The Energon Pub

Dagon wrote:Target at the HIP in Chicago/Norridge had a ton of these on Tuesday afternoon. It could have a been a picture of the same display in truth.

Hey you're not that far away! Nice to see some more fellow Seibertronians around this part of Chicago. I'm just north of O'Hare.

As for sightings tonight, I saw an absolute ton (perhaps 18 to 24) of the N.E.S.T. 2 packs at the Schaumburg TRU. No sign of Arcee or Ratchet tonight unfortunately.

The Schaumburg Target on Higgins had a at least a dozen or so of the Transformers Crossovers Spiderman / Iron Man 2 combiner 2 pack on clearance for $14.98. Some of the price tags still said $20, but they will ring up at $14.98. I bought it finally at that price. For those of you looking for the Burning Fallen, Leo Prime and the Target exclusive ROTF Legends 5 pack ... all we're on clearance for at least 50% off. Leo Prime was $9.98 or something like that.

Nothing special at the Rolling Meadows Wal-Mart tonight. They did have the new Sideswipe and Optimus Prime Battle Chargers. I think I'll wait a while on those since they're such minor repaints. I did not see any Transformers items on clearance so unless they have them somewhere other than in the Toys section.

Forgot to mention that the Higgins Rd Target in Schaumburg had one Recon Ironhide, which means that Bludgeon was there at one point as well for those of you hunting for that Voyager wave. Recon Ironhide was there as of 6pm tonight.

Nuts, I saw that $20 price on the Marvel combiners and skipped them. If I'd known they would ring at $15 I woulda bought it. Them?

Still want to find some of those Legends 2-packs.

EDIT- Target on 63rd St also had Recon Ironhide and Bludgeon, FWIW.

Hip-Hoptimus Rime wrote:Nuts, I saw that $20 price on the Marvel combiners and skipped them. If I'd known they would ring at $15 I woulda bought it. Them?

Still want to find some of those Legends 2-packs.

EDIT- Target on 63rd St also had Recon Ironhide and Bludgeon, FWIW.

Ack ... I didn't really look at the front end caps ... didn't see (notice?) if there was a Transformers endcap like I saw at the Rand Rd Target in Arlington Heights the other day.

Thanks for sharing your sightings with us.

Got the last Deluxe Ratchet & Lockdown from the Wheaton Target. Also grabbed a $56 Supreme Devastator

Another 3 hours wasted trying to find TFA Arcee and Ratchet. * sigh *

So here's what I saw for the rest of you ...

WALMART - ROLLING MEADOWS
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Pretty standard fare Walmart stuff, minus all of the clearance stuff. I searched in the Garden & Clearance section but didn't find any Transformers. I have a feeling that the clearance Transformers were shipped out to another store somewhere. A few of the Scout class 2 packs were still there from last weekend.

TOYS R US - SCHAUMBURG
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A whole lotta nothin'. Except for a ton of the N.E.S.T. 2 pack if you're looking for Battlefield Bumblebee and Infiltration Soundwave. No sign of Arcee and Ratchet.

TOYS R US - CRYSTAL LAKE
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Nothin' at all. Pretty standard TRU stuff.

KMART - CRYSTAL LAKE
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Nothing really special in the way of Transformers. There were 2 of the ROTF Ultimate Bumblebees there for $80 ... I was tempted, but decided to pass. Maybe I'll find him for $50 one day somewhere, or maybe Walmart will get a bunch in next Christmas. There were a lot of TFA figures here ... and an employee had a bunch of toys in cases that she was putting out. I noticed there was a case of deluxe class TFA toys on the palette but decided not to take a peak in the box because I know Kmart wouldn't be getting anything new yet. No signs of Nebular Starscream yet. This store did have the 3 new Marvel Transformers Crossovers toys: Hulk (Tank), Spider-Man (racecar), and Wolverine (X-Force colors). I passed on them at $18+ each. This store also had the ROTF Legends class 4 pack on clearance for $20.

TOYS R US - ALGONQUIN ON RANDALL RD
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Nothing here either.

TARGET - ALGONQUIN ON RANDALL RD
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There were a few each of the new Legends 2 packs on the endcap along with some N.E.S.T. 2 packs. The crazy thing about this store was that they had a shitload of their exclusives on the back endcaps (which were on clearance for about 50% off). There had to be at least 30 to 40 Fallens, a dozen or so Leo Primes, and about that many of the Straightaway Shootout Legends class 5 pack. So many exclusives on clearance that I had to take a few pics. I imagine this will be the store were you'll be able to find these figures eventually at 75% off or greater as long as they don't ship them out to another store.

