The Combaticons begin with Vortex is arriving in Age Of The Primes, followed by the rest of the team in 2026. Here we get under the blades to learn concept designs for the left arm of the Bruticus combiner team.

Put together by Ejima san at Takara Tomy, we can take a little hint as to why we are seeing this now, and rest that will come together just in time to go Joe! Read on to get the behind the scenes from drawing board to retail in Hasbro designer Mark Maher's report and images that follow.

Combaticons unite to form BRUTICUSSSS! Oh how I’ve waited so long to be able to make animation accurate combaticons! Vortex here is really a showcase of how epic this combiner team will end up being. I’m not really sure how much more excited I could be about this Age Of The Primes line up!

Armored helmets off to the og wizard the Big E, Ejima san at Takara Tomy has been knocking it out of velocitron for decades. Everytime I arrive at an impossibility the big E finds a way.

I think some of you know how I feel about military styled copturrr’s, gotta be the Joe or Gobots lover in me, or just the chopper TF crew love, Springer, Sandstorm, Blackout, Armada Cyclonus and I still gotta get a new Whirl somehow. Anywho, lets jump into what makes this deluxe Vortex so special!

The deets if you will; the smoothly rotating propeller is on a 5 mm post, he has both side forearm blasters, his main blaster weapon, the ability to slide the backpack to the side to give a cleaner look, you can even pop off the extra arm kibble in robot mode if you prefer. He’s got landing gear on his mind 😉 his coptur body once located onto a combiner skeleton arm like Superion shown here, will un lock the mechanism inside and get him to split apart for your posing pleasure. Articulation is really somthing, the versatility of this mold is really just outstanding play value. Don’t forget my obsession with deco, I’m in love with gun metal metallic this guy was molded in and the teal blue just really hits with the classic decepticon red visor head sculpt. I chose Vortex to be a descendant of Megatronus, hopefully you agree 👍🏻 Still trying to get an avenue to deliver some lore on this line, stay tuned!

Can’t wait till you see the rest of the crew and the rest of the Primes! Happy Easter to those that celebrate 🐰 🙏🏻!

Look for Age Of The Primes Vortex to ship in May 2025. Order while they last at the following sponsored links: