Combiner Wars (toyline)
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Combiner Wars is a subline imprint of the Generations toyline, constituting the first portion of the Prime Wars Trilogy.
Debuting at the very end of 2014, it saw Deluxe, Voyager, and some Legends Class figures able to form Combiner robots, primarily of the Scramble City variety that allows the Deluxe figures to be either an arm or a leg, and allowing mix-and-match combinations. 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). Each pack-in comic also included an expanded profile for the toy written by Mark Weber. However, due to production schedule problems,[2] Deluxe wave 1's initial U.S.[1] release featured the collector cards in lieu of comics. 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.
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.
The Japanese version of this line, Unite Warriors, was considerably smaller, being almost entirely boxed sets released on a very staggered schedule.
| “ | Courage is stronger when combined | ” |
—Official tagline for the Combiner Wars line | ||
Toys
General retail
Legends Class
| Wave 1 | Wave 2 | Wave 3 | Wave 4 |  | ||||
| Wave 5 | Wave 6 |
Deluxe Class
| Wave 1 | Wave 2 | Wave 3 | Wave 4 |  | ||||
| Wave 5 | Wave 6 |
Voyager Class
| Wave 1 | Wave 2 | Wave 3 | Wave 4 |  | ||||
| Wave 5 | Wave 6 |
Leader Class
| Wave 1 | Wave 2 | Wave 3
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Wave 4 |  | ||||
| Wave 5 |
Titan Class
- Devastator, giftset of 6 Voyager-sized figures, includes:
Exclusives
"May Mayhem" Deluxes
These were officially exclusive to online retailers and comic book stores for the United States market (although a few specimens ended up at retail stores), but were available at general retail in Hasbro's Asian markets. Not counting store-initiated imports, they were never officially available in Canada, Australia or Europe. Regardless of the markets they were released in, Brake-Neck and Quickslinger were only available in English-only packaging including comic books, whereas Groove was only available in multilingual packaging including a character card instead of a comic book.
| 2015 | 2016 |  |
Convention multi-packs
While these toys premiered at conventions (most prominently San Diego Comic-Con 2015), they also ended up available through other venues, like the Hasbro Toy Shop online store, and even at retail in international markets such as Asia and Australia. See individual entries for more information.
| Devastator 2015 Special Edition | Combiner Hunters |  |
"Online exclusive" Collection Packs
Most of these box sets were "shared exclusives" sold by numerous online retailers. Liokaiser, however, was a Platinum Edition set officially exclusive to Entertainment Earth in the United States... but he was also available from other venues in other markets, and even in the United States, online retailers that got their stock from overseas carried him regardless.
| Superion (G2 deco) | Menasor (G2 deco) | Victorion | Bruticus (G2 deco) |  | ||||
| Computron | Liokaiser |
Fun Publications
While the figures and sets listed above were all Hasbro-initiated releases, Hasbro licensee Fun Publications also branded their BotCon 2016 exclusives and the Transformers Figure Subscription Service 4.0 and 5.0 figures as part of the Combiner Wars line (including figures that weren't part of the "combiner" concept), as opposed to the usual Timelines branding for previous FunPub exclusives.
- BotCon 2016
| Predacus | Souvenir figures | Customizing Class exclusives | Other exclusives
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- Transformers Figure Subscription Service
Series 4.0 (2016)
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Series 5.0 (2017)
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"Special Edition" Deluxe
In 2018, during the course of Power of the Primes, Hasbro released three exclusive Deluxe Class figures in premium-style boxes, each with a Prime Master, to commemorate the Prime Wars Trilogy. Each figure represents one part of the trilogy, and for Combiner Wars Hasbro used the Unite Warriors Blast Off mold. Special Edition Blast Off was exclusive to Amazon in North America but available at general retail in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia.
| Amazon |  |
Notes
- 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.[3] The same artwork was later used for the posters included with 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!
- 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... by which time they had already been released at retail in Singapore. Whoops.
- 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 officially 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 the European wave 4 case assortment in favor of Silverbolt and Hot Spot. Hooooowever...
- In several instances, Deluxe Class figures appeared in certain markets in packaging not intended for those markets, oftentimes as imported overstock. Those instances include:
- In the United States and other markets that got most Deluxes in English-only packaging including comic books, the wave 1 Deluxes were initially only released in multilingual Canadian/Latin American packaging including character cards. This was due to production scheduling problems, and even though Hasbro originally intended to re-release all four figures with comic books (packaged samples exist), ultimately only the comic book version of Dragstrip was released as part of a revision case of wave 2 that saw limited distribution. On top of that, clearance stores such as T.J.Maxx eventually stocked the multilingual Canadian/Latin American character card versions of the wave 4, 5 and 6 figures in late 2016.
- Canadian retailers such as Walmart and Toys"R"Us stocked the wave 4 Deluxes in English-only packaging including comic books even before the "proper" multilingual packaging versions with character cards instead of comic books became available.
- In the United Kingdom and Slovakia, the wave 2 Deluxes (specifically the revision case including Dragstrip) appeared during "silly season" in late 2016 at chains such as Guess How Much! (United Kingdom) and Dráčik (Slovakia) as gray imports in English-only packaging including comic books, making this the first time these figures (minus Dragstrip) were available at European retail, long after the fact.
- In early 2017, gray imports of the wave 4 Deluxes in English-only packaging including comic books also appeared at Intertoys, a Dutch chain with stores in Germany, where they warmed shelves alongside their counterparts in regular European packaging sans comic books. According to the multiple (!) import stickers, these truly went around the world, via China and then the United Kingdom, before ending up in continental Europe!
- Overall, this means Canadian/Latin American packaging is the only packaging version all general retail Deluxes were officially available in.
References
- ↑ 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 under "notes" for a comparison.
- ↑ Interview with Jerry Jivoin at BWTF.com
- ↑ Combiner Wars "movie poster" adverts at TFW2005
