The Energon Pub

I sincerely hope the Bludgeon in that pack is not the "Tarn in cosplay" one.

-Kanrabat- wrote:I sincerely hope the Bludgeon in that pack is not the "Tarn in cosplay" one.

Considering his history as a member of Mayhem all using his G1 design, his being paired with Ruckus in this pack, and what happened with Wreckers Bulkhead, I'm guessing it's most likely going to be a G1/Marvel repaint and/or retool of that same mold. I would be shocked if they put a straight repack of a retail figure in a capsule like this.

Nemesis Primal wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:I sincerely hope the Bludgeon in that pack is not the "Tarn in cosplay" one.

Considering his history as a member of Mayhem all using his G1 design, his being paired with Ruckus in this pack, and what happened with Wreckers Bulkhead, I'm guessing it's most likely going to be a G1/Marvel repaint and/or retool of that same mold. I would be shocked if they put a straight repack of a retail figure in a capsule like this.

The same mold of who? Not Tarn I hope? Unless Ruckus is a new mold and that will be a repaint of it?

Fingers crossed for something good. The ROTF Bludgeon voyager mold is yet to be beaten.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:I sincerely hope the Bludgeon in that pack is not the "Tarn in cosplay" one.

Considering his history as a member of Mayhem all using his G1 design, his being paired with Ruckus in this pack, and what happened with Wreckers Bulkhead, I'm guessing it's most likely going to be a G1/Marvel repaint and/or retool of that same mold. I would be shocked if they put a straight repack of a retail figure in a capsule like this.

The same mold of who? Not Tarn I hope? Unless Ruckus is a new mold and that will be a repaint of it?

Fingers crossed for something good. The ROTF Bludgeon voyager mold is yet to be beaten.

The same mold as the retail Bludgeon was what I meant, yes, so Tarn but presumably with actual retooling this time. There's no other Voyager tank mold from WFC & Legacy to use outside of Siege/ER Megatron again, and Wreckers Bulkhead, Impactor, Twin Twist and Springer all used the same exact molds as their original retail releases.

Ruckus will presumably be a Beachcomber retool? They've got similar enough alt modes and kibble placement, and they could use Beachcomber's bird-mounting pegs for mounting Ruckus's guns. I would have thought maybe Sureshot as well, but between Ruckus's lack of windshield chest and (more importantly) the nebulous circumstance of Sureshot's release at the moment, Beachcomber seems like the safer prediction to me.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Emerje wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Meanwhile, today:

Kapow Toys wrote:Transformers Legacy Titan Tidal Wave is due to go live on pre-order tonight, here is why you should vote with your wallets and not pre-order it.

Damn, that's a rather scathing and incredibly misguided comment from a toy retailer.

And not just any retailer, either. This would be like if BBTS told the US market not to preorder Tidal Wave.

Going by some discussion I saw on Twitter regarding this, for the last several titans, they have sold very little stock at full retail for titans, instead being required to adopt and match sales prices and losing money on the titan class in general. Black Zarak appears to have been the biggest offender

Actually it's Cybertron Metroplex. It's still available at half off on Kapow website, even Amazon US has it for that price as well. It is eye opening though. I thought 3rd party online retailers could order as many or few as they wanted. I was unaware that Hasbro forced on them a minimum order quantity. I thought that was just for B&M. Still, this, along with shifting manufacturing to India is getting Hasbro a bunch of negative press online.

Starscream: "BEHOLD! The almighty Star Saber!"



Megatron: "You call that puny twig a Star Saber? It's a toothpick!"



Megatron: "That's not the Star Saber..."



Megatron: "THIS is the Star Saber!!!"
Starscream: "Gyaaaaaaaaah!"

Nemesis Primal wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:I sincerely hope the Bludgeon in that pack is not the "Tarn in cosplay" one.

Considering his history as a member of Mayhem all using his G1 design, his being paired with Ruckus in this pack, and what happened with Wreckers Bulkhead, I'm guessing it's most likely going to be a G1/Marvel repaint and/or retool of that same mold. I would be shocked if they put a straight repack of a retail figure in a capsule like this.

The same mold of who? Not Tarn I hope? Unless Ruckus is a new mold and that will be a repaint of it?

