During an interview with The Full Force podcast Mark Weber, ex-Manager of Global Brand Development for G.I. Joe and Transformers at Hasbro, touched on some of his concepts for the Transformers brand (6hr 19min), including "Generation Three", as well as the interview process with Hasbro (6hr 10min).

The first line he worked on was BotShots and that they wanted to do multi-packs. Their pitch was "Volcano Battle Autobots" and he thought that if you were doing groups of five robots then you should just do combiner teams even if they can't combine, because the characters were already established within the mythos and would mean more to both the average fan and to the die-hard collectors.  The first toy set he did was the Stunticon BotShot pack.

Combiner Wars came out of the story pitch idea with IDW where they wanted to get all of the combiners together to have a big fight.

When he first pitched the toy idea he said "Looked it's worked before where you take a larger robot and you add the limbs and if you make the connectors universal then you can reuse the tooling a million times down the road in different combinations and the voyager center should support the deluxe size arms and legs and if you throw in the legends class, the little tiny guys, and make that another part of it ... it was a way to link three different price builds."

When asked by Chris, the host, as to how excited were the people he was pitching it to Mark talked about how he had all of the original combiners with him and would take them with him to show them how it worked. He said that it was something that worked before and that they hadn't really done it well ever since. They were a little lukewarm as they had done Powercore combiners recently, but that they had ignored so many of the things that made it cool, that the new pitch got them excited.  He also put forward having a new concept a year and he had a couple of different ones that he wanted to use. Combiner Wars as his favourite and it was going to be the second one. He felt that because it was strong that it needed to come out first as he was so sure that it was going to be a big deal. The retailers liked it so well that it was extended by 6 months. They pitched it to retailers that it would be a trilogy of Combiners Wars, Titans Wars (later changed to Titans Return due to legal) and then Power of the Primes as the finale. For him, he just wanted to get out Combiner Wars.

The one thing that he regrets was not being able to launch a fully branded G3 (Generation Three) with all new stuff, all new characters and all new styles which he was dying to get there but he didn't end up going in that direction.  He said that G2 was such a big deal for Transformers he doesn't understand why they haven't just done G3.

The basic concept that he wanted to have was that the Ark 2.0, a different Autobot ship comes to Earth chasing Decepticons, maybe not crashing, so that instead of being the pursued they were the hunters. All he wanted was an anti-hero for the Autobots sort of along the lines of Grimlock but not in the aggressive dinobot nature, but someone that Optimus could argue with and that you could take the side of. So that you can have a hero-vs-hero line, like Marvel Civil War, so that you could be on either side of the argument but be fully passionate about it. He hadn't fully fleshed out the character any more than that but he wanted them to be new, he didn't want it to be Grimlock's crew, Springer and the Wreckers, he wanted it to be a brand new guy that fans could rally around or dislike because he was so anti-Optimus.

He wanted new styles such as a large snowplow that would become a shield or something. His big pitch was to have a black and grey Decepticon that would probably be a lieutenant rather than the leader, but he would turn into a hearse and would have been called Tombstone, which was passed as being ok by the legal team. He knew it was campy but it would be a bigger vehicle and would give them some bulk.  It's where the name of the G.I.Joe figure came from as he loved the name.

He thinks it would have been big and a lot of the designers that he worked with are still there, even though many of the Transformers staff has been turned over. He holds out hope that some of the ideas may still see the light of day.

He thinks that going Generation 3 would be a natural fit for the next line. He doesn't know where they are going next but he thinks that new characters are desperately needed for lines such as Transformers and G.I.Joe rather than trying to reboot the characters that have not been redone recently.

You can listen to the podcast by following the link at the start of this post. Whilst the full 9 hour podcast covers Transformers including unreleased figures shown by us here at Transformers At The Moon, the interview section starts at 6 hours and 10 minutes.

In an slighltly weird move by Hasbro and the USPTO we have found some new trademarks filed by Hasbro Inc for:

1. COMBINER WARS
2. COMBINER FORCE

The oddness is that whilst the applications are new they have a prior registered date associated with them as if they are actually follow up applications which is indicated by their status of "New application will be assigned to an examining attorney approximately 3 months after filing date.".

