Name: Breakdown
Series: Combiner Wars
Allegiance: Decepticon
Alternate Mode: Sports Car
SPORTS CAR MODE
Height: 4cm Length: 13cm Width: 6cm
A beige sports car with a red hood, black painted windows and navy blue skirting. While it's not a Countache, it's broadly a Lamborghini Diablo - close enough I suppose. This car is clearly Breakdown. He sports a purple Deception logo on the centre of his hood while there's silver on his headlights and across the top of the windshield, in the form of text reading, "15RACING". He has black plastic tyres with silver rims. Overall it's a good looking car mode... although the text on his windshield is obnoxiously big,
Play value here is about what you'd expect - the wheels roll and Breakdown's weaponry can be attached. He has a hole on top and one at the back (which isn't especially useful for this mode, but hey, it's there if you want to, I guess) and you can plug in either his purple hand/foot piece or his black sword (which has a post on the side, allowing it to plug in and face forward, not just up in the air). Unlike most Combiner Wars deluxes he doesn't have holes on the side - but given that most of his contemporaries don't have twin weapons (Groove being a notable exception), it's not really a negative here. His sword has a tab on it allowing it to plug into a notch on either door, and this is specific to his sword.
A good vehicle mode, aside from the needless text on his windshield. The colours are good - and both the colours _and_ placement are right for the character - and the play value, while nothing amazing, is sufficient and what we'd expect for the line. I like the fact that they gave Breakdown Lamborghini lines, tying this car mode back to the character.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Unclip the halves of the rear, pivot them out and back to form his legs. Fold the halves of his spoiler down as heelspurs, and similarly fold down his feet. Fold the front of the car up and back, unclip the sides which will become his arms. Unclip the front bumper - this is cleverly the bottom edge of the chestplate - and fold down as that chestplate - revealing his head. Swing the arms up so that the shoulders lock his head & chestplate into place. Position his arms, give him his sword and you're done.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 14cm Width: ~7cm (depending on pose)
Again, Breakdown is mainly mix of beige and navv blue; the front of his boots, his head and much of the torso is navy while his arms, thighs and most of the back side of the toy is beige. he has extensive silver painted detailing on his torso while his face is red with purple eyes. There's a purple Decepticon logo on the left side of his chest and splashes of silver on his feet. It's a good cool scheme and is unmistakably Breakdown.
One thing I really like about this robot mode deco is that the chest is silver like the G1 toy, with the broad shape of his chest in the G1 cartoon, while the head and arms are those seen in the cartoon - he's faithful to G1 but makes sure he references the toy as well as the cartoon - managing to feel like both versions of the character.
He's quite poseable, and doesn't quite fit into standard Combiner Wars poseability thanks to some atypical joints. His waists rotate while his neck, shoulders, elbows and hips are all ball jointed. He also has hinges in his elbows (for transformation) and pivots in his hips (again, for transformation) making him more poseable than most Combiner Wars deluxes. His knees are hinged with rotators while the transformation hinges in his feet can allow some posing as well. Really, the only thing I'd ask for is ankle tilts - which was not standard in Combiner Wars anyway. His sword can fit in either hand while the foot/hand accessory can plug into his back... if you feel inclined... or be held as an awkward weapon.
A great robot mode, with no real flaws. They've nailed the character and given him good poseability and good colours. I'm not sold on the idea of attaching the accessory on his back, but then you can easily just leave it off.
VARIATIONS
The Unite Warriors version has a different paint job, notably getting rid of that silly text on the windshield. He was repainted in G1 colours. Sunstreaker, Jumpsteam, Wheeljack, BotCon 2016 Ravage & Tigatron, Subscription Service Counterpunch, Unite Warriors Lightspeed and Trickdiamond are all retools of Breakdown. He combines with the other Stunticons to form Menasor.
OVERALL
A great vehicle mode - aside from the text on his windshield - and a great robot mode with no caveats, Breakdown has a good colour scheme, a strong tribute in both modes and he's even gotten a vehicle mode with Lamborghini lines. His poseability in robot mode is good and I like how his robot mode manages to resemble both the G1 toy and cartoon. I'm not about to hunt down the UW version without the text on the windshield (it only came in a boxset), but it gets rid of the only negative on this toy, which only loses a point on his score because of that silly text - 9/10
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