. As a base toy? Well, the Fall of Cybertron line had recognised weaknesses when it was new, and you can count on one hand the few toys that have aged gracefully. The base mould is mediocre by modern standards, not bad certainly, but a waist joint would have meant so much here. That said you have a toy that is distinct in both forms, has more weapons that it can sensibly use at once, and absolutely is not skimping on the paint applications. So, its something that exists, and exists loudly.

 

Transformers: Buzzworthy Bumblebee Creatures Collide Set is Something that Exists

Hmm, I may have to keep on posting Transformers on a Thurday, got a bit of a backlog. Anyways, one of these days, I need to write about the "Buzzworthy Bumblebee" line. As the name implies, this is a line entirely about the very-very over-exposed Bumblebee character, although it's since become more of catch-all for various exclusives and reissues. As you might imagine, this has given me repetitive strain injury from rolling my eyes, but then something magical happened. I saw Iin a shop one of the Buzzworthy multipacks on discount. Deep discount. A pack of 4 deluxes originally 90 odd, sold at 45, and finally reduced to £12.98.

Obviously, I said yes to that. I was thinking it was daft not to, and if I didn't like any of it, gifts/donations were an option. Now, I could do an in-depth breakdown of each toy here, but I feel that would get boring pretty quickly. These are principally repaints of better known characters/toys, and the cadence of the discussion would be quite similar for each. So, I'm going to try to keep this to a paragraph for each before tying it all together in the conclusion. 

 

Not making the best first impression, Preadacon Skorponok is the weakest of the set. He's a 90's toy colours variant of the modern Kingdom toy, rather than a separate character, so not a huge amount of creativity going on, and the basic execution wasn't great in the first place. The robot mode is fine, a good approximation of the CG model with an optional head based off the old "mutant head" gimmick. He's not doing much of the 5mm port thing, but he is using in his claws for a set of decorative missiles and his Cyberbee. His beast mode legs are kinda just there, but the scorpion tail is articulated. The bad stuff starts with the transformation, which I found counter-intuitive, finicky, and ultimately doesn't do a great job of hiding the robot bits. One entire leg ends up stowing into the tail, not actually concealed, and it hampers the tail articulation. His head meanwhile sticks out on the underside. Also his joints are on the loose side, tolerances seem a bit off with this one, and a lot of him is translucent plastic. That said, the scorpion mode did grow on me, this being one of those toys that ends up appearing bigger in altmode, and there's some nice organic texturing on the bug bits. I don't think I can honestly say that this a great toy. I find myself comparing it to a RID 2015 warrior class toy which did the scorpion thing better, while the deco is outside of my nostalgia bubble and not especially interesting. Mind you, he's far from the worst in modern Generations, and I can see myself displaying him with the spare head.

Predacon Skywasp is obviously a Waspinator in new colours, although it's slightly more creative than the above. The colours are taken from a cancelled exclusive, by way of a Diaclone-inspired Botcon toy with a name too generic to trademark so they made him a beast wars tribute to Skywarp. Waspinator was possessed by Starscream that one time, and has had jet modes, so it's not really a stretch to have another seeker involved. As colours go, it's definitely striking with those blood red wings and eyes, but when it comes to wasp mode this doesn't do much for the organic realism. Wasps can be all kinds of colours, but not this specific scheme. I took a moment to check. Your mileage may vary on that point though, it certainly doesn't look bad in wasp mode, just toyetic, and that may be what you want. Otherwise, I'd say the basics are here, with little to apologise for. There's siege/Legacy standard articulation, a splattering of 5mm ports, more than most beasts in Kingdom, weapon storage, and an alternative humanoid head, as another nod to the mutant face thing. It's just with Waspinator, things got swapped around for the TV show, and the mutant face is considered his usual one. There's been a few Waspinator remakes over the years, and I don't quite know where this sits in the rankings, but this seems decent. I mean, I'm not a fan of the robot bits in wasp mode, but lots of beast formers have that problem. Less subjectively, one wing likes to pop off and there's a few cut marks that stick out. 

