Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums

o.supreme wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:Just take a look at most of the figures in the sightings forum/section. Most of them show up in the west coast first.

Slugslinger - 15 sightings, 2 on the west coast
Overlord - 11 sightings, 1 on the west coast
Misfire- 5 sightings, 0 on the west coast
TwinTwist- 7 sightings, 0 on the west coast...

need I go on?

You are assuming that everyone posts their findings on our site? And your data has no info on the date.
Its better to go on google and look up first sightings for whatever toys you care for.

I just typed "the last knight found US retail" on google and found the following:

Leader Dragonstorm first found in Cerritos, California
Wave 3 Deluxes first found in San Jose, California
Exclusive TLK Reveal the Shield Optimus Prime first found at Mission Viejo, California

Need I go on?

I have never found a toy whos first sighting is Rhode Island. All toys distributed to TRU, Walmart, ect, are sent to their local distribution centers after the ships land in the west coast.

The only figures I still need are:

Voyager Broadside
TM Ramhorn
Leader Overlord
Clone set

Broadside I can get for under $25 on Amazon and the other two I find eventually. The only real need is for Overlord because I'm getting the Takara version.

Hailing from tha West Coast, I always report in after a hunt!

Still no Misfire. ;_;

bodrock wrote:Still no Misfire. ;_;

Seriously? Even I have them locally, and that's a bloody miracle!

Burn wrote:

bodrock wrote:Still no Misfire. ;_;

Seriously? Even I have them locally, and that's a bloody miracle!

No joking, Burn -- we get TLK in Oregon, and if wave5 appeared, it must've been for the one week I couldn't go on the hunt months ago.

We are just getting Seaspray and Cosmos in the past two weeks. As far as deluxes and voyagers go, it's all previous waves, besides Blitzwing & Octane. No new Leaders, except for TLK.

It saves me money, if I'm never given the option to impulse buy at b&m -- I'm still hoping before this month is up they appear. Same with those Walgreens exclusives.

bodrock wrote:

Burn wrote:

bodrock wrote:Still no Misfire. ;_;

Seriously? Even I have them locally, and that's a bloody miracle!

We are just getting Seaspray and Cosmos in the past two weeks.

So is Canada, those legends have not reached saturation yet I believe. And you are lucky to have those octones and blitzwings, I have yet to see one.

It seems distribution is all over the place, then, Will! No surprise, considering TLK and TR are directly competing for the same, small shelf-space we alot them in OR.

I know other States and countries have better selection and variety -- but it seems there isn't the same love here.

Distribution does seem all over the place, I don't understand it one bit. I've seen every single Deluxe class but have yet to sight any of wave 5.

I just transformed both Octone and Blitzwing and I'm happy to report they have no QC issues! AT LAST!

However, Blitzwing's legs require a LOT of force to tab into position for the vehicle modes. Scary and annoying. Other than that, he's WAY superior to the Megatron simply because he's not drab looking.

bodrock wrote:We are just getting Seaspray and Cosmos in the past two weeks. As far as deluxes and voyagers go, it's all previous waves, besides Blitzwing & Octane. No new Leaders, except for TLK.

I can't recall Seaspray and Cosmos being spotted in Australia, I know I haven't seen them (got Seaspray off E-Bay). As for the likes of Blitzwing and Octane, they've been few and far between, I'm just going the Takara Tomy route with them.

I did snare Sixshot from TRU a while back, apparently he was few and far between out here, no Overlord though. Dunno if anyone else in Australia has seen him or not.

Burn wrote:

bodrock wrote:We are just getting Seaspray and Cosmos in the past two weeks. As far as deluxes and voyagers go, it's all previous waves, besides Blitzwing & Octane. No new Leaders, except for TLK.

I can't recall Seaspray and Cosmos being spotted in Australia, I know I haven't seen them (got Seaspray off E-Bay). As for the likes of Blitzwing and Octane, they've been few and far between, I'm just going the Takara Tomy route with them.

I did snare Sixshot from TRU a while back, apparently he was few and far between out here, no Overlord though. Dunno if anyone else in Australia has seen him or not.

Haven't seen Overlord out here anywhere (but the only Leaders near me are two long-standing CW Skywarps and a few TLK Leaders that promptly disappeared from Big W's shelves after the sale was over); I did find Sixshot at a TRU in Sydney along with probably another 8 or so of his kind, but again no Overlord; haven't yet seen Cosmos or Seaspray, probably because Legends Wave 4 has been having a fair bit of trouble moving after the first couple cases.

