The Energon Pub

Anyways, the detailing on the prime combiner torso was always an homage to energon prime in super mode so it only makes sense to infer further homages

Emerje wrote: tax is included with the price

It is not, and such is stated clearly in the article

https://www.seibertron.com/transformers ... que/41802/

Either HTS is getting low in stock on PotP Voyagers, or they are price adjusting again. Voyagers are now priced as $29.99 (previously were $24.99). Only Starscream and Elita-1 are currently in stock, but that certainly is a deterrent. I got my SS for around $20 after some coupons, but I know some who passed him at $10 on Amazon prime day, I'm pretty sure most fans who want SS have it by now, but after all the negative reviews, I'm pretty sure nobody's going to pay $30 for it...Better clearance those out HTS...

Did the United version of Wreck-Gar have the breakage issues that the Hasbro version had?

william-james88 wrote:

Emerje wrote: tax is included with the price

It is not, and such is stated clearly in the article

https://www.seibertron.com/transformers ... que/41802/

You're right. I didn't realize where people were getting the price from and thought the info was coming from Takara Tomy which does include the tax in the price. Doesn't really change my argument as it's still the price anyone in Japan would be expected to pay.

Emerje

It's just a shame we never got a slightly-more accurate Grand Convoy from Takara. Now granted while Fire-1 could be a Rook retool I'm not sure about Submarine-4. I'm sure someone, somewhere, customized that.

^ I saw a pretty cool Raiden custom (the helicopter mold made pretty good bullet trains when all the blade apparatus removed). I'm sure something similar could be done to turn it into a submarine of sorts.

o.supreme wrote:^ I saw a pretty cool Raiden custom (the helicopter mold made pretty good bullet trains when all the blade apparatus removed). I'm sure something similar could be done to turn it into a submarine of sorts.

What did they do with the torso though? None of the ones we got would have lent themselves to a train alt that well.

It was a heavily modified Hotspot IIRC, never saw any of the individual bots, just the combined form

Sabrblade wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

Nemesis Primal wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:They could also have done redecoes homaging Energon Optimus' drones since CW Optimus has some major detail homages to him in torso mode... but they didn't do that either.

...they did do that though, that's exactly what they did. Those "random Autobot repaints" exactly match the colors of his Prime Force drones.
Ironhide=Fire-1=Red
Prowl=Copter-2=White
Sunstreaker=Digger-3=Yellow
Mirage=Submarine-4=Blue

That's a stretch that you're pulling out of your exhaust port and you know it. Not only did you get one of the colors wrong (Fire-1 is ORANGE), the remaining three matches seem highly coincidental at best (And just where do Hound, Smokescreen, Wheeljack, and Trailbreaker fit into your equation, hm?). Methinks a deliberate homage would, you know, have gone for vehicles that more closely matched. Like, say, redecoing Alpha Bravo (an actual helicopter) for Copter-2, Nosecone (You know, the actual digging vehicle guy) for Digger-3.. Dunno for sure what you would pass off as submarine, but the Afterbreaker mold or maybe a helicopter sans rotors probably works better for that than a freaking Formula racer. The Offroad mold probably is the best bet for Fire-1, though. But still, given all that, I highly doubt Ironhide, Prowl, Sunstreaker, and Mirage are a deliberate homage to the Prime Force. And if they are, then they're a poorly conceived and executed one.

When Takara released Unite Warriors Convoy Grand Prime, they not only colored Prime's torso to better match Energon Optimus's Super Mode torso more closely than the Hasbro toy did, but deliberately took further advantage of the Energon Optimus homage by specifically putting Ironhide, Prowl, Sunstreaker, and Mirage into the official limb arrangement that color-coordinated with the official main configuration of Energon Optimus's drones, placing Ironhide as the right arm like Fire-1 (yes yes, red is not orange, but they're still closely-related colors), Prowl as the left arm like Copter-2, Sunstreaker as the right leg like Digger-3, and Mirage as the left leg like Submarine-4.




As opposed to Hasbro's official configuration of the same limbs for Optimus Maximus not taking advantage of the Energon homage by instead just putting them in a more random order:

I'll grant you that. But it feels more like Takara realizing those four redecoes could be used for the Energon homage after Hasbro released them, rather than Hasbro deliberately selecting those characters with the Energon homage in mind from the start. Especially with the arrangement Hasbro put them in on "Optimus Maximus". And I maintain that if Hasbro was trying to homage Energon with those four, it was a poor execution (a police car is not a helicopter, and they could have gone with Huffer instead of Ironhide to get an orange truck.. Redecoing Nosecone would make for a far better Digger-3 than Sunstreaker, although looking at the waves, he was released later than these four).

ZeroWolf wrote:Why would you say that about combiner wars hating customisers? From results I've seen around the Web you can get some great results. Look at what our own Kanrabat has achieved with his combiner customs.

Yes, people have made some great customs. But HOLY CRAP are the figures a pain in the rear to dismantle so that you CAN customize them. There are some extremely stubborn and in some cases outright rude pins to deal with removing when taking them apart (this also applies to Titans Return. Looking at you, Blurr's canopy pin). I know this from experience because I've dismantled Mirage and Smokescreen to turn into Drag Strip and either Dead End or Wildrider, respectively (because I was able to get them cheaper than the actual Stunticons). It was rather frustrating in places, and I outright gave up on dismantling the HFGs and decided to build my own combiner hands instead out of wood and stuff.

Ah I get you now, fair play. Also quite an ingenious solution to build your own stunticons. Here in he UK we only ever got Dragstrip...at least from what I saw on my hunts.

