mikeszekely

So Hasbro does two fan-first livestreams announcing some various store-exclusive figures, and man, the release dates are all over the place.  The next Netflix wave at Walmart are all consistently listed for mid-October (although they canceled my order for Elita-1), but it's like at Amazon and Pulse they just pulled dates out a hat.  The Coneheads are supposedly soon in mid-August, but the Ironhide/Prowl pack isn't until November.  At Hasbro Pulse Centurion and Tigertrack, announced in the first livestream, aren't due until October 1st and November 1st, respectively, while the just-announced Hubcap is September first.  But then I already got Alternate Universe Optimus late last week, and Exhaust came yesterday.

Alternate Universe Prime is definitely Prime's dead corpse from the '86 movie and not a Nemesis Prime.  Rather than black with teal accents (and occasion red windows) as the primary colors that you'd normally find on Nemesis Prime, AU is sporting gray for his primary color, with a brown/copper color to the windows and black accents on his pelvis.  The parts that are blue on regular Prime are black, and he's still sporting an Autobot insignia.  The colors are basically movie-accurate, although I think the gray on his torso could be darker and the silver could be the color gray they actually used for his torso.  As it is, it reminds me less of dead Optimus and more of the sort of colors you'd see in the black-and-white Transformers manga. 

Happily, his lower legs don't have the random gray plastic, but his crotch and the middle rectangle on his pelvis are left unpainted.  Weirdly, his gun is silver.  I wouldn't think his gun would change colors just because he died.

Furthering the notion that this is dead Optimus and not Nemesis Prime, AU Prime sports a new head with deliberately-mangled antenna and some painted battle damage on his mask and his left side.  As with the original figure his chest opens up to reveal some extra copper paint accents but basically the same Matrix.  Too bad Siege Magnus has no place to store it.  Maybe an Earthrise/Studio Series '86 Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime?

The trailer is made from a taupe plastic with black stripes and a gray insignia.  Again, it reminds me more of black-and-white manga than dead Optimus, but I'm not complaining.  They could release this mold in blue Delta Mangus/Powered Convoy colors, white Ultra Mangus colors, true black Nemesis Prime colors, yellow "Shining Ultra Magnus" colors, white Ghostbusters Optimus, and red-and-blue Pepsi Optimus and I'd buy it every time.

Should you buy this one, though?  I'm going to go with probably not; being a dead body takes a lot of the "action" out of "action figure."

Ok, so the thing about Exhaust is that he wasn't actually a character until Takara wanted to double-dip on MP Wheeljack's mold by slapping a Decepticon badge on a Diaclone variant.  Now, I'm down with repainting an Autobot and making him a Decepticon.  Works for Prowl/Barricade and Mirage/Mirage.  But I've always kind of thought that Exhaust is still too similar to Wheeljack.  They're both primarily black and white, and Wheeljack even as some red.  The only real difference is that Exhaust trades Wheeljack's green for even more red.

Something that Mark seemed enthusiastic about on the livestream but in person I'm not loving is that he doesn't actually have a Decepticon emblem.  Instead he's got a symbol for some kind of mercenary faction, I guess.  It sort of looks like Exhaust's face if he grew a goatee.  The MP figure had a Decepticon badge; I think I'd have preferred that.  Oh, and I guess I'll have to look into a Nonnef kit for him, since he comes with just one of the toy-style shoulder launchers.

The extra red and lack of green come through a lot better in alt mode.  Not sure about this "Bandit" thing, though, and I wish that the red on the hood made the white into a triangle.  Maybe if Toyhax makes a set for Exhaust I'll pick up both it and Wheeljack's and go all-in on their full racing livery.

Should you get Exhaust?  Maybe.  He's not essential, but I like having more Decepticons, and ER Wheeljack's a good mold.