 

Ransack is the most modern of the toys here, the largest overall, and perhaps the one with a disproportionate amount of the paint budget, as there's an awful lot of translucent plastic painted over. Ransack is actually a G1 original, one of the larger "Deluxe" Insecticons, but you'd be forgiven for not knowing that. The toy wasn't a Takara original, and that seems to have meant no cartoon or comic appearances in the 80’s, or much after. Ransack here is a headswap pretool of the much better known Kickback, something which the Legacy release telegraphed with two otherwise inexplicable sword accessories. Ransack therefore looks an awful lot like Kickback in both modes, and only becomes more so if you apply the alternative head. (Said head goes unmentioned in the documentation, and seemingly exists as a toy-accurate head for Legacy Kickback.) Due to a quirk of design the robot mode and bug mode head are the same thing, just at different angles, so the rounder head is doing the heavy lifting here, although the swords do become a butt extension for bug form. As the mould is basically a 1983 design upscaled and given modern joints, Ransack isn't doing anything especially clever, but they aren't failing at it either. There's probably a third party "not-Ransack" out there that more faithfully updates the 80's original, but in so far as headswaps go, this is entirely acceptable. Decent robot mode, three weapons, not quite the right bug mode, but close enough. 

 

And finally, after a trio of bugs, we have a beetle. Autobot Goldbug was undoubtedly the most desirable of this set, although as a retool of Earthrise Cliffjumper, also the most familiar to me. Who is Goldbug? Well, he's Bumblebee after an emergency repair job and reassignment to the Throttlebots, which obviously didn't stick, but I did have that toy back in the day. The point of interest here is the fully licenced Volkswagen Beetle car mode, which like the boombox version of Soundwave seems to be under some sort of exclusivity arrangement. This is only the second time we've seen this specific toy released, while the original Cliffjumper variation has seen five releases. As a base mould, Cliffjumper was pretty good. A shame about the back-end of the car being a partsforming bit, but pretty good regardless. This means that Goldbug benefits from a strong foundation, I.e. a pleasingly involved transformation and a huggable shape, but if you're not a big Herby and/or Throttlebots fan it's more of a sidegrade than a slamdunk. The new vehicle bits omit 5mm ports, a tangible loss, with the instructions presenting a decidedly compromised alternative for weapon storage. Goldbug retains the modular bazooka/waterski/twin-blaster/random-greebly thing, and as fun as that is, it's very specific to Cliffjumper. Mind you, it looks great in gold, caramel, black, and blue, and the play value is there. Definitely worth a look, but it's very easy to overpay here.

I mean obviously, I didn't. But looking at the eBay listings, a few people have.

The Spare Head Three...

Conclusion

As I lucked out as got this set for 13 quid, it's honestly a little difficult to judge it from any sort of value-for-money metric. I could have had any single one of these for that price and feel quite happy about it. Hell, it was reduced from £45, and that's an objectively good deal as deluxes go for 25 each these days. That leaves broader creativity commentary, and whether or not something has an overt problem. On the overt problem front, only Scorponok has issues. He's not terrible, the vast majority of Generations isn't, but with his engineering and QC, he's in the "fine for now" tier. In terms of grander commentary, I'd say this demonstrates the issues that can occur when moulds are designed to be a specific character, but then reused for different ones. If you do a new head and new paintjob, or if the character is somewhat generic like a seeker, you're usually OK. That largely isn't the case here. For example, Goldbug, as mentioned, has the same accessories as Cliffjumper. These were based on memorable scenes in the Sunbow cartoon, so great for the mould original, but Goldbug never used them, and truthfully Cliffy-J didn't use them more than once. Maybe some small arms for all the other minibots would have been a better call? You could also make the case that Goldbug doesn't actually match his character model; and given how anal-retentive Earthrise was about such things, it's noticeable. You can make similar observations about the other three.

Ultimately, the Creatures Collide set is a multi-pack through and through. There's one you probably want most, but also one you don't, with two you're probably neutral on. As the toys are generally good ones, your choice will likely be based on your budget and how it fits into your collection. I got absurdly lucky with the price, and that three of the moulds were new to me. Regardless, the Creatures Collide set is something that exists. 

 

Also, the week after? I heard Game was offering this has as part of a "2 for £20" offer. Because of course it would :) 

A Concise Review of Generations Tankor In 500 Words Or Less

Pricepoint/Vintage: Deluxe, 2014.

Modes: Robot and Cybertronian Tank.

Transformation Style: Unique, lay down.

Play Patterns: Robot and tank, C Clip weaponry, pressure missile, spinning saws, a pack-in comic in the USA.

Points of Interest: A rare modernisation of a character from the then-controversial Beast Machines series.

The Good
Tankor has an almost perfect resemblance to the animation model in robot mode, and strikes an imposing silhouette. All the elements are there, spinning buzzsaws, opening claws, and an impressive shoulder cannon. Total joint count is 21, best in the arms due to a non-humanoid design, but extremely characterful. Switching to tank mode is simple, and the weapon is C rung based, granting some additional play value.

 

The Bad
This is one of those toys whom is probably in the wrong size class, many feeling the character would have been better served as voyager rather than a stumpy deluxe. As he stands, Tankor suffers from some very notable hollows in both modes, wheels that don't roll well, and a left leg that likes to separate at the thigh during transformation. There is also some misapplied paint on mine, while some examples have two left arms, preventing transformation, and the comic has its pages out of order too.

The Mediocre
Fidelity to the animation is much lower in tank form, and if you aren't familiar with Beast Machines, the Visible Head Syndrome will be a negative. There's been no attempt to work in 5mm functionality, not that he ever really had accessories in the show, and the implementation of the buzzsaws leaves them fixed to the forearms.

 

The Alternatives
Most of the alternatives to Tankor require you to go back to the original Beast Machines moulds, circa 2000. These vary significantly in price, likeness, and size, but the tiny Tank Drone toy is well-regarded. Be warned however that chrome, translucent plastic and balljoints were very common, and its been 16 or so years. If all you want is a big and brutal looking military vehicle though, consider Generations Warpath or Darkmount of a few years earlier.

 

The Verdict
Going by a checklist, Tankor just isn't very good. He needed a few less gaps, and a bit more functionality. If you are on-board with the marmite style, like me, the robot mode more than compensates. Tankor is probably the most unique Transformer of the past five years, but that's not necessarily the same thing as being great. If it is to you, or you're a Beast Machines fan, rejoice, he's quite cheap on the secondary market. But for everyone else, you can skip him.

The Clickbait Top Ten: The Best Transformers Things of 2015

Well, its that time of year again. Or it would be, if I ever bothered with awards type things before. But you know, I never brought enough Transformers in a single year to justify one before. Bloody Combiner Wars, making me spend money. A few ground rules. This list largely derives from things I've brought this year. Combiners are treated as a single release, but their individual parts can be recognised too. Here we go, but first, the honourable mentions.

Honourable Mention: Ultra Magnus And Minimus Ambus

One of the few collector slanted releases without a combination focus, this represents the first truly good toy in the modern leader class. A great rendering of the character with lots of play value, whom is suitably big, and has an Animated inspired hammer gimmick. This writer is particularly pleased that Hasbro bit the bullet, and created a Minimus Ambus toy, despite the predictable and extensive complaints from G1 purists, and disappointed that Takara chickened out and made it Alpha Trion. The pair don't make the top ten proper due to the hollow construction, and the well-intentioned, but regrettably loose, opening hands. 

Honourable Mention: Devastator

When it comes to being a colossal big green and purple robot, Devastator was no equal. Seriously, if you want a big bloody thing to step on people, he's your guy. His presence is commanding, and there's a strong 80's feel to events. Unfortunately, that 80's feel is also a weakness, individual Constructicons having patchy articulation and proportions, which means they don't make it into the top ten, fun as the set undeniably is. Takara's version may made have the cut though, with its improvements.

Number Ten: Silverbolt

Combiner Wars toys have often have simple yet elegant engineering, doing exactly what they must do in each form, but Silverbolt demands recognition. While having a solid robot form, and a characteristically flawed Concorde mode, his transformation into Superion's torso via a handstand was pure genius. This is easily the most innovative engineering this year, and possibly for the last three. That's not his only strength though, as the robot form nails the character, looking nicely heroic. This is definitely one of those toys you don't mind seeing remoulded, although maybe Scattorshot was a step too far.