Same story with Titan Master class as well: two of my local stores have exactly one Wave 3-4 TM each that I assume are holding up newer restocks, while the third store is still overflowing with Wave 3 to the point that I'm not even sure if they'll be willing to stock Prime Masters when PotP starts. I haven't resorted to online for any of those Legends/TM guys yet, but I'm starting to get dang close to it. I want my new plastic dammit

bodrock wrote:It seems distribution is all over the place, then, Will! No surprise, considering TLK and TR are directly competing for the same, small shelf-space we alot them in OR.

Yeah, its all over the place alright but at least that means we both get some good stuff while waiting for the rest. And its not like these are skipped waves, its recent waves taking the time to be stocked in certain areas.

Not sure about the competing shelf space though, the stores just see them as product. If they have it, they will put it up. Like this pic of walmart here. Not a ton of place for TFs, but they have all that is needed for 3 lines:



These distribution woes you discuss have been happening for as long as I have been collecting and even when it was just generations and prime, distribution werent great. In the end, stores which had a healthy selection still did, and those that sucked still sucked.

william-james88 wrote:

bodrock wrote:It seems distribution is all over the place, then, Will! No surprise, considering TLK and TR are directly competing for the same, small shelf-space we alot them in OR.

Yeah, its all over the place alright but at least that means we both get some good stuff while waiting for the rest. And its not like these are skipped waves, its recent waves taking the time to be stocked in certain areas.

Not sure about the competing shelf space though, the stores just see them as product. If they have it, they will put it up. Like this pic of walmart here. Not a ton of place for TFs, but they have all that is needed for 3 lines:



These distribution woes you discuss have been happening for as long as I have been collecting and even when it was just generations and prime, distribution werent great. In the end, stores which had a healthy selection still did, and those that sucked still sucked.

That is the cleanest and most organized toy section I’ve ever seen at a Walmart. Usually **** is just thrown everywhere.

RodimusConvoy13 wrote:

william-james88 wrote:

bodrock wrote:It seems distribution is all over the place, then, Will! No surprise, considering TLK and TR are directly competing for the same, small shelf-space we alot them in OR.

Yeah, its all over the place alright but at least that means we both get some good stuff while waiting for the rest. And its not like these are skipped waves, its recent waves taking the time to be stocked in certain areas.

Not sure about the competing shelf space though, the stores just see them as product. If they have it, they will put it up. Like this pic of walmart here. Not a ton of place for TFs, but they have all that is needed for 3 lines:



These distribution woes you discuss have been happening for as long as I have been collecting and even when it was just generations and prime, distribution werent great. In the end, stores which had a healthy selection still did, and those that sucked still sucked.

That is the cleanest and most organized toy section I’ve ever seen at a Walmart. Usually **** is just thrown everywhere.

I think the difference is 1) it's in Canada and 2) it's in Quebec at that. I have a hunch Canadians and the Quebecois don't trash their Walmarts like many Americans do. By the way, when looking through a Transformers section that seems to be ransacked, am I the only one who takes a bit of time to put things back in the right places?

Wolfman Jake wrote:By the way, when looking through a Transformers section that seems to be ransacked, am I the only one who takes a bit of time to put things back in the right places?

Nope, I do to! Not even when it's trashed either, I just rearrange things to look nice.

william-james88 wrote:

o.supreme wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:Just take a look at most of the figures in the sightings forum/section. Most of them show up in the west coast first.

Slugslinger - 15 sightings, 2 on the west coast
Overlord - 11 sightings, 1 on the west coast
Misfire- 5 sightings, 0 on the west coast
TwinTwist- 7 sightings, 0 on the west coast...

need I go on?

You are assuming that everyone posts their findings on our site? And your data has no info on the date.
Its better to go on google and look up first sightings for whatever toys you care for.

I just typed "the last knight found US retail" on google and found the following:

Leader Dragonstorm first found in Cerritos, California
Wave 3 Deluxes first found in San Jose, California
Exclusive TLK Reveal the Shield Optimus Prime first found at Mission Viejo, California

Need I go on?

I have never found a toy whos first sighting is Rhode Island. All toys distributed to TRU, Walmart, ect, are sent to their local distribution centers after the ships land in the west coast.

