Wolfman Jake wrote:It would be interesting to know what was originally planned for Earthrise Wave 4. I can definitely see another full Deluxe Class wave consisting of Netflix Bumblebee and Elita-1, Runabout, and maybe someone like Rathcet or Tracks to fill things up. The Voyagers could have been Netflix Soundwave and Thrust. Three leaders for Earthrise may have always been the intention, but since Astrotrain was shared with the 5th Wave of Siege, maybe someone like Galvatron or Earth Mode Ultra Magnus was supposed to be in Earthrise proper instead of held for Kingdom.
We can probably make some guesses based on wave 4 of Siege, the original final wave before the partial wave 5 intended for ER was tacked on. The wave 4 Battle Master would probably have been one of
these guys if not both. The Micromasters are unknown, though it's possible there wasn't one since it's likely Siege wave 5 was meant to be ER wave 1 pushing everything back and then just repacking other figures for wave 4 instead of wave 3. Deluxe could have easily been Bumblebee, Elita 1, (battle damaged version for Netflix) and probably Ratchet since it's strange to do such extensive retooling for exclusives. Voyager would be Earth Soundwave, I suspect Netflix would have probably gotten Earth Soundblaster instead since SB played a role in the series. Soundwave probably would have been packed with Apeface who I'm thinking was intended for ER wave 2 with Snapdragon. There was no wave 4 Leader in Siege so it'd probably be the same for ER. For that matter Astrotrain was intended for ER so there probably wasn't originally a wave 3 in Siege meaning no other Leaders after Doubledealer, that's 3 Leaders per line (Siege: Ultra Magnus, Shockwave, GU Optimus Prime. Earthrise: Optimus Prime, Astrotrain, Doubledealer. Kingdom: Galvatron, Beast Megatron, Earth Magnus plus ER Prime repack).
If my guess is right then the only thing losing wave 4 has cost us is two Battle Masters (Boo!), battle damaged Bumblebee and Elita 1 (meh), and Earth Soundblaster (extra large BOO!).
Emerje