The Energon Pub

I don't know how long it takes to develop a figure so this may be a stupid question, but is it possible the leader class "evolution" gimmick was conceived after the fan vote for the new Prime? If not then I'm going to put my tin-foil hat on and say Hasbro would have guaranteed Arcee, Hound and Shockwave wouldn't win. What were they going to do, develop and produce a $50-$60 figure of a brand new character with no media support??? Of course not!

I really think they've screwed up Optimus Primal. They've taken the core character, the character destined to become Prime, and turned him into an accessory!!!



I think it would've been more faithful if Primal transformed into his gorilla mode, and the Optimal armour transformed in to the tank and fighter mode. Alt-mode connectivity could've seen Primal fit in the back/top of the vehicle.

So I'm really liking the hope/idea that some of the torsos and limbs won't have an assigned team. I think this actually frees up both Hasbro and Takara to do their own thing and we may end up with even more variety between the 2 companies than CW gave us. If Takara is going the UW route with these, I expect some type of storyline and theme, even if the theme is something off the wall like Grand Galvatron.

But here is another thought, what if Takara doesn't go the UW route and instead releases them as individual figures? Or a combination of combiner sets and individual releases or smaller packs like Buster/Hydra? Except for Abominus, none of the others expected in PotP were official combiners, so I can see Takara throwing us for a loop.

Time will tell. At least TR wave 6 being mostly repeats gives my wallet a much needed break for Christmas. I mean, assuming wave 5 shows up before Christmas.

Sodan-1 wrote:I think it would've been more faithful if Primal transformed into his gorilla mode, and the Optimal armour transformed in to the tank and fighter mode. Alt-mode connectivity could've seen Primal fit in the back/top of the vehicle.

Yeah, much as I admire the creativity of having Primal turn into the core of all the Optimal modes, I kinda miss the idea of having those heavy-duty sci-fi vehicles with a monkey sitting on top and driving them. Ah well, dreams must sometimes be shattered in the course of life I suppose...

Kurona wrote:
edit: Additionally, look how big Orion Pax is compared to the Leader he's a part of; that's no Deluxe.

According to Hasbro, it is



Sorry for a dated reply but I was going through the slides for a news story and found that they spelled it out on the slide.

Dear Hasbro,

Do you want to make a Convention exclusive figure that will bring all the boys to the yard for sure? Do a little retooling and turn Moonracer into Rung. No one will give a damn about the alt mode; they'll all be too busy being happy to own a Rung.

Thank you.



Seriously though. This mold is already pretty close to Rung. Like so close that I'd almost think it is a pre-tool for Rung. (The only reason I don't think so is because Rung is a bit of an obscure character.) Hasbro just needs to get the Lost Light writers to come up with some reason to bring Rung back and turn him into a car. Then Ta-Da, it would be perfect!

Lucky Logician wrote:Dear Hasbro,

Do you want to make a Convention exclusive figure that will bring all the boys to the yard for sure? Do a little retooling and turn Moonracer into Rung. No one will give a damn about the alt mode; they'll all be too busy being happy to own a Rung.

Thank you.



Seriously though. This mold is already pretty close to Rung. Like so close that I'd almost think it is a pre-tool for Rung. (The only reason I don't think so is because Rung is a bit of an obscure character.) All you need is to get the comic book writers to find some random excuse to give Rung a car alt mode.

Or in the retools,just remove the wheels and have him turn into an ornamental tube like thingy.

o.supreme wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Ok, let's look at King Starscream here:



Observation: Dreadwind is an arm... and he uses Rippersnapper as a leg.
Hypothesis: He's a spare torso like regular CW Optimus Prime, Cyclonus, and non-box set Scattershot.

Conclusion: Will Hopefully make a new Combiner for Starscream.

Either that or im getting the Galaxy Force vibes on this one.... even the crown too...
well Super Starscream ain't bad for a combiner

william-james88 wrote:

Kurona wrote:
edit: Additionally, look how big Orion Pax is compared to the Leader he's a part of; that's no Deluxe.

According to Hasbro, it is



Sorry for a dated reply but I was going through the slides for a news story and found that they spelled it out on the slide.

They lie, thats a Mega at minimum

Albatross250 wrote:

o.supreme wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Ok, let's look at King Starscream here:



Observation: Dreadwind is an arm... and he uses Rippersnapper as a leg.
Hypothesis: He's a spare torso like regular CW Optimus Prime, Cyclonus, and non-box set Scattershot.

Conclusion: Will Hopefully make a new Combiner for Starscream.

Either that or im getting the Galaxy Force vibes on this one.... even the crown too...
well Super Starscream ain't bad for a combiner

This just gave me an idea ... how about a Seekers set with Deluxe Skywarp, Thundercracker, and 2 other Seekers along with the Voyager Starscream. Now that would be cool!!!

