The Energon Pub

Decepticon Stryker wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Decepticon Stryker wrote:I want to give a quick thanks for putting up with me and all my questions, but I have just one last thing to ask: What specific time would the SDCC exclusives be made available? Will I have to get up at midnight to get them?

Sadly nobody knows.

Oh and the Takara release of Throne if the Primes will likely be the exact same, down to the QC

Yeah, but shipping will most likely be a pain.

It's available through BBTS for $90, with $4 flat rate shipping.

Autobot N wrote:

Decepticon Stryker wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Decepticon Stryker wrote:I want to give a quick thanks for putting up with me and all my questions, but I have just one last thing to ask: What specific time would the SDCC exclusives be made available? Will I have to get up at midnight to get them?

Sadly nobody knows.

Oh and the Takara release of Throne if the Primes will likely be the exact same, down to the QC

Yeah, but shipping will most likely be a pain.

It's available through BBTS for $90, with $4 flat rate shipping.

Which, by the time you pay tax and shipping costs, won't be that far off HTS, so it's actually about the same, with a 5 month gap between releases is all.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:January of 2019, yes. On the plus side, this seems to be a general retail release as no stores are explicitly advertised.

As an aside, someone asked in a different thread what exactly was wrong with Prime Wars Blast Off... nothing major, just that his shoulders are swapped: both UW Blast Off and UW Shuttler has the raised section pointing away from the cockpit, not towards like this Blast Off does. No worries, it only really affects the limb mode, and even then it's dealing with how to tuck away the arms. Just take an example from UW Strafe and set them as a 45 degree angle.

Do you think it's possible to "correct" Hasbro's arm assembly to work more like what Takara did for Unite Warriors Shuttler/Movor?

Wolfman Jake wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:January of 2019, yes. On the plus side, this seems to be a general retail release as no stores are explicitly advertised.

As an aside, someone asked in a different thread what exactly was wrong with Prime Wars Blast Off... nothing major, just that his shoulders are swapped: both UW Blast Off and UW Shuttler has the raised section pointing away from the cockpit, not towards like this Blast Off does. No worries, it only really affects the limb mode, and even then it's dealing with how to tuck away the arms. Just take an example from UW Strafe and set them as a 45 degree angle.

Do you think it's possible to "correct" Hasbro's arm assembly to work more like what Takara did for Unite Warriors Shuttler/Movor?

Yes. Someone on Twitter said you can pop the arms off at the shoulders and the forearms are on mushroom pegs so they can easily come off too. Keep in mind I haven't done this and wouldn't recommend it because there always a chance of breaking the joint.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:No worries, it only really affects the limb mode, and even then it's dealing with how to tuck away the arms.

It also interferes with the cockpit section that collapses onto the middle section of the Body/torso. The Side flaps collide with the upper arms.

For those wondering when the SDCC exclusives will go online here's a quick list of of previous approximate times they went live. All times EDT.

SDCC 2017 - 2pm
SDCC 2016 - 11am
SDCC 2015 - 11:20am
SDCC 2014 - 10am
SDCC 2013 - 3:30pm

So yeah, it's pretty random, but it looks like you wont have to look for them before 9am. It was even worse until recently where they wouldn't even tell us what day they were going up (it was usually the week after SDCC so it wasn't a long wait).

Emerje

chuckdawg1999 wrote:

Wolfman Jake wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:January of 2019, yes. On the plus side, this seems to be a general retail release as no stores are explicitly advertised.

As an aside, someone asked in a different thread what exactly was wrong with Prime Wars Blast Off... nothing major, just that his shoulders are swapped: both UW Blast Off and UW Shuttler has the raised section pointing away from the cockpit, not towards like this Blast Off does. No worries, it only really affects the limb mode, and even then it's dealing with how to tuck away the arms. Just take an example from UW Strafe and set them as a 45 degree angle.

Do you think it's possible to "correct" Hasbro's arm assembly to work more like what Takara did for Unite Warriors Shuttler/Movor?

Yes. Someone on Twitter said you can pop the arms off at the shoulders and the forearms are on mushroom pegs so they can easily come off too. Keep in mind I haven't done this and wouldn't recommend it because there always a chance of breaking the joint.

Which is why I'm keeping mine as is. I did have to cut off some flash from the left leg, in the combiner port cavity. It left a tiny nick but it's hardly visible.
By the way, my clear Megatronus has a bit of a paint oddity, in that the right arm is two-toned. Upper arm is a darker grey, found nowhere on him, while the rest is the same grey as the rest of the figure. Is that me being "lucky" again?

Missing only Firestar at this point, I give you the Ladies of generations! (with Superion and Sky Lynx)

Nautica looks like she's about to push windblade off the table nice shot there D-max

ZeroWolf wrote:Nautica looks like she's about to push windblade off the table nice shot there D-max

Thanks!

It's actually really cool to see the progression of our female compatriots. We got 3 in Thrilling 30, 7 in Combiner Wars (6 plus combined form), 4 in Titans Return (Titan masters count), and now 4 in Power of the Primes (5 including Elita Inf!nite). It's a nice progression, and we have at least 1 confirmed for Siege. I do hope for another Nautica figure down the line though

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:Nautica looks like she's about to push windblade off the table nice shot there D-max

Thanks!

It's actually really cool to see the progression of our female compatriots. We got 3 in Thrilling 30, 7 in Combiner Wars (6 plus combined form), 4 in Titans Return (Titan masters count), and now 4 in Power of the Primes (5 including Elita Inf!nite). It's a nice progression, and we have at least 1 confirmed for Siege. I do hope for another Nautica figure down the line though

I take you're not gonna count the Japan-only releases?