Fingers crossed for something good. The ROTF Bludgeon voyager mold is yet to be beaten.

The same mold as the retail Bludgeon was what I meant, yes, so Tarn but presumably with actual retooling this time. There's no other Voyager tank mold from WFC & Legacy to use outside of Siege/ER Megatron again, and Wreckers Bulkhead, Impactor, Twin Twist and Springer all used the same exact molds as their original retail releases.

Ruckus will presumably be a Beachcomber retool? They've got similar enough alt modes and kibble placement, and they could use Beachcomber's bird-mounting pegs for mounting Ruckus's guns. I would have thought maybe Sureshot as well, but between Ruckus's lack of windshield chest and (more importantly) the nebulous circumstance of Sureshot's release at the moment, Beachcomber seems like the safer prediction to me.

If the retooling is extensive and good, all will be forgiven.

Also, Beachcomber is pretty nice so there's hope for a set that could be must-have for me.

Nemesis Primal wrote:JTPrime17 just posted more updates on previously-known listings, meaning we've been given the following additional tidbits:
-Starseekers Deluxe Road Pig will be using the Crashbar mold
-Leader Soundwave is a repaint of the ER mold (maybe this is the Marvel colors one that was rumored last year?)
-the previously-shared "Mayhem Deluxe 2-pack" is now TRA GEN MAYHEM VOY BLUDGEON & DLX RUCKUS (Product Number: G0182)
-Apparently the Mayhem capsule will be 3 multipacks for a total of 7 figures

Purple Soundwave would be cool, but I suspect this is their way of making Netflix Soundwave more easily available.

o.supreme wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Emerje wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Meanwhile, today:

Kapow Toys wrote:Transformers Legacy Titan Tidal Wave is due to go live on pre-order tonight, here is why you should vote with your wallets and not pre-order it.

Damn, that's a rather scathing and incredibly misguided comment from a toy retailer.

And not just any retailer, either. This would be like if BBTS told the US market not to preorder Tidal Wave.

Going by some discussion I saw on Twitter regarding this, for the last several titans, they have sold very little stock at full retail for titans, instead being required to adopt and match sales prices and losing money on the titan class in general. Black Zarak appears to have been the biggest offender

Actually it's Cybertron Metroplex. It's still available at half off on Kapow website, even Amazon US has it for that price as well. It is eye opening though. I thought 3rd party online retailers could order as many or few as they wanted. I was unaware that Hasbro forced on them a minimum order quantity. I thought that was just for B&M. Still, this, along with shifting manufacturing to India is getting Hasbro a bunch of negative press online.

I'm going by what KaPow explicitly said: Black Zarak was the main offender.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

o.supreme wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Emerje wrote:

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Meanwhile, today:

Kapow Toys wrote:Transformers Legacy Titan Tidal Wave is due to go live on pre-order tonight, here is why you should vote with your wallets and not pre-order it.

Damn, that's a rather scathing and incredibly misguided comment from a toy retailer.

And not just any retailer, either. This would be like if BBTS told the US market not to preorder Tidal Wave.

Going by some discussion I saw on Twitter regarding this, for the last several titans, they have sold very little stock at full retail for titans, instead being required to adopt and match sales prices and losing money on the titan class in general. Black Zarak appears to have been the biggest offender

Actually it's Cybertron Metroplex. It's still available at half off on Kapow website, even Amazon US has it for that price as well. It is eye opening though. I thought 3rd party online retailers could order as many or few as they wanted. I was unaware that Hasbro forced on them a minimum order quantity. I thought that was just for B&M. Still, this, along with shifting manufacturing to India is getting Hasbro a bunch of negative press online.

I'm going by what KaPow explicitly said: Black Zarak was the main offender.

This honestly would not surprise me as BZ is very much a niche character. CYB Metroplex at least was featured in what is a relatively widely distributed cartoon series and likely has a much bigger following.

First-Aid wrote:This honestly would not surprise me as BZ is very much a niche character. CYB Metroplex at least was featured in what is a relatively widely distributed cartoon series and likely has a much bigger following.