Moving once more to Transformers: Power of the Primes, we have an additional clip showing the display case after the Sunday update for the figures we have collected already in our galleries (which we have shown here)! The video pans over the likes of new Orion Pax / Optimus Prime, Hot Rod / Rodimus Prime, Swoop, Slash, Grimlock, Slug, Snarl, and Sludge (as well as the previously revealed figures shown at SDCC earlier this year) - and the best look yet at the grey prototype of their combined mode, Volcanicus, talked through by the Transformers brand team!

I still wonder why we saw only the grey prototype combined.
I mean the 5 dinobots are ready, they changed disposition of the booth several times (optimus in package, combined, uncombined), why not the dinobots ?

Dagon wrote:

Deathsanras wrote:

Also, it has been confirmed throughout the week that, as in Combiner Wars, every deluxe in Power of the Primes can be an arm or a leg.

Wait, so since Optimus Primal, Hot Rod and Orion Pax are all Deluxes, albeit paired with the Leader gimmick, does that mean they also function as combiner limbs, and thus there could be a "Primes" combiner?

Do you mean like the Deluxe figure from Rodimus could be used with Optimus or Primal? That would be pretty neat, and there's a chance that the larger bodies might be engineered similarly enough to make it possible. Possibly.

We knew Starsream was going to be a torso from the SDCC images. That may have been the worst kept secret of this convention. But, what if since the combined mode is going to be crowned Starscream, what if they just reuse the Galvatronus head from CW Cyclonus? It's kind of crownish already.... and that would be unfortunate.

I was thinking more like having a CW Optimus Prime torso with "Deluxe-ish"-stage Optimus Primal, Hot Rod, Orion Pax and someone else, like, I don't know, one of the inevitable Leader redecos/remolds (Guardian Prime? Prime Nova? Rodimus Unicronus?), as limbs.

No. The 'Deluxes' in the Leader figures lack the combiner peg. They integrate into their trailers differently. Unless that's a feature they haven't revealled yet.

A lot of these look good. I definitely want all the Dinobot remakes! Is it just me or do a lot of these look better thn their original counterparts from the 80's? Other bots look a bit too bulky or different, while others have improved, and some have fantastic looking robot modes and ugly alt modes or vise versa.

Sodan-1 wrote:I don't know how long it takes to develop a figure so this may be a stupid question, but is it possible the leader class "evolution" gimmick was conceived after the fan vote for the new Prime? If not then I'm going to put my tin-foil hat on and say Hasbro would have guaranteed Arcee, Hound and Shockwave wouldn't win. What were they going to do, develop and produce a $50-$60 figure of a brand new character with no media support??? Of course not!

I really think they've screwed up Optimus Primal. They've taken the core character, the character destined to become Prime, and turned him into an accessory!!!

Angry.jpg

I think it would've been more faithful if Primal transformed into his gorilla mode, and the Optimal armour transformed in to the tank and fighter mode. Alt-mode connectivity could've seen Primal fit in the back/top of the vehicle.

Arcee and Shockwave would've had little to no support imo and Arcee would've been a major headache for hasbro as I don't think a leader version would sell at all.

Aside from star saber I think hound would have been a solid choice as he's in the movies and just has to be pushed into more IDW comics and maybe rid to get the exposure needed. After seeing primal I'm so disappointed that star saber or hound didn't win and I'm sure people feel the same about their preferences.

Oh dear, that video seems to have confirmed all my fears about Volkswagonicus' shoulder construction; you can see the joints start to shift and droop as the arms (or just the figure in general) are moved. I'm super looking forward to all the Dinobots anyway so it's not like it's a deal-breaker or anything, but it'd be too bad to have a potential combiner available that I never want to actually build.
That aside...


I just want to say how darn excited I am for Power of the Primes now! It seems a far cry now from back when we saw the first reveals a few months ago, and the reaction was a resounding "meh" from many corners of the fandom. Of course opinions are a little more divided now (in large part thanks to what we've seen of Leader Primal and Hun-grrrrr), but stronger opinions on both sides are way better than everyone sitting unenthusiastically in the middle IMO .

Even the toys that made me feel the opposite of excited originally are definitely warming me up a little thanks to the pictures we've gotten here. Starscream's gone from my least favorite of the original reveals to a fairly-decent interpretation of the character with inklings of a kickin' combiner torso, and Rodimus... well, let's just say that if that "Deluxe" Roddy really is closer to Voyager size, I'm gonna have to set aside another $80(AUD) more than I was planning to before Hascon. It says something when Jazz, probably the guy I was most hyped about from the initial reveals, is now seventh in my priority list out of just the Deluxes we've seen revealed so far (including Rippersnapper, who looks like he's in the running to be my new favorite thing ever )!

