Allegiances: Autobot
 

Minimus Ambus

Size: Roughly a small Minicon
Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: Pearly off-white and some black, light metallic green, dark metallic green, and red
Individual Rating: 6.6

    Did you know that according to the current IDW comic continuity, Ultra Magnus isn't a white Prime in a suit, but rather, a mostly-white completely different tiny character in a relatively much bigger suit? Well, now you do, and his name is Minimus Ambus. The toy for him is darn small, being about the size of the tiniest Minicons from Armada. His vehicle mode is a hovercar-- basically he looks like a car with an overly small spoiler in the back and no actual wheels, but little protrusions where you think wheels would be. Especially for such a tiny toy, he looks pretty good in this mode, with the robot hands on the sides not being nearly as obvious as you'd think. On the back end there is a gap where you can see his robot head, but again-- he's TINY. You can only expect so much. He's mostly off-white in this mode, though his windows are painted black, providing for some contrast. Two stripes down his front hood are painted light green-- comic-accurate, but not a great color against off-white, I must say. They're both too light and just don't go together all that well. Beyond these bits and the spoiler, Minimus Ambus' mold detailing is very simplstic in this mode-- nearly non-existent, unfortunately.
    Ambus' robot mode transformation is very simple-- just fold out the legs from the front, unpeg the arms from the sides, and then lower the hood/spoiler portion on the back of his body. The problem is-- and why I rated his transformation as "Easy" as opposed to "Very Easy"-- is that it takes more force than you'd think to move down the back panel, and his knees also take considerably more force to move than the ball joints on his shoulders and hips. (His overall articulation is at the shoulders, hips, and back-and-forth at the knees in this mode-- pretty good for such a small toy.) Because of this, his legs and/or arms are nearly guaranteed to come off as you try to finangle that little back piece down into its proper place during transformation. Annoying, but still, they pop right back on. In robot mode, Minimus Ambus still looks pretty good, with largely spot-on proportions. The vehicle bit on his back fits in with the overall shape of his body quite well, and doesn't come across as a piece of kibble. The mold detailing on Ambus' main body and arms is much more intricate in this mode, with several details made to make him fit in with how he looks in the IDW comics (given the design, I assume he originally wasn't designed to made into a toy, so... good work, Hasbro!). There's also a bit more light green detailing on the chest, which this time goes well with the dark green detailing on his collar and mustache, and his teeny eyes are even painted red. I would've preferred some paint on his arms and/or waist, but still, he does definitely look better in robot mode.
 

Ultra Magnus

Size: Leader
Difficulty of Transformation: Hard
Color Scheme: Pearly off-white, moderately dark milky blue, milky red, and some black, silver, and dull orangish yellow
Individual Rating: 9.4