Number Nine: Air Raid

The Aerialbots are the archetypal Wave 1 releases, big names highlighting what the toy line is about, but not the best of that line overall, as the bugs are being worked out. While still the best toys these characters have ever got, the Aerialbots are associated with unconvincing altmodes, articulation weaknesses, and Powerglide being a nuisance in gun mode. Coming out in Wave 2 however, Air Raid shows a sudden up-tick in refinement, so much so that had the rest of the team been of a similar standard, they'd be making a bigger showing today. His joints are tighter, 5mm ports are plentiful, and the overall appearance is great. The jet is about as convincing as it can be given the largely white robot mode, and you can have five different guns on it at once. Its a crying shame, given the rampant recycling that characterises Combiner Wars, we are only seeing this mould again in exclusive boxsets. And its an even bigger shame that UK fans had to import this guy to complete Superion.

Number Eight: Blackjack

While both literally and figuratively overshadowed by other toys on this list, Blackjack makes the cut for being exactly what he needs to be for his price point. He's a nice little car. His transformation is new and interesting, but familiar. His robot mode is effectively articulated, and he has a hand weapon, unlike so many of his kin. With so many of the Legend pricepoint being inferior remoulds from 2013/14, or of questionable use in the combination thing, Blackjack's only real competition is the juuuuusssssst-released Shockwave, which I don't have. Blackjack only fails due to a fault in Motormaster's design, preventing a secure connection in chestplate form, but let's not hold this against him. They took a single piece plastic accessory, and made it into a showstopper.

Number Seven: Transformers: Devastation

As an 80's original fan whom actually likes new things, I often feel that G1 fans get pandered to far too much. Rose tinted glasses aside, the 80's cartoon was a poorly made toy advert, and we've had much better fiction since. But, applying that style to a video game? One made by Platinum Games, masters of the spectacle fighter? Even I was interested. Overcoming obvious time and money restrictions, captures all that was great about the cartoon, and applies to a frenetic combat system with loads of 80's hair metal. A heady cocktail of nostalgia and bone-crunching gameplay, TF: D's only sin is that there is not more. Sequel please. DLC please. Game inspired redecos please.

Number Six: More Than Meets The Eye #47

Now for some Mood Whiplash. Some things aren't worthwhile because they are fun. Some things aren't nice. Some things are worthwhile because they are are challenging reads that go to dark places. Some things....some things, make you cry. This is one of those things. As compelling as it is tragic, this issue breaks new ground for transformers media.

Joint Number Five: Dead End And Protectobot Streetwise

I knew both of these toys would have to appear in this list somewhere, but separating them proved impossible. On the one hand, wehave the best deluxe of wave two, with possibly the most gorgeous car mode this year, and works well in all four modes. On the other, Streetwise completely changes the toy visually, and address the two common complaints of Dead End, by avoiding the “grey biceps” flaw and replacing the club with a triple barrelled shotgun. He's not as nice to look at Dead End, but he's not ugly at all. The aggressive recycling of moulds mean its probably you'll have either version or both in some form, and while familiarity breeds contempt, these are still great toys.

Number Three: Protectobot Rook

The best deluxe toy in all of Combiner Wars, bar none, and probably its singular break-out character. Strong enough to be a worthwhile purchase even if you never touch the rest of the line, Rook's main selling point is play value, backed by competence in all other things. He's big, he's visually interesting, and very functional in all four modes. But that all pales in comparison to his party piece, the ability to use combiner accessories as hulk hands. If you like your toys to be fun, Rook is your man. G1 purists? Come on. Get over it.

Number Two: More Than Meets The Eye Omnibus Volume 7 “Elegant Chaos”

I could fill this list with individual issues of MTMTE, and I'd have no trouble defending it. Its just that consistently good a series. Comics Alliance just gave it two awards, for flip's sake. This omnibus however is notably highpoint for the invested fan. The conclusion to plot threads that James Roberts started as far back as 2011, this sees an epic time travel plot that goes back to pre-war Cybertron, and the very conception of the Decepticon cause. With horrific parallel universes, betrayals, political commentary, temporal paradoxes, intense character scenes, and sheer WTFery like Megatron's fear of needles, this volume is an exercise in excellence. If you are new to the series, maybe pick an earlier volume, but if you like what you see here, you won't regret working through the back catalogue.