This could indicate a change in procedure by the USPTO.

Remember we bring you the trademark application news first. Expect other fan sites to publish this news in 2-3 days ;)

Reports are coming in that Wave 2 of the 2016 Transformers Combiner Wars figures have now been released within the Phillipines. The wave includes Sky Lynx,Smokescreen, Wheeljack, Hound and Trailbreaker.

Credit to TFW2005.com for the news.

Botcon have released the box art for this years box set with the exclusive combiner team Predacus. The artwork shown below also reveals another character from this years event

If you look closely at the top left you will see a red jet with a orange nosecone and teeth like markings. This appears to be a previous unannounced Combiner Wars Terrorsaur figure!!  Also at the bottom left is an overturned vehicle, its hard to tell who this is but it with Terrorsaur being the first non-boxset toy you have to ask yourself "where are the Maximals?"

TakaraTomy Mall have released images of their latest Transformers Unite Warriors box set Grand Galvatron.  For the set TakaraTomy are releasing many of the previously unreleased in Japan and unused alternate toolings for the combiner who features a fairly cartoon accurate Voyager "Tactician Cyclonus", a retool of Skydive as Ghost Starscream,  using unreleased G1 Seeker head, a retool of Air Raid caleld Curse Armada Thrust, a redeco of Offroad based on Transformers Prime Breakdown called Zombie War Breakdown (his Japanese name in Prime), and finally a redeco of Rook as Wandering Roller based on the IDW character and former partner of Optimus Prime!  They all combine into a form resembling Galvatron II.  Pre-orders are open now

Thanks again to Weibo user zMultiplier we can bring you the first look at the packaging for the upcoming Combiner Wars Generation Two Bruticus figure.

Fun Publications have revealed the final member of the original Tripredacus combiner team, and fifth reveal from next years Botcon set as General Seaclamp. He’ll join Cicadacon, Ramhorn, Ravage, and Tarantulas as part of the Botcon 2016 Dawn of the Predacus set.

Botcon have updated their Twitter page with a digital reveal of the next member of the Botcon 2016 combiner figure and, as has been widely expected, the figure is Ramhorn, now General Ramhorn, of the Tripredacus Council.

General Ramhorn of the Tripredacus Council! Figure reveal later today at http://t.co/cev79J8sqK pic.twitter.com/qLUgq3HNLh

— BotCon 2016 (@BotCon) October 15, 2015

UPDATE:

HK-TF’s Facebook page has been updated with images of  Unite Warriors Grand Scourge. Grand Scourge comes with two purple Ion Blasters, which can combine into one larger rifle, and the Matrix Breaker, a reused sword from the Beast Hunters Ultimate Class Optimus Prime.

The story behidn the sword is that its rumored to be so powerful that it cans separate the link between an Autobot leader and their Matrix of Leadership, which will be interesting to see if the character makes it into the show

For those keeping score this is the 6th use of the toy.

Hasbro's anouncements are San Diego Comic Con 2015 included

1. Transformers Combiner Wars G2 Aerialbots
2. Transformers Combiner Wars G2 Stunticons
3. Transformers Combiner Wars Victorian in Red and Teal (very much like Rapido).  All toys are one colour (I'm in the minority that I like that), their names are
   1. Pyra Magna (body, remold of Hot Spot)
   2. Stormclash and Skyburst　(remold of Alpha Bravo)
   3. Jumpstream (remold of Breakdown)
   4. Dustup (remold of Dead End)
   5. Rust Dust (remold of Groove)
4. New Transformers Combiner Wars Betatron
   1. Body is Scattorshot (heavy remold of Silerbolt)
5. The New Transformers Combiner Wars toys will feature Ankle joints
6. Masterpiece Bluestreak
7. Masterpiece Starscream
8. Platinmumn Edition Blaster
9. Platinum Edition Perceptor
10. Platinum Edition Trypticon
11. No plans for Predaking
12. No plans for Dinobot combiner
13. Cannot confirm MP-28 is Hound
14. No plans for toys on Decepiticon Lustice League
15. There will be a Transformers Combiner Wars Animated Series on Machinima

Combiner Wars Animated Series press release

“The Transformers are coming to Machinima.