I was just going by personal experience being in a large market on the West Coast, and often (not always however) seemingly the last area to get new toys. Someone asked me to check sightings on this site, which I did, and it supported my hypothesis. Your stats are mostly for TLK. EVERY major chain has those toys oversaturated, (and I've vacationed in 5 states this summer/fall all pretty much the same) unlike Generations which, while always present, are not nearly as plentiful. Now that's not to say I NEVER score anything. I did score a Sixshot a few months back that while was not the first, was probably fairly early on.

And I did manage to find Overlord yesterday. It was quite a shock. I did my part and reported it on the sightings section, which I have done for a while now. But also there was this....I'm just ahppy to report I saw something unique, which rarely if ever happens.

That Walmart selection is nice, Will -- my TF sections are half that size, even though there are more b&m's to choose from.

But you're absolutely right -- distro is always all over. I just hope the wave5ers appear in a decent number, as wave 4 did -- even though Kup and the others can't be found now, they were readily available for awhile at least.

The Voyagers appear more frequently, and could still be purchased at the discount outlets with a little energon...and a lot of luck.

And wow, o. supreme -- someone is gonna be sad if they really wanted Overlord and got his mold mate instead for their b-day. Regardless of how cool 'Shadow is.

o.supreme wrote:But also there was this....I'm just ahppy to report I saw something unique, which rarely if ever happens.

That is explained by a fan swapping out their skyshadow for an ovelord and returning it to walmart in the overlord box because they no longer have their Skyshadow receipt (or something along those lines). That is really easy to do with boxes compared to cards. I see this quite often for different figures.

Sigma Magnus wrote:

Wolfman Jake wrote:By the way, when looking through a Transformers section that seems to be ransacked, am I the only one who takes a bit of time to put things back in the right places?

Nope, I do to! Not even when it's trashed either, I just rearrange things to look nice.

Maybe that's why high collectibles are exclusive to Walmart's online store such as box sets, Platinums, and titan class figures.

Still no wave5+ at Walmart today....so I settled for TLK Crosshairs.

-Kanrabat- wrote:I just transformed both Octone and Blitzwing and I'm happy to report they have no QC issues! AT LAST!

My Octone had trouble holding the aircraft nose together. I sanded down the excess paint on the edges that fit together to make it work better.

To get Blitzwing's turret to tab in correctly I found that rotating it backwards before trying to tab it in allows it to sit correctly. Having it face forward while trying to tab it down doesn't seat the tab fully and as a result the main gun droops.

daoist wrote:To get Blitzwing's turret to tab in correctly I found that rotating it backwards before trying to tab it in allows it to sit correctly. Having it face forward while trying to tab it down doesn't seat the tab fully and as a result the main gun droops.

Interesting! I just kind of assumed that the droopy turret was an unavoidable problem with the toy (and is close to my only complaint with Blitz/Megs, stickers aside). I'll have to try this when I get the chance!

Just to let you all know... TAKARA LEGENDS better deco SLUGSLINGER back up for preorder on BBTS. not sure if some people cancelled but I got one in so SCORE!!

KVO PRIME

william-james88 wrote:

o.supreme wrote:But also there was this....I'm just ahppy to report I saw something unique, which rarely if ever happens.

That is explained by a fan swapping out their skyshadow for an ovelord and returning it to walmart in the overlord box because they no longer have their Skyshadow receipt (or something along those lines). That is really easy to do with boxes compared to cards. I see this quite often for different figures.

I'm not saying its totally out of the question, but there are some things at play here that make me think it may be a factory error.

While lack of tie-downs may support that someone just repackaged it, the tape appears to be factory sealed, no evidence of tampering (I know there are tricks to remove tape expertly, but this didn't seem to be the case...) This appears to have been a brand new shipment. If leaders come in cases of 2, there were 4 Overlords, (well 3 and 1 Sky Shadow in wrong packaging) and I appear to have purchased the first one, doesn't seem like there was enough time for someone to have bought and returned one. All the boxes appeared to be case fresh, no real dings or damage, and believe me, I have seen some doozies, especially with voyager figures for some reason, looks like the cases got manhandled on occasion.

Also why would someone, (collector, or child, or just some random jerk), go to all the effort to replace just the toy? The collector card, at least was in tact.

o.supreme wrote:Also why would someone, (collector, or child, or just some random jerk), go to all the effort to replace just the toy? The collector card, at least was in tact.

It's unfortunately a bit of a trend. Basically, the person buys a toy, then later puts an old or unwanted one in the packaging so they can take it back to Walmart/TRU/wherever and get a refund -- essentially meaning they get a 'free' toy and a kid gets a ruined birthday. It's pretty scummy.