WALMART - ALGONQUIN ON RANDALL RD
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Nothing too special in the way of new stuff. I did find a lot of the Walmart exclusives for 50% here. The black Friday Movie scouts in Universe 2 packs were back in the garden center for $7.00, Universe Hardhead and Skyfalljack were $15 in garden center, there was a TFA Leader Class Megatron for $20, and Fearswoop sets were $13. Over with the rest of the TFs in the toy section were at least 6 Skywarps for $30, and about that many Blowpipe/Sideways sets for $15. I snagged one of the Skywarps at that price to keep with my sealed Walmart Masterpiece Starscream ... here's hoping for Thundercracker at some point so that I have a full set sealed.

Wow, you made it over in my neck of the woods! Guess I won't go checking those places out tomorrow. Sorry your extended hunt came up short.

nilocomic wrote:Wow, you made it over in my neck of the woods! Guess I won't go checking those places out tomorrow. Sorry your extended hunt came up short.

The TRU in Algonquin has been pretty good to me in the past. I wasn't really expecting to find Ratchet and Arcee there but I thought it might be worth a shot since I haven't heard anyone say anything recently about that store.

I'm not that far away from you ... I just live north of O'Hare a bit. Schaumburg area is probably where I get most stuff.

I also meant to mention that I stopped by Marshall's in Schaumburg off Golf and Meacham. I did not see any Transformers other than ROTF Bumblespud. I didn't check his price.

Seibertron wrote:I'm not that far away from you ... I just live north of O'Hare a bit. Schaumburg area is probably where I get most stuff.

Yeah, I'm in Algonquin. The TRU there is a lot better than Crystal Lake almost all of the time.

nilocomic wrote:

Seibertron wrote:I'm not that far away from you ... I just live north of O'Hare a bit. Schaumburg area is probably where I get most stuff.

Yeah, I'm in Algonquin. The TRU there is a lot better than Crystal Lake almost all of the time.

What's the next nearest TRU from Algonquin and Crystal Lake? How far is Rockford from there?

Hunting TRU stores exclusively is a lot of work. It takes about 20 to 45 minutes to go between TRU stores around here (with the exception being the Downer's Grove TRU stores and the Alongquin / Crystal Lake stores). I wish the old stores that used to be open were around still ... there used to be at least 1/2 dozen more stores around Chicago.

Seibertron wrote:What's the next nearest TRU from Algonquin and Crystal Lake? How far is Rockford from there?

Hunting TRU stores exclusively is a lot of work. It takes about 20 to 45 minutes to go between TRU stores around here (with the exception being the Downer's Grove TRU stores and the Alongquin / Crystal Lake stores). I wish the old stores that used to be open were around still ... there used to be at least 1/2 dozen more stores around Chicago.

The next closest ones are Schaumburg or Vernon Hills, depending which way you're going. They're about equal distances away. Rockford is an hour and so away from here. St. Charles or Bloomingdale would be closer. I used to work down in Wheaton, so I could at least hit up the Bloomingdale store sometimes on the way home. I hate it when TRU has the exclusives.

nilocomic wrote:

Seibertron wrote:What's the next nearest TRU from Algonquin and Crystal Lake? How far is Rockford from there?

Hunting TRU stores exclusively is a lot of work. It takes about 20 to 45 minutes to go between TRU stores around here (with the exception being the Downer's Grove TRU stores and the Alongquin / Crystal Lake stores). I wish the old stores that used to be open were around still ... there used to be at least 1/2 dozen more stores around Chicago.

The next closest ones are Schaumburg or Vernon Hills, depending which way you're going. They're about equal distances away. Rockford is an hour and so away from here. St. Charles or Bloomingdale would be closer. I used to work down in Wheaton, so I could at least hit up the Bloomingdale store sometimes on the way home. I hate it when TRU has the exclusives.

I usually don't mind because I can generally find them right off the bat since TRU doesn't generally do a slow exclusive release. They also generally time the release of their exclusives at retail with them online, which they didn't do in this case for some reason.

Wal-Mart in Effingham has 1 Universe Hardhead on clearance left, and I debated about buying it...until I had to deal with the confusion to buy it. He has a "Universe Onslaught $15" tag taped to the top edge of the plastic window, and the Universe Onslaught's all have the same tag except theirs say "Universe Onslaught $11" on them. So I try to take it up to the checkout & explain the whole thing, and naturally there is no one who is willing to check the clearance area; my response is that Hardhead "is still be $15, since he's the last one". So for now I just held off since it doesn't look like it's going anywhere & he'll go down in price more eventually...and if not, then oh well; it'll be $11-15 I can spend on food or gas.

