The Energon Pub

Is no one going to mention Volcanicus' legs? They're just like Menasor's, except Volcanicus doesn't have those leg flaps that lock the upper and lower leg together. How in the hell does Volcanicus even stand without Grimlock's knees giving out?

man, if only we had a transformer that was made up of one long necked dinosaur, one winged dinosaur, and one t-rex dinosaur, that takara could make this fanmode into...

We have Magmatron

I may end up picking up Volcanicus after all if this fanmode fix the shoulder width issue AND if it somehow manage to remain stable.

Black Hat wrote:Courtesy of some anon on 4chan, apparently Volcanicus looks a LOT better transformed like this:

To me that looks even worse! His shoulders are now waaaay behind his back and at a slight angle. Plus his arms are being blocked by Grimlock's shoulders so you have to swing them out to the side to get clearance. It only looks good because of the perspective on these 2D images.

But it's fine if you think this looks good:



Emerje

william-james88 wrote:

SillyMcGilly wrote:I'm just thankful we now have a voyager Starscream with a nice robot mode.

I am still waiting for one

Gwumpy wumpus. He turns into a torso mode that actually looks halfway decent. He's of course bound to have a jet mode that's more or less sub par. But the robot mode actually looks good... Dunno where all the hate is from, but okay. I'm just happy we were listened to and got a voyager Starscream that isn't this guy:

Only problem to me is he's probably not gonna be redone into Skywarp and Thundercracker because of his scale.

I dont see how scale changed anything. Every other Generations Starscream got recoloured into those two other seekers and the scales were all over the place.

Plus, we have a listing for a TRU exclusive Thundercraker so I think both the redecos will be store exclusives.
So you may get your wish

My thought was that leader classes from CW were more side things to fill the size gap, and deluxes are the most numerous size class generally, whereas voyagers have the specific gimmick and combiner mixes to go with and only one or two per wave. Plus he's got King Starscream as the torso mode. Just didn't know how the other seekers would fit.

Plus, isn't it possible that the TRU exclusive Thundercracker is the third RiD warrior class seeker? We got Screamer and Warpy, but no Thunders.

SillyMcGilly wrote:Gwumpy wumpus.

Markiplier fan?

SillyMcGilly wrote:He turns into a torso mode that actually looks halfway decent. He's of course bound to have a jet mode that's more or less sub par. But the robot mode actually looks good... Dunno where all the hate is from, but okay. I'm just happy we were listened to and got a voyager Starscream that isn't this guy:

I've seen an English review of Voyager Starscream and... If you've seen Energon Storm Jet, you'll know what to expect with him. Really hollow and I kinda fear a repeat of the first runs of CW Silverbolt.

SillyMcGilly wrote:Plus, isn't it possible that the TRU exclusive Thundercracker is the third RiD warrior class seeker? We got Screamer and Warpy, but no Thunders.

The price point is that of a Voyager, besides RiD 2015 has effectively ended by now,.

It looks like Grimlock's hands are holding onto the combiner hands in the 3-bot version. There's nowhere else they could peg in on the bottom of the dino feet if they're retracted.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

SillyMcGilly wrote:Plus, isn't it possible that the TRU exclusive Thundercracker is the third RiD warrior class seeker? We got Screamer and Warpy, but no Thunders.

The price point is that of a Voyager, besides RiD 2015 has effectively ended by now,.

But Toys"R"Us is ESPENSIVE! Especially when it comes to exclusives.

Also Titans Return effectively ended before Arcee and Grotusque (Both Toys"R"Us exclusives) were released. So it's not exactly impossible.

And, who knows? The exclusive could be cancelled because of Toys"R"Us' loss of business. IMO, it kinda serves them right for jacking the prices up for so high when we now have Amazon to replace the online side, and Target and Walmart to mostly replace brick and mortar stores. I think bad business practice is killing the company, and that ain't our faults.

What bothers me is that around my place, the two Wal Mart and remaining Toys R Us still have entire shelves filled with unsold Transformers figures. Beside the movie ones, the rest is mostly RiD or endless waves of Galvatron, Octone and Blitzwing....and THEN there is the endless wave of crap like One-Step-Changer and other wastes of plastics not even little kids would buy.

This mean I sadly don't expect to see PotP stuff on shelves any time soon.

Skritz wrote:What bothers me is that around my place, the two Wal Mart and remaining Toys R Us still have entire shelves filled with unsold Transformers figures. Beside the movie ones, the rest is mostly RiD or endless waves of Galvatron, Octone and Blitzwing....and THEN there is the endless wave of crap like One-Step-Changer and other wastes of plastics not even little kids would buy.

This mean I sadly don't expect to see PotP stuff on shelves any time soon.

