The Energon Pub

Don't know about the other Pulse branches, but the UK one is borderline useless. I use them to GUARANTEE getting a figure at some point eventually, but it gets cancelled as soon as an actual online retailer puts their pre-orders up.

As a laugh I've trusted them with getting me a Dracodon, which I pre-ordered at its reveal. Earliest they can get 1 to me is December. Pathetic.

As an FYI to other UK folks, IDToys has Tigatron up and Kapow has all 3. Probably still won't get Tigatron this year, but at least it'll be Jan 2022, not Jan 2023.

Mistaken_Table wrote:Don't know about the other Pulse branches, but the UK one is borderline useless. I use them to GUARANTEE getting a figure at some point eventually, but it gets cancelled as soon as an actual online retailer puts their pre-orders up.

As a laugh I've trusted them with getting me a Dracodon, which I pre-ordered at its reveal. Earliest they can get 1 to me is December. Pathetic.

Pulse usually comes last in terms of preorders, but often times they'll jump the date forward. Sometimes this will result in them sending out a second run that fixes issues, but that's not common.
The extended timeframe is actually helpful because it gives me more time to decide on the figures.

Lots to catch up on, and lots of cool stuff too!

1) Puffer and Road Ranger are still really cool, and I still love the Puffer fusion story. Love it! He and tigerhawk will be best friends.

2) Jackpot is awesome and I am glad he is happening. Another Lost Light crewmember to join the rest! and hopefully a sign that more action masters and thus more lost lighters are on the way. now I need o get the animated Jackpot at last.

3) Tigatron is really cool looking, love me a regular Bengal Tiger! And he and Shadow Panther will look great together as the mutant cat brothers.

4) Terrorsaur is the one odd ball here to me, he just doesn't look good. I am getting him for the cast, but he is definitely the weak one in the group oddly.

5) Iaconus might actually be contending with Omega as my favorite Titan. I am loving the fact that he is actually a ship that can fly around and be swished around. Couple that with the extra blast effects from Tricranius, and he is even more fun.

Anyways, have some pictures, including a War of War Titans

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:3) Tigatron is really cool looking, love me a regular Bengal Tiger! And he and Shadow Panther will look great together as the mutant cat brothers.

I'm considering renaming my two Siegfried and Roy.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:3) Tigatron is really cool looking, love me a regular Bengal Tiger! And he and Shadow Panther will look great together as the mutant cat brothers.

I'm considering renaming my two Siegfried and Roy.

I need to think of an alternate name for Tigatron, funny enough I think "Tigertron" will be enough for me

Anyone else getting delay notifications for Road Rage?
I really didn't think this would happen since this is a Redcard exclusive.
But this past Friday my delivery went from Monday (which was the date for a while), to Saturday, to yesterday, back to today, and now to October 11th.

Not sure how when it's supposedly been in a city that's roughly 40-ish minutes away...

Sowndwave76 wrote:Anyone else getting delay notifications for Road Rage?
I really didn't think this would happen since this is a Redcard exclusive.
But this past Friday my delivery went from Monday (which was the date for a while), to Saturday, to yesterday, back to today, and now to October 11th.

Not sure how when it's supposedly been in a city that's roughly 40-ish minutes away...

Mine shipped Friday and said it would be here Monday, but now saying Friday. Target.com has this message on the tracking: "Due to operating conditions, your package may be delayed." It's coming from Portland, OR, is something happening there? UPS says it's delayed, but doesn't say why or give an estimated arrival date. I haven't received a single notice from Target outside of the initial one.

Emerje

Sowndwave76 wrote:Anyone else getting delay notifications for Road Rage?
I really didn't think this would happen since this is a Redcard exclusive.
But this past Friday my delivery went from Monday (which was the date for a while), to Saturday, to yesterday, back to today, and now to October 11th.

Not sure how when it's supposedly been in a city that's roughly 40-ish minutes away...

Mine shipped.

If they use FedEx, they have been having a lot of delays. My last order from BBTS and a separate order from Pulse both got delayed almost a week at different locations, one of them very close to my home. Everything eventually arrived, but FedEx is way down on my list of preferred couriers as of late. Even the post office has been more efficient.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

The guy on the TV is not amused.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:3) Tigatron is really cool looking, love me a regular Bengal Tiger! And he and Shadow Panther will look great together as the mutant cat brothers.

I'm considering renaming my two Siegfried and Roy.

I need to think of an alternate name for Tigatron, funny enough I think "Tigertron" will be enough for me

How about Stripes? I believe Rattrap actually referred to him by that name a couple of times. He and Cheetor could be a team called Spots n Stripes.

