The Energon Pub

Dunno why it took me this long but after finally seeing Optimus Primal's review I gotta say...
I NEED THAT APE!

I really do like how show-accurate Cyclonus is in both modes. Hopefully, Rodimus and Galvatron will be following suit.

Why is it the central gimmick of the current line is the blast effects, but almost none of the toys come with any? You either have to buy the super expensive commander of titan class figure or try to track down the Battle Masters, which are overpriced nonsense that a lot of retailer don't even bother carrying.
Come on Hasbro, if the gimmick is blast effects, drop a few in every box! They can't be that expensive to make.

cruizerdave wrote:Why is it the central gimmick of the current line is the blast effects, but almost none of the toys come with any? You either have to buy the super expensive commander of titan class figure or try to track down the Battle Masters, which are overpriced nonsense that a lot of retailer don't even bother carrying.
Come on Hasbro, if the gimmick is blast effects, drop a few in every box! They can't be that expensive to make.

This may be me grasping strings, but Hasbro may have decided against them for the future because the plastic used for them could damage the toys in the long run. To be precise, depending on environment the soft plastic breaks down too quickly, essentially "melting" into the plastic of the toys. Ick.

Something similar happened with the rubbery shells of the G1 Monster Pretenders and their Dinoforce counterparts, and more recently RotF Bludgeon's treads. Hasbro has no luck with rubbery material.

cruizerdave wrote:Why is it the central gimmick of the current line is the blast effects, but almost none of the toys come with any? You either have to buy the super expensive commander of titan class figure or try to track down the Battle Masters, which are overpriced nonsense that a lot of retailer don't even bother carrying.
Come on Hasbro, if the gimmick is blast effects, drop a few in every box! They can't be that expensive to make.

The central gimmick, as with the previous 2 lines in the same trilogy, is having modular deluxe bots that can interact with the other classes.

Out of curiosity, did Huffer ever show up on Amazon? I can't seem to find him there now.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:Out of curiosity, did Huffer ever show up on Amazon? I can't seem to find him there now.

He did, briefly. I got him on preorder along with Inferno and, after a month of daily stalking on Amazon, SS86 Scourge popped back up as well.

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:

cruizerdave wrote:Why is it the central gimmick of the current line is the blast effects, but almost none of the toys come with any? You either have to buy the super expensive commander of titan class figure or try to track down the Battle Masters, which are overpriced nonsense that a lot of retailer don't even bother carrying.
Come on Hasbro, if the gimmick is blast effects, drop a few in every box! They can't be that expensive to make.

This may be me grasping strings, but Hasbro may have decided against them for the future because the plastic used for them could damage the toys in the long run. To be precise, depending on environment the soft plastic breaks down too quickly, essentially "melting" into the plastic of the toys. Ick.

...but they're also still including blast effects with the Cyberverse Deluxes and now some of the SS86 figures, and giving all of the G1 characters and some of the BW characters compatibility with them in this line, so I feel like it's probably more something budget-related than them backtracking because of the plastic issues.

Rodimus Prime wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:Out of curiosity, did Huffer ever show up on Amazon? I can't seem to find him there now.

He did, briefly. I got him on preorder along with Inferno and, after a month of daily stalking on Amazon, SS86 Scourge popped back up as well.

Thanks I did end up finding his page.

william-james88 wrote:

cruizerdave wrote:Why is it the central gimmick of the current line is the blast effects, but almost none of the toys come with any? You either have to buy the super expensive commander of titan class figure or try to track down the Battle Masters, which are overpriced nonsense that a lot of retailer don't even bother carrying.
Come on Hasbro, if the gimmick is blast effects, drop a few in every box! They can't be that expensive to make.

The central gimmick, as with the previous 2 lines in the same trilogy, is having modular deluxe bots that can interact with the other classes.

Exactly. The blast effects are a sideshow.


I think the reason so few WFC figures come with blast effects is that HasTak don't want to sacrifice any of the precious plastic allowance on Micromaster/Core through Leader toys to an effects piece. So that leaves Commanders, Titans, and Battlemasters for packing them with. They may be cheap, but every milligram is counted when it comes to figures so..

It does leave the gimmick unfortunately under-supported. Really what HasTak should do is sell bags of blast effects; the volume would make it economical.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

cruizerdave wrote:Why is it the central gimmick of the current line is the blast effects, but almost none of the toys come with any? You either have to buy the super expensive commander of titan class figure or try to track down the Battle Masters, which are overpriced nonsense that a lot of retailer don't even bother carrying.
Come on Hasbro, if the gimmick is blast effects, drop a few in every box! They can't be that expensive to make.

The central gimmick, as with the previous 2 lines in the same trilogy, is having modular deluxe bots that can interact with the other classes.

Exactly. The blast effects are a sideshow.


I think the reason so few WFC figures come with blast effects is that HasTak don't want to sacrifice any of the precious plastic allowance on Micromaster/Core through Leader toys to an effects piece. So that leaves Commanders, Titans, and Battlemasters for packing them with. They may be cheap, but every milligram is counted when it comes to figures so..