Fix: Buy em all, sell them on Amazon for the same price, POTP figures will appear in stock, profit.

I have to be honest and say that Starscream id one of the figures I was hoping for at first. As a replacement for the '06 Classics figure (since it's too small and not very poseable), I was looking forward to get him. While I would want that over the Cyber Commander one, I get Aero-Bot vibes from it.

Black Hat wrote:Courtesy of some anon on 4chan, apparently Volcanicus looks a LOT better transformed like this:

I like it!
Doesn't mean I'll buy Grimlock, but I see an improvement with this transformation.

Still no sign of the Prime Masters at Target or even TRU online. Bought the TR Arcee pack out of pure impulse, however, since I was at their website. And I really wanna see how she looks on Misfire's transtector.

SillyMcGilly wrote:IMO, it kinda serves them right for jacking the prices up for so high when we now have Amazon to replace the online side, and Target and Walmart to mostly replace brick and mortar stores. I think bad business practice is killing the company, and that ain't our faults.

Funny you say that, years ago TRU used Amazon as a platform and split off. Wasnt amicable

Black Hat wrote:Courtesy of some anon on 4chan, apparently Volcanicus looks a LOT better transformed like this:

Much better! But Inwonder how stable it is?

SillyMcGilly wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

SillyMcGilly wrote:Plus, isn't it possible that the TRU exclusive Thundercracker is the third RiD warrior class seeker? We got Screamer and Warpy, but no Thunders.

The price point is that of a Voyager, besides RiD 2015 has effectively ended by now,.

But Toys"R"Us is ESPENSIVE! Especially when it comes to exclusives.

Only collector targeted exclusives, they're reasonable when it comes to exclusives aimed at kids. In fact both times they did exclusive RID Warrior class figures they were cheaper ($14.99) than the regular mass retail figures ($16.99). If they were to do an RID Thundercracker at TRU there's no reason to believe it wouldn't be $14.99, not twice that.

Emerje

SillyMcGilly wrote:

Skritz wrote:What bothers me is that around my place, the two Wal Mart and remaining Toys R Us still have entire shelves filled with unsold Transformers figures. Beside the movie ones, the rest is mostly RiD or endless waves of Galvatron, Octone and Blitzwing....and THEN there is the endless wave of crap like One-Step-Changer and other wastes of plastics not even little kids would buy.

This mean I sadly don't expect to see PotP stuff on shelves any time soon.

Fix: Buy em all, sell them on Amazon for the same price, POTP figures will appear in stock, profit.

Well the only thing I'd honestly be curious to buy and fiddle with as desk toys are RiD Blugeon and Power Surge Optimus, the latter which I'd totally dig as fodder for practicing my painting skills. Beyond that, the movie figures are fine but unfortunately what I notice is that sadly Transformers just don't sell.

Of course I'm also a very strong proponent of the idea that Transformers has some serious 'brand fatigue' as it's arguably more popular and present on store shelves than it ever was, yes, even during the days of G1 I'd imagine. While to us older fans this is not a bad thing, do keep in mind that what killed G2 early on and forced the radical rebranding that was Beast Wars was simply that Transformers just weren't all that appealing combined with the fact most kids who had older brothers already had Transformers toys. And sadly, toys aren't so big anymore when every kid is a smartphone zombie.

As much as I hate to say this, all signs point to Transformers imploding hard in the coming years. The fact is, Transformers as a brand has been on shelves, often with several series or toylines on shelves for a decade now and has existed in this state since at least 2007.

Skritz wrote:As much as I hate to say this, all signs point to Transformers imploding hard in the coming years. The fact is, Transformers as a brand has been on shelves, often with several series or toylines on shelves for a decade now and has existed in this state since at least 2007.

I hate to think of it, but you make a valid point...the only upside to this would be a wildly successful resurgence/reboot in a few years (Beast Wars: Part Deux please).

Madeus Prime wrote:

Skritz wrote:As much as I hate to say this, all signs point to Transformers imploding hard in the coming years. The fact is, Transformers as a brand has been on shelves, often with several series or toylines on shelves for a decade now and has existed in this state since at least 2007.

I hate to think of it, but you make a valid point...the only upside to this would be a wildly successful resurgence/reboot in a few years (Beast Wars: Part Deux please).

The difference is in the advantage Beast Wars had: Transformers had been off the air since the end of G1 with 'The Rebirth' and only existed in the form of rerurns, while japan had its own series which rode the popularity of mecha in the '80 and '90 before having their own spinoff in the form of the awesome-yet-obscure Brave serie. When Beast Wars hit, it was brand new, the first new Transformers cartoon in so much as western audiences were concerned (or even knew, as the internet was young).

