The Energon Pub

[o.supreme]

Hi I'm Windblade, yo! HelloOOO!!!! the one way on the back! Is anyone listening to me?

for what its worth however, at least Canada got some wave 5 so far...

[william-james88]

Man it's almost as if, and this is crazy but hear me out, Hasbro is doing the same thing they always do by releasing a wave of new figures and then a revision case that mixes some older figures back in or adjusts the ratio. But due to all the stores ordering an abundance for the holidays last year that happened to be the wave 2 revision, which turned out to be more than would move at an effective rate (especially during the slow part of the year), when they did wind up ordering more it was at the time when Hasbro was shipping out revision cases, not Hasbro deliberately shorting them. NOVEL.

I think people would be more welcoming of revision waves if it included repacks they needed. For instance, I dont think anyone minded Wolfwire being repacked.

I am surprised to see no one care for Quake or Krok though, from what I read on other sites it seemed an atrocity to have them short packed and people thought they would never find them at retail. So I dont know why them being plentiful now is so bad. I do understand the hate at seeing Twinferno. While the US had to wait months for wave 3 saturation, the fact that 2 revision waves include him is not the brightest move.

Hi I'm Windblade, yo! HelloOOO!!!! the one way on the back! Is anyone listening to me?

for what its worth however, at least Canada got some wave 5 so far...

Haha yes, but she's all that is left. We had a bunch of wave 5 for a while, then one case of wave 6 (which sold quite well since it had Kup, which is still sought after) but now its revision waves.

Oh and I know this is kind of thread cross pollination but with POTP first appearing in California, we now have further evidence of the trend of toys being found in the west first, nearer to the western ports.

[o.supreme]

Man it's almost as if, and this is crazy but hear me out, Hasbro is doing the same thing they always do by releasing a wave of new figures and then a revision case that mixes some older figures back in or adjusts the ratio. But due to all the stores ordering an abundance for the holidays last year that happened to be the wave 2 revision, which turned out to be more than would move at an effective rate (especially during the slow part of the year), when they did wind up ordering more it was at the time when Hasbro was shipping out revision cases, not Hasbro deliberately shorting them. NOVEL.

I think people would be more welcoming of revision waves if it included repacks they needed. For instance, I dont think anyone minded Wolfwire being repacked.

I am surprised to see no one care for Quake or Krok though, from what I read on other sites it seemed an atrocity to have them short packed and people thought they would never find them at retail. So I dont know why them being plentiful now is so bad. I do understand the hate at seeing Twinferno. While the US had to wait months for wave 3 saturation, the fact that 2 revision waves include him is not the brightest move.

I'm not really a big into characters popularized by IDW, so Krok & Quake were an easy pass for me. As for the distribution of PotP. While I do feel fortunate to have seen them a couple days after the news broke on Saturday 11/12, the PotP have seemingly been sighted equally distributed all over, including larger east Coast locations such as New York & Florida.

Maybe it has something to do with how much a particular store sells, and what they order? PotP hit Targets on both coasts, but I'm sure a good chunk of the middle continent hasn't seen them yet. Heck I was in Cedar City Utah at the end of September, and (no joke) they still had a CW Leader Armada Megatron (along with 3 Sixshots) in their Walmart.

I mean it would make sense that they would hit all the larger cities stores first, but that's why the conundrum...I consider myself to live in a fairly largely populated area, and sometimes we don't see things for several months until after many other places have already got them.

[D-Maximal_Primal]

I don't blame it all; personally, releasing slash (a figure that didn't sell well first time round) alongside an underwhelming 'bee and a shiny grimlock wasn't a smart choice, in fact, I'd have skipped the repaints and just done a shorter run of figures, those stupid allspark things are neither helping, nor selling, so I also blame them

Sadly, I believe that underwhelming Bee redeco is the best selling TF of 2017.

In your area, yep. Here, he is the one left on 2 stores shelves minus Slash. Barricade and Berserker are pretty much gone finally, but Bee and Slash still stand here.

Also, I finally got all the stickers on Trypticon. I really want Hasbro to not do the titan sticker sheets again, please. They take so long, which isn't that big a deal, but the stickers I got were of poor quality. I had several rip in half or peel the back paper with them so I had to keep picking at them to actually get to the sticky part. These stickers were of a noticeable lower quality

[Rysquad]

Here is the case breakdown for deluxe class wave 4 revision, the wave currently being found across the US and Canada:

2x TRA GEN DELUXE AUTOBOT TWINFERNO
2x TRA GEN DELUXE TRIGGERHAPPY
2x TRA GEN DELUXE KROK
2x TRA GEN DELUXE QUAKE

yeah this is likely what I'm seeing at my local Targets and TRUs.

[bodrock]

A-3 LIVES (?)

