The Energon Pub

Sat Feb 08, 2025 2:07 am

Liokaiser is a bit of a disappointment, the bots are a bit "OS legends scale Dr. Wu" looking and the price is punching me in the gut, especially the Canadian dollar is down the dumps rn with Trump's mutually destructive trade war against us. I've kept Victory Saber & Deathsaurus mint in box to wait for Liokaiser... damn. I have a hard choice to make before the funding period ends.

News Credits: 4877 · Sat Feb 08, 2025 11:48 am

Brokebot wrote:So they finally roll this out after I've long given up and started collecting the Iron Factory versions, and then add insult to injury by Haslabing it. I swear, it's like Hasbro just doesn't want my money anymore.

Isnt Iron factory legends scaled? I dont get how this changes anything then, its completely different scales

News Credits: 462 · Sat Feb 08, 2025 12:08 pm

william-james88 wrote:
Brokebot wrote:So they finally roll this out after I've long given up and started collecting the Iron Factory versions, and then add insult to injury by Haslabing it. I swear, it's like Hasbro just doesn't want my money anymore.

Isnt Iron factory legends scaled? I dont get how this changes anything then, its completely different scales

Yeah, there's only two 3P Liokaisers, and I'm told both of them are trash.

News Credits: 1 · Sat Feb 08, 2025 12:33 pm

william-james88 wrote:
Brokebot wrote:So they finally roll this out after I've long given up and started collecting the Iron Factory versions, and then add insult to injury by Haslabing it. I swear, it's like Hasbro just doesn't want my money anymore.

Isnt Iron factory legends scaled? I dont get how this changes anything then, its completely different scales

I'm not buying for scale. I'm buying because I like the look of the figures. The Combiner Wars recolor nonsense they threw out a while back seemed like just a half-hearted cash grab, and the IF set looked better (to me) than anything else that was available at the time, and honestly still looks way better than this bunch.

News Credits: 1 · Sat Feb 08, 2025 12:45 pm

Sabrblade wrote:Yeah, there's only two 3P Liokaisers, and I'm told both of them are trash.

I think the TFC Hades set had serious joint and connection issues. The IF set seems fine to me, but I'll admit I'm kinda disappointed at all the necessary additional components needed to form Liokaiser (like the current Menasor and Superion) and that the companion beasts can't remain connected.

News Credits: 462 · Sat Feb 08, 2025 1:05 pm

Here is a video of the Liokaiser portion of the Hasbro Pulse panel at MegaCon:

Unfortunately, the person recording kept the camera only on the panelists and ignored the slideshow images.

For areas that don't have Hasbro Pulse, select retailers will be listing Liokaiser on Monday. For the first time, even Brazil is listing this.

They consistently mispronounce Liokaiser's name as "Leokaiser".

Each individual bot is roughly 5.5 inches tall.

The terms they're using are "Chest Animal" and "Chestforce". For obvious reasons. "That's how we got away with that."

The decos in the renders are not final. They want to be animation accurate and there might be a deco update later.

The original Liokaiser had very little combiner kibble, so they wanted to recreate that as closely as possible. The only thing they had to add to make the combiner was the pelivs piece, everything else is completely built in and integrated into the individual figures, including the combiner head, which was a kibble piece on the original toy but is now completely stored inside Leozack. The hands are all stored inside Guyhawk, "Ellbat", and Deathcobra.

They HAD to call him "Ellbat". So, everybody just play it cool. If you say it real fast, it sounds like how it's supposed to sound. "It's in canon, now, he's British." The pose in the render is a reference to his hypnosis ability from the animation.

"Jaruga". This one was a bit contentious on how to spell the name, just because of the fun translations of L to R in Japanese. They shifted things around here and there, but they settled on "Jaruga" because Evan is from the Kre-O team and that's what they did back when he was on the Kre-O team. (NOTE: The Kreon's name was actually spelled "Jarugar".)

He turns into a dune buggy, but they didn't think that sounded cool enough, so they instead called it an "off-road race car".

Evan snuck in the "meme pose" for Killbison's render and no one called him out on it. He means this:

One of the combiner feet is built into him. One of the things they learned from Combiner Wars Predaking was about how the combiner thighs were built into them and that made the bots really chunky, so that's kind of the reason they made the separate pelvis piece.

They're really confident about hitting the 10,000 backers for this set since the previous HasLab hit a whopping 27,000 backers (seemingly ignoring the facts that the last HasLab was both an Optimus Prime toy and based on one that actually appeared on American television).

They were insistent about doing Deathcobra. In addition to making him a spare arm for the combiner, they considered going the Seacon route by making him a blaster for the combiner, but because he's so heavy they decided to make him a shoulder cannon instead. In arm mode, the helicopter blades can act as a shield, taking inspiration from other Japanese anime shows that Evan is a fan of (he doesn't specify which but acts like if you know, you know).