Cybertron Metroplex was a general retail release, so naturally more units were made than for a selects release. That said... Either Cyberton Metroplex is not as popular as some may claim (considering he is still clearance at 50% off nearly 2 years after his release, no other Titan has done that, aside from Trypticon, which was more of a distribution issue than anything else), or there just aren't as many TF Cybertron fans voting with their wallets, or in general.

Sabrblade wrote:

Man, Legacy Armada Megatron looks great. The original Armada Megatron was my first Transformer and I remember it very fondly, but this one seems to blow it out of the water in terms of movement. I haven't bought a Transformers figure in many years, but this Megatron and the titan Tidal Wave really have me considering it.

#1 Signal Lancer fan wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Man, Legacy Armada Megatron looks great. The original Armada Megatron was my first Transformer and I remember it very fondly, but this one seems to blow it out of the water in terms of movement. I haven't bought a Transformers figure in many years, but this Megatron and the titan Tidal Wave really have me considering it.

How about Armada Prime? I saw your username and remembered I really want them to do a core class Signal Lancer.

#1 Signal Lancer fan wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Man, Legacy Armada Megatron looks great. The original Armada Megatron was my first Transformer and I remember it very fondly, but this one seems to blow it out of the water in terms of movement. I haven't bought a Transformers figure in many years, but this Megatron and the titan Tidal Wave really have me considering it.

Keep in mind that mine has been augmented with an upgrade kit, meaning the toy as ordinarily sold can't actually do this with its shoulders:

That Armada Megatron brings me nothing but disappointment. I need that upgrade kit though. They really did neuter him bad

Rtron wrote:How about Armada Prime? I saw your username and remembered I really want them to do a core class Signal Lancer.

I would love an Armada Prime too, I've been hearing good things about him. I really love Armada's character design, especially for Prime and Megatron.

Also yes a Signal Lancer core class would go hard (unbiased)

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:That Armada Megatron brings me nothing but disappointment. I need that upgrade kit though. They really did neuter him bad

Oh man, I didn't realize it was so much worse without the upgrade kit

Luckily, the kit is a measly 10 bucks.

Sabrblade wrote:Luckily, the kit is a measly 10 bucks.

I just wish someone would produce a shoulder kit for Legacy G2 Lazer Optimus. It needs it just as bad as Armada Megs.

#1 Signal Lancer fan wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:That Armada Megatron brings me nothing but disappointment. I need that upgrade kit though. They really did neuter him bad

Oh man, I didn't realize it was so much worse without the upgrade kit

I'd probably rank him my 4th most disappointing purchase of 2023. He is so neutered compared to the original. Sure he has knees and ankles, but I feel like his arms are more hindered, he lost almost all the gimmicks with nothing really good to replace them (unlike Armada Prime), and he's just not as fun.

You can go back a few pages to find my combined thoughts on Armada Prime and Megs, but one clearly took steps forward and one steps back.

One of 2024's leaders in the Legacy line is known to be Soundwave. Now people were wondering if that meant a new mold, a larger figure, or a rerelease of the previous mold with cassettes. Well, it's the latter and we know that from JTPrime17 who confirmed it. It is said to be a repaint of the Walmart Soundwave and for it to be at the leader class price point, it will come with extra figures/cassettes, though we don't know exactly what those will be yet.

Here is the listing for those curious:

TRA GEN LEGACY UNI LEADER SOUNDWAVE
Product Number: F9188

I really, really hope it's a slight remold to remove the forearm bits leftover from the Siege version.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:I really, really hope it's a slight remold to remove the forearm bits leftover from the Siege version.

Agreed... Those could easily be replaced with actual forearm covers.
I'm a bit disappointed that it's not a new mold.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:I really, really hope it's a slight remold to remove the forearm bits leftover from the Siege version.

I'd argue that the back is a worse offense than the leftovers.
My thoughts are: "Mkay that's nice and all, but how about giving us Soundblaster with that mold to go with Legacy Twincast?" Heck, even a clean refresh of SIEGE Soundblaster would excite me more.

Sabrblade wrote:(and, bafflingly, Cyberverse Shadow Striker) that they really G1-ified

It's not so baffling if you look at her as a twofer homage... and as an obvious pretool of Side Burn.

Sabrblade wrote:The Unicron Trilogy designs were always much closer to the blocky G1 aesthetic, so they never needed to be redesigned to the same extent as the Prime/Animated designs.

