The Energon Pub

Welcome to the latest episode of the Seibertron.com Twincast / Podcast! This episode features your host ScottyP, Jon3.0, and Megatronus - listen in as we discuss the latest news, toys, and more.

Episode #125 "Wrinkles" is available directly and in our RSS Feed, and should appear on iTunes and Stitcher Radio within 24 to 48 hours of when you see this news post.

We start with a brief note on the location for Botcon 2016. Is the crew going? As we debate travel plans, drives, flights, and general availability, let us know: what should the theme and toys for this year's official Transformers Convention be?



The Club's Subscription Service 4.0 sign up period has come and gone, and Thunder Mayhem is upon us. That's right, the Mayhem Attack Squad's combined mode has been revealed. Is this what we wanted, or does a twinge of 'what could have been' haunt us? Listen and find out.



Speaking of the Subscription Service, 3.0 Tarantulus has arrived, to the delight of the Twincast crew - check out our very own Seibertron.com galleries. This is a fun little figure, but is he a good fit? Where does he go? As always, we've got some opinions on that.



Comic time: More Than Meets the Eye #44 is out about town, and we really, really liked it... which you may have suspected from ScottyP's Seibertron.com Review. This one's symbolic, folks, so tune in as we debate the merits of Megatron, guilt, and intentions. Don't miss it.



Starting in February 2016, it's the Year of the Monkey according to the Chinese Zodiac, and that means another year of 'Year Of' exclusives. This time, it's Air Attack Optimus Primal done up in G1 Optimus Prime colors. We have some strong thoughts on this one. Rants, ho!



Toy-talk-minor: Starscream-Super-Mode is the latest reveal in Takara's Legends line. Plus, prototypes of Combiners Wars Brawl and Onslaught have been leaked... someone's been naughty. These are pretty cool developments, but we're more excited for the final products.


We finish up the Twincast with some bragging rights. What did everyone get since the last recording? ScottyP gets excited. Really excited.



Don't forget, the show only gets better if you tell us how. Drop us a review on iTunes and be sure to tell us what you love, what you hate, and what you want to hear!

Not on the show to give your take? Probably not, so don't forget to keep the discussion going on the Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums by simply replying to this post!

Got a question for the Twincast? We take all of them, we just don't take them all seriously! Leave a question in the Ask the Twincast thread and, if it makes the cut, it may get read and answered on the show.

Congrats on the big win, Scotty!

megatronus wrote:Congrats on the big win, Scotty!

I'm still surprised it went down the way it did. I'll just take it as my consolation prize for the tens of thousands of dollars I've spent on Transformers in the past decade.

Scotty P


oh, and anybody see Jon, in the nostalgia critic 'smurfs'.

....I thought he was just joking about the jon.......

another great podcast

Scotty,

I was a bit confused on your issue with CW Ultra Magnus. What part was incorrect?

man, I miss being on the show. I hope to get on the next one.

Scotty, to answer your question about the combined mode of the sub service, no it didn't do anything for me. I was curious to see what they did with the combined head but I bought the service before the reveal. Mine probably won't ever be combined.

RodimusConvoy13 wrote:Scotty,

I was a bit confused on your issue with CW Ultra Magnus. What part was incorrect?

man, I miss being on the show. I hope to get on the next one.

If you come on next time, I'll make you a Rodimus Badge!

Doctor McGrath wrote:Scotty, to answer your question about the combined mode of the sub service, no it didn't do anything for me. I was curious to see what they did with the combined head but I bought the service before the reveal. Mine probably won't ever be combined.

Same here. Combining is a nice to have, not a must have feature. Besides, keeping him in combined mode defeats the purpose of having Triggercons!

Scotty, to anser your question about the combiner mode reveal and if it swayed me: no, it didnt. I wasnt going to buy it since I am not interested in more of these molds and I am not a big fan of these characters (aside from Bludgeon). However, seeing that combined pic does make me feel like there is more stuff I am not missing out of. If it was a skull face in a samurai helmet, I might have been more sad of not getting it.

Also, question for you guys. When you talked about Takara's upcoming deco for the armada starscream mold, I realized that the club had to get an ok for the use of characters or decos. I guess it is just mold specific right, rather than character specific? Because Hasbro already had a combining Impactor and the Club is still releasing theirs under a different mold.

RodimusConvoy13 wrote:Scotty,

I was a bit confused on your issue with CW Ultra Magnus. What part was incorrect?

man, I miss being on the show. I hope to get on the next one.

If you replace "red" with "blue" in what I said, does that help? Because I'm pretty sure I said "red" and that was not correct.

william-james88 wrote:Also, question for you guys. When you talked about Takara's upcoming deco for the armada starscream mold, I realized that the club had to get an ok for the use of characters or decos. I guess it is just mold specific right, rather than character specific? Because Hasbro already had a combining Impactor and the Club is still releasing theirs under a different mold.

Entire concept requires approval, but it usually comes down to character best I can tell. Hasbro seems to not care if it was done in the past, but will block something if they're planning on releasing it. In this case the club may have passed on Super Mode Starscream and gone with Skywarp/Ramjet knowing that Takara was going to put it out, so as to increase the value message of next year's membership. New release Takara import deluxes these days are, at most on a bad day, the same cost as a TFCC membership.

This is all my layman's knowledge based on stuff said over the years through official outlets, but really I'd just go start a thread in the club forums and see what insight JW can provide

I have Redwing already. He looks like this. http://www.seibertron.com/transformers- ... am/3250/1/

Flux Convoy wrote:I have Redwing already. He looks like this. http://www.seibertron.com/transformers- ... am/3250/1/

Weird coincidence - I just decided I wanted TG33 a couple days ago. I'm on the hunt for a good price, I guess.