Number One: Defensor And The Protectobots

I had almost no interest in the Protectobots prior to Combiner Wars, excluding First Aid's place in the MTMTE cast, but this team have found a place in my heart on merit. Simply put, wave 3 and the Protectobots was the best bit of Combiner Wars, and its looking doubtful that its last few releases are going to change that. While heavily based on retools, like much of the line, the retools were great, and the new moulds were real nice too. You just read why two of them were good, as for the rest? Well, Hot Spot arguably has the best individual robot mode of the line, and a classy torso mode, only just missing out from a Honourable Mention today. Blades is a nice variation on Wave 1's best Autobot. First Aid, despite my initial impressions, is a solid reworking of Wave 2's Off Road, and is holding together a fair bit better than that toy. Groove meanwhile attempts to bring some scale sanity to the team, works well enough by himself, and pulls off a chestplate mode. And most importantly for us Brits, this got a UK release, with all six members found in shops. Go get them.

Bad photography by me, other images Copyright Hasbro, and variously IDW, Activision, and Platinum Games.

A Concise Review of Generations Cliffjumper & Suppressor In 500 Words Or Less

Pricepoint/Vintage: Legends Class, 2014.

Transformation Style: Shellformer, with simplistic triplechanger.
Play Patterns: Robot and car, with robot, car and gun. 5mm weapons, 3mm weapons, targetmaster with minor combination.
Points of Interest: An obvious repaint of Bumblebee, but with Optimus Prime's little buddy and gun instead.

The Good
Cliffjumper works well in both modes, while Suppressor brings the dakka as one of the better partners/accessories. As a pair, play value is high, Cliffjumper effectively having two big guns, which can combine into a bigger gun in two ways, and 12 points of articulation. Both have 5mm ports on the roof for car mode, allowing for road warrior action together or separately, and weapon storage in robot form. As he's based off Bumblebee, Cliffjumper looks pretty good in car mode too, and the slightly over-proportioned arms also work well for a bruiser like Cliff. Suppressor meanwhile has 3mm hands, and can just about carry the ion blaster by himself.

The Bad
Quality control on my example was iffy, Suppressor notably having excess plastic, and thick yellow paint gumming up his workings. Said paint was probably the wrong colour to choose, making him the ugly one, although that's not to say Cliffjumper is flawless. His finicky transformation brings Visible Head Syndrome in car mode, indentations on the doors, and big vehicle panels as a robot. Cliffjumper also has some articulation problems as the neck is fixed, and the knees are limited.

The Mediocre
In replacing the Blazemaster helicopter mould, certain play features are forgotten, like the arm ports. As he's based on the Roller mould, Suppressor is amongst the better of Micromaster style partners, but that still means he's basic by Mini-Con or Legion standards. Transforming to truck mode is a matter of laying him down, and he only has two points of articulation.

 

The Alternatives
Given his status as Bumblebee's repaint guy, finding similar toys to Cliffjumper is very very easy. Within the same vintage however, I'd recommend Swerve or especially Cosmos.

The Verdict
Cliffjumper and Suppressor complement each other very well. It makes sense that Cliffjumper should have all the guns, and short of a major retool, this was a good way to do things. Two solid moulds in the same packet, what's not to like? Well, there's that yellow paint, and Cliffjumper inherits Bumblebee's weaknesses. Not big weaknesses for the size and price, but still weaknesses. I regret that I can't make direct comparisons between the two, but I'll stick my neck out and say you don't need to buy both, but you aren't gonna feel bad if you did. And if you skipped on Bumblebee like I did? Well, I got them for a fiver, but I wouldn't have minded paying more.

A Concise Review of Combiner Wars Break-Neck In 500 Words Or Less

Pricepoint/Vintage: Deluxe, 2015.

Modes: Robot, Sports Car, Arm, and Leg.

Transformation Style: CW deluxe limb, hollow feet style.

Play Patterns: Robot and vehicle, combiner, 5mm weaponry, a pack-in comic.

Points of Interest: Actually the G1 Stunticon Wildrider with a new name, and part of the "missing members" controversy. Retool of Dead End.

The Good
As noted in the Streetwise review, Dead End was a highlight of wave 2, so by extension Break-Neck is pretty great. There's above average articulation at sixteen points, a badass altmode, and pleasing limb modes. He retains the club, and while possibly within the margin of error for a mass produced toy, this example seems to have no issue with his combiner weapon, while Dead End did. The head sculpt is of course, excellent, while plastic and paint choices grant further subtle differences.

