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Soo, I do like Earthrise Prowl and will be glad to own it,
, but I think I will be in the minority and say I prefer Siege. I like the hood chest better, the contours and shape of it, and man those Earthrise wheels with the obvious stupid clips is fugly compared to the wheels in Siege. They should know better than that

Ironhide has the same wheels from his Cybertronian mode?
I gonna wait the Netflix show comeout before saying any of these are a "must have".

Day 201 of waiting for Transformers Armada Masterpiece news.

The more I look at that Elita, the more I like the PoTP figure, even though I wasn't a big fan of it before. Soubdwave, Ironhide and Prowl kinda irritate me, now I'm not sure I want to keep the Siege versions.

With respect to the contents of the new mystery box, I'm going to change my prediction....

Trying to go by "number of steps" dosen't really help since the number on the Mystery box dosen't match the retail releases of any leaders, even the Siege Ultra Magnus, and Netflix mystery boxes steps didn't match.

So, going by the idea that Hasbro likes to get at least 2 uses of Every mold...

Siege UM has had 2 releases
Siege Shockwave has also had 2 releases (I forgot about Selects Galactic Man)

Additionally with the help of fans here, and on other sites that translated some of the text as Giza, that seems to point towards a Nemesis Prime of some kind. A Siege version of the standard Prime has already been released as Nemesis, and that was not Leader Class.

It seems likely that it could be (as others have guessed), a Nemesis version of the Galaxy Upgrade Prime with a Translucent purple Pteraxadon BM (as Giza) representing dark energon. My only resistance to this is that it doesn't seem like a direction the animated series would go in, but who knows. (Based on the idea of Optimus actually turning evil, as opposed to Nemesis Prime being a separate being). It could go either way.

I'd actually be happier with some sort of repaint of Astrotrain or Doubledealer, but that seems highly unlikely, and Earthrise Prime has the dead Amazon exclusive, and another release in Netflix minus trailer, but with 2BM's.

Prowl... The contours are six of one, half a dozen of the other. The headlights on the ER version look like they'd be easier to pop out and convert into proper Datsun headlights, but you'd also need to saw off the spoiler.

Rodimus Prime wrote:The more I look at that Elita, the more I like the PoTP figure, even though I wasn't a big fan of it before. Soubdwave, Ironhide and Prowl kinda irritate me, now I'm not sure I want to keep the Siege versions.

PotP Elita is nice and tall, and has a decent rendition of Elita's robot mode including her shoulder guns/antennae. The Netflix version has all of ER Arcee's design baggage (and seems to be the reason for most of said design flaws - easier to swap an unintegrated body), literally comes up short, the shoulder things are barely present, and she overall comes off as undersize and scrawny.. They would have been better off doing Ariel.

o.supreme wrote:It seems likely that it could be (as others have guessed), a Nemesis version of the Galaxy Upgrade Prime with a Translucent purple Pteraxadon BM (as Giza) representing dark energon. My only resistance to this is that it doesn't seem like a direction the animated series would go in, but who knows. (Based on the idea of Optimus actually turning evil, as opposed to Nemesis Prime being a separate being). It could go either way.

What if they go with the story idea of Shockwave cloning Optimus and then upgrading and enhancing his clone to explain the Galaxy Upgrade mold's visual differences from the Voyager mold's standard Optimus look?

o.supreme wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

TheForgottenTaxi wrote:Gotta say, I'm increasingly feeling like a sucker for buying any Siege toys.

You and me both.

Is it because you believe the Earthrise versions are better, or the Netflix decos are better? By coincidence, none of the Siege toys I purchased have been redecoed for Netflix yet, exception the BM's, which are for the most part copies anyway. That is the one way Hasbro is suckering me.

Both? The Siege toys I bought were:

Megatron (got a much nicer Netflix Deco and ER version)
Sideswipe (Netflix deco, though I do still like the original.)
Hound (Ditto)
Optimus (wound up shelling out for the Earthrise)
Ironhide (Earthrise exclusive looks better)
Prowl (ditto)
Ratchet (Probably will get an Earthrise version before we're through)
Soundwave, Laserbeak, Ravage (New Soundwave looks a bit better, the tapes look much better)
Shockwave (Hey an actual winner!)
Apeface (Not redone, but also the worst of these toys.)

Yeah, some Siege toys were not redone, and the Cybertronian modes have their charms. And the Siege figures ARE legitimately good toys...

