The Energon Pub

2014 has been an incredible year for Transformers collectors, even moreso than 2013 was. This year saw the completion of MMC’s first 3rd party combiner “Feral Rex”, who most people would argue dominated the 3rd Party Predaking wars, as well as the start of the 3rd Party Dinobot Wars where FansProject, FansToys, ToyWorld and others raced to release their interpretations of the beloved robotic dinosaurs. As for official product, we got a new toy line to accompany the 4th live action movie Age of Extinction, more superb Generations figures including Arcee, Jetfire, Rhinox, Brainstorm and Whirl and towards the end of 2014 the Masterpiece line from Takara Tomy really kicked into gear with home runs like Wheeljack and Bumblebee, while Hasbro got their versions of MP Prowl and Sunstorm out, as well as a reissue of Grimlock – but stole a good deal of headlines by introducing the first wave of Combiner Wars and Robots In Disguise figures.

There were other astoundingly good offerings from official and unofficial sources like MakeToys Quantron, Perfect Effect Warden, Transformers Cloud Rodimus and the like. What I want to stress above all, is that this article will cover my personal top 5 purchases of the year…and that will NOT be limited to new toys, but old figures as well that I only just purchased. I began a project whereby I wanted to collect all the vintage and reissued 1/55 scale Macross Valkyries, I uncovered and purchased nearly every vintage bootleg Spanish minibot known and previously undocumented, I rediscovered the Human Alliance and ROTF lines, TFPrime was a flavour I sampled this year and I went back to re-purchase and complete virtually all of TF Animated. Vintage G1 also got a look in as I finally re-added a wonderful G1 Jetfire to my collection, as well as a 1992 Turbomaster Rotorstorm that opened my eyes up to latter era G1 figures. So let’s be clear, this is definitely not a “Top 5 toys of 2014″ list, just the top 5 toys I came in to possession of this year that left the biggest positive mark.

Top 5 Purchases of 2014 | Source Blog <- CLICK TO READ



All the best
Maz

great article! it got me thinking about my top five of 2014...

5. UT mania king (vintage)



i was wowed by MK's proto, but not the first run as he was seriously lacking. well they more than made up for his short comings with the "vintage colored" version. its a damn impressive figure, with an intuitive transformation (though i dont enjoy it)

4. TFCC rewind/eject



i liked the mold when i originally got the united rumble/frenzy 2-pack. but for some reason i just couldnt put these guys down. the new head sculpt is great, and they are just some fun posable lil dudes to play around with.

3. MP21 bumblebee



there is so much awesome packed into this little MP. his transformation is befitting of the MP line, with everything folding up so nice and tightly that makes for a glorious bot mode. the face sculpt i agreed looked odd in pics, but in person it looks great! very fitting. the backpack, id barely label as such. and his size (in bot mode) is perfectly to scale with the current MP's.and the exo suit, ive also got to say im quite impressed with. sure it has some posing limitations and annoying elbow ball joints, but he's far more intricate than i expected him to be.

2. legends rattrap



this was a phenominal update. aside from a few posing limitations, the figure is perfect to me.especially the paint apps on the head. the rat mode actually has some posability, and his arm opens up to reveal a bomb! thats some nice attention to detail!

1. evasion mode optimus prime (AU)



something compelled me to buy almost every version of this figure. i feel every fan owes it to themselves to pick up one of them! he's still complex without being overly so, and posable as hell! the only negative i can give the figure are: the gun cause of where that silly handle is, and those elbows (which are easily overlooked). who out there doesnt have an EMOP?

honorable mention:
FP columpio (diaclone)



this guy didnt make the top five simply because the others were just that good. id like to reiterate though, i know this guy has QC issues, but mine fortunately didnt suffer any. from that shiney cherry red, gold noggin, segregated neck, oh man... whats not to love?

Great article.
It's nicely diverse. Glad to see I'm not the only one who sleeps through some lines, and then has to play "catch up". Kinda been going through that with Prime. And Generations for that matter. Sometimes life demands that you cease the hunt, but playing catch up can be a fun way to hunt.

@shajaki - Great list too. Now you got me thinking about mine. It would be a funny list for sure, as it would span many lines, past and present.

Happy New Year everybody.
Here's to a fruitful hunt!

My top five for 2014. (Not lined in a particular order.)



Actually, if you add AoE-Galvatron and KO Ratbat, these are pretty much all my Transformers for 2014. :)
I'm counting Ultra Magnus as 2015, since he hasn't arrived yet.

@Shajaki, I agree about the post in EMOP's gun, but what's wrong with the elbows?

I haven't purchased may TFs this year, though it was more than 5, and they weren't all newly released. I also bought a few figures that were released a few years ago. These are my top 5, though in no particular order:

My top 5...

1.MP10 Optimus Prime
2.MP11 Starscream
3.TFCC Ultra Mammoth.
4.MP Grimlock
5.Generations deluxe Waspinator.

Since we are not limited to just newer stuff we got this year, my my list is only slightly changed.

1. MP Wheeljack
2. G1 hound. Complete including gas tank. (only Mirage needed to have every 1984 release)
3. Rhinox Generations. My favorite beast wars character.
4. Waspinator Generations
5. Whirl and Roadbuster. They go nicely with my Wreckers collection.

Runners up. Metroplex generations, ratrap generations, MP Bumblebee, MP Smokescreen