It's Christmas time and Hasbro is playing Santa Claus by releasing a bunch of new stuff early. The Combiner Wars have started and I managed to pick up Optimus Prime yesterday.

First off, the problems.
He is a chunky munky. Big solid plastic bits everywhere. Large gorilla arms and non moving feet make for a tricky to pose figure. It also has three sets of cab windows which is either odd or generous depending on your point of view.
Paint apps are a little sparse and could be improved.
The faction logo on the roof is painted on, the logos on the shoulders are stickers. I don't much like stickers as they tend to come off but your mileage may vary.
Wrists don't swivel - this should not the case in 2014.

Now some good stuff.
Transformation to all three modes, truck, robot and combiner torso is fairly easy. Plenty of tabs to click things into place and plenty of ratchets to ensure that limbs don't move about too much.
The regular tiny head swivels around to hide in the cab which is neat. The combiner head, which I call the rabbit head due to the large ears, hides in the extra cab section which is attached to the back of the figure.
It comes with two guns which can be combined to one massive gun. They look pretty good and appear to be molded in red plastic and painted grey.
The figure is great fun and would be something you could give to a child without fear of it breaking. I can imagine it taking a lot of knocks without complaining which I think is good.


Combiner Wars Optimus Prime


Combiner Wars Optimus Prime


Combiner Wars Optimus Prime


Combiner Wars Optimus Prime


Combiner Wars Optimus Prime


Combiner Wars Optimus Prime


Combiner Wars Optimus Prime


Combiner Wars Optimus Prime

 

Great stuff. Any size comparison pics, perhaps with evasion mode prime or something quite common?

 

And I wonder why people never check out my FB photo page

 

Thanks Tcracker.

 

crikey, he's enormous! Evasion Ops is tall... and CW Ops is taller and twice as wide!

 

Nice! Thanks for the photos and size comparisons, Robotochan and Tcracker!

I like the beefy / chunky aesthetic. Definitely looks loads better than the official photographs made him out to be.

The slanted feet bug me a bit (I'd prefer they just molded his feet flat instead of the weird A-stance foot surfaces...) and with the feet in light gray, they keep drawing attention to themselves.

If it's not to much, to those that have him, can we have shots of Prime's side profile and back?

Thanks!

jya na!

 

My first thought..."Ehhh that's sort of a bummer. Not a lot of articulation for a voyager. I was looking forward to this figure."

But then again, when I look at this figure and the articulation list...Combiner Prime has the same exact articulation as Classics Prime...and I am really still happy with that figure.

 

Not a single word about the torso mode?

 

WOW! That's a big Voyager. I think his proportions actually look quite a bit better with the combiner head. Still only a maybe tho. I don't think the mold works as Optimus that well.

 

Wow, he's pretty big.

 

He looks cool

 

Compared to the torso mode for Superion, I think that Ultra Prime's torso mode is inferior in the following ways:

1. Proportions are not good: the torso is too short; the hips are too wide.

2. The connectors for the arms are too far back, or depending on how you look at it, the chest juts out too much.

3. The antenna on the head are too long.





Superion's torso mode works better because it actually inverts Silverbolt's body. The arms for Silverbolt becomes the thighs in Superion, while the legs of Silverbolt are folded up to form the arm connectors of Superion. The proportions are much better IMO.

 

I would like, if possible, to see the figure's back.

 

He's certainly a big mamma jamma. I foresee many fantastic mods and customs in this big boys future.

 

One more shortcoming of the torso mode: The thighs cannot be rotated at the hips (not sure if I'm saying it correct) because there is a grey panel that flips up and locks the thighs to the hips. As a result, in combiner mode, the feet are always pointing forwards, resulting in stability issues. You can rotate out the feet at the knee joint but that looks really weird imo. Superion is far more stable and posable.

 

Any chance of a half way shot? I've been trying to figure out HOW the head is hidden and came to the conclusion that the platform the head is on must rock from side to side.... am I right?

 

Can't wait to see this too.

 

The fact it's got big ears means that a similar sized head, with large pipe ears, could be used on a potential Magnus repaint.

Do everything in white bar the combined chest, red, and the combined head, pale blue.

 

You are absolutely right. The hinge is on the middle of the panel. My son loves to make the head pop up in truck mode, or do a headless prime, just for fun.