The Bad
Due to the mould choice, actual negatives are both minor and inherited. His arm mode is not ideal in combination with Motormaster, having kibble that interferes with the shoulder. His lower legs don't seem to want to lock together, another arm mode issue, and he lacks true feet. The face on my example isn't that well painted.

 

The Mediocre
Break-Neck's distinctive head is about the limit of the meaningful differences between him and Dead End. In earlier times, this would have been enough, but given that there's 7 iterations of the mould, its merely adequate. The “unpaintable biceps” issue also remains, but colour choices downplay it.

The Alternatives
Break-Neck's main rival is his Japanese version, which depending on your preferences and location, may be easier to find and more visually pleasing. With the general dearth of Decepticons in Combiner Wars, the only other options are Offroad, whom isn't as good, or one of the unreleased Combaticons. There is also the unreleased “G2 colours” set, but that's an acquired taste if I ever saw one.

The Verdict
Stripped of all other considerations, Break-Neck is a really nice toy, and is exactly what a G1 purist wants. Unlike the Aerialbots where you actually make the team worse by going for a traditional line up, Break-Neck is a consistently better performer than Offroad. The thing is, there are indeed other considerations, mainly matters of distribution and mould reuse. Brits like myself have to import the Stunticons anyway, so I'd advise you shop around. This mould is also being done to death. Is this worth having? Yeah, but don't get ripped off, and look into the Japanese boxset.

Too Much Of A Good Thing: My Opinions Of Transformers Combiner Wars So Far

Occasionally, I feel that merely reviewing Transformers is insufficient. I think I do a good job with the little picture, focusing on individual toys, but the wider context can get lost. Today, I talk about Combiner Wars, the current line of collector-oriented, but still mass-market, Transformers toys. Combiner Wars was the best thing since sliced bread. It is now exactly as exciting as sliced bread for most fans, namely that supermarket own brand you buy every week. Allow me to ramble for a while about the toyline and the reasons why it got a bit dull.

Why Combiner Wars is rather good
Before I go any further, lets take a moment acknowledge how damn great these toys are, and how they are exactly what the fans have been demanding since forever. They are the Scramble City style combiners, only with modern articulation and engineering. Yes, third party toys are better, but you are looking at three times the price. Each one is a simply but extremely efficiently engineered toy, and they work so well, they've made any preceding Hasbro combiner, and most third party equivalents, obsolete. The hand/foot guns? Genius. The Aerialbots? Regardless of variant, and some wave one kinks, these are going to be the best combining jets in the mass market for a decade. The Stunticons? The combined mode isn't as good, and its probably easier for us Brits to buy the Japanese version, AS WAVE 2 DID NOT COME HERE(1), but are very nice as individuals. The Protectobots? The best team overall, benefiting from lessons learned, having only gained a member, and coming in a single wave. There's also been a willingness from Hasbro to mix things up, adding completely new characters, or re-purposing old ones into new teams. The size of a team was in effect increased to 6+, each having a legend scale toy associated. If actually playing with toys is your thing, Combiner Wars is a godsend, because there is so much mix & match potential. And, perhaps most surprising of all, Combiner Wars has yet to produce an honestly bad toy. Even the filler was cherry-picked from earlier years and given a new shine. This is not to say there hasn't been obvious room for improvement in the areas of joints and plastic tolerance, but you'll forgive me if I gesture to the subheading above, and swiftly move on from that. So why are we in the situation where pretty much everyone wants Combiner Wars to go away in favour of Titans Return? Not to in any way diminish the obvious appeal of Titans Return, but there's more going on here than merely the new and tasty.

Its the same reason why you don't eat your bestest, most favourite, and beloved food every day. Eventually, you just don't want it any more.

Presenting Superion, whom is awesome, if samey and loose in the limbs.

Remoulds and the controversy that was Alpha Bravo
We got our first hints of this with the reveals of waves 1 and 2, although this was greatly obscured by a more superficial complaint. Hasbro had opted to release the Aerialbots and Stunticons in an odd 3/1 ratio, but the characters of Slingshot and Wildrider were conspicuous by their absence. Alpha Bravo was the first of the "replacements' out, the lone helicopter in a team of jets, and became the lightning rod for all complaints. The fact he was the probably best Autobot deluxe in wave 1, and that some variety was welcome in a team that was otherwise homogeneous, didn't come into it. The Stunticon new guy Offroad got a similar amount of stick, and then it came to light Takara was bringing the old guys back, and then so was Hasbro via an ill-defined online exclusive. While all this wailing and gnashing of teeth was going on, people overlooked the presence of remoulds, and "premoulds", toys intended to be reworked into other more popular characters later on. That's what Alpha Bravo actually was, he was planned from the start to be Blades and Vortex, Hasbro just put the unpopular repaint out first. Similar can be said about Optimus Prime and Motormaster, although I'd imagine Prime sells better to kids than collectors think. Offoad is the reason foot notes are a thing(2).

