Combiner Wars (toyline)

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Like most Deluxe Class figures, Swindle was available with a comic book in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and Asia (left), and with a character card in Canada and Latin America (center) as well as Europe (right).

Combiner Wars is a subline imprint of the Generations toyline, constituting the first portion of the Prime Wars Trilogy.

Debuting in 2015, it saw Deluxe, Voyager and some Legends figures able to form combiner robots. The format for Legends Class was changed once again, dropping the small partner figures of the Thrilling 30 line.

The tradition of including IDW comic books with U.S. Deluxes (started by the Thrilling 30 segment) continued, whilst Legends, Voyagers, and non-U.S. Deluxes gained collector cards featuring art taken either from the Transformers Legends mobile game, or simply the toy's package art (which doubles as the comic book cover for the U.S. version). However, due to production schedule problems, Deluxe wave 1's initial U.S. release featured the collector cards. Along with the concurrently released Robots in Disguise line, Combiner Wars also heralded the return of multilingual packaging to the United States market, now in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The sole exception to this was the Deluxe figures packaged with comic books, which retained English-only packaging.

Meanwhile, Combiner Wars marked the end of the Toys"R"Us exclusivity for Generations figures that had been in effect in several European markets since the launch of the original line in 2010 (which had usually resulted in only one wave per assortment ever being released in Europe). Not only did availability and distribution improve tremendously across the board—the Combiner Wars figures were even released in European markets where Generations figures had previously never been available at all! At the same time, European packaging reduced the number of languages from thirteen to a mere four (English, French, German and Spanish), resulting in a less cluttered packaging design.

After the general retail assortments had run their course, the line was extended for several months via giftsets of complete teams featuring redecos and retools, referred to as "Collection Packs" in official promotional materials. Those sets were typically "shared exclusives" between online retailers and the online storefronts of "big box" retailers, though they were also available at brick and mortar retail in several non-U.S. markets.

“	Courage is stronger when combined	”
—Official tagline for the Combiner Wars line

Toys

General retail

Legends Class

Wave 1 Bombshell Autobot Powerglide Thundercracker Windcharger		Wave 2 Decepticon Blackjack Huffer		Wave 3 Protectobot Groove Decepticon Viper Warpath		Wave 4 Rodimus Skywarp		Legends Class Viper.
Wave 5 Buzzsaw Decepticon Chop Shop Autobot Pipes Decepticon Shockwave		Wave 6 Wreck-Gar

Deluxe Class

Wave 1 Alpha Bravo Decepticon Dragstrip Firefly Skydive		Wave 2 Air Raid Breakdown Dead End Decepticon Offroad		Wave 3 Protectobot Blades Protectobot First Aid Protectobot Rook Protectobot Streetwise		Wave 4 Ironhide Mirage Prowl Sunstreaker		Deluxe Class Firefly.
Wave 5 Decepticon Blast Off Brawl Swindle Decepticon Vortex		Wave 6 Wheeljack Autobot Hound Smokescreen Trailbreaker

For the US market, each figure from wave 2 on came with a reprint of an IDW comic that supposedly featured the character, but that whole "featured the character" thing didn't always pan out. A comic-book-pack-in variant of Decepticon Dragstrip was later released in a revision of wave 2. Some time later, the full set wave 1 comics (which were originally solicited for normal retail) were released in a bundle at a Taiwanese comic convention, separate from the figures.

Voyager Class

Wave 1 Optimus Prime Silverbolt		Wave 2 Motormaster		Wave 3 Protectobot Hot Spot Cyclonus		Wave 4 Battle Core Optimus Prime		Voyager Class Optimus Prime.
Wave 5 Onslaught Scattershot		Wave 6 Sky Lynx

Leader Class

Wave 1 Megatron Armada Megatron		Wave 2 Thundercracker		Wave 3 Ultra Magnus (with Minimus Ambus)		Wave 4 Starscream		Leader Class Thundercracker.
Wave 5 Skywarp

Titan Class

Your childhood has returned- but this time it's after your wallet.

• Devastator, giftset of 6 Voyager-sized figures, includes:
• *Constructicon Hook
• *Constructicon Long Haul
• *Constructicon Scavenger
• *Constructicon Bonecrusher
• *Constructicon Scrapper
• *Constructicon Mixmaster

Exclusives

"May Mayhem" Deluxes

2015 Brake-Neck Quickslinger

2016 Protectobot Groove

Regardless of the markets they were released in, Brake-Neck and Quickslinger were only available in English-only packaging including comic books (albeit only alternate cover variants of the issues available—at least in theory—with Dead End and Firefly, the figures they were redecoed from). Groove, meanwhile, was only available in multilingual packaging including a character card instead of a comic book.