...but it suuuure feels like Hasbro knew fans would want the G1 accurate versions, and released the Cybertronian ones first in the hopes we'd buy similar toys twice.

Yeah, I'm feeling a bit foolish as well because of that. I think the ER versions look better than the Siege versions, and even though it's technically 3 lines making up the trilogy, I consider it 1 line and I usually get 1 figure per character per line. Yeah, technically they're different, so I might be able to make do in my collection that way, but in hindsight, I should have waited. I was thinking that maybe Hasbro would use the spaces in the lines to bring us different characters instead of reashing the same ones, save for Prime and Megatron, of course. That was expected.

As for Elita, I think she should have gotten her own Voyager (or at least tall deluxe) mold, and Arcee could have been redecoed into the other fembots. We have enough of them. My only problem with PoTP Elita is mainly the plane kibble in bot mode.

@TheForgottenTaxi:
Thing is, the Cybertronian ones ARE largely G1 accurate as far as robot mode goes. Which (except for the Seekers and the hat trick worked with their wings and intakes) works to their detriment, because the artists couldn't be arsed to give anyone but Laserbeak a Cybertronian robot mode And the only Autobot whose Cybertronian vehicle mode has a prayer of working with that is Jazz...

Also, more SIEGE figures have not been redone than have. Sideswipe, Hound, Mirage, and Chromia in particular seem meant as definitive versions of them for the trilogy (and Sideswipe is blatantly an Earth car).

And of course, some of the re-dos are lateral moves G1 accuracy-wise (*cough*ER Megatron*cough*). For my money, ER Ironhide falls into that category. Prowl too, really, especially since apparently only his chest was retooled from Smokescreen (and not well enough - bloody "modern car" headlights); he still has the feet with the spoiler according to the render. It's not like Smokescreen where the SIEGE Selects version didn't have the Smokescreen-specific spoiler and and air dam (and is a now-rarespensive figure).

I wonder if it's possible that some of the Earth Mode rehashes were actually in response to fan-wailing over the SIEGE modes.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

Tuned Agent wrote:It makes me wonder why they even bother with the CG renders. They must cost something to make, and they almost always look worse than official product images.

They probably cost less than running off physical copies, and they're probably made using the same CAD assets used in the manufacturing process

That's a good point about the CAD assets, but I'm not sure it would really be cheaper. They still have to make production samples for testing and stuff, so theoretically they could just make an extra for photos.[/quote]
They already use those for hand painted displays at conventions, the CG images are just an advanced look since Hasbro doesn't like to show off unpainted prototypes and those take time.

Crazy idea but what if the spoiler figure is Nemesis Prime using the Siege mold with ER Prime's trailer left over from the Netflix Voyager?

People complaining about buying the same characters in two lines must think I'm crazy for buying everything with a WFC logo on it.

Emerje

The parts coming off will be even more common when BW characters hit as thats how they got their weapons in the originals so cant see them changing that.

Dannshinigami wrote:The parts coming off will be even more common when BW characters hit as thats how they got their weapons in the originals so cant see them changing that.

Beast Wars is why I don't care about things like roof shields. Besides, we figured out a long time ago that Earthrise was the shield line. Just from wave 1 Soundbarrier turns into a shield, Cliffjumper has a part that turns into a shield, Ironworks has a shield built into his arm, and Optimus has a shield made from the trailer door. After that you've got two more Battle Masters turning into shields, Arcee's backpack shield, Airwave's built in arm shield, Trailbreaker's truck bed cap, Pretty sure Megatron has a shield made from the gap filler on the back of the tank (usually attacked to his "spear" in photos), and Scorponok has the biggest shield of all. That doesn't even count all the exclusive repaints. This is definitely the shield line. Whether it was intended that way or Warden was just phoning it in in the end is anyone's guess.

Emerje

ER is the Shield line.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:
I wonder if it's possible that some of the Earth Mode rehashes were actually in response to fan-wailing over the SIEGE modes.

Can't be. Toys are a two year process, so these were past the design stage before Siege was even out. And like I said, those renders make it seem like that Soundwave mold was designed as having a dual purpose at the design stage.

Also I dont get the hate for the removeable top of Ironhide's van, it's a G1 homage. No one was upset when we saw it with Blurr in TR.