Hasbro, the toy company-now-play brand, has partnered with the online gamer and video platform to produce a new animated series based on its Transformers: Combiner Wars line.

Combiner Wars is a storyline that has been playing out across Hasbro’s toys and IDW comic books for the past year and the upcoming Activision video game Transformers: Devastation.

Insiders say it’s the first time these many synergistic elements have been combined by Hasbro to tell an overall story.

Additionally, Habsro is giving something a segment of its large Transformers audience has been demanding for years, namely an animated series aimed at an older audience.

“Our audiences are huge fans of the toy, comics, movies and video games, and for us to continue the legend with the Combiner War is a unique story-telling opportunity,” said CCA Daniel Tibbets.

Said Hasbro’s senior vp of the Transformers franchise, Tom Warner: “(Machinima is) the perfect partner to help launch a totally new kind of Transformers animation—one that, for the first time ever, is specifically designed for the teen and adult fans who’ve grown up loving the Transformers brand.”

Without going to deep into the complexities of the Transformers universe, Combiner Wars saw groups of Transformers be able to combine into one giant robot, known as a Combiner. Superion and Menasor were among the new robots that held the fate of the Transformers’ homeworld Cybertron in their hands.”

You can see a nice gallery on TFW2005 here

Thanks to a post on the Transformers Collectors Europe Facebook Group we have confirmation that Hasbro Europe could not meet the demand required to stock Wave 2 of the Combiner Wars in domestic stores though Wave 3 was in high enough demand to warrant it's release.  This means that if you are after the toy you will need to look online at retailer such as In-Demand Toys, Kapow, All The Cool Stuff and Masterforce.

TFW2005.com report of sightings of the Wave 3 Combiner Wars First Aid, Streetwise, Rook, and Blades in a Toyland store in Scarborough. It is believed that these aere regular Hasbro UK offerings as the figures do not come with the comics like within the US. It means that, this far, Wave 2 (the Stunticons) have been skipped within the UK though rumours suggest that those figures will be Toys R Us exclusives and are set with a June / July release date.

The next round of Japanese Hobby Magazine are going on sale which has lead to some images being posted on Twitter from the latest issues of Figure King, Hyper Hobby etc.  The images include the first look at Unite Warriors Groove where Groove is a new mold created for the Japanese release of Defensor.  Other images include Adventures Powerglide, Cosmos, Drift, and an Autobot police car repaint of Steeljaw.  There is also images of the Takara Amarda Megatron along with the Black Convoy redeco from the Reveal the Shield Laser Optimus Prime with both figures being made available at the Takara Tomy booth during the 2015 International Tokyo Toy Show on June 20th and 21st.

Once again sorry for the delay, professional deadlines have be coming thick and fast over the last couple of months though we hope to get back to regular timely updates soon.

First up Jose Lopez, Art Director/Character Designer on Transformers Prime and Robots in Disguise, shared on his Instagram concept art of Optimus Prime and design sketches of Windblade of their appearance in ongoing TV series Robots in Disguise.

Next up the french episodes titles and synopsis have been released for Transformers: Robots In Disguise episodes 16 - 18, translations of which can be viewed below.

#16: Sideswipe perd la tête (Sideswipe Loses His Head) "When the last team training leaves Sideswipe without strength, the young Autobot realizes that he can not always rely on his physical strength."

#17: L'honneur avant tout (The Honor Above All) "Drift returns to Earth in pursuit of a fugitive Jetstorm. At the same time Team Bumblebee faces Springload and Quillfire who escaped."

#18: La blessure de Grimlock (The Injury to Grimlock) "Unaware that Grimlock hides a serious injury, Bumblebee and the team make their way to the ocean in pursuit of an escaped Decepticon."

Credit to TFW2005 for the story

3rd on the list of update is new that the TFCC Lio Convoy figure is starting to arrive to memberrs of the club within the United States so he should start turning up at doors internationally in the next month.

Finally, Transformers Combiner Wars Leader Class Ultra Magnus has been spotted at US Retail in Texas.