Generations Power of the Primes Dreadwind

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Generations Power of the Primes Dreadwind

Hasbro seemingly went out of the way in the early days of Power of the Primes to conceal that there was a combining gimmick in the line. Unfortunately the San Diego Comicon 2017 Collector's Preview Breakfast where the new versions of Darkwing & Dreadwind were revealed immediately made it clear they were obvious retools of Skydive & Air Raid, himself a Skydive retool! However a closer look when in hand reveals an even more interesting story.

Obviously his head and shoulders are new, as is his body, surrounding the combiner connector. The top half of the connector is new, to accommodate a fold out flap with a 5mm port underneath, and the bottom half of the combiner connector is different too: same basic shape as always but the detail at the bottom has changed from a slatted rectangle to an inverted trapezium. Upper arms look the same, but there's an added shallow tab on the side. Lower arms look very similar but there's now an odd shaped indent on the front and the slot on the side is now a 5mm peg hole. Looking on the back of the lower arm the internal construction of the piece has altered slightly. Most of the waist downwards looks the same but there's some new moulding connected to a bar, same green plastic as the shoulders, which is in turn connected to a piece of plastic which the wings are hinger onto. So there's lots of pieces here which are the same, a few new ones and some which are either close copies of the original or genuinely retooled.

The head and the shoulders are the defining feature of Dreadwind's robot mode and they've got these dead on. The pipes on the shoulders have a 5mm internal diameter enabling you to mount weapons on them. The front of his new combiner connector folds down revealing another 5mm peg hole and that's used to attach his Prime Armour. Dreadwind's Prime Armour is a different shape to the Dinobot one used with Swoop & Slug and different again to Jazz. The main body is purple, the cover/gun is the same green as the shoulders and the thumbs & peg are the same off white as most of the body. Gone is the dual cannon, now very familiar to owners of this mould but unfortunately it's replaced by only one gun. His original had two so the absence here is odd especially when his wave 2 team-mate Blackwing has 2.

Identical articulation to Skydive.

Transformation: Broadly similar to Skydive: Fold the jet nose off the back over the head. Shorten the legs using the internal hinge transformation common to many Combiner Wars toys. Straighten the arms to the sides and then swing them down on a hinge between shoulder & body so the shoulders sit near the middle of the chest. Then comes the new bit: fold the wings out to the sides and pull out to the sides, up and back in so they're over the shoulders: a tab on the back of the shoulders recesses into a slot on the base of the wing. Fold the tail wings down.

What you get looks very, VERY similar to Combiner Wars Skydive. All the wing bases do is move the wings maybe 5mm further out on each side and add a Titanmaster footpeg to each side of the jet. You'll notice the new shoulders under the wings and that will be that. The wings themselves are the same as before, changing them would have justified changing their attachment to the body but when you use the same wings was it really worth doing? This more feel like Hasbro has gone to a lot of trouble to produce something very similar to what they had before in this mode and Dreadwind's wings were behind his shoulders anyway in robot mode and from Dreadwind alone the reason for the new location for the wings and their new transformation isn't obvious. However Dreadwind was shown combined with Blackwing at SDCC 2017. There's no hint of this on the instructions for Dreadwind, but the picture on the internet suggest Dreadwind's wings should be next top the back of the jet for that mode. Oddly the only thing that is new in this mode, the tail wings, will escape people's notice!

The one gun is annoying again in this mode. You'd like two so one could go under each wing. You'd also like the back of the gun to be a 5mm peg so you could put one in each shoulder pipe. His Prime Armour mounts on the jet's back here using the existing 5mm peg hole to imitate Dreadwind's original Powermaster function if you have a Primemaster to use with him. Yes it looks like an unsightly big box on his back but turning the armour block round so it faces backwards with the peg at the front makes it look like the sound boxes found on Generation 2 Starscream & Ramjet

As per Skydive he can also form the arm or leg of Combiner Wars or Power of the Primes combiner.

Arm Mode: as before, but with the wings folded round the rear of the jet/robot legs. Unfortunately the robot arms have nowhere to lock onto any more and just sort of hang there.

Leg Mode: again as before, but with the wings by the rear of jet/robot legs folded forward next to the tail wings & tail fins.

Dreadwind doesn't have a defined combiner, like the Dinobots and Terrorcons do, but the theory is he & Blackwing are meant to combine with Starscream and two as yet unrevealed limbs.

I liked the Skydive limb and, if anything, Dreadwind is an improvement on it. They've captured the Powermaster well with limited changes.