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

ZeroWolf wrote:Nautica looks like she's about to push windblade off the table nice shot there D-max

Thanks!

It's actually really cool to see the progression of our female compatriots. We got 3 in Thrilling 30, 7 in Combiner Wars (6 plus combined form), 4 in Titans Return (Titan masters count), and now 4 in Power of the Primes (5 including Elita Inf!nite). It's a nice progression, and we have at least 1 confirmed for Siege. I do hope for another Nautica figure down the line though

I take you're not gonna count the Japan-only releases?

I was counting the Hasbro ladies over the past 5 years, though I can count the Takara only ladies as well, which would add 6 from Unite Warriors and at least 3 from Legends

Many were worried that our first toy of Firestar would only end up in a few collector's hands thanks to being in the final wave, but Power of the Primes Novastar has already been seen on U.S. shelves! Found in an unknown store in Edinboro, PA, this sighting comes to us from Reddit user Guitarsnmotorcycles over at the Transformers subreddit in this post:

Look who I found already (Edinboro PA)

While this doesn't necessarily mean distribution will be good, it does raise the possibility to happen! This could be good news for those on the lookout for Novastar, as well as possibly lending credence to the idea that Hasbro's new four-wave system does result in (at least marginally) better distribution. Share your thoughts on this development over at the Energon Pub Forums, and keep your eyes on Seibertron.com for more news and exciting sightings!

I just got Moonracer here, so Novastar is a given to get. This should also mean Slug, Rippersnapper and Blackwing will be sticking around for a while longer.

Well there you go, wave 4 has not been skipped in the US.

i have already preordered the Takara tommy novastar as i didnt want to take a chance at not getting her

Okay, so, after a bunch of priorities kept putting it off for me, I finally took the time to open up my Blast Off w/ Megatronus set.

Being a Takara-original design, Blast Off is a bit more complex to transform than the average Hasbro-designed CW Deluxe, but he's got zero QC issues.

Megatronus, however, I'm sad to say, is not so pristine. His left shoulder joint has a defect. The inner cavity on the arm that the shoulder peg slots into is missing some plastic that is meant to make the hole a complete circle, making the cavity slightly larger than it should be and thus making the arm's connection to the torso rather loose and delicate. It'll stay on if I'm gentle with the little figure and don't move the arm, but it does come off rather easily. On the flipside, this defect does give the left arm a greater range of motion than it was intended to have, but it also makes Megatronus look like his left shoulder is constantly sagging and slouching while his right shoulder remains firm at attention.

Ultra Markus wrote:i have already preordered the Takara tommy novastar as i didnt want to take a chance at not getting her

I'll get Novastar simply because this mold makes a great gestalt arm. Paired with Moonracer, it'll give good symmetry and balance to a combiner...

The Hunt is on! I'm hoping she somehow appears this week, but when I went to Target today, there was no sign of wave 2+, but plenty of Cyberverse.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

chuckdawg1999 wrote:

Wolfman Jake wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:January of 2019, yes. On the plus side, this seems to be a general retail release as no stores are explicitly advertised.

As an aside, someone asked in a different thread what exactly was wrong with Prime Wars Blast Off... nothing major, just that his shoulders are swapped: both UW Blast Off and UW Shuttler has the raised section pointing away from the cockpit, not towards like this Blast Off does. No worries, it only really affects the limb mode, and even then it's dealing with how to tuck away the arms. Just take an example from UW Strafe and set them as a 45 degree angle.

Do you think it's possible to "correct" Hasbro's arm assembly to work more like what Takara did for Unite Warriors Shuttler/Movor?

Yes. Someone on Twitter said you can pop the arms off at the shoulders and the forearms are on mushroom pegs so they can easily come off too. Keep in mind I haven't done this and wouldn't recommend it because there always a chance of breaking the joint.

Which is why I'm keeping mine as is. I did have to cut off some flash from the left leg, in the combiner port cavity. It left a tiny nick but it's hardly visible.
By the way, my clear Megatronus has a bit of a paint oddity, in that the right arm is two-toned. Upper arm is a darker grey, found nowhere on him, while the rest is the same grey as the rest of the figure. Is that me being "lucky" again?

I just went ahead and did the arm swap on my Hasbro Blast Off. It was pretty easy. First, I popped the arms off at the shoulder ball joints and switched them. Then I slid off the arms from the bicep down at the mushroom peg joints and switched those around. The arms are now configured exactly as they are on Takara's Shuttler/Movor figure. It doesn't change the fact that the hollow bits in the forearms are exposed in shuttle mode (Shuttler/Movor is like that too, unfortunately), but it does help with some of the tolerance issues with the shoulders getting in the way of other parts of the shuttle.

I wonder how much of a bother it would be to rebuild Novastar to transform like Firestar's actual cartoon design does, or if I'd be better off customizing a TR Kup to be her cartoon body.

I just picked up Novastar at my Walmart this morning. She finally showed up with Blackwing and Rippersnapper.

bodrock wrote:The Hunt is on! I'm hoping she somehow appears this week, but when I went to Target today, there was no sign of wave 2+, but plenty of Cyberverse.

Dont waste your time looking for her at Target, the way things have gone retailers are rarely in sync. If you go hunting for her this week, just look for her at Walmart

So has Optimal Optimus (not Throne) been spotted at US retail yet? I cannot remember.

mordhelm wrote:So has Optimal Optimus (not Throne) been spotted at US retail yet? I cannot remember.

Not according to the sightings section.

So, anyone else camping HTS right now for SDCC exclusives? I started at 9am just to be safe since they're so unpredictable. Hopefully this isn't another 2 or 3pm year.

Emerje