The Energon Pub

Emerje wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Got a question about these Netflix toys. So of course Elita 1 and Bumblebee are the ones to get since they are new characters we didn't get in the mainline. But the rest are redecos of toys that I still see in stores. And yet they are selling out. It might take a week to sell off all the Wheeljacks but it's still just 1 week. So my question is, what's with this appetite for these repaints?

Helps that Red Alert and Impactor haven't been in stores for a year so anyone getting (back) into Transformers with the Netflix show would have had to go to the aftermarket to get them. Wheeljack? Don't know, haven't actually seen any of these sell out yet so I don't know what kind of interest there is in him over the ones that just went on clearance at Walmart.

Emerje

Plus considering some reactions we saw on this site as Siege/WFC had/has gone on, we saw that some collectors passed on getting the Datsuns, Lambros, Seekers, etc in Siege because they had already had collections of those groups from earlier CHUG stuff, then some of them went back on that and wanted to upgrade anyway once more obscure/new members of those groups started getting released (Barricade, G2 Sideswipe + Tigertrack + Spinout & Cordon + rumored Deep Cover, Red Wing + Rainmakers + Hotlink + rumored one more), since Hasbro hadn't really gone this all-in before with new/separate character repaints in Generations before and a number of people didn't expect it to go as far as it has been. If someone didn't want to get the Lambo mold(s) until Tigertrack, Sunstreaker, and the Spinout & Cordon set showed up, then these releases are perfect...compared to Wheeljack, who was still readily available on most shelves due to screwy distribution by the time his obscure repaint/counterpart Exhaust showed up and for a few months after.

Also with Impactor specifically, on a similar train of thought, since this is only his 3rd 2nd-ever brick-and-mortar release (the FoC Onslaught repaint doesn't count), I could easily see a collector or former collector coming across this wave of figures, noting that Impactor is the only character here they don't have a version of via older CHUG releases if they skipped/missed Siege (depending on what they already have), and grabbing them before everyone else, with the next priority by that criteria then being Elita.

william-james88 wrote:Got a question about these Netflix toys. So of course Elita 1 and Bumblebee are the ones to get since they are new characters we didn't get in the mainline. But the rest are redecos of toys that I still see in stores. And yet they are selling out. It might take a week to sell off all the Wheeljacks but it's still just 1 week. So my question is, what's with this appetite for these repaints?

Some like Chromia have way better paint jobs than the regular one. Others are completely different like Mirage. But some like Sideswipe and Hound are head-scratchers.

Also IMO, some just don't work in their original colors but are absolutely killer in their Netflix deco like Nemesis Prime VS Siege Prime.
(And if you want a Nemesis Prime, my local Geek Store is selling them at 85$CAN plus taxes).

william-james88 wrote:Got a question about these Netflix toys. So of course Elita 1 and Bumblebee are the ones to get since they are new characters we didn't get in the mainline. But the rest are redecos of toys that I still see in stores. And yet they are selling out. It might take a week to sell off all the Wheeljacks but it's still just 1 week. So my question is, what's with this appetite for these repaints?

People could just be buying them for the cardboard pieces -people went crazy over 3mm longer lightsabers back in the day, so who knows. Probably easier for parents to pick up Netflix versions basing it on if their children watched the show.
Pretty sure I'll be able to pick up a regular wheeljack for under a tenner down the line but lots of the molds they've chosen to repaint didn't do anything for me in the first place.
I'm still wanting to pick up Prime at some point money allowing.

All the scalpers with Bee at the mo is crazy, hopefully he will get rereleased in buzzworthy for those after him.

I finally have Bumblebee, and he's a decent little figure. I love the attention to detail on the vehicle mode like the little Volkswagen symbols, and while it's a shame he's not a lighter shade of yellow I still like the gold just fine, and he isn't as orange-y as some pictures I've seen on the internet make him look.
My main complaint about Bumblebee is that many of the joints feel a lot stiffer than on Cliffjumper, and pegs fit a lot tighter. When I was first transforming him from car to robot it took a fair bit of effort to remove the two pegs on the back-piece from the robot's hands, and the peg on the back-piece that fits into the robot's back has a much tighter pin joint than on Cliffjumper, to the point where I damaged one of my fingernails trying to unfold it.
The last thing I want from the Netflix range is Soundwave, but it looks as if he's going to be een harder to get than Bumblebee was...

My Bee's stuff is a bit tighter than Cliff as well. I love the gold/oranger yellow on Bee. But that is only cause I want a Goldbug and if one doesnt happen I plan on getting a GB head for Bee. On the repaint point; I have the regular ER Wheeljack, but I almost bought the Netflix one just because I found the deco interesting. Turned it down in the end though.