Presenting Menasor, whom is awesome, if rough around the edges.

It seems at some point, Hasbro and TakaraTomy decided they were going to have a lot of remoulds in the Combiner Wars line. No team would be completely original, with even the Aerialbots sharing parts. This is not an inherently bad thing, nor a new thing, but generally, people want actually new things. I point you to Coneheads, for an old school example, or most of Generations and Beast Hunters. If they are recycling a design which is good, and they add a new head to it, no problem. If we get a Springer/Sandstorm level reworking BRILLIANT. And, I can see a marketing executive pointing this out, the original scramble city toys were pretty similar in design in order to keep the limbs the same length, for the first few anyway. Hasbro seemed to want to downplay this fact, which is a partial explanation for the distribution, but we find ourselves in a situation where its typical for a toy to be used at least three times, with the actually epic mould Dead End mould being sent to factory seven times and counting. Meanwhile TakaraTomy has sidestepped the issue by releasing/announcing a smaller number of moulds at a slower rate, having gone for crowd-pleasing line ups of classically G1 teams. It has however meant that your average G1 purist has doubled up on moulds at a faster rate, because the “missing members” were retooled versions of the members that were mass-market releases, or would become mass-market releases, so they burned out faster. This is half the reason why the collectors fandom is loosing interest.

The other is high expectations, and some disappointments.

Presenting Defensor, whom is awesome, UNLESS you really want a motorbike for a limb.

Wave 4 and beyond

With the Protectobots of wave 3 being a compelling argument in favour of remoulds, hopes were high in the run up to major convention events. People started speculating as to which teams where next, and how the toys would be executed. Rumours started flying of the holy grail of combiners, Devastator, and him being massive. Characters like Onslaught, Prowl and Scattorshot started turning up in stock listings. And images were leaked. Excitement coming into events like the San Diego Comic Con and Botcon 2015 was tangible. The trouble was, once wave 3 started appearing in mailboxes and we got an idea what was coming, it began to look like the Protectobots were the peak. Devastator was revealed, but the individual Constructicons had patchy articulation and dodgy proportions. This personally made me conflicted on the set for a long time, and while I did take the plunge and warm to it, my review should indicate the curiosities and flaws of those toys. Wave 4 proved to be essentially the Stunticons retooled as 1984 Autobots, something which collectors weren't necessarily keen on, due to a lack of precedent and they having the arguably/probably superior toys of previous years. The Combaticon centric wave 5, still unreleased at time of writing, so I resist pre-judging, didn't exactly endear itself on reveal. Not only was Brawl the single new mould deluxe, Blast Off was an inexplicable Quickslinger/Slingshot repaint, and Vortex was the long predicted, but unchanged, Alpha Bravo. Shockwave would be the associated legend toy, which made a degree of sense given that one scene from the cartoon, but this wasn't on anyone's wishlist. Suffice to say, people were hoping for a bit more than that, and weren't happy when Scattorshot turned up as a disappointing Silverbolt retool, minus his Technobots. Wave 6 proved to be previously non-combining Autobots again, happily featuring Sky Lynx of all people as new mould voyager, but a bunch of recycled limbs. Also on the plus side, a fan poll gave a team of combining female Autobots, all new characters, if an exclusive. Exclusive G2 coloured versions of Stunticons and Aerialbots are also pending.

Hasbro would subsequently confirm that the Technobots and any beast combiners were not happening. The big announcement of Titans Return would follow at New York Comic Con.

Presenting Devastator, whom is awesome, so long as he stays combined.