    Ultra Magnus' vehicle mode is a rather futuristic car transport, and looks like a slightly-more-futuristic version of his G1 alt mode, with the truck cab in particular being stylized. The truck cab looks less realistic than usual, with no visible side doors, angular and smaller-than-you'd-expect windows, angled headlights, and a much larger grill than you'd think. It does make for a nice little truck cab, though, and can turn at the point where it meets the trailer, though the cab can't come apart from the figure without a little unscrewing, which I don't recommend. Magnus' trailer takes its design cues very much from G1, complete with the "constuction girder"-like design in the front, the missile pods on the sides (though this version of Magnus' pods are bulkier and have pointier missiles than typical), rather skinny dual white parts of his arms forming most of the second "floor" of the trailer, a first "floor" made mostly of various robot parts tucked away somewhat inconspiciously with some color oddities, and a back end that is very obviously Ultra Magnus' lower legs, complete with a lowering ramp made out of the central white portions of said lower legs. Despite all his connecting and fold-out pieces and ramps, CW Magnus fits together REMARKABLY solidly in this mode, with every panel having a tab and hole that fits together nice and tightly, so no issues there. Beyond his feet, most of Magnus' robot parts are hidden at least competently-- the hands are mostly hidden by the blue parts around them at the rear of the trailer, and the chest piece folds into the bottom of the first "floor"; the downside to this is that the backside of this chest piece is hollow, which means that Magnus' first "floor" is not smooth at all. The top of the waist piece and the front part of the first "floor" are pretty solid, though, with only a minor gap, and the waist and upper leg robot mode detailing are hidden on the sides by fold-out red detail panels. Honestly, the mold detailing on Magnus can be rather schizophrenic, being bare-minimum in some spots like the front red portions and most of the front part of the second "floor" of the trailer, with large portions of the cab also being smooth. Other parts are VERY detailed in terms of the mold, with ladders and girder-like details everywhere along the sides of the trailer, small mechanical details along a line that draws across the center of the cab, and even a ladder on each side of said cab. Unfortunately, much of this mold detailing isn't pointed out at all in this mode, with the trailer having very few paint apps- pretty much just the missile launchers and the white parts on the back end, really. The cab, however, is adequately detailed in terms of paint, with black windows, several silver details on the sides and front including the grill, and even little yellow headlights. As such, Magnus definitely looks a bit plain, despite the fact that his colors are-- for the most part-- broken up fairly well in this mode. However, given that red, white, and dark blue (and a bit of black) are literally all of his plastic colors, this still makes him look like a bit unfinished. Another downside with this mode is that Ultra Magnus is a bit too small proportionally when compared to the Combiner Wars car deluxes that he's supposed to be carrying; he can just BARELY fit one on each "floor" of his trailer, and it can be touch getting one in on the bottom "floor" if you don't remove all its accessories. Given that a car carrier's made to carry at least 2 on each level, this is a bit disappointing, although short of making Magnus an oversized Titan-class toy I can't really see how Hasbro could've gotten around this, size category budgets what they are. Magnus comes with two (non-firing) gun accessories, both of which can store in two of four different holes for them on the side rear portions of the vehicle. Unfortunately Minimus Ambus doesn't store or "peg in" anywhere in this mode-- a bit of an oversight, there.
    Ultra Magnus' transformation to robot mode follows the same basic steps of his G1 toy, but with a lot more going on in the legs to make them solid yet articulated-- I love the way the side girders fold behind the lower legs, in particular. The cab also doesn't detach, but the front section actually rotates completely around and them folds down to form the "core" of Magnus' chest, with a fake chest panel closing the whole thing up. Minimus Ambus fits inside the opened-up "cockpit" inside the chest, though it is a tight fit-- and the Magnus head fits right over Ambus' little head, which is a nice touch. That said, if you don't like the idea of Minimus Ambus, this robot mode doesn't look like it's missing anything without him in there-- Magnus' head and chest still look complete and solid without Ambus. Generally, this robot mode calls back to the IDW version of the character a little more than than the traditional G1 take, with large, fairly cartoony-looking boots (given the relative lack of mold detailing) more angular shoulder and shoulder spires, and a VERY IDW-looking chest, with things looking more angular and "complex" in the mold detailing there, even though (with the exception of the headlights on the abdomen) it's a completely faux chest piece. The head has the G1-style large optics, in a departure from the rest of the figure. All in all, Magnus' proportions are pretty solid, and the one part that's off (the overly-large feet and lower legs) are almost certainly that way on purpose because of the IDW stylization. The mold detailing is still great on the head and chest, though, with it looking like most of the paint budget went to those parts and the truck cab-- again, this makes the center look great, but the rest of the figure looks a bit unfinished as a result, even if the colors are mostly broken up alright (with the exception of too much white on the legs). I am also not a fan of the white showing up in the inside center of the lower arms, as that's traditionally been covered up and breaks up the whole "blue lower arms" look G1-esque Magnus toys have always had. For a figure that otherwise locks together very solidly, I'm also disappointed that his lower leg "flaps" have trouble tabbing in well, with the front and sides of his lower legs in general being able to move around a bit without really feeling "locked in place" anywhere. For articulation, Ultra Magnus can move side-to-side at the neck, as well as movement at the shoulders (at two points), elbows (at two points), four fingers on each hand (all as one piece), and at the hips (at three points), knees, and ankles (at two points). This gives him a pretty good range of motion, though I'm not sure why waist articulation wasn't included (there's no reason why due to the transformation). With his feet in their folded-forward position as in the instructions, he can fall over on his back a little easy, as well, because he's a bit back-heavy due to part of the cab mass back there; I recommend keeping his feet back a bit more than in the instructions because of this. Magnus' two guns can be held in each hand (slightly loosely, given the lack of solid tab or peg for them to slot into) or stored on the side of his lower legs here, while his missile pods are stored on the sides of his shoulders in this mode, as is typical for Ultra Magnus-- OR in a really neat touch, you can connect all four weapons together to form an Animated-inspired warhammer for Magnus! Unfortunately, he can only hold it at one spot, and the bottom part of the shaft definitely looks a lot like a gun stuck on the bottom, but it's more of a bonus than full-on feature, so I appreciate it quite a bit.

    Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus is a neat, slightly different take on the Autobot commander, what with a cab that doesn't separate and a little tiny pilot that fits inside his chest. With a few minor exceptions, both of his components look good in both of their modes, and I do like the more stylized version of the robot mode more than his "stiffer-looking" G1 design. His weapons combining to form a warhammer is also a super-cool homage. That said, he is a bit undersized for carrying CW deluxes, and definitely suffers from a dearth of paint detailing-- plus I'm not a fan of how the lower "floor" in his trailer in vehicle mode is not level. Still, altogether he's a solid recommendation, and my favorite leader class toy from the Combiner Wars line.

Reviews by Beastbot

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