Licensing didn't seem to be such a problem pre-Transformers. During Binaltech Takara was able to get the Japanese car manufacturer licenses easily enough. Except for the American Honda release without the gun.

YOTM needed to be a hair covered Prime truck. Right?

Jon and his coin remind me of my MP-BB. I didn't expect, pay for, or want the battle mask. But it's there. (my box was damaged in shipping so it feels even. I'd still rather have a pristine box over the third mask.)

"Battle scars" are what make my Transformers mine! "No matter the cost!"

Nice score, Scotty. I'm still willing to pay, even extra with shipping over domestic, (and wait) for a few joints and a visor gimmick the TakTom Devy sports. But how can you beat $0.00 on a titan class TF? How, I ask you! How?

Convoy wrote:YOTM needed to be a hair covered Prime truck. Right?

The thought of a Hairy Bus Transformer is kind of simultaneously terrifying and awesome.

While I wait for the download to download, my thoughts on Thunderwing:

Personally, while I liked the idea of Bludheon's pretender head for completion'ssake, it felt like a cheat for Bludgeon's combined mode to be Bludgeon. We know DW Bludgeon to be a bit of a worshipper, and Thunderwing combined in IDW (Yes, I am mixing my continuities...deal with it. The club does. ) with his own shell, and if I remember right, IDW Bludgeon was a bit more passionate about Ressurecting his boss than might be healthy.

Plus, in my own headcanon, I'm using Optimus Maximus as a Manifestation of the Matrix the way it did Thunderwing. Maybe less sinister, if I ever put pen to paper, but with less regard for casualties than Prime would like because of bleed-through from the past Matrixbearers. So for me, having the Matrix manifestation fighting off a Thunderwing manifestation is too awesome. But thts me.

Its too bad the retool did away with the Groove capability, cause now I would love a Groove repaint as Iguanus to go with Bludgeon.

Commentary on the Factories:

The Chinese prices are coming up because Quality of Living rates are coming up from atrocious across the board. We knew this was going to happen ten years ago. It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.

Flashwave wrote:It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.

Yeah, back when I was in school, we were taught that the economy leaders were the States, UK and japan. That has definitely changed. Is it now US, China and Germany?

william-james88 wrote:

Flashwave wrote:It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.

Yeah, back when I was in school, we were taught that the economy leaders were the States, UK and japan. That has definitely changed. Is it now US, China and Germany?

Not sure, Iremember it as you do. Has Germany become that much of a dominant force again?

william-james88 wrote:

Flashwave wrote:It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.

Yeah, back when I was in school, we were taught that the economy leaders were the States, UK and japan. That has definitely changed. Is it now US, China and Germany?

Not sure, Iremember it as you do. Has Germany become that much of a dominant force again?

Flashwave wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

Flashwave wrote:It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.

Yeah, back when I was in school, we were taught that the economy leaders were the States, UK and japan. That has definitely changed. Is it now US, China and Germany?

Not sure, Iremember it as you do. Has Germany become that much of a dominant force again?

Kinda, UK took a slight dip, here are the latest figures in Millions US:

1 United States 17,418,925
2 China 10,380,380
3 Japan 4,616,335
4 Germany 3,859,547
5 United Kingdom 2,945,146

Flashwave wrote:Commentary on the Factories:

The Chinese prices are coming up because Quality of Living rates are coming up from atrocious across the board. We knew this was going to happen ten years ago. It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.

Funny you mention this, I literally just read a really interesting blog post touching on this topic ten minutes ago. It's on a Macross blog but much of it certainly applies to Tranformers as well. Worth a read, you can find it here: http://www.macrossworld.com/why-are-arc ... e-by-mr-k/

ScottyP wrote:

Flashwave wrote:Commentary on the Factories:

The Chinese prices are coming up because Quality of Living rates are coming up from atrocious across the board. We knew this was going to happen ten years ago. It's hard to call China a 3rd World Country, but from production standpoints, it was. Now that China as a whole is becoming more of a World Power, Factory prouctuon is going to move to another 3rd=World esque country where labor rates are cheap.

Funny you mention this, I literally just read a really interesting blog post touching on this topic ten minutes ago. It's on a Macross blog but much of it certainly applies to Tranformers as well. Worth a read, you can find it here: http://www.macrossworld.com/why-are-arc ... e-by-mr-k/

Thats an amazing article! Now I udnerstand why TFs are so much cheaper than the macross figures, less work is done on each and less material is wasted. The sprue marks / mold flash on my MP 10 is the reason it cost me 200 and not 300, for instance. That also explains why Hasbro's starscream is so much cheper than Takara's, which had no mold flash.

william-james88 wrote:Thats an amazing article! Now I udnerstand why TFs are so much cheaper than the macross figures, less work is done on each and less material is wasted. The sprue marks / mold flash on my MP 10 is the reason it cost me 200 and not 300, for instance. That also explains why Hasbro's starscream is so much cheper than Takara's, which had no mold flash.

The content in there on sprue marks was pretty telling I thought. It's work on a lot of Gunpla to get them out smoothly, but much worse on Transformers. The Arms Micron kits, and the one custom class Botcon figure I didn't get preassembled, were all a total pain to get the sprue mark off. Probably because Bandai's gates are made with the intention that someone is going to take serious time with it, whereas the ones on the TF molds I've mentioned are just about right up on the part so they can be popped off and assembled quickly.

Maybe the factories should just invest in a bunch of God Hands Though those are already a pain in the butt enough to catch in stock! One of these days...

This also tells me that the beast hunters line must have had far less waste than other ones since colour bleeding was far less an issue

So Scotty you were standing on the edge of a mountain? Did you chop it down with the edge of your hand?