The electromagnetic nunchaku were very difficult to turn into a toy since they can take any shape they want in the animation. They're actually using the Masterpiece Megatron chain piece to make it a combining element, so all the pieces can go together to form the long version. Six pieces included and can all combine together so you can make it as long as you want. They all store underneath the vehicle modes.[/quote]

MyFigureCollection.net collection · Sat Feb 08, 2025 9:44 pm

Just realized LioKaiser is part of Legacy instead of Age of the Primes. They always do HasLab campaigns based on the next big series, not the current one. For example 2021 campaign Victory Saber was for the 2022 Legacy Line despite the Kingdom line still having another wave to go. Deathsaurus and Omega Prime were also Legacy campaigns so that should have already covered those three years. Even if LioKaiser had launched last fall it would have still been an Age of the Primes figure. Does that mean Age of the Primes will not have a HasLab? They haven't really been clear on if the 2026 line will still be AotP or not.

Emerje

News Credits: 462 · Sat Feb 08, 2025 10:28 pm

Emerje wrote:They haven't really been clear on if the 2026 line will still be AotP or not.

Emerje

AOTP is a two-year line.

News Credits: 656 · Sun Feb 09, 2025 2:04 pm

Sabrblade wrote:Yeah, there's only two 3P Liokaisers, and I'm told both of them are trash.

They're both quite good. Neither are perfect, but they're very far from trash. The Iron Factory one only just finished coming out in the past week or two, so this is either an especially uninformed judgment that was shared with you, a hasty one, or just something coming from some bootlicker.

Anyway, Haslab one looks cool and I am excited. I have some nitpicks like how Jallguar is handled in the combined mode, but at least it's a little better than AotP Devy's dump truck butt :lol:

News Credits: 2 · Sun Feb 09, 2025 6:19 pm

Man with Omega Prime still on the distance all the time until we see the release of LioKaiser! #-o

And with my learning that the 3P versions of said combiner are not worth buying is there anyone who picked up the 'ol LioKaiser Combiner Wars set? The combined head I think is pretty damn cool.....

News Credits: 462 · Sun Feb 09, 2025 8:49 pm

ScottyP wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:Yeah, there's only two 3P Liokaisers, and I'm told both of them are trash.
They're both quite good. Neither are perfect, but they're very far from trash. The Iron Factory one only just finished coming out in the past week or two, so this is either an especially uninformed judgment that was shared with you, a hasty one, or just something coming from some bootlicker.

This is what I was shown as an example of the Iron Factory version having so many fake parts:

A fully formed combiner leg separate from the main figure, and even three separate versions of Bisonbreast that represent its three different modes.

News Credits: 101 · Sun Feb 09, 2025 9:04 pm

Sabrblade wrote:A fully formed combiner leg separate from the main figure, and even three separate versions of Bisonbreast that represent its three different modes.

LMAO, are you sure this is not some "transforming" 3P figure, but a non-transforming S7 set?

News Credits: 656 · Sun Feb 09, 2025 9:14 pm

Yeah, there's a lot of that. Doesn't bother me. The end result is that all three modes are great. The animal partners can also transform into guns or the chestplate if desired, the additional two parts are completely optional, there to be used if desired for aesthetic reasons. Execution on the IF Liokaiser set is way better than the wacky DJD combiner they did. That thing is cool but as a combiner, ehh it was basically Helex and Tessarus, a bunch of other parts, Tarn turned into a block and shoved in the middle then Vos and Kaon relegated to Targetmaster duty.

Guess my point is that comparison can be the thief of joy and all that. I like all the options, and while I think the official one looks the nicest and will almost definitely be the most enjoyable to actually tinker with, it doesn't take away from the others in my book. Hasbro and Takara have shown they can take pages out of the 3P playbook effectively, but ignore it entirely when appropriate as well. Haslab looks like a case of the latter, and that's fine by me.

News Credits: 4 · Sun Feb 09, 2025 11:05 pm

Looks cool but no plans to back the project. Then again I never funded any HasLabs.

News Credits: 1 · Mon Feb 10, 2025 6:31 am

Sabrblade wrote:This is what I was shown as an example of the Iron Factory version having so many fake parts:

A fully formed combiner leg separate from the main figure, and even three separate versions of Bisonbreast that represent its three different modes.

Yeah, that was a definite pisser and had my dumb ass noticed it before I ordered it, I probably would have reconsidered. Still, the overall combined form seems cleaner and far better proportioned (despite it's size) than Hasbro's effort, who seems to be achieving scale by being lanky and top-heavy. The fact the top tier is display stands to keep him upright is also a concern. Honestly, I'm still feeling a bit burned by Raiden. And then there's this . . .

Behold, the mighty Backpackatron. I know, it's a prototype and maybe the final product will hide this better, but wow. I don't think I would have shown that off.

Bitching and whining aside, I'll probably still seriously consider buckling and throwing in on this if I have the cash when it fully unlocks because I'm an idiot with poor money management skills.

News Credits: 129 · Mon Feb 10, 2025 10:59 am

Brokebot wrote:
Sabrblade wrote:Yeah, there's only two 3P Liokaisers, and I'm told both of them are trash.