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I won't give up on Misfire until TR is dead.

[Kroenen]

Quake being restocked is the only good thing about this to me. My Targets are overflowing with Kroks, Twinfernos, and Triggerhappies, but I've only seen Quake once at a Walgreen's (who was eventually replaced by the awful Wave 1+2 revision).

[megatronus]

Quake is an amazing deco on a mediocre toy. Love Quake.

[Lucky Logician]

Man it's almost as if, and this is crazy but hear me out, Hasbro is doing the same thing they always do by releasing a wave of new figures and then a revision case that mixes some older figures back in or adjusts the ratio. But due to all the stores ordering an abundance for the holidays last year that happened to be the wave 2 revision, which turned out to be more than would move at an effective rate (especially during the slow part of the year), when they did wind up ordering more it was at the time when Hasbro was shipping out revision cases, not Hasbro deliberately shorting them. NOVEL.

So what you're telling me is that this is 100% Hasbro's fault, right?

Hasbro should know by now when retailers are going to stock up for the holidays. So instead of preparing a wave revision of popular toys that would sell well to kids (and adults), they had a wave full figures no one wants.

No offense to people who like these four figures, but none of them seem like good Xmas toys. Twinferno is not appealing for adults to buy for a kid (I don't know if little Billy wants a two-headed dragon). Triggerhappy and Quake have boring color schemes. Krok is the opposite with 90's neon yellow. Those three don't look as appealing as nearby toys on the shelf.

A better wave would maybe include Weirdwolf, Mindwipe, Kup, or Hot Rod.

[william-james88]

Quake is an amazing deco on a mediocre toy. Love Quake.

Aye Aye!

[Sigma Magnus]

Mediocre? Hardhead's one of my favorites.

[Emerje]

I am surprised to see no one care for Quake or Krok though, from what I read on other sites it seemed an atrocity to have them short packed and people thought they would never find them at retail. So I dont know why them being plentiful now is so bad. I do understand the hate at seeing Twinferno.

I think this is part of the problem. Yeah, some of us want Quake and Krok, but I don't know if there's anywhere in the US that had actual saturation of Deluxe wave 4 which also leaves us looking for Kup, Perceptor, and Top Spin. Revision wave 4 should have been like revision wave 3 and rebalance the ratio while keeping the characters unchanged. Instead they give us the short packed guys and two guys from wave 3 that haven't been rare for the past year and still clogging the pegs.

While the US had to wait months for wave 3 saturation

Wrong wave 3. TM, Legend, Voyager, and Leader wave 3 cases took forever to come out here, but Deluxe wave 3 started hitting saturation an entire year ago last November. Before Christmas last year the two local Walmarts had no less than six cases each, most of them piled up on the top shelf because wave 2 was already packing the shelves. Target didn't have as many visible, but they were staying in stock at the time.

Anyway, revision wave 4 hit my local Target sometime this week. All that was left was a single Krok (got one at a Target out of town last weekend) with the rest of the two pegs consisting Triggerhappy (almost an entire peg worth), Hot Rod, and a single Breakaway because wave 3 wont go away. I still need a Quake.

I did find a Blitzwing and Octane there. I snapped up Blitzing because I like the G1 toy look, but passed on Octane because I have the Takara Tomy version on order.

Oh, and TRU FINALLY SHIPPED MY TWO ARCEES!! I honestly didn't expect this to actually happen, I was sure they were going to cancel it after 30 days.

Emerje

[Evil Eye]

Quake is an amazing deco on a mediocre toy. Love Quake.

Wait, people didn't like Hardhead? I thought he was pretty stellar aside from his lack of a waist swivel.

[bodrock]

I also liked Hardhead from the get-go; Quake pretty much made the mold look even better, imho.

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[ThunderThruster]

Loved Hardhead since day 1. Quake was an insta buy being based on Hardhead.

Krok on the other hand does diddle-squat for me. While I like the mold as Skullchruncher, I can't abide it as Krok.

[Emerje]

Yeah, Hardhead is great, he's one of the few with wrist swivels and has a nicely compact bot mode.

Emerje

[DaXtraLargeRobot]

Has anyone else noticed the error on titans return Krok's box where gatorface's legs are backwards.

[Tyrannacon]

Blink and you will miss it! At least that's what the motto with exclusives usually are. The exclusive Transformers: Titans Return Arcee is back in stock on the Toysrus website. After issues with getting orders canceled there it is definitely nice to see it back in stock for those that may have missed grabbing the figure themselves or weren't able to lock down their order. Here is to hoping for an altogether easier and smoother transaction here with grabbing this of course, while supplies last of course. Go ahead and click the image of Arcee below to be forwarded over to the Toysrus website to place your order!