Bingo. G1, RiD 2001, and the Unicron Trilogy are all extremely close aesthetically, and thus blend perfectly as-is.

First-Aid wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:I'm going by what KaPow explicitly said: Black Zarak was the main offender.

This honestly would not surprise me as BZ is very much a niche character. CYB Metroplex at least was featured in what is a relatively widely distributed cartoon series and likely has a much bigger following.

Mmm... I wouldn't say Black Zarak is niche. At least not to adult collectors. Masterforce is relatively popular, and his original figure has been a widely-talked-about holy grail to collectors in the fandom for decades. And he's a grail tainted by Gold Plastic Syndrome, making a more robust alternative that much more attractive - especially with a size upgrade into the bargain that would make him on par with Grand Maximus (and there so happened to be recent Overlord, God Ginrai, and Grand Max toys to go with; hell, LGEX Grand Max went from "trophy collectors bought then got bored with" to "in demand" because of Black Zarak). I think Kapow may have simply drawn the short straw in BZ's case.

o.supreme wrote:Cybertron Metroplex was a general retail release, so naturally more units were made than for a selects release. That said... Either Cyberton Metroplex is not as popular as some may claim (considering he is still clearance at 50% off nearly 2 years after his release, no other Titan has done that, aside from Trypticon, which was more of a distribution issue than anything else), or there just aren't as many TF Cybertron fans voting with their wallets, or in general.

Part of it is that Legacy Cybertron Metroplex is something of a mixed bag for Cybertron fans. The main appeal to him for us is that he's as close to show scale relative to full-size figures as possible for a retail toy, which is pretty cool, but he's also got some disappointments. The biggest one in my book is that Sparkdrinker's head doesn't split like in the show, and while DNA have (surprisingly) given us Drill Bit... they haven't seen fit to fix that issue yet, nor has anyone else. Another thing is that not everybody has the budget for two Titans in a year (or doesn't want to sacrifice other collecting to get two Titans) and he's had some notable competition: Black Zarak in 2022, and Nemesis in 2023.

#1 Signal Lancer fan wrote:Man, Legacy Armada Megatron looks great. The original Armada Megatron was my first Transformer and I remember it very fondly, but this one seems to blow it out of the water in terms of movement. I haven't bought a Transformers figure in many years, but this Megatron and the titan Tidal Wave really have me considering it.

As Sabrblade has pointed out, he's only actually better movement-wise with an upgrade kit. Out of the box? His front treads don't rotate like on the original. The inner arms have shoulder rotation, but only 90 degrees because of course the treads and the panels get in the way. So with that lack of shoulder rotation, his movement I'd argue is WORSE overall.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:That Armada Megatron brings me nothing but disappointment. I need that upgrade kit though. They really did neuter him bad

They really freaking did. The lack of full shoulder rotation is completely and totally inexcusable. With the fundamental tradeoff of the figure being giving up gimmicks for articulation... there is absolutely no excuse for frakking up a fundamental basic area of articulation like that - especially when it's one the original version did have. If not for there being inexpensive fix kits, he'd have gone right the hell back to Target the same day I got him and been my pick worst overall figure of 2023. The kits and the ease of freeing the turret salvage him enough that the shelf-clogging Putzwing restock nobody asked for gets the spot instead.
Which brings me to: then there's the idiotic blocking of the turret from being able to rotate 360 degrees (luckily, it's not too hard to open up the turret and cut off the offending tumor of plastic), the double launcher not being able to angle forward because the designer was only thinking of Full Blast Mode... And of course, losing those gimmicks is a definite bummer (and even if you wanted to mod them back in... with how they did the pwecious ankwe tiwts, a couple would be rather annoying).
It's a general problem with doing Unicron Trilogy updates - so many of them have more to lose and less to gain.

Sabrblade wrote:Luckily, the kit is a measly 10 bucks.

But if you live in the US you better find some place other than eBay to order it from. I wound up getting a Chinese-made alternative (which I'm still working on getting tightened) because for the past 2? 3? years eBay has for some reason been setting completely unreasonable international shipping charges for US purchases from UK merchant accounts. Where'd you get your SamMakesToys kit from?