Not one of the more recently-announced figures, but thanks to @M'Kyuun I was finally able to get my hands on Netflix Scrapface.  Y'know, it's funny, I don't like to buy multiples of the same exact figure, but if you recolor it I'm very down for troop-building.  I've got eight Siege Seekers, and this is my fifth copy of this mold.  If Hasbro gets around to doing a new Scourge I'll keep buying Sweeps as long as they're slightly different colors, and no I don't care that different colored Sweeps isn't cartoon accurate.

But we're not talking about Sweeps, we're talking Scrapface.  And I love him!  He looks like the love child of Reflector and Smokescreen.  His body is actually almost entirely a dark gray plastic.  Most of that red and blue you're looking at is paint.  The red is a bit sloppy; I think it's supposed to be less an accent color and more like he's rusty.  The blue, though, is a gorgeous metallic color.  It really pops in hand.  And unlike Exhaust and Wheeljack, Scrapface is very visually distinct from retail Refraktor or from the toy-colored Spectro, Spyglass, and Viewfinder from last year's camera box set.

Yes, his "spaceship" alt mode is still a bit trash, but that's hardly Scrapface's fault.  That said, even though they probably won't I really hope Hasbro visits this mold one more time, then I could make another camera.  Can't bring myself to buy a second Scrapface or Refraktor over it, though.

Should you buy a Scrapface?  I vote yes.  Good robot, bad alt mode, but mostly it's fun new colors for troop-building.  Besides, maybe he'll have a big roll in the Netflix show, becoming an important part of Transformers canon in the process.

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

oh my god apple can go to frakking helllllllllllllllllllllllll

Just spent two hours getting my mom's iPhone to play nice with my PC so I could offload... *checks* ...20 Gig's of photos and videos. (Jesus Christ, mom.) One frustration after another after another for what should be a routine copy and delete. Whyyyyyyy????????

Did you have that issue where it stops copying and throws up a "can't communicate with the device" error? Yeah, it's a pain. I think it has something to do with Apple using high-efficiency photo and video formats, then it's supposed to convert them on the fly when you copy to PC. But there's always errors.

If you can't get your mom to switch to Android, there's a setting in the camera app to get it to stop using the high-efficiency formats. Might help in the future.

10 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Anyone else getting/got this game?

I picked it up Friday, spent a good but of time with it. The combat is fun, but the stealth feels a bit more cumbersome, less fluid and less effective than games like Assassin's Creed. The game is gorgeous, and I'm digging the setting and story. As a primarily PC gamer I judge non-PC games on how well they justify buying another console, and Ghost of Tsushima is up there with Spider-Man and God of War.

46 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

So Godzilla shrunk to fit on an Aircraft Carrier without sinking it?  Maybe they will turn it into a log rolling contest?

Why wouldn't he fit?  Assuming he didn't grow since KotM Godzilla is supposed to be a little under 400 feet tall, or a little over 580 feet long from his head to the tip of his tail.  A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is nearly twice as long.  He wouldn't have a lot room to move from side-to-side, but he'd fit on the deck.

I guess, as you've kind of touched on, the question is how much does Godzilla weigh and how much weight can a carrier take on before it sinks.  And that I just don't know.

Usually when I review a figure it's either on the left or in the middle.  This time I'm reviewing two figures, and they're the ones NOT in the middle.  Because I picked these guys up at Target today: the Earthrise Decepticon Clones pack.

So that's Pounce on the left, Wingspan on the right.  It might not look like it at first brush, but I think there's a lot of interesting stuff going on here.  The obvious place to start is their size.  These guys are only Legends-class figures, although they have decent amount of bulk to them.  Is this appropriate, though?  They don't, to my knowledge, appear on any scale charts but they did appear in both "The Rebirth Part 1" of the US G1 cartoon and in The Headmasters in Japan.  I vaguely recall them being nearly as as tall as Sixshot in the latter.

