Transformers: Combiner Wars: Combaticons Blast Off, Swindle and Vortex

What is this for Combiner Wars, Wave 5? Sure.

Wave 5 of Combiner Wars is the Combaticons. Remember the first two waves, the ones that split up the Arialbots and Stunticons? Before the Protectobots all came out at once and the world was a happier place? Yeah. While I don’t know when I’ll find the remaining two, a trip to Target today yielded three of the Combaticons. They are all repaints or retools of existent molds, so for the most part there are few surprises here.

Blast Off stirred a degree of controversy by not being a space shuttle this time around, but I think the fiction work around is actually pretty solid. Turns out, Onslaught realized that a space shuttle is a pretty stupid part of the military themed roster, and so ordered Blast Off to take an alt mode that not only made more sense but also contributed more to the team. So he did. This is a straight repaint of the “Quickslinger” Slingshot mold, including the head, and that’s the only issue for this figure. Blast Off traditionally has a face plate, and the head here is the normal faced Slingshot head. Considering Firefly is the exact same jet and has a face plate, one wonders why they would not have just used the Firefly mold for Blast Off, which would have been practically perfect. Aside from this head issue, Blast Off looks good. The usual olive brown and purple color scheme is here, and the toy wears it nicely. The left chest sports a big Decepticon badge and it looks great. Blast Off is a really nice looking figure, again except for the head, which just looks like a mistake. The only reason I can think of for their going with this version of the mold is that Hasbro had to justify the Slingshot release somehow, despite it selling out pretty much every place online that was carrying it. So reusing it here helped them get more money out of their investment. I guess?

 

Swindle is a pretty extreme retooling of Rook, the new member of the Protectobots. He’s a pretty military looking jeep, which is a neat change. I know that there have been a number of figures named Swindle throughout the history of the franchise, but the only other version that sticks out in my mind as having been particularly military looking is from Animated. G1 Swindle was the standard jeep, the old World War II design, and this one is more akin to something like the G.I. Joe AWE Striker, a more armored and armed vehicle.

Being a reworking of Rook means that Swindle is a fairly large looking robot, with big legs and a wide chest, but almost comically thin thighs. He is that Swindle color, that mustardy yellow, but it is so prevalent on this figure that it is almost a turn off. Save for the black of the roll cage and the tires, the vehicle mode has no other color, at all, and that is a turn off. The vehicle mode has a lot of sculpted detail that is completely lost with everything being a solid block of color. Blast Off is mostly one color as well, certainly in vehicle mode, but there are two shades of purple that break up the solid olive brown; Swindle has nothing. No real relief in robot mode either, as the two chest halves are purple with teal, and then more of that awful yellow. New head, really nice. New hand foot gun as well, which I didn’t notice until I was writing this up.

Vortex is the third use of the helicopter mold, and I think the one that does it the best. I’ve still not written up Superion or Defensor, the latter of whom is on my to-do list here, but Blades was a real nice improvement on the comically poorly names Alpha Brave mold. But Vortex is a home run. Just like the other two, the whole Vortex color scheme is here, and it looks great. Vortex also gets a new head, and it looks like Vortex. . . and makes it more puzzling as to why Hasbro went with the Slingshot head on Blast Off. It’s a strange helicopter: a longer, rescue looking one, not fit for Vortex as a military chopper, but it works, probably due in some part to this being the helicopter mold for the present time, so anyone with a helicopter alt mode better make it work for them. Vortex makes it work because of the missile racks, the things that prevents the mold from really working for either Blades or Alpha Bravo, both of which are more like Coast Guard vehicles. 

For the time being, these three guys are going with Offroad and Cyclonus, but once I find Onslaught and Brawl, we’ll get a write up on Combiner Wars Bruticus, who seems for now at least to be the final complete legacy combiner for the line. No word on a full Computron, and with Titans Return expected to roll out sometime in 2016, I doubt there’s going to be anyone else coming along. For now, at least, as the general Combiner Wars figures have shown themselves to be pretty versatile, so firing up the molds for someone new in the future may not be out of the question. As long as the team is comprised of a few fairly standard vehicles, that is. Again, Seacons and Terrorcons are missed opportunities in this line. Totally missed.