Seibertron wrote:BWII "Lobclaw" / "Nautilator" was on my list for a Botcon "G1" molds set along with G1 Scramble City recolors for Alpha Bravo, Offroad, Rook and Sling Shot as Blast Off (or a new name). I thought a five pack of those guys along with a recolor of one of the G1 torsos would have made an amazing Botcon or Club set to honor the history of the brand. Ah, things that never were!
As interesting as that idea sounds, Fun Pub could only use G1 molds that were made available via contemporary reissues.
The Piranacon recolor in 2008 happened because that set had already been planned by Hasbro as a Walmart release, so it was ready to go before Fun Pub got to release it. BBTS then got a reissue of their own in 2010, which could also explain how/why these molds were available for Fun Pub to use in 2008 if Hasbro had planned the BBTS reissue in advance.
Meanwhile, the G1 Spike Headmaster mold was made available for the BotCon 2014 Scorponok because of Encore Fort Max's release in 2013. Same with the Grand Max shell for TFSS 2016 Megatron having been found by Takara along with the Fort Max tooling.
Those were the only G1 molds Fun Pub ever released.
With that in mind, the G1 Vortex and Swindle molds were reissued in the Encore Bruticus set in 2009, so it is possible that those two molds may have been made available for an Alpha Bravo and an Offroad redeco, respectively, but not the Slingshot mold since there's never been a Superion reissue post-1994. Nor any Defensor reissue, so no Blades mold either. Worse still, by the time Fun Pub was doing Combiner Wars-inspired toys was when Hasbro decided to end BotCon and the Collectors Club, so any attempts at any G1-molded versions of the new CW characters wouldn't have had a chance to come from Fun Pub before their license expired, and by which point the final two years' exclusives had already been planned out in advance to use actual CW molds due to an earlier request from Hasbro for Fun Pub to have their Combiner Wars toys reflect what Hasbro was doing with the line at mass retail.
Twas indeed a frustrating time for anyone wanting G1-mold Fun Pub exclusives.