Another interesting thing to note is that, while relatively rare (Wingspan was only available in a two-pack with Fastlane exclusive to Walgreens, and Pounce was only available as part of the "Siege on Cybertron" giftset exclusive to BBTS), Pounce and Wingspan were previously released during the Titans Return run.  This Target-exclusive reissue, though, aren't copies of Titans Return versions, which featured rubsigns on the chests, more white on their lats, white faces, white hips, black hinge joints in their torsos, and more painted details on their legs that mimicked stickers on the G1 toys.  Instead this new set is using the deco from the Takara release, which I presume is meant to look more like The Headmasters.

Whether you get this set, import the original Takara versions, or hunted down the original US releases, the idea is that they're carrying over a gimmick from the G1 days of having robots that were "identical" twins but turned into totally different alt modes.  And indeed, from the front they're very similar; the only real differences are the emblems on their chests and some differences in the molding on the outside of their legs. Indeed, they actually share a lot of the same parts.

That said, when you turn them around you can see the some more obvious differences.They have different animal heads on one hinge, different tails on another, partially remolded lower legs, and partially remolded butterfly hinges in their torsos.  Pounce has some animal feet attached to his torso hinges and in the backs of his legs.  Wingspan has bird feet pinned into his arms and uses the remolded legs as a place for his wings.

These guys come with no accessories, which is unfortunately common with Hasbro's Legends-class figures but disappointing nevertheless.  Dr Wu made some accessories for them, but they're sold out in most places.

Pounce and Wingspan are similar enough that they have the same articulation; their heads are on swivels with no tilt.  Shoulders are ball joints for rotation and 90 degrees of lateral extension.  Their elbows are ball joints for a little over 90 degrees of bend.  Usually that ball joint doubles as the bicep swivel, but these guys actually have dedicated mushroom swivels for that.  No waist articulation.  Their hips are ball joints, and they can bend 90 degrees forward or laterally.  Backward range is limited not by the joint by by the tail kibble on their backs.  They have mushroom thigh swivels, and their hinged knees can bend around 90 degrees (Pounce actually gets slightly more, Wingspan slightly less).  No foot or ankle articulation.

Pounce turns into a cat, Wingspan turns into a bird.  Again, interesting.  Pounce's transformation is pretty similar to (but kind of simplified from) the G1 toy.  His arms fold underneath (although his fists don't fold away first), and while not attached to his arms anymore his cat legs are attached to the joints they're on, so they still fold down when you fold the arms in.  Instead of bending the wrong way at the knee his robot legs spin 180 degrees, but the rest of the cat leg still folds out of them.  His tail still folds off of his back.  His torso doesn't open up to allow the cat head to flip out or the bot head to tuck in, the cat head simply folds off his back over his robot head.  Wingspan, on the other hand, has a very different transformation from the G1 toy and some major differences in how his robot legs work compared to Pounce.  The G1 toy just had the hands tuck in, leaving the arms at the sides, and his knees bent a little to double as the bird legs while his wings unfolded on his back.  This version of Wingspan as the robot arms fold under, like Pounce, with bird feet on the back.  His crotch splits in half, allowing the legs to bend up and around to catch onto some tabs that were folded out when the robot arms tucked in, and the wings unfold off of his legs.  It does make for some chunky wings, but it's kind of clever and makes for a much better bird mode than the G1 toy had.  Another interesting thing; due to the reuse of parts between the two Pounce's crotch can also split and hinge like Wingspan's even though it serves no purpose for him.

While they look cool enough, they don't do much in this mode.  Their mouths don't open, and they don't have any real head articulation.  Pounce's tail can bend up and down, and his front legs can rotate and bend at the knee.  His back legs have articulation at the robot hip and knee, and a little where the cat foot flips out.  Wingspan fares worse.  His bird feet have a little bit of bend, and you can kind of get more by messing with his robot elbows.  His tail can bend up.  The ends of his wings can bend up (but not down) at the hinge where they unfold from his legs, and that's it.  Since neither of them have any weapons there's no storage for any, but they do have a space on their backs with a little groove for a Titan Master to ride on them.