I picked up the Nemesis Prime spoiler pack the other day and got around to opening it today (what with it being Christmas and me being a lazy **** today) and I've got mixed feelings about it.

I never got the Prime mold in Siege, something that annoys me greatly, so this was my first experience with it.

Definitely not as good as the Earthrise figure. But it's still a good figure regardless.

My biggest grievance is the extra guns, the two double barrelled grey ones. They don't really fit in anywhere. At the moment I have them mounted to the side of the shoulders (on the exhaust pipes) to give him a beefier more imposing look ... but they don't quite fit in.

The Dark Saber is fantastic and really suits the figure. Giza is actually a neat little weapon-former. Fangtron however, would have been much cooler with translucent red.

Overall, good figure, but could have been better.

Burn wrote:My biggest grievance is the extra guns, the two double barrelled grey ones. They don't really fit in anywhere.

My only beef with that set.
What where they thinking? The things should have been remolded to better fit. I think of modding them just by chopping off the extra peg on those guns. The double-peg make them unusable. I may also further mod them and paint them so that they can be used as proper smokestacks for the truck.

Collectability be damned.

Also, I agree that snaek-boy should had clear red instead of the plain color. Not a deal breaker, but could had been better.

I agree that Fangtron would have looked better on clear plastic, but then he might have been to close to looking the same color as Double Crosser. Also the fact that he is not clear Plastic aromatically makes him the most durable of all the ER styled BM's. So you win some/ lose some.

I checked a few Walmart stores earlier today, hoping against hope to find Netflix Soundwave. Instead, the shelves were devoid of almost ANY Transformers Generation products, Earthrise or Netflix. Even the Cyberverse stuff was almost gone. One store had a few of leftover Netflix Wheeljacks and a lone Netflix Bumblebee. The good news is that most of the Netflix Megatrons and Hotlinks have been sold off. Walmart better get on reordering more Netflix wave 2 product pronto, but I have a feeling they don't care, because they're Walmart.

Anybody try ordering the Bumblebee off walmart.com that's shipped and sold by Walmart, but is going for $44? If I contact customer service will the fix the glaring price mistake?

Wolfman Jake wrote:I checked a few Walmart stores earlier today, hoping against hope to find Netflix Soundwave. Instead, the shelves were devoid of almost ANY Transformers Generation products, Earthrise or Netflix. Even the Cyberverse stuff was almost gone. One store had a few of leftover Netflix Wheeljacks and a lone Netflix Bumblebee. The good news is that most of the Netflix Megatrons and Hotlinks have been sold off. Walmart better get on reordering more Netflix wave 2 product pronto, but I have a feeling they don't care, because they're Walmart.

My Walmarts have plenty of Netflix toys, but no Soundwave or Bumblebee unfortunately. Plenty of Elita-1's, so I'm gonna wait a bit on her.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Anybody try ordering the Bumblebee off walmart.com that's shipped and sold by Walmart, but is going for $44? If I contact customer service will the fix the glaring price mistake?

To answer my own question, three levels of customer service, getting a tad uppity, and a pack of half-link Adventure Force darts, got me a $25 credit code so Bumblebee was reasonable.

Wolfman Jake wrote:I checked a few Walmart stores earlier today, hoping against hope to find Netflix Soundwave. Instead, the shelves were devoid of almost ANY Transformers Generation products, Earthrise or Netflix. Even the Cyberverse stuff was almost gone. One store had a few of leftover Netflix Wheeljacks and a lone Netflix Bumblebee. The good news is that most of the Netflix Megatrons and Hotlinks have been sold off. Walmart better get on reordering more Netflix wave 2 product pronto, but I have a feeling they don't care, because they're Walmart.

I don't know if that's better or worse than my situation at the Walmarts near me. Due to a new lockdown, Walmarts can only sell "necessity" items, so hardware, good and pharmaceuticals. So the toy section is completely walled off. Will be like that for the next 2 weeks at least.

william-james88 wrote:I don't know if that's better or worse than my situation at the Walmarts near me. Due to a new lockdown, Walmarts can only sell "necessity" items, so hardware, good and pharmaceuticals. So the toy section is completely walled off. Will be like that for the next 2 weeks at least.

This policy is of the upmost stupidity.
Despite the savage lockdowns, the virus will spread as it should and is even mutating around the lockdowns.
Plus the lockdowns themselves caused more arm and deaths than the virus itself. But eh, we sheep cannot oppose the KING.

william-james88 wrote:I don't know if that's better or worse than my situation at the Walmarts near me. Due to a new lockdown, Walmarts can only sell "necessity" items, so hardware, good and pharmaceuticals. So the toy section is completely walled off. Will be like that for the next 2 weeks at least.

