Combiner Wars (toyline)

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Prime Wars Trilogy
« Combiner Wars »
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.[1] 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.[1] version). However, due to production schedule problems,[2] Deluxe wave 1's initial U.S.[1] 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[1] 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.

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.

Toys

General retail

Legends Class

"I'm gonna go make my own toyline, with Blackjack and Huffer!"
Pictured: Hasbro's entire 2015 G.I. Joe line.

Wave 1

Wave 2

Wave 3

Wave 4

Wave 5

Wave 6


Deluxe Class

You can't take the sky from me.

Wave 1

As described above, the initial US market release of wave 1 lacked packed-in comic issues. The comic book variant of Decepticon Dragstrip was later released in a revision of wave 2. Stock photos depicting the comic book variants of all four figures were mistakenly featured at several online retailers' websites, and Entertainment Earth even listed individual preorders for all figures depicting the comic book versions but later changed the images to the non-comic versions. Some time later, the wave 1 comics were released in a bundle at a Taiwanese comic convention, separate from the figures.

Wave 2

File:GenerationsCWRook.jpg
So, he combines with this guy, right?

Wave 3

Wave 4

Wave 5

Wave 6

Voyager Class

"You better eat your Wheaties."

Wave 1

Wave 2

Wave 3

Wave 4

Wave 5

Wave 6


Leader Class

Packed in with a Nurse Whitney DVD.

Wave 1

Wave 2

Wave 3

Wave 4

Wave 5


Titan Class

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


Exclusives

"May Mayhem"

Initially left out of the wave 1 and 2 Aerialbot and Stunticon teams and replaced by Alpha Bravo and Offroad, respectively, Hasbro later made the Combiner Wars versions of Slingshot and Wildrider available (under different names due to trademark reasons) as "shared exclusives" between various online retailers in North America, whereas they were available at general retail in Asia.
Groove was initially released as a promotional item from Toys"R"Us Taiwan but later saw a general retail release in Taiwan. In North America, he was made available as a "shared exclusive" between various online retailers in North America like Quickslinger and Brake-Neck before him. He was the first Deluxe Class figure of the line that didn't include a comic book in any market, not counting the planned-but-canceled United States re-releases of the wave 1 Aerialbot figures.

Conventions

In the US, the Devastator gift set was exclusive to the Hasbro Toy Shop website and the Hasbro Toy Shop booth at San Diego Comic-Con 2015. In Asia, it was also available at Animation-Comic-Game Hong Kong 2015 and subsequently stocked by Toys"R"Us Hong Kong. Later, it was also available at The Falcon's Hangar booth at Singapore Toy, Game & Comic Convention 2015.
In the US, the Combiner Hunters gift set was exclusive to the Hasbro Toy Shop website and the Hasbro Toy Shop booth at San Diego Comic-Con 2015. In Asia, it was also available at Animation-Comic-Game Hong Kong 2015 and subsequently stocked by Toys"R"Us Hong Kong. Later, it was also available at The Falcon's Hangar booth at Singapore Toy, Game & Comic Convention 2015.

"Online exclusive" Collection Packs

Or you could pick... WHAT'S IN THE BOX.
Or you could pick... WHAT'S IN THE BOX.

This item is currently scheduled for release, but is not yet available at mass retail.

Liokaiser is the only multi-pack with a Platinum Edition branding. Unlike the previous sets, which were shared exclusives between numerous online retailers, Liokaiser has been confirmed to be exclusive to Entertainment Earth.

Notes

  • In a frankly inexplicable turn of events, the existence of Huffer and the name of Blackjack in the Combiner Wars subline imprint 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 unnamed black-and-purple car revealed at SDCC, whilst Huffer's toy was later announced at New York Comic Con.
  • 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 generel 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.
  • 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.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Australia, New Zealand and Hasbro's Asian markets typically get toys in whatever format is also used for the United States. The markets that traditionally get multilingual packaging are Canada, Latin America, and Europe. See the image to the right for a comparison.
  2. ↑ Interview with Jerry Jivoin at BWTF.com
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