Warbotron: Warbotron

Happy New Year everyone, and here’s to the hopes that 2019 will be a good, healthy, stable year for all of us. Let’s start the Coffin’s New Year with a real challenging question, that being what the combined mode of the Warbotron Combaticons is called? We’re going to go with “Warbotron,” as it sounds good and sensible, but really, you could most likely call this monstrosity anything you like.

And I meant ‘monstrosity’ in a good way.

Warbotron WB-01E: Fierce Attack

 The final member of the Warbotron team, Fierce Attack is a Third Party Onslaught, and represents somewhat of a mixture of the entire team aesthetic of sticking to the original inspiration, and trying to doing something stylized and different. I’m not sure it’s too successful, but I’m also not sure that it’s Fierce Attack’s fault.

Warbotron WB-01D Whirlwind

In celebration of TFCon Chicago 2018, let’s spend some time with a Third Party Transformer, since we haven’t done that for almost two months at this point. Let’s get back on the Warbotron Wagon and talk about the massive letdown that is Whirlwind.

Warbotron WB01-C Sly Strike

 

 

It feels like this is written a lot around here, but it’s time to pick up the pace on some figures that have been sitting around, as new things have been coming in, and more new things will be arriving this week and next. So, the backlog needs to be addressed.

Sly Strike is the third member of the Warbotron Bruticus ( feel like it needs a better name. . . –mr) team, an unofficial version of beloved Combaticon Swindle. Like his immediate predecessor Heavy Noisey, Sly Strike is a very realistic, real world-looking vehicle as well as an accurate to the original robot. He’s also probably the best toy in the set, mostly for his competency, and not for any mind blowing or exceptional reasons. He’s great because he’s really basic, essentially, also like Heavy Noisey.

Warbotron WB01-B Heavy Noisey

An absolute runaway winner for worst third party figure name, Heavy Noisey is the Warbotron version of Brawl, and is a stunning looking version at that. It’s just, man, that name is so bad.

Heavy Noisey is the slightest of the Warbotron team, establishing early on that it would perpetuate the trend of Brawl being the worst served Combaticon. The Fall of Cybertron line did it; Combiner Wars did it. Now, the third parties are doing it.

Warbotron WB01-A Air Burst

So, Warbotron is apparently the name of the company; I’d always thought that Warbotron was the name of the combined mode, a fitting replacement for Bruticus. But apparently that’s not the case, as Warbotron also has its name on a set of Technobots. While I do not wish to dwell on this confusion, it has been a point of confusion for me. The combined form apparently has no distinct name, so we've got to go with Warbotron Bruticus here.

Transformers: Combiner Wars G2 box sets

 

Theoretically, we are deep into the first wave or two of the new Titans Return toyline at this date in late August. Theoretically. I have yet to see anything more than the $5 head robots in stores, and I’m certainly not buying those; although, the single time I did see them in store, I legitimately gave a relieved exhale that they were priced at the low price they are, and not attempting to masquerade as $10 toys, in this day where Deluxes are trying as hard as they can to stay under $17: and by ‘trying to stay under,’ I mean the $16.99 I saw them listed for at Target. Anyway, we are supposed to be well on our way into the new line, but I’ve not seen them at all in stores. So, I’m choosing to stick with happier, more plentiful times and lines, and am going to retreat once more (at least) into Combiner Wars.

Transformers: Combiner Wars Shockwave

At C2E2 I found a guy who said he’d bought the inventory of a toy store and had basically set up a booth to sell as much of the merchandise as he could. It must have been a Toys R Us, because he had several of the Toys R Us Masterpiece Bluestreaks on hand. Everything he had was listed at below retail prices, except for things he knew were going to be in demand due to newness, and those things he only marked a few dollars higher than similar items. He had Combiners Wars Scattershot for like $22, while Cyclonus was $18. The booth was a goldmine. . . mainly of toys I already had. But, he had the newest wave of Combiner Wars Legends figures, and from that selection I obtained Chop Shop and Shockwave.

Shockwave is the Legends class partner for Bruticus, and his card bio claims that he created the Combaticons. Lol, no. This egregious blasphemy aside, Shockwave doesn’t have a third mode like the other Legends lil’ buddy figures: his alt mode is his usual and proper space gun form, which then Bruticus wields, just like in that one episode of the G1 cartoon. Bruticus can hold Shockwave in hand, or he can be mounted on Bruticus’ back, but that doesn’t really add anything to the combined figure. 

Transformers: Combiner Wars Onslaught and Bruticus

Finally, after all these years. I finally, thanks to Amazon, finally got an Onslaught, and so my Combiner Wars Combaticons are complete. I want to do two things in this entry: talk about Onslaught, and then talk about Bruticus. But, thanks to a C2E2 buy, there will be more Bruticus talk later, but I can’t write about that part until I get this part out. Heavy lies the head, right?

The "Right" Way

The "Also OK" Way

Onslaught is a repaint/mold of Hot Spot, and in vehicle mode is some kind of military truck. The entire central part of the truck is the Bruticus chestplate and head. Hot Spot, being a fire truck, worked a little bit better in terms of incorporating the combiner elements into vehicle mode, but

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Combaticons

Yeah bro, I love combining robots, they're so . . . AAAHHHH!!!!

Early in January, interesting news began to pop up regarding future Combiner Wars releases. Images, incomplete and unofficial at first, began appearing that seemed to be showing parts of two new combiner figures, Computron and Liokaiser. The Technobots have been a terribly kept secret, as there is a Scattershot figure coming to mass retail, and one of the Botcon toys for 2016 is Brawl with a drill. Really, only Hasbro brand hyper loyalists, the kind that religiously repeat mantras of Hasbro being some infallible entity, denied the eventuality of Computron, mainly because a year ago Hasbro said they weren’t planning one right now, which, in Hasbro sycophant, translates into ‘guaranteed, never, ever ever.’ 

Liokaiser is a surprise, the Japanese only gestalt that lots of fans love having zero American presence whatsoever. The leaked photos of box art got me ramblin’ at the wife again, this time about the interesting elements the original Liokaiser figures introduced to the world of transforming, merging robots. Things like the integrated hands and feet, elements that are always bemoaned by fans and collectors for having not been included in other combining figures, Combiner Wars included. People often cry out, “Liokasier has integrated hands; why can’t Hasbro do that? It was possible in the late 80’s; why not in 20**?” 

Hasbro did try it once. It was Fall of Cybertron Bruticus.

Clearly the most ambitious figures of the Fall of Cybertron line were the Combaticons, and their combined form of Bruticus. This was to be the first combiner toy following the bizarre and generally disliked Power Core Combiners line, which hadn’t really worked out as well as it sh/could have. But, that’s another story for another time. Prior to Power Core, the live action Devastator was the most recent combiner, and before that, the Unicron Trilogy featured a lot of combine-ing, but only Energon had actual combiners. FoC Bruticus was greeted with optimism, but almost as soon as pictures began to surface, that optimism faded. 

Oh boy. 

I almost don’t know where to start. 

Transformers: Combiner Wars Combaticon Brawl

Brawl is the final Deluxe class Combaticon, and the first and only entirely new mold on the team. He has a bad waist that I’m sure you’ve heard about online already.

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.