For those that need a refresher, Arcee is said to have the following features:

Includes Deluxe Class Arcee figure, Titan Master Leinad figure, die-cast Titan Master Ultra Magnus figure, 2 blaster accessories, 2 collector cards with tech specs, and instructions.

[The_Cryptid_Person]

The sixshot discount has got me thinking.
With some silver paint and glued-on kibble from bayformers, could this be the beginning of an Amalgamous Prime?

[Skritz]

Well, if you're interested in a more 'coherent' idea and design to an Amalgamous Prime custom you may want to look at the color scheme and design of Adaptus.

[Sabrblade]

Personally, I'd think Car Robots Gigatron/RiD 2001 Megatron would make for a more functional Amalgamous Prime base what with just how fluid that mold is in assuming a tremendous amount of modes.

[Emerje]

So I can see why people thought Hasbro was going to start up a Transformers club of their own. I had set up an alert with TRU to see when Arcee would come back in stock just in case my order got canceled after 30 days like last time. When she came back in stock, instead of the normal figure listing I got this in the email:

Capture.JPG

"HTC" is probably Hasbro Transformers Club I would think. So does that make Grotusque number 2?

(edit) Did a little search, apparently this is also how Hasbro labeled their images for Arcee in their initial press release for her. It's interesting that TRU would hold onto that same exact designation in their computers.

Emerje

[The_Cryptid_Person]

Well, if you're interested in a more 'coherent' idea and design to an Amalgamous Prime custom you may want to look at the color scheme and design of Adaptus.

Personally, I'd think Car Robots Gigatron/RiD 2001 Megatron would make for a more functional Amalgamous Prime base what with just how fluid that mold is in assuming a tremendous amount of modes.

Thank you both for the excellent ideas! Due to Amalgamous's colors and Sixshot's dimensions, the custom would probably resemble Adaptus anyway. That said, my plan of grafting on kibble to add more modes might result in something messier. Adaptus's look is a really great target to aim for. While Gigatron is undoubtedly a better poly-changer, I wanted Amalgamous to really tower over TR Alpha Trion. Sixshot is also very cheap for his size, despite his blocky style. Again, thank you!

[King Kuuga]

Man it's almost as if, and this is crazy but hear me out, Hasbro is doing the same thing they always do by releasing a wave of new figures and then a revision case that mixes some older figures back in or adjusts the ratio. But due to all the stores ordering an abundance for the holidays last year that happened to be the wave 2 revision, which turned out to be more than would move at an effective rate (especially during the slow part of the year), when they did wind up ordering more it was at the time when Hasbro was shipping out revision cases, not Hasbro deliberately shorting them. NOVEL.

So what you're telling me is that this is 100% Hasbro's fault, right?

Absolutely not, because you're missing an important point.

Hasbro should know by now when retailers are going to stock up for the holidays. So instead of preparing a wave revision of popular toys that would sell well to kids (and adults), they had a wave full figures no one wants.

What retailer starts stocking for the Christmas season in March? Sometime in Spring is about the time this assortment would have been made available for retailers to purchase. It was not intended to stay on shelves until Winter, the actual winter assortment is wave 6..... which consists of 3 Slugslingers, 2 Hot Rods, 2 Kups, and a Hardhead so maybe not a great assortment there either. If there's a revision case for that wave I don't see it.

Anyway, the problem with TR is that retailers ordered too much of the wave 2 revision, which moved slow, and then incremental amounts of the other waves until they apparently ordered a bulk of wave 4, which has been slow to sell. As far as I can determine, blame still lies with Walmart and Target's people.

No offense to people who like these four figures, but none of them seem like good Xmas toys. Twinferno is not appealing for adults to buy for a kid (I don't know if little Billy wants a two-headed dragon). Triggerhappy and Quake have boring color schemes. Krok is the opposite with 90's neon yellow. Those three don't look as appealing as nearby toys on the shelf.

Okay, hold up. What kid wouldn't go gaga for a two-headed dragon?
(so as to not stereotype I'm sure there are plenty of them)
It is a very appealing idea for kids and kids-at-heart.
Triggerhappy looks cool but lacks name value or intrinsic knowledge of how good of a toy he is. Quake I agree looks boring. Krok I could see going either way. But again, this wasn't meant to be the Christmas wave.

A better wave would maybe include Weirdwolf, Mindwipe, Kup, or Hot Rod.

Weirdwolf and Mindwipe were part of last year's Christmas assortment, Hot Rod has been plentiful all year, and Kup is, IMO, one of the more boring and least appealing figures of the line if you don't know who he is. I'm not going to try to come up with a better assortment but I do disagree with yours.

[Insurgent]

Anyone else find their legend Brawn really stiff to move his head? I think mine is finally starting to loosen up, but it still takes a lot of effort to move.