The Target in Hoffman Estates (Rt 59 & Rt 72) has a ton of Leo Primes ($9.99) and Burning Fallens ($10.99) on clearence on the endcap. They also had a lot of ROTF NEST figures (no Bludgeon).

The Target in West Dundee (Rt 72 just west of Rt 31) had four Bludgeons and four Recon Ironhides on the front endcap and in the aisle along with more NEST figure in the aisle. I picked up a Bludgeon and left the rest.

Maybe I'm late noticing this but Target seems to have no aisle space at all for Animated figures and Wal-Mart looks like they are following suit judging by the stores I've been to. The only store that looks like they are still carrying Animated figures is Toys R Us. That might be where the new Ratchet and Arcee figures pop up.

Here are a few pics that I took of the Target in Algonquin on Randall Rd that had a ton of the Target exclusives. I forgot to take a pic of the exclusives by the regular figures. There were a few over there as well.

muswp1 wrote:Maybe I'm late noticing this but Target seems to have no aisle space at all for Animated figures and Wal-Mart looks like they are following suit judging by the stores I've been to. The only store that looks like they are still carrying Animated figures is Toys R Us. That might be where the new Ratchet and Arcee figures pop up.

Transformers Animated Cybertron Mode Ratchet and Arcee are Toys R Us exclusives. They won't be showing up at Walmart or Target.

Villa Park Target, North Ave., had the exclusive ROTF Legends 2-packs, several of each. I picked up Smokescreen/Starscream, nice. They had a single Dlx Ratchet, but I passed.

Rosemont Target had no new Dlxs nor the 2-packs, but they did have the Marvel Crossovers Spiderman/Iron Man set for $7.48!! They had 2 left after I bought mine, in the regular action figure aisle, where they usually are.

EDIT- Ryan, how much are those Leo Primes, can't make out the tags? Thx.

-HHR

Hip-Hoptimus Rime wrote:Villa Park Target, North Ave., had the exclusive ROTF Legends 2-packs, several of each. I picked up Smokescreen/Starscream, nice. They had a single Dlx Ratchet, but I passed.

Rosemont Target had no new Dlxs nor the 2-packs, but they did have the Marvel Crossovers Spiderman/Iron Man set for $7.48!! They had 2 left after I bought mine, in the regular action figure aisle, where they usually are.

EDIT- Ryan, how much are those Leo Primes, can't make out the tags? Thx.

-HHR

Rosemont Target has Spidey and Iron-Man for $7.48 now? 75% off! Wow ... I might try to go see if they're still there for that price. I can't believe how much stuff is on clearance right now. It's actually a really good thing because it shows how much stock is going through these stores right now.

The Leo Primes were $9.98 or something like that.

Wow ... did any of you guys feel the earthquake over night? I was up working on Seibertron all night. Thought it was a massive semi-truck going by at first. Pretty crazy! I have a brother in California ... expect to hear about Earthquakes from him, not the other way around.

Just got done shoveling my driveway too. Can't believe how much snow we got. And an Earthquake to top it off too. Nice.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-be ... 00302.html

I swear I was talking about the last quake we had about a year and a half ago with the Mrs. last night. And then boom! 3:57am my Ikea Detolfs are shaking like crazy. I didn't knowif it was a quake, or the snow plow from hell. With a prediction like that I'm playing the lottery!

Yeah, that was nuts! First time I've been awake for one too. Not exactly the way I want to wake up.

Missed it, but my daughter shouted "What!" in her sleep at exactly 4:00 and that woke me up. I guess the shaking made its way into her dreams. I stayed awake for a couple minutes to see if she would go back to sleep, which she did, but I didn't feel anything.

Went to the Target on Hwy 173 in Machesney Park today and found Mindwipe and Defender Prime as well as the two new SWTF's- the Y-Wing and Anakin's ship. They had a couple more Mindwipes and Primes left on the shelf too, in case anyone is looking.

Seibertron wrote:Wow ... did any of you guys feel the earthquake over night? I was up working on Seibertron all night. Thought it was a massive semi-truck going by at first. Pretty crazy! I have a brother in California ... expect to hear about Earthquakes from him, not the other way around.

Just got done shoveling my driveway too. Can't believe how much snow we got. And an Earthquake to top it off too. Nice.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-be ... 00302.html

Woke me up out of a sound sleep. I first thought a car had driven into the front of my townhouse. I live less than 10 miles from where they say the quake started so I definitely felt that one.