This effect is lost because since the 2007 movie, we had Animated, Prime, Rescue Bots, RiD, the ongoing Generations toylines, the Cybertron games and who knows what else I'm forgetting. At this point Transformers is just old hat and part of the expected pop culture landscape, even if most of its (intended) target audience generally only knows an incarnation or two.

Skritz wrote:

Madeus Prime wrote:

Skritz wrote:As much as I hate to say this, all signs point to Transformers imploding hard in the coming years. The fact is, Transformers as a brand has been on shelves, often with several series or toylines on shelves for a decade now and has existed in this state since at least 2007.

I hate to think of it, but you make a valid point...the only upside to this would be a wildly successful resurgence/reboot in a few years (Beast Wars: Part Deux please).

The difference is in the advantage Beast Wars had: Transformers had been off the air since the end of G1 with 'The Rebirth' and only existed in the form of rerurns, while japan had its own series which rode the popularity of mecha in the '80 and '90 before having their own spinoff in the form of the awesome-yet-obscure Brave serie. When Beast Wars hit, it was brand new, the first new Transformers cartoon in so much as western audiences were concerned (or even knew, as the internet was young).

This effect is lost because since the 2007 movie, we had Animated, Prime, Rescue Bots, RiD, the ongoing Generations toylines, the Cybertron games and who knows what else I'm forgetting. At this point Transformers is just old hat and part of the expected pop culture landscape, even if most of its (intended) target audience generally only knows an incarnation or two.

True, but I meant if it really took another plunge, like it did after the G1 Cartoon ended. I don't like the thought of another giant hiatus (even though I didn't experience the first one), but if it saves the brand again...*Shrug*

SillyMcGilly wrote: IMO, it kinda serves them right for jacking the prices up for so high when we now have Amazon to replace the online side, and Target and Walmart to mostly replace brick and mortar stores. I think bad business practice is killing the company, and that ain't our faults.

Toysrus had the best prices for POTP toys so far, beating out Target by a fair bit: https://www.seibertron.com/transformers ... nds/40185/

Madeus Prime wrote:

Skritz wrote:As much as I hate to say this, all signs point to Transformers imploding hard in the coming years. The fact is, Transformers as a brand has been on shelves, often with several series or toylines on shelves for a decade now and has existed in this state since at least 2007.

I hate to think of it, but you make a valid point...the only upside to this would be a wildly successful resurgence/reboot in a few years (Beast Wars: Part Deux please).

They've been pumping out the live action movies for a while now. Even though I hear they suck (I've only seen the first one), I believe they still make decent money when factoring in the global box office. But if the #s keep going down, I can totally see them rebooting it. At the end of the day, it's robots that transform. Kids love that stuff.

It's hard to speculate on what the prices mean. Sure, they're lower than the Legends line, but that doesn't mean they'll be the same exact figures as Hasbro's. Just look at the TLK line, those ARE just repackaged Hasbro figures and even those prices aren't this low. My own theory is that these aren't the actual prices for Japan since the pre-order prices are much too low on BBTS. Instead I think these might be the Japanese discount prices and BBTS's prices may be based on an Asia retail release as an extension of UW. If these were coming directly from Japan then BBTS wouldn't price a 7,000 JPY figure for $65, they'd be closer to $85.

I'm crossing my fingers that Takara Tomy makes a Targetmaster combiner out of Artfire, Stepper, Crosshairs, Pointblank, and Sureshot. Since the last three didn't take Transtectors in the Legends comics they can easily say they had their bodies rebuilt as combiners instead. Their partners already exist in Legends so they wont need to come with them and since they're doing smaller Legends scale figures maybe they can make one that's a retool of Shockwave to go with the combined form.

Emerje

Moving on from the negative, does anyone that have the figures released so far have their own thoughts when compared to the previous lines (like QC issues or how stable they are)?

Quantum Surge wrote:Moving on from the negative, does anyone that have the figures released so far have their own thoughts when compared to the previous lines (like QC issues or how stable they are)?

I have the 4 deluxes. The dinobots are awesome. Overall the figures are very good. With the exception of Jazz, I haven't noticed QC or stability issues. With Jazz, it's a bit tough tabbing in the sides in alt mode. I also found him to be floppy as a limb. RTS Jazz is still better IMO.

nycPrime wrote:

Quantum Surge wrote:Moving on from the negative, does anyone that have the figures released so far have their own thoughts when compared to the previous lines (like QC issues or how stable they are)?

I have the 4 deluxes. The dinobots are awesome. Overall the figures are very good. With the exception of Jazz, I haven't noticed QC or stability issues. With Jazz, it's a bit tough tabbing in the sides in alt mode. I also found him to be floppy as a limb. RTS Jazz is still better IMO.

I heard someone say that they're smaller than previous Deluxes from CW/TR. Especially the Dinobots. Is that true?