I got BLAST OFF this week and he's a great figure. I'm a bit amazed that he has 19 5mm ports (22 if you include the three on the HFG).
But there are two issues with him:
1. His shoulders are exchanged which interferes with the shuttle's nose in both limb modes. If you prefer the combiner port side being the front of the torso you should exchange only his shoulders. Not the whole arms. And if you want the same configuration as TAKARA's BO you can exchange the whole arms.
If you look at pictures of BLAST OFF and MOVOR/Shuttler you can see that they exchanged the arms from the biceps downwards. And
2. It's really hard to fold the cockpit into the section right behind it for robot mode. Most of the time I have to unpeg it or do it by accident anyway. Does anybody else have that issue, too?

Lunatic Prime wrote:2. It's really hard to fold the cockpit into the section right behind it for robot mode. Most of the time I have to unpeg it or do it by accident anyway. Does anybody else have that issue, too?

Yes to this.

Cobotron wrote:

Lunatic Prime wrote:2. It's really hard to fold the cockpit into the section right behind it for robot mode. Most of the time I have to unpeg it or do it by accident anyway. Does anybody else have that issue, too?

Yes to this.

So I guess I have to remove some plastic if I'm not doing anything wrong.

Lunatic Prime wrote:

Cobotron wrote:

Lunatic Prime wrote:2. It's really hard to fold the cockpit into the section right behind it for robot mode. Most of the time I have to unpeg it or do it by accident anyway. Does anybody else have that issue, too?

Yes to this.

So I guess I have to remove some plastic if I'm not doing anything wrong.

It's a common issue due to lack of clearance from what I've seen. However, I've seen it work by hinging the cockpit up first (you may hear a click), then folding it in. Don't unpeg it routinely, as that may wear out the hinge.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Lunatic Prime wrote:

Cobotron wrote:

Lunatic Prime wrote:2. It's really hard to fold the cockpit into the section right behind it for robot mode. Most of the time I have to unpeg it or do it by accident anyway. Does anybody else have that issue, too?

Yes to this.

So I guess I have to remove some plastic if I'm not doing anything wrong.

It's a common issue due to lack of clearance from what I've seen. However, I've seen it work by hinging the cockpit up first (you may hear a click), then folding it in. Don't unpeg it routinely, as that may wear out the hinge.

That works
Thanks a lot

The above pictures of BCOP just reminded me of how horrible that mold is as a torso.

First Blackwing sighting in my area at Brentwood Walmart. Woo. They also have Moonracer, Rippersnapper, and a bunch of Dinobots.

I finally saw these on shelves an a Walmart in greater Toledo, Ohio. I snagged both Dinobots and a Rippersnapper. There were 2 Rippersnappers, 1 Blackwing and 1 Moonracer left. This was at Spring Meadows if you're in my neck of the waste. I didn't check to see what Target had to offer. I just grabbed my beastie bots and bolted. - Happy Hunting

Rodimus Prime wrote:The above pictures of BCOP just reminded me of how horrible that mold is as a torso.

While not solving all of the mold's problems as a torso, it does look a little better (and a little taller) when one turns the legs of the mold to face backwards instead of facing sideways. Granted, the combiner's thighs are also made looser since they can no longer peg into the waist piece (which each copy of the mold only did to varying degrees anyway), but it's a small price of "stability" to pay to make the mold look a tad less ugly-looking as a torso.

Alright, going a little off topic when it comes to what is currently being talked about on this thread, but still related to PotPie. I do have a question about the release of the Throne of The Primes OpOp release on the Hasbro Toy Shop. That question being, what time will the figure come out on the 13th? I've been have been anticipating a midnight release, yet I don't know when items on the HTS become available to purchase.

I do want to try & get the figure through the HTS & not have to fork up $20 more when I have to focus on other events in the following months & I know that this figure is going to sell out as fast as possible, but still.

I wonder if I'm becoming overly-paranoid when it comes to trying to get this simple exclusive.

Stupid question, at SDCC did they confirm that the Legends Class was done with wave 3?

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Stupid question, at SDCC did they confirm that the Legends Class was done with wave 3?

Not directly, but they did confirm that the line as a whole was cut short due to the higher-ups wanting to launch War for Cybertron sooner rather than later. As such, except for Novastar, no new figures for the final Wave, just repacks.

Sabrblade wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:The above pictures of BCOP just reminded me of how horrible that mold is as a torso.

While not solving all of the mold's problems as a torso, it does look a little better (and a little taller) when one turns the legs of the mold to face backwards instead of facing sideways. Granted, the combiner's thighs are also made looser since they can no longer peg into the waist piece (which each copy of the mold only did to varying degrees anyway), but it's a small price of "stability" to pay to make the mold look a tad less ugly-looking as a torso.

The problem with the CW Prime/Motormaster torso is that it's only a chest on top of a pelvis, and the pelvis is pretty iffy itself. There's no abdominal area whatsoever. Combined mode always looks like a bust with arms on a pair of stilts.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Stupid question, at SDCC did they confirm that the Legends Class was done with wave 3?

Not directly, but they did confirm that the line as a whole was cut short due to the higher-ups wanting to launch War for Cybertron sooner rather than later. As such, except for Novastar, no new figures for the final Wave, just repacks.

And there are no signs of any PotP box sets, are there? Because I'd be totally down for a SEACONs box set. I already posted some ideas from which molds to retool them a few months ago. Now that I know about decoy suit Counterpunch I could imagine Tentakil being a retool of him. Just exchange the front flap and there you have Tentakil's alt mode. The Prime Master inside (Onyx Prime would be nice and matching for the set) would be kind of the robot mode and we would have a Targetmaster for Piranacon.

I know Cutthroat's former design/prototype/whatever had Wildfly's robot mode head so that would be an indicator for Monstructor but we didn't get anything further as far as I know.