Arcee, Chromia, and Windblade SDCC Exclusive with Unique Weapons and Deco Transformers Generations Combiner Wars San Diego Comic-Con Exclusive Item No.: No. B3846 Manufacturer: Hasbro Includes: 5 swords, 1 scabbord, 1 blaster, one spear, poster/instructions Action Feature: Transforms from Robot to Vehicle Retail: $75.00 Availability: July 2015 Other: New deco, big accessories, retooled Arcee hands
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Depending on your interests, this may be maddening or awesome. The set of Arcee, Chromia, and Windblade takes three hard-to-find molds from last year and repaints them into something better, or at least more interesting visually. The characters are the same, but the molds are mostly identical except Arcee's fists and a trio of new weapons.

We've looked at the toys in their original deco previously - Arcee here, Chromia here, and Windblade here - so let's focus on the newness. The molds hold together about as well as the originals, even better in Chromia's case. They all seem to hold together a little bit better, and have far more paint than their predecessors. They also managed to do a lot with their faces in terms of personality, except Arcee still looks like the first Arcee - largely adorable.

All three figures have hands designed to hold the giant weapons - in Arcee's case, that means new hands were designed for this set and so far, only this set. Everybody else is more or less the same mold you bought in 2014, assuming you picked them up.

Arcee is now molded in black with clear blue swords and a matching windshield. The figure itself is mostly black with some pink, silver, and white. The color is a dead ringer for Burger King Z-Bots Buzzsaw, to the point where I refuse to believe it's a coincidence. It's too perfectly nifty and about as early 1990s as you can get. This feels like a G2 leftover or update, and it has the most amazing pearlescent pink on the legs and some parts of the car. It's pink, but if the light hits it right you get a tiny glint of blue.

The smaller blue swords plug into her fists just fine, and they're unaltered. She can also carry the Combiner Slayer sword - a massive Beast Hunters Optimus Prime weapon recolored and reissued for your gawking pleasure. It's bigger than she is - and bigger than many other Transformers. She can hold it, but it's big and heavy - the figure has no problems balancing with it, but it's her shoulder joint that you need to watch. That's going to sag if it isn't balanced properly, so you may want to be careful or employ some sort of prop to keep it upright. The big sword can't be used in car mode, but it does have 5mm pegs on the sides - so maybe other toys can make use of it, too. Arcee is the big winner of the set, and she's got blue light-up eyes that work pretty well and an Autobot face tattoo, which I guess makes her Mike Tyson. Extreme.

Next up is Chromia. In the comics, she looks like the 2014 toy it seems - but this toy has what I believe I read Hasbro referred to as "war paint," but it also looks more than a little like the markings of people on Caminus. (It's a planet of Transformers.) Chromia has no obvious mold changes and is basically "ice armor" or "Ultra Magnus-esque." It has blue plastic, but a wonderfully rich metallic blue paint. My original Chromia had a bum hip, but this one seems solid. The silver paint brings out a lot of detail plus the blue lipstick and multiple colors of eyeliner make her face really stand out. Even the eyes are painted blue, which is a vast improvement over the previous model. Articulation is still great, and with the clear colorless bits now red she feels more lively.

Some tribal patterns on her back are more or less tattoos, and these carry over to the bike mode quite nicely. She has rolling wheels - some roll better than others - and a functional kickstand.

Her pistol is basically the same - hold it in her hand, or mount it on the leg. Her really impressive weapon is the gagantuan Primeon Blade, a heavily repainted Bumblebee sword that towers over her. Due to the design she has no problems holding the blade with both hands and assuming an awesome cobat pose. It's mostly black and silver, with a pink fading into silver on the blade. You'll also note five "kill marks" modeled after Devastator's recognizable chest ornament. If you don't, you didn't have one as a kid. Thanks to the ornament on the pommel, only open-handed figures can use this 5mm sword - so it's not usable by the combiners. Metroplex, though, has no problems holding it as a letter opener.