I'll see myself out...

Sabrblade wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:

The guy on the TV is not amused.

And what exactly is The Ark doing with its right foot?

Sowndwave76 wrote:Anyone else getting delay notifications for Road Rage?
I really didn't think this would happen since this is a Redcard exclusive.
But this past Friday my delivery went from Monday (which was the date for a while), to Saturday, to yesterday, back to today, and now to October 11th.

Not sure how when it's supposedly been in a city that's roughly 40-ish minutes away...

If it shipped already, then the delays are with the shipper. The figure being a redcard exclusive has nothing to do with anything. Fed-Ex is having issues. Target's system does pick up some delay notificaitons from Fed-Ex, so if you are getting notifications from Target, it is just their system picking them up from Fed-Ex and passing along the info.

Target's system can also be weird and clunky at times. I got a notice for SS Jolt a couple weeks ago that said he was arriving early, then showed the original date and the "early" arrival date to be the same day.

I've managed to get pre-orders in for Tigatron and Waspinator, but as I've said in an earlier post, because the wait has been so frustratingly long for wave 4 to become available, I'm not even excited to own these two any more.
With that said, I now either own or have pre-orders in for everything I wanted from the Kingdom toyline. I'm pretty happy with the line overall, it's great that Hasbro has celebrated the 25th anniversary of Beast Wars by making new toys of the season 1 cast, and I've been given the opportunity to own new toys of characters from my favourite childhood TV show, but the actual execution has been a mixed bag. You have fantastic mini-masterpieces like Optimus Primal, Dinobot, Airazor and Beast Wars Megatron, but you also have figures that end up looking a bit doofy like Scorponok and Cheetor, as well as Rhinox the frustratingly difficult Rubik's cube. Scorponok also marks the first time I've ever bought an upgrade kit for a Trasformer (a pair of thigh extenders to make him an inch or so taller), and I have a sinking feeling that it won't be the last.
While it's nice that Hasbro has learned some lessons from the Earthrise Galactic Odyssey sets and made exclusives easier to get for international fans (or at least British fans...), I still think Kingdom had more exclusives than it really needed. Terrorsaur really should've been in Deluxe wave 4 in place of Shadow Panther, who would've been just fine as part of Generations: Selects along with Puffer, Road Ranger, Jackpot and Mutant Tigatron.
Despite my hang-ups, I'm glad Kingdom happened, I've been waiting for something like this since Thrillng 30 Waspinator and Rhinox were announced back in 2013, there were days where I thought it would never happen, but it's been great revisiting the Beast Wars world again, and I'm happy this year won't be the end of new Beast Wars figures.

Munkky wrote:...I still think Kingdom had more exclusives than it really needed. Terrorsaur really should've been in Deluxe wave 4 in place of Shadow Panther, who would've been just fine as part of Generations: Selects along with Puffer, Road Ranger, Jackpot and Mutant Tigatron...

While the Golden Disk items are considered Amazon exclusives (at least in some countries), Selects are not. There is a difference between the two. Also, of the 3 parts of the WFC Trilogy Kingdom has by far the fewest Selects. (Siege had 9, ER 15, and Kingdom just 3) Of course there *might* be a couple more left to reveal, if the Reformatting Galvatron is true (other than janky pics leaked a couple months ago). Perhaps a couple more before Hascon, or at Hascon itself, although I'm guessing that event will focus on the introduction of the 2022 line.

I do agree Terrorsaur should have been a mainline release. But it seems every retailer is getting some sort of exclusive that offers some real incentive to buy (I think of Soundwave, VW Bumblebee, and Elita-1 from the Walmart line, as well as T Wrecks and Road Rage for Target) instead of just straight up repaints.

Thats a great point, why would Shadow Panther be mainline instead of Terrorsaur? Odd indeed. Shadow Panther could work with the theme of the golden disk line by having 2 mutant beast wars figures.

As for wave 4, the most frustrsting thing about it is that Hasbro keft possible misinfirmation and confusion run rampant by not revealing anything.

william-james88 wrote:Thats a great point, why would Shadow Panther be mainline instead of Terrorsaur? Odd indeed.