They have a few other issues in alt mode.  Their arms fold in, but they don't tab into anything.  That means they're relying solely on the friction in their elbows and the transformation hinge to stay put.  Nor does the white flap on Pounce's butt, nor his robot legs.  The way the instructions have you orient Pounce's forearms also leaves some ugly gaps.  Wingspan's robot legs do tab in place, but the connection is poor.

I think if I'd tried to track down the Titans Return versions or import the Takara versions I'd probably be unhappy with these guys.  I feel like the characters are meant to be bigger, and they have some flaws (that could probably be mostly attributed to them being Legends-class figures).  The lack of weapons for them is a huge bummer, too.  But, if you can find them at Target, you can get these guys for halfway between the price of one Deluxe and one Voyager figure, and that's not too bad for what you get.  Wingspan in particular has some interesting engineering.  I neither recommend you buy them or avoid them.  I think if you know what you're getting and buy them you're getting your money's worth.  But I think if you'd rather not buy them you're not missing out on anything essential, either.

My Unicron had an estimated delivery date for this Monday. But Pitney Bowes is involved, so I'll see it to believe it.

Even though Amazon and Hasbro Pulse don't have him listed as coming in until October, BBTS apparently has Earthrise Scorponok in stock now.

26 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Edit: After giving it a bit of thought, I'm guessing the secret leader figure will be Ultra Magnus in his Earth truck mode. I'd be down for that, as I didn't like his Siege alt mode at all. His bot mode was lovely, though.  If they can make his cab look like ER Prime's, with Siege's bot mode, that'll be a good a marriage.

If it is, it'll be a white ER Prime and that's it.  I don't see them extensively redesigning armor for him considering that the rest of the line has been almost entirely repaints and less involved remolds.

Like I said before, my money is on Doubledealer with Knok and Skar packed in.

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Hey Mike, what blue paint did you use for you Earthrise Prime? I've been trying to find your review, but that was so many pages back, I couldn't find it and gave up. Anyway, It's a pretty good match, and I'm thinking of doing some painting on mine as well.

Tamiya Metallic Blue spray TS-19.  It's fine for the trailer parts, I guess, but it's noticeably lighter than Prime's legs/hands/head, so I never tried painting the legs.  If there was a hobby store closer I'd go look for a better match (closest one is buy the Pittsburgh IKEA, around an hour drive, so I only stop if I happen to need something at IKEA).

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I don't know why they couldn't have made a better looking gun with a double hinge to compact it in truck mode,

I don't even need the hinge.  Even with Nonnef's parts occupying some of the peg holes there's enough storage still on the trailer.

2 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

Well, I guess I was wrong, then.

Well...

So there's precedence for both.

My personal preference is upside down in robot mode, because that's how it was in the cartoon, and because that makes it right side up if you were looking at his jet mode from above with the nose pointed "up."  That's the same orientation for the USAF marks on real F-15s I've seen.  But the G1 toy had it the other way around, and it makes a certain sense that an alien robot would wear his badge right side up in robot mode and not give a hoot about the alt mode.  Ultimately it's whatever you prefer.

1 hour ago, Negotiator said:

hmm, gonna cancel the walmart prime.  don't have faith that hasbro will have the right color plastics on this second go.  The promo pics for the trailer version also has the right colors, but we know the toy has grey bits on the lower legs, biceps and shoulders.  it's still a great figure, just being nitpicky.

I'm going to keep my preorder.  If the figure doesn't have fixed blue legs or looks bad in hand I can always take it back to the store, right?  If nothing else, having a second Prime handy might give me the guts to paint one of them.

1 hour ago, Convectuoso said:

But, aren't the logos upside down?

4 hours ago, technoblue said:

along with Doubledealer

Yeah, I got him too.  I didn't mention it because I didn't want to spoil this review I'm about to write.

So Doubledealer is a Leader-class toy.  At least he's bigger than Astrotrain and Optimus, right?  But he's a lot smaller than the pre-Siege Leaders, and shorter than Siege Magnus with the DNA upgrades.  Without the upgrades they're probably similar in size (but I'll be honest, I didn't check).

Doubledealer is an interesting figure for me because I had the G1