Given her new colors, her personality changes. No longer is she merely "the girl" from 10 (yes, only 10) episodes of the original cartoon. The all-black figure is now a warrior, basically a crazy pink-bedecked ninja who lives to be posed with her blades and to fight rather than to run and fret over Daniel. This helps divorce the toy from the personality we've known since 1986, which is something from which this retro-futuristic car greatly benefits. Get it. If a friend gets a set and splits it up, ask for his or her Arcee.

Rounding out the set is Windblade. This is her first-ever repaint for the US market, and second toy here as well. Molded in lots of red and some grey plastic, the head carries much of the same face detail on a red plastic frame. The hair fan is clear orange and matches the fan blades on her jet mode. There is a lot of gold paint - a lot - including some ill-advised deco on the scabbard for her sword. Basically, where she can grab it, there's paint - metallic gold and silver tend to show wear and tear quickly so be very careful playing with this one over time. The same gold can be seen on her feet, wings, chest, and head along with some silver and blue. This is a more complicated toy in terms of paint, and as such you're being asked to pay for it. I assume we'll see other Windblade toys, but if they'll keep the Linus-esque striped torso, Autobrand chest detail, and blue sword is beyond me.

Due to the complexity of the face and chest, there aren't any visible "tats" on this one. Her jet mode is more red this time with an orange canopy and color that will no doubt remind you of a few recent exclusives. Because going from red and black to red and black isn't a huge change, odds are this will be the least desired when sets get split up. She's not bad, but you may well be happy with the previous US or Japan releases of the mold. (If not, there's always Slipstream.)

Her sword is the same as before, complete with the handle sized for the 2014 Arcee hands. It's solid blue instead of fading to purple, and it fits snuggly in its holster which itself can be mounted on the hip or the back. You can use the mighty Spectrospear in her open hands, which was taken from legendary sources. Specifically, a large non-transforming Bumblebee you didn't want. It fits in her hands nicely, and due to the configuration can only fit in "open hand" figures. Standard 5mm fists can't use this one, and it's painted gold on the tips and silver in the middle. Like the others, it's sparkly and pretty. It's also just barely longer and Arcee's jumbo weapon.

If that weren't enough, the flip side of the instructions is a big poster outlining the skirmishes in the hunt for the Combniers. This team fought Bruticus, Menasor, and Devastator plus is on the lookout for an unknown one near Unicron. I assume they mean Galvatronus. This sort of Easter egg shows good planning on Hasbro's part, realizing that either Bruticus would have been announced by now - it was - or that we'd just assume they mean the Fall of Cybertron 2012 releases.

Back in the 1990s and early 2000s the unwritten rule of Transformers was that you're going to get a repaint. Not every mold did, but most molds were redecorated with no other changes over the course of a few years - some never were, but these are few. In recent years Hasbro has actually pulled back the repaint strategy, instead offering slightly remolded alt modes or new robot heads in the process. While this is usually good - who doesn't like seeing Sky Shadow and Bludgeon or Jhiaxus from Starscream? - it does mean we've missed out on the new characters that came from repaints. Cybertron gave us a Decepticon botanist, a leader of a pirate ship, and even "Big Daddy" a few years later. In 2004-2005 we saw a lot of exclusive repaints at the likes of Walmart to almost preposterous levels - and we need more of those. They're fun, they give a decent low-cost "new" product, and now we see Hasbro has put more thought into this sort of thing. We got a Zombie Cliffjumper and powered-up Combiner Hunters - heck, these feel like they could have come from a crazy toy line. I liked the idea of Night Attack Optimus Prime in the past, but that's expensive - bringing back cheaper, popular characters with new deco and "powers" strikes a chord in the fan heart and gives anyone who bought the toys before reason to look at them again, play with them anew, and maybe pull them out to fight Devastator if they missed out on this particular Comic-Con exclusive. It goes on sale tonight in San Diego, and should be on HasbroToyShop.com shortly. $75 is expensive, but the giant swords and enhanced deco - also bragging rights - make it easy to say "Yeah, fine, OK, I'll take a set." If you're a fiend for Hasbro's neo-G2 toys these may fit right in, depending on your collection.

Review sample courtesy Hasbro / Hunter PR

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