Convention multi-packs

While these toys premiered at conventions, many ended up available through other venues, like the Hasbro Toy Shop online store, and even occasionally at retail in certain chains. See individual entries for more information.

Devastator 2015 Special Edition Constructicon Bonecrusher Constructicon Hook Constructicon Long Haul Constructicon Mixmaster Constructicon Scavenger Constructicon Scrapper

Combiner Hunters Arcee Chromia Windblade

Predacus General Cicadacon General Ramhorn Ravage General Sea Clamp Predacon Tarantulas

"Online exclusive" Collection Packs

Most of these box sets are "shared exclusives" sold by numerous online retailers. Liokaiser, however, is a Platinum Edition set officially exclusive to Entertainment Earth in the United States… but he's also available from other venues in other markets, and even in the United States, online retailers that get their stock from overseas carry him regardless.

Superion (G2 deco) Air Raid Firefly Powerglide Quickslinger Silverbolt Skydive		Menasor (G2 deco) Decepticon Blackjack Brake-Neck Breakdown Dead End Decepticon Dragstrip Motormaster		Victorion Dust Up Jumpstream Pyra Magna Rust Dust Skyburst Stormclash		Bruticus (G2 deco) Blast Off Brawl Onslaught Shockwave Swindle Vortex		Liokaiser
Computron Afterbreaker Cybaxx Lightsteed Nosecone Scattershot Scrounge Strafe		Liokaiser Dezarus Drillhorn Fellbat Guyhawk Ion Scythe Ironbison

Notes

Advertising is stronger when using social media

• Early in the toy line's life cycle, Hasbro advertised the figures with two "movie" style posters published on Facebook, alternatively depicting Superion and the Aerialbots, or Menasor and the Stunticons. The same artwork was later used for the posters included wth the "Generation 2" Superion and Menasor Collection Packs. While awesome in their own right, none of those posters were ever featured at public transport stations, so there was still room for improvement!

Clues hidden in a stock photo. What's next? Alternate heads depicted in instructions?

• The existence of Legends Class Huffer and the name of Blackjack were first revealed by a stock photo of Menasor released during San Diego Comic-Con 2014. What appeared to be a plain white background was, with color correction, revealed as a Mac OS screenshot displaying filenames for those two characters. Blackjack could easily be identified as the then unnamed black-and-purple car revealed at SDCC, whilst Huffer's toy was later announced at New York Comic Con.
• In addition, Legends Class Rodimus and Skywarp were accidentally revealed prematurely in January 2015 via official product listings including stock photos on the public Hasbro website. This was almost a month before even the wave 3 products of all the main assortments (including Legends Class Groove, Warpath and Viper) would be officially revealed at Toy Fair. Hasbro quietly pulled the listings for Rodimus and Skywarp from their website and then pretended to "officially" reveal them at BotCon 2015, a whole five months later.
• The Hasbro product code numbers for the first three waves of Legends Class figures suggest that a different release order was originally planned: Wave 1 would have included Huffer instead of Windcharger, who would have been the sole new figure in the subsequent wave (or, more likely, simply a revision wave), and Blackjack would have been released in the next wave alongside Warpath, Groove and Viper.
• The limb robots substituted out of Combiner Wars Superion, Menasor, and Defensor, namely Slingshot, Wildrider, and Groove, also happen to be the same members whose Kre-O incarnations were sold separately from their teams. Coincidence? Probably.
• No wave 2 products of any size classes of Combiner Wars were ever released in any European markets, with the sole exception of Legends Class Blackjack, who was eventually released as part of a revision of wave 4. Even Motormaster, who was re-released as part of wave 4 of the Voyager Class assortment alongside Battle Core Optimus Prime, was omitted from then European wave 4 case assortment in favor of Silverbolt and Hot Spot.
• Coupled with fact that the wave 1 Deluxes in English packaging including comic books remain unreleased (except for Dragstrip) as mentioned above, this means Canadian/Latin American packaging is the only packaging version all general retail Deluxes were officially available in. To make things even more confusing, the wave 4 Deluxes were initially released at Canadian retail in English-only packaging including comic books (an unusual, though not unprecedented, occurrence for Canada), before the "regular" versions in multilingual packaging including character cards became available.
• Due to ratcheting issues, Voyager-scale Motormaster was re-released alongside Wave 4 with improved hip ratchets, although this unfortunately lead to the revised version of the toy becoming a recurring shelfwarmer.
• Lastly, clearance stores in the US such as T.J. Maxx later sold Deluxe figures from waves 4, 5 and 6 in Canadian/Latin American packaging.