It does leave the gimmick unfortunately under-supported. Really what HasTak should do is sell bags of blast effects; the volume would make it economical.

They'd also work best when sold online.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:It does leave the gimmick unfortunately under-supported. Really what HasTak should do is sell bags of blast effects; the volume would make it economical.

This could be easily done as another Select figure like the Centurion Weaponizer pack. A Weaponiser deluxe with a plethora of blast effects, many that would be exclusive molds and colors to this specific set, of course.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote: Really what HasTak should do is sell bags of blast effects; the volume would make it economical.

If they do this, i am definitely in. Particularly if they include the bigger molds, like the one that the commanders and titans got.

This Twitter post has many pics of Kingdom Wave 1 Deluxe figures being unboxed and this one stuck out as I hate these freaking plastic ties.

aronjlove wrote:This Twitter post has many pics of Kingdom Wave 1 Deluxe figures being unboxed and this one stuck out as I hate these freaking plastic ties.

EpOP9NmXMA0OCwS.jpg

Dunno why, but this made me laff!

-Kanrabat- wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:It does leave the gimmick unfortunately under-supported. Really what HasTak should do is sell bags of blast effects; the volume would make it economical.

This could be easily done as another Select figure like the Centurion Weaponizer pack. A Weaponiser deluxe with a plethora of blast effects, many that would be exclusive molds and colors to this specific set, of course.

No. Not what I was talking about, or what I'd want. I'm talking blast effects, and only blast effects, bagged up like candy.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:It does leave the gimmick unfortunately under-supported. Really what HasTak should do is sell bags of blast effects; the volume would make it economical.

This could be easily done as another Select figure like the Centurion Weaponizer pack. A Weaponiser deluxe with a plethora of blast effects, many that would be exclusive molds and colors to this specific set, of course.

No. Not what I was talking about, or what I'd want. I'm talking blast effects, and only blast effects, bagged up like candy.

That would never happen. That's what we asked for spare guns ove rand over. But we had to have a Weaponiser deluxe along. That's the more realistic approach.

Still, a 3P company would gladly sell a baggie full of only blast effects. But Hasbro or even Takara? Sadly never. It's a miracle the Centurion set exist at all.

It baffles me why Hasbro seems so dead set against any official Transformers weapons (only) or accessory (only) packs. Everything must include a transforming bit. Don't even push them in stores, online only plain selects packaging is fine, just make the damn things.

Seriously, with current plastic limits on classes in place, you could make a really decent number of things from a core class plastic allowance, most of which would be simple to design, require zero assembly and likely "put them all in a bag, then a box" packaging.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:It baffles me why Hasbro seems so dead set against any official Transformers weapons (only) or accessory (only) packs. Everything must include a transforming bit. Don't even push them in stores, online only plain selects packaging is fine, just make the damn things.

Seriously, with current plastic limits on classes in place, you could make a really decent number of things from a core class plastic allowance, most of which would be simple to design, require zero assembly and likely "put them all in a bag, then a box" packaging.

The Matchbox style cars, the "collector cars", the masks, the Nerf guns, and so on, disproves the theory.

They must think accessories by themselves won't sell. They are half right because the Centurion pack is still not sold out at Pulse. I wonder if the thing would have sold more if it were like 15$ cheaper without Centurion?
(It would still have cost me 30$+ in shipping fees though.)

-Kanrabat- wrote:The Matchbox style cars, the "collector cars", the masks, the Nerf guns, and so on, disproves the theory.

They must think accessories by themselves won't sell. They are half right because the Centurion pack is still not sold out at Pulse. I wonder if the thing would have sold more if it were like 15$ cheaper without Centurion?

The Centurion Pack is restocked? Since when??

Edit: Wait nvm, it's out of stock.

-Kanrabat- wrote:They are half right because the Centurion pack is still not sold out at Pulse.

Yes it is, it currently says sold out. It sold out fast and as far as I know was never restocked (I managed to get 2). But that also makes it a bad case to measure whether weapons only packs would sell as many wanted to troop build the Centurion drones, while others didn't want them at all and only wanted the weapons (I wanted multiples of both).

I mean if anybody wants some extra blast effects you can have mine, since my CHUG shelf is a mix of lines, it seems weird for some to have them and others not, so I just stuffed them all in Trypticon's belly.

Even the Dollar Tree Final Faction toy line can see the benefits of selling extra weapons and lots of them.

https://www.dollartree.com/final-faction

Emerje

Nuclearxpotato wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:The Matchbox style cars, the "collector cars", the masks, the Nerf guns, and so on, disproves the theory.

They must think accessories by themselves won't sell. They are half right because the Centurion pack is still not sold out at Pulse. I wonder if the thing would have sold more if it were like 15$ cheaper without Centurion?

The Centurion Pack is restocked? Since when??

Edit: Wait nvm, it's out of stock.

Derp.

Well, I'm glad I preordered it and I got it, but I'm still salty about that absurd shipping price.
Pulse is no Amazon.