Gotta say, as someone that hasn't been able to get any WFC trilogy figs so far due to reasons I won't bore you with, I actually don't think all the ER "replacement" figs are straight upgrades, or at least not to the point where I'd say I'd feel ripped off for getting the Siege version. Putting aside the fact that the Siege versions are meant to be Cybertronian/pre-Earth, and thus not directly comparable, a lot of these seem like sidegrades, to me at least.
>Soundwave I actually think the Siege mold looks a bit better (also IMO the fanmoded tape deck works quite well as a satellite, which combined with his tape bomber mode makes me think of him as a G1ified version of ROTF Soundwave), and as someone that honestly doesn't care too much for him being a tape deck, eh.
>Megatron I definitely prefer the Siege version, though he is one of the weaker molds from what I've seen.
>The Seekers are a tough one- I'm a jet nerd of course, but the tetrajet mode IMO at least looks brilliant, especially for a mode long thought impossible to achieve, and the robot mode is straight-up superior to the ER version.
>Ironhide I personally prefer Siege to ER, as the vehicle mode kinda works as an armoured truck, and ER's somewhat dodgy vehicle mode and lazy partsforming shield drag him down a bit.
There are some where I feel ER wins- Prime in particular, and also Prowl- but on the whole I wouldn't say anyone who bought the Siege versions are necessarily suckers. And some figures like Shockwave and Reflector are basically perfect anyway.

Sideswipe, Hound, Mirage, and Chromia in particular seem meant as definitive versions of them for the trilogy (and Sideswipe is blatantly an Earth car).

Eh, Prowl is as much blatantly an earth car as Sideswipe, and they redid him. At this rate, I will not be shocked if we get full earth-mode versions of Sideswipe and Hound.

While the shield sucks, I much prefer the look of the ER Ironhide -- I like the black over the grey for the shoulders and such, like the chest better, and the thing that really puts it over the top is what appears to be a better head sculpt.

(Speaking of lazy partsformers: Bumblebee's shield has to be the most egregious, but more than anything I'm kinda shocked they gave him Cliffjumper's gun. Feels like appropriate accessories are a relatively easy way to differentiate repaints/remolds -- Siege Ratchet's bits did a lot in that regard.)

Anyway, the net effect of Hasbro's strategy here is that it makes me reluctant to buy toys in this line period, at least for popular characters. I feel like I'm supposed to wait it out and buy the best versions in a year or two -- any late fee I pay will be made up for by not having to try to sell stuff like Siege Ironhide and Prowl that nobody will want.

I'm kind of hoping for earth mode hound and sideswipe and I'd be more than happy to replace my siege red alert with an improved car/bot mode. If I can pick up an earthrise ratchet it might sway me on the ironhide (which will no doubt be stupidly hard to get by the time a likely stupidly hard to get Ratchet comes out).

@Black Hat
I don't see the ER figs as "straight upgrades" either. Especially not the Seekers. Although except for Soundwave the non-Seeker Cybertronian altmodes are a tad more lackluster than, say, those of Animated because cartoon accuracy stuck them with Earth robot modes. I also agree about SIEGE Megs being better than ER.

william-james88 wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:
I wonder if it's possible that some of the Earth Mode rehashes were actually in response to fan-wailing over the SIEGE modes.

Can't be. Toys are a two year process, so these were past the design stage before Siege was even out. And like I said, those renders make it seem like that Soundwave mold was designed as having a dual purpose at the design stage.

Fair enough, and I was mainly thinking of Prowl and Ironhide anyway.

william-james88 wrote:Also I dont get the hate for the removeable top of Ironhide's van, it's a G1 homage. No one was upset when we saw it with Blurr in TR.

Well, I'm annoyed by it because it's only the top and thus a shadow of the G1 toy's removable component.

TheForgottenTaxi wrote:

Sideswipe, Hound, Mirage, and Chromia in particular seem meant as definitive versions of them for the trilogy (and Sideswipe is blatantly an Earth car).

Eh, Prowl is as much blatantly an earth car as Sideswipe, and they redid him.

No, he isn't. He's got clear wheels, his doors don't have handles, he doesn't have distinct taillights the way Sideswipe does...

TheForgottenTaxi wrote:At this rate, I will not be shocked if we get full earth-mode versions of Sideswipe and Hound.

I'll be surprised.