Btw, expect a long rambly post from me about Legacy and my collecting it at some point over the weekend. I'll be trying to focus mainly on what I've enjoyed.

Apparently there is a rumor Soundwave is going to be in Marvel comic colors.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:(and, bafflingly, Cyberverse Shadow Striker) that they really G1-ified

It's not so baffling if you look at her as a twofer homage... and as an obvious pretool of Side Burn.

Except Cyberverse Shadow Striker has nothing to do with her Universe namesake, so there was no reason to try and shoehorn a Side Burn pretool into her that made her look nothing like her Cyberverse self in robot mode from the neck down, especially since Cyberverse Shadow Striker's cartoon model was already blocky like the G1 aesthetic.

It would be like if they had tried to also force a helicopter mode into the Legacy Bulkhead figure in an attempt to make him a dual update to both Energon Bulkhead and Prime Bulkhead, just because Energon Bulkhead was the first Bulkhead.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Mmm... I wouldn't say Black Zarak is niche. At least not to adult collectors. Masterforce is relatively popular,

You'd be surprised how many adults in this fandom have never watched Masterforce, especially when you consider how many kids who grew up on the first live-action movies, Animated, and Prime are either in or nearing adulthood right now. Prime alone started airing about 14 years ago, so those who saw it in their preteens or early teens are now at least in their Twenties. Not to mention all the folks who refuse to watch anything with only subtitles. Not everyone in this fandom is into hardcore anime.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:They really freaking did. The lack of full shoulder rotation is completely and totally inexcusable. With the fundamental tradeoff of the figure being giving up gimmicks for articulation... there is absolutely no excuse for frakking up a fundamental basic area of articulation like that - especially when it's one the original version did have.

Apparently, it was for the sake of cartoon-accuracy, since his shoulder treads tended to always stay vertical no matter what directions his arms moved and stretched in the show.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Which brings me to: then there's the idiotic blocking of the turret from being able to rotate 360 degrees (luckily, it's not too hard to open up the turret and cut off the offending tumor of plastic),

Not the first time Hasbro's altered the original function of an aspect of an existing design in an attempt to prevent Penis Mode.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:And of course, losing those gimmicks is a definite bummer

This one goes out not strictly to you, Zelda, but to everyone who's brought this up. I personally am fine with Legacy Armada Megatron nixing most of the original toy's gimmicks because, IMHO, most of those original gimmicks were either pointless at best or ludicrous at worst.

• The ramp with the capture claw in his leg? Nearly every single Mini-Con was too big for this feature.
• The extending compartment in his other leg? Also too small for most Mini-Cons.
• The "launch runway" for Mini-Cons on his shoulder? Couldn't actually "launch" anything.
• The three spring-loaded prongs with Mini-Con ports on his other shoulder? These did nothing.
• The "chomping action" of the horns? Made them easier to accidentally pop off the figure.
• The double-barreled missile launcher on his turret activated by a Mini-Con port? The gears inside kept getting stuck.
• The various sound effects? The darn thing would never SHUT UP at the slightest touch.
• The LED light that accompanied the sounds? Was never that impressive to begin with.
• Full Blast Mode? The main turret wasn't designed to even point forward, so this is something the Legacy toy actually got right! And the double missiles had to be adjusted halfway in order to get them to point forward, further messing with the spring-loaded gear mechanisms inside the toy.
• The shiv hidden inside his arm? Sure, it looked cool, but you couldn't actually DO much of anything with it due to the toy's severely limited articulation, and he never even used it in the show until the final episode.

I don't disagree that what they did to the Legacy figure's shoulders sucked, but even with the shoulders neutered before I got the upgrade kit, the Legacy figure was far FAR closer to what I had wanted out of the original figure as a kid, as I always felt the original figure was too ambitious for its own good, with too much raw spectacle over functional practicality.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:[Where'd you get your SamMakesToys kit from?

From Sam himself at TFCon Orlando 2023. He was there in person and was selling kits to those who wanted them. Luckily for me he accepted PayPal since it was at a point when I had run out of cash to spend.

He had also brought some of his custom-made figures to show off to folks in person. I briefly got to hold his fully-transformable (but also very fragile) Animated Mixmaster for a few seconds.