I know this idea was discussed at some U.S. stores a while back, if it was implemented, it was VERY quickly overturned. As much as I hate the idea, all I can say is this... Canada seems to be handling the virus much better than the U.S. For the last 10 months literally the only places I have been to are Target and Walmart to get groceries (toys are a fortunate coincidence if they are found at all). I wear a mask when going to my mother, and in-laws places in town, mostly only for essential business , never just to "visit". While so many other people seem to be carrying on as if nothing is happening, I'm going flippin stir crazy. It's totaly worth it to keep my family safe, especially my wife who is still IC from Cancer treatments last year. But all these idiots I have to deal with that wont shelter-in-place makes it agonizingly frustrating, which is why California is especially bad right now... Sorry had to just vent a bit. The idea of closing down non-essential portions of a store is definitely not the ideal solution. If they can develop some sort of system where you can ask employees to obtain items from those "closed off" areas (anyone remember Service Merchandise stores?) that may lessen the frustration.

Well, my local walvart seems to have a fine supply of the Deluxes in the wave (except Bee, naturally) and Elita1 us low key callin my name. The deco just looks really snazzy on her as opposed to Arcee! And the thing is I KNOW the mold is shell city I know its a big ol hiking backpack on crack and that she doesn't hardly transform. Is the extraneous back really a big drawback? Does it effect the toys balance to the point of it not being fun?

M. Spector wrote:Is the extraneous back really a big drawback? Does it effect the toys balance to the point of it not being fun?

No, the backpack actually doesn't hinder her balance, thanks to the elongated heels. But the triangular tops of her shoulder pauldrons will make her a bit tougher to transform. Almost no clearance between those and the folding front fenders. Just pray the friction doesn't cause anything to pop off during conversion.

I'm curious what everyone's thoughts are regarding Netflix Impactor vs Siege Impactor. I'm trying to decide which one to get. I know it's the same mold, but with Netflix Megatron being so much better than his regular Siege figure, I'm wondering if this is the case for Impactor as well.

Starseeker wrote:I'm curious what everyone's thoughts are regarding Netflix Impactor vs Siege Impactor. I'm trying to decide which one to get. I know it's the same mold, but with Netflix Megatron being so much better than his regular Siege figure, I'm wondering if this is the case for Impactor as well.

I like the mold enough that I already have both Siege and Amazon Fan Vote Impactor, and want to get Netflix Impactor to have all three versions.

Starseeker wrote:I'm curious what everyone's thoughts are regarding Netflix Impactor vs Siege Impactor. I'm trying to decide which one to get. I know it's the same mold, but with Netflix Megatron being so much better than his regular Siege figure, I'm wondering if this is the case for Impactor as well.

To my eyes and hands, the Netflix versions are the 'definitive' version. The paint is so much nicer and the joints so much tighter. This can be a problem because a bunch of people broke off Hound's head when he was first released but I knew about the problem and gently forced the head to rotate like the Siege one. One problem with Netflix Impactor, and could just be mine, is the shoulder gun comes off easily. Probably related to the difference in the paint.

Sabrblade wrote:I like the mold enough that I already have both Siege and Amazon Fan Vote Impactor, and want to get Netflix Impactor to have all three versions.

I have the Amazon one as well. I don't intend to purchase others, but just for fun, it would be nice to see all 3 together and some comparison pics.

I checked one of the Walmarts in my area again today, hoping to find Netflix Soundwave. They had nothing but five Netflix Wheeljacks on the peg. I asked an employee to scan the Voyager tag on the shelf, and it showed 21 "on hand" at the store, though there was absolutely nothing on (or above) the shelves AND there was no information on a pallet assignment in the back. Neat! Go home, Walmart, you're drunk!

Wolfman Jake wrote:I checked one of the Walmarts in my area again today, hoping to find Netflix Soundwave. They had nothing but five Netflix Wheeljacks on the peg. I asked an employee to scan the Voyager tag on the shelf, and it showed 21 "on hand" at the store, though there was absolutely nothing on (or above) the shelves AND there was no information on a pallet assignment in the back. Neat! Go home, Walmart, you're drunk!

*Hic* I'm not drunk you're drunk!*hic*

Their inventory is whack. It could include a shipment coming soon, or perhaps there is a lot of theft?

One of the nice features of newer Target stores is the scanner also indicates inventory of a specific item. However one I went to in a "not so great";part of town said they had 12 Battlemasters in stock. Only 2 on the peg and none in the back (or the employee was lying or didn't care to look)