So far, I hesitate to say that this line is gonna be as much of a hit-the-ground-running slam-dunk that TR was, but I'm sure as all heckers looking forward to snapping up most (well, almost all actually ) of these guys - and I can't wait to get a good look at what else they have up their sleeves for the remainder of this line!

The Hot Rod figure looks amazing, I'd say the chest proportions look even better than the masterpieces!

The Dinobots looks positively great individually, but the combined mode looks a little problematic. From the coverage, we can immediately see that the grey prototype always had a hand in standing up. Finding the right amount of friction to keep him combined was the main challenge posed to the designers. To add on to that, the prototype used another pair of combiner hands to prop up the torso. Having said that, the form of the torso seemed to stay intact when one hand was removed, but one must wonder why they'd come up with such an odd design choice.

Lastly, what's up with those long tabs protruding from Grimlock's arms? It looks like they could tab into Grimlock's torso mode to lock up the torso, and it kinda looks that way in a prototype image I saw somewhere. Yet if that's true, the placement of the arms would be very odd.

Or I could just be thinking too much into it.

Lucky Logician wrote:Dear Hasbro,

Do you want to make a Convention exclusive figure that will bring all the boys to the yard for sure? Do a little retooling and turn Moonracer into Rung. No one will give a damn about the alt mode; they'll all be too busy being happy to own a Rung.

Thank you.



Seriously though. This mold is already pretty close to Rung. Like so close that I'd almost think it is a pre-tool for Rung. (The only reason I don't think so is because Rung is a bit of an obscure character.) Hasbro just needs to get the Lost Light writers to come up with some reason to bring Rung back and turn him into a car. Then Ta-Da, it would be perfect!

Now I friggin' need this. At the very least I need Shapeways to get to work on a head!!

There are already multiple. Including a TR faceplate.

https://www.shapeways.com/product/RGXLX ... d=43245091

https://www.shapeways.com/product/APHS6 ... d=60327519

https://www.shapeways.com/product/V9J58 ... d=42931833

Now I just have to hope Moonracer's head is on a 5MM balljoint

Talking of Moonracer, does anyone else find it funny that we got so many characters in Combiner Wars who were retools of each other; including major players like Prowl and Swindle and the brand new fan-made Combiner... and then we get to POTP, where Moonracer gets her own mold of all characters? Crazy

If not, there's a few titan master adaptors floating around, I'm sure one for moonracer will get made.


And yes, Rung out of moonracer is genius. That idea needs to happen. And I think Anode out of Windblade would work.

Insurgent wrote:If not, there's a few titan master adaptors floating around, I'm sure one for moonracer will get made.


And yes, Rung out of moonracer is genius. That idea needs to happen. And I think Anode out of Windblade would work.

I'd love a major retool out of Mindwipe since that's the transformation she was based on... but yeah, I'd settle for something simpler like that.

And bring on Lug out of Rewind!!!

ExciKaiser wrote:I still wonder why we saw only the grey prototype combined.
I mean the 5 dinobots are ready, they changed disposition of the booth several times (optimus in package, combined, uncombined), why not the dinobots ?

I was wondering this too. Maybe because they were hand painted prototypes, or there are some fragility issues with production samples. Maybe they only have that one set of finished samples.
It was curious indeed.

Cobotron wrote:

ExciKaiser wrote:I still wonder why we saw only the grey prototype combined.
I mean the 5 dinobots are ready, they changed disposition of the booth several times (optimus in package, combined, uncombined), why not the dinobots ?

I was wondering this too. Maybe because they were hand painted prototypes, or there are some fragility issues with production samples. Maybe they only have that one set of finished samples.
It was curious indeed.

Is it possible that only the visible surfaces were painted on the Dinobot prototypes? I don't really know the details of how hand-painted prototypes would usually be done. If that's the case though, I suppose it's possible that the combiner-specific parts (notably the combiner head) would be unpainted so they might not have wanted to display it like that. (Partly-finished painting can be far more confusing as to the nature of a product's final deco, than a fully-unpainted prototype is.) Who knows for certain, though - I have the feeling it'll go down as yet another unsolved mystery for us to debate for a few days then totally forget about .

I don't suppose anyone thought to have a polite chat with Hasbro about the terrible quality of their sticker stock ?

I think Starscream and Grimlock are gonna have some issues.

It comes to something then a cheap knock off like the NBK Engineering Constructicons has better decoration than an official toy.

I would be more excited about these if I ever for one moment thought that they were actually likely to make it into stores in may area (a few at best might).

They've just given up on selling toys now it seems.