TheForgottenTaxi wrote:While the shield sucks, I much prefer the look of the ER Ironhide -- I like the black over the grey for the shoulders and such, like the chest better, and the thing that really puts it over the top is what appears to be a better head sculpt.

1. Given that ER Ironhide started as SIEGE Ironhide, making the roof removable was the only way to give him the rounded Onebox roof. At least, without spoiling the blockiness of his arms and legs. As Will pointed out, having his roof come off is a feature in common with the G1 toy, although a shield/gun turret (per word of the announcement video) is but a shadow of the original Onebox component.
2. SIEGE Ironhide's chest is somewhat more cartoon-accurate, at least when transformed properly, because the animation model turns the a reaslistically-shaped Earth vannette windshield into a rectangle in robot mode. But I can understand liking the realistically-shaped windshield more.
3. I don't think that is a new headsculpt, but I can't be sure.

TheForgottenTaxi wrote:(Speaking of lazy partsformers: Bumblebee's shield has to be the most egregious, but more than anything I'm kinda shocked they gave him Cliffjumper's gun. Feels like appropriate accessories are a relatively easy way to differentiate repaints/remolds -- Siege Ratchet's bits did a lot in that regard.)

I think the Arcee mold's shield is more egregious, on account of the seats and how unlike the Cliffjumper mold she already has an egregious backpack without putting that piece of kibble on her back. As for the accessories, given what was previously shown about Hubcap we have no idea if they're giving us accurate info with those renders.

TheForgottenTaxi wrote:Anyway, the net effect of Hasbro's strategy here is that it makes me reluctant to buy toys in this line period, at least for popular characters. I feel like I'm supposed to wait it out and buy the best versions in a year or two -- any late fee I pay will be made up for by not having to try to sell stuff like Siege Ironhide and Prowl that nobody will want.

Fine, be bitter and paranoid that Hasbro is deliberately trying to scam you, and disregard all the figures that aren't getting remakes.

william-james88 wrote:The Vector Sigma Facebook page has made some handy comparisons between the toys that were revealed on Fan First Friday. It's funny to see that in some cases, the 3D renders were themselves simply redeco'd or retooled. The Soundwave and casette comparison are most interesting. For Soundwave, we see that very little has changed in terms of tooling and yet a totally different alt mode was achieved. For the casettes, we see that each of them are indeed retooled (look at Ravage's head) and you can see how different the deco is.

Optimus is the same mold and you can see the slight deco changes. We also see that Elita-1's vehicle mode was indeed retooled, ever so slightly. Let us know what you think of these and which ones you hope to pick up.

That head on Earthrise Prowl is Bluestreak's head. I've already made arrangements to get another Prowl to swap heads when my set arrives.

Seeing them side by side, do you think the Ironhide "shield" will be attachable to the SIEGE mold?

sol magnus wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

That head on Earthrise Prowl is Bluestreak's head. I've already made arrangements to get another Prowl to swap heads when my set arrives.

Hey, wait a minute... with all the inaccuracies with these renders, how do we know that there isn't a Prowl head mold too, and the render just used the wrong one?

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Seeing them side by side, do you think the Ironhide "shield" will be attachable to the SIEGE mold?

I doubt it, I don't think the driver and passenger side windows with work with the Siege tooling.

TheForgottenTaxi wrote:While the shield sucks, I much prefer the look of the ER Ironhide -- I like the black over the grey for the shoulders and such, like the chest better, and the thing that really puts it over the top is what appears to be a better head sculpt.

For the sake of avoiding disappointment later, I feel obligated to let you know/remind you that Siege Ironhide's shoulders and such were originally shown to be black as well, so once again the render colors may not be accurate to the final product:
Also pretty sure he's got the same head sculpt, just possibly with less Siege greeble.

Another thing to consider with digital renders, sometimes they use the mirror image on accident. Look a Earthrise Ironhide in both modes. The attachment of his wipers at the bottom of the windshield switches sides, when it should remain the same.

Something interesting that I don't think anyone's brought up yet: Soundwave is majority new parts. Looking at the new one (both the render we just got and the in-hand sample that was leaked last month) and comparing it to Siege, the only parts that are shared between the two figures are the feet, the pelvis flaps, the chest window, the arms from the biceps down, the head, and the weapons. The shoulders, almost all of the torso, and the entirety of the legs, are all newly sculpted; even if they look very similar to Siege's, they have different detailing or shaping.