I think the TFC Hades set had serious joint and connection issues. The IF set seems fine to me, but I'll admit I'm kinda disappointed at all the necessary additional components needed to form Liokaiser (like the current Menasor and Superion) and that the companion beasts can't remain connected.

I've got the TFC Hades set and it's damn good. Not even trash adjacent.

Anyway, I'll be getting this Haslab. I don't think I'll do two like I have with previous Haslabs but we'll see as it gets closer.

News Credits: 1646 · Mon Feb 10, 2025 12:28 pm

I think I will back this eventually, just not quite feeling the jump just yet.

To throw my hat into the Liokaiser ring, I think Iron Factory did a damn good Liokaiser, and they technically got Deathcobra first, even integrating him into the combined mode as well.

I do agree the extra parts are excessive, but considering we are now at the point of every combiner having some degree of a skeleton or some add-ons instead of full integration, it doesn't really both me. And it means the IF one is not much smaller than CW either.

I own CW and IF, and both have merits, and so does this one. It just doesn't quite blow me away

News Credits: 1 · Mon Feb 10, 2025 1:45 pm

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:I think Iron Factory did a damn good Liokaiser, and they technically got Deathcobra first, even integrating him into the combined mode as well.

CRAP.

Thanks for the heads up. I totally missed that.

News Credits: 56 · Mon Feb 10, 2025 4:20 pm

Nemesis Destron wrote:Man with Omega Prime still on the distance all the time until we see the release of LioKaiser!

And with my learning that the 3P versions of said combiner are not worth buying is there anyone who picked up the 'ol LioKaiser Combiner Wars set? The combined head I think is pretty damn cool.....

I have CW Liokaiser. Sure its not faithful to the original, but its ok for what it was. At the time, I wouldn't have been surprised if Hasbro had also done an Updated Road Caesar with Star Saber being a heavy retool of Silverbolt, and the 3 original team members being limbs, and adding a *new* 4th member. Yeah its a bad idea...but we still don't have a modern Road Caesar so.....

Haslab LioKaiser does look good. Not perfect, but still surprising. I was actually hoping the Haslab would be something I wasn't interested in, because now its going to be hard to get the funds to back this, its just not a great time for me at the moment financially. Still 40+ days, so we will see what happens.

News Credits: 11 · Wed Feb 12, 2025 11:05 am

So I'm in a bit of a pickle, maybe someone is able to help.
Living in Switzerland, I don't get the option to order through Pulse (EU and UK countries only).
In the past I ordered the Haslab projects through Robot Kingdom. But on the LioKaiser Preorder the now explicitly state that it can't be ordered to the US, Canada or any European countries :BANG_HEAD:

Anyone know any other online retailers that offer preorders and ship internationally?

News Credits: 1646 · Wed Feb 12, 2025 1:06 pm

xMXUx wrote:So I'm in a bit of a pickle, maybe someone is able to help.
Living in Switzerland, I don't get the option to order through Pulse (EU and UK countries only).
In the past I ordered the Haslab projects through Robot Kingdom. But on the LioKaiser Preorder the now explicitly state that it can't be ordered to the US, Canada or any European countries
Anyone know any other online retailers that offer preorders and ship internationally?

I believe BBTS will put it up eventually, they typically do offer it

News Credits: 4877 · Sat Feb 15, 2025 11:52 pm

Good news to those hoping that Haslab Transformers LioKaiser gets to happen, because at this rate it is sure to be funded. Without the addition of international numbers, the Haslab has reached 5000 orders after just a week of being live. He might be funded already, if the international numbers match the domestic numbers. Speaking of which, Liokaiser became available in Singapore, Mexico, Australia, China and Korea within this past week. Of course, it is unknown if all tiers will be reached, but so far so good.

Here are some of the international links for those interested:

Korea: https://smartstore.naver.com/hasbrostor ... 1457891225
Mexico: https://www.juguetibicicollectors.com/c ... 5395003569
Singapore: https://ohmyprimus.com/hbtfhllks.html
Australia: https://www.ebgames.com.au/product/toys ... ion-figure
China: https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=88 ... 2c1bDExDr8

News Credits: 1 · Sun Feb 16, 2025 3:40 pm

I'd be happy just to see the first tier unlocked.

News Credits: 1 · Mon Feb 17, 2025 2:10 am

bluecatcinema wrote:I'd be happy just to see the first tier unlocked.

Agreed. As much as I'd also like official electric nunchaku, if the real deal doesn't happen, some 3P will make it. But the first official Deathcobra toy NEEDS to happen, regardless of any quibbles about the boxiness or hollowness of the renders.

News Credits: 462 · Mon Feb 17, 2025 2:29 am

Reportedly, Taobao has already taken over 5000 orders from Asian territories. So combined with the 5000+ orders on Hasbro Pulse, we can probably consider this set funded, in roughly just nine days since the whole campaign started.