Unite Warriors: The other-other reason why people are tired of Combiner Wars
I have attempted to write about the CW line and the Japanese take on it several times, but I always dumped the draft as I felt I was getting a bit “console fanboy” about it. As mentioned, TakaraTomy went full G1 cartoon with the toys, and to their credit, they didn't cheap out. They created a totally new, if technically unnecessary, deluxe Grove, added such luxuries as elbows to Devastator, and give every indication of doing a space shuttle version of Blast Off. Lovely boxes too, and a lot of it limited exclusives, making them even more desirable. However, I still find the G1 first attitude a bit self-defeating, because the cartoon is thirty years old now, and was made pretty badly in the first place. A lot of collectors do however love it, so more-or-less everything old TT has done has reflected poorly on Combiner Wars in their eyes. However, let's not kid around, CW toys weren't made to be G1 accurate in the first place, so the Japanese paintjobs tend to ignore detail, like Defensor's chest or adds things that aren't there, like Devastator's left foot becoming a truck cab, and Drag Strip's extra “wheels”. And they are lagging months behind Hasbro in releases, so they have lost the advantage of novelty, and probably a few sales. Its not clear if they will release past wave 4, although I wouldn't rule it out. They are releasing Optimus Prime combiner team, a concept deeply in contradiction to the G1 Cartoon, presumably because Optimus sells. Cyclonus is also teased. However, I can't honestly begrudge them doing what so much of the fanbase so clearly wants.

Presenting Rook, whom is awesome, UNLESS you really want a motorbike for a limb.

All that said, TakaraTomy did do something which is harder to defend, and that's to ignore the Legend scale toys, as well as the new characters. In what seems to be an attempt to flesh out their equivalent of Robots In Disguise, Transformers Adventure, toys like Powerglide and Blackjack were shifted into that line, their combining functions ignored. If this truly is part of their stated mandate to make Unite Warriors as G1 as possible, it means they have ignored play features for fear of introducing something actually new to the mix. I don't mean to be undiplomatic here, TT, but ya doing it wrong.

Presenting Sea Clamp, whom may be awesome, it depends what his combiner head looks like

Fun Publications: the other-other-other reason

Also coming out of Botcon 2015 was news that Funpub already had access to CW toys, giving us the Mayhem Attack Squad as combiners and therefore going some way to correcting the Combiner Wars Autobot bias. This was unexpectedly quick, given that one of the toys featured was still months away from a mass-market release, but I doubt this is necessarily a good thing for Funpub. Their business method is to take last year's toys, slap new heads on them, and then charge three times the price. They are in the damned do/don't paradox; if they do something forgettable, people complain about their prices, if they do something actually popular, people complain about the exclusivity making it both expensive AND really hard to find. To make the matter worse, Hasbro has been taking last month's toys, slapping new heads on them, and then charging the retail price. Hasbro are doing the same thing, for less. The Botcon 2016 set, “Dawn of the Predacus” however seems more appealing, as its a Beast Wars themed set. We've only seen mock-ups so far, and nothing of the combined mode, but I'm not pessimistic.

Wrapping Things Up

To put things into scale, the Generation 1 combiners that prompted all this, were released over three years. From Devastator to Scattorshot there was three years of product, but Combiner Wars is to run for eighteen months or so. And on the the collectors side of things, its all encompassing. G1 wasn't solid combiners, 1986 was close, but even then, we the movie characters and triple changers. Its unsurprising that we got tired of the gimmick. The most consist source of non-combining transformers has been the leader class, and that's also remould city. And I don't think I'm necessarily alone in being indifferent to RID and the Masterpiece releases. So, like more than a few people, I don't see myself buying anything past the Combaticons other than Sky Lynx. Which is a real shame, because, they are nice toys, and exactly what we asked for. This is, as the meme says, a First World Problem.

I hope Titans Return doesn't prompt the same level of fatigue, but given there's at least three gimmicks going on there, I'm optimistic.

Presenting Titans Return Blaster, whom might be awesome, we just don't know.

Foot Notes

1. With the wave composition being what it was, this left the British Isles with an incomplete Superion, and Drag Strip as the singular Stunticon. Whomsoever is responsible, shame on you.
2. While a new character, and therefore subject to the same comments as Alpha Bravo, Offroad was attended to be Ruckas, the G1 Triggercon. Hasbro changed their minds, but Fun Publications is indeed bringing that character back with this mould.
   
   
   Photos are by myself, CG renders and promotional art copyright of Hasbro. Sea Clamp image copyright of Fun Publications.