Because originally Tigatron was just a Deluxe repaint of Cheetor and his Voyager spot was Polar Claw’s. When Polar Claw got cut, Tigatron was moved up to Voyager but that Deluxe slot had to stay a repaint with new head for budget reasons, so they repainted Cheetor again into Shadow Panther

Also, while I was a much bigger fan of the show than the original toys (I had more Transmetals as the show went on, and non-show character toys but...) It was still nice to see some love for specific characters. I would have thought that of all the S1 cast, Tigatron and Airazor would have been the last to get remakes. Neither seemed to have been liked very much, at least in the early days when I was on forums. Although I don't plan to own either of their new toys, I'm glad fans are enjoying them and seem to have a favorable opinion of them overall (well at least Airazor, Tigatorn seems to have a lot of high anticipation thus far).

Autobot N wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Thats a great point, why would Shadow Panther be mainline instead of Terrorsaur? Odd indeed.

Because originally Tigatron was just a Deluxe repaint of Cheetor and his Voyager spot was Polar Claw’s. When Polar Claw got cut, Tigatron was moved up to Voyager but that Deluxe slot had to stay a repaint with new head for budget reasons, so they repainted Cheetor again into Shadow Panther

Sounds counterintuitive, why would a toy with a bigger budget (terrorsaur) not be in a more widely available and widely sold line to recoup his bigger budget?

o.supreme wrote:

Munkky wrote:...I still think Kingdom had more exclusives than it really needed. Terrorsaur really should've been in Deluxe wave 4 in place of Shadow Panther, who would've been just fine as part of Generations: Selects along with Puffer, Road Ranger, Jackpot and Mutant Tigatron...

While the Golden Disk items are considered Amazon exclusives (at least in some countries), Selects are not. There is a difference between the two. Also, of the 3 parts of the WFC Trilogy Kingdom has by far the fewest Selects. (Siege had 9, ER 15, and Kingdom just 3)

I wasn't very clear in my original comment, I meant that Puffer, Road Ranger, Jackpot and Mutant Tigatron would've been fine as part of Selects instead of being Amazon exclusives, just have those two Battle Across Time box sets as the only Amazon exclusives, and Shadow Panther would be more suited to Selects than the main product line.

william-james88 wrote:

Autobot N wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Thats a great point, why would Shadow Panther be mainline instead of Terrorsaur? Odd indeed.

Because originally Tigatron was just a Deluxe repaint of Cheetor and his Voyager spot was Polar Claw’s. When Polar Claw got cut, Tigatron was moved up to Voyager but that Deluxe slot had to stay a repaint with new head for budget reasons, so they repainted Cheetor again into Shadow Panther

Sounds counterintuitive, why would a toy with a bigger budget (terrorsaur) not be in a more widely available and widely sold line to recoup his bigger budget?

I'm thinking that the decision was based on the original pitch for 4 waves and which characters were selected at that point. My guess is that the switch from Polar Claw to Tigatron for voyager wave 4 and Tigatron to Shadow Panther for the orignal deluxe wave 4 was made before they decided to go ahead with Terrorsaur. If that is the case, then they would have already decided that spot needed to be a new head redeco just to fit whatever overall budget rules. If you were to put Terrorsaur in the orignal wave 4, then that whole wave would have been new molds.

If the decision to go ahead with Terrorsaur came later, then he really fits into the Golden Disk collection well since the other 3 figures are all just redecos, some with new heads. The budget savings there can more than account for developing Terrorsaur, AND they don't have to worry about messing up the budget calculations for the regular line.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:If you were to put Terrorsaur in the orignal wave 4, then that whole wave would have been new molds.

Terrorsaur isn't a wholly new mold. He's a heavy retool of Airazor.

I have absolutely zero insight, and this is just a wild guess on my part. But perhaps since Pulse UK put their wave 4 listings up, perhaps Pulse U.S. will drop Kingdom wave 4 pre-orders today at 10am PDT/ 1pm EDT. TF Tuesday seems to be a thing (not every Tuesday of course, but if they ever drop new pre-orders, it is usually on Tuesdays). I guess we will know in about an hour .

Sabrblade wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:If you were to put Terrorsaur in the orignal wave 4, then that whole wave would have been new molds.

Terrorsaur isn't a wholly new mold. He's a heavy retool of Airazor.

Right, but at least 90% of the figure uses new molds and thus would be more expensive as compared to a new head redeco where the alternate head was already built into the figure. From a physical mold and cost perspective, Terrorsaur is essentially a new mold.

A heads up for anyone who pre-ordered wave 4 from Amazon with the wish list trick. Amazon is finally admitting they are not going to arrive today. They actually requested I approve the delay. Approving the delay was required by November 4th, so that is what I wanted to point out for others so you don't miss that step.

Of course, it may all be an exercise in futility. I haven't gotten a single item from SS, SS86 or Kingdom from the Amazon wish list pre-orders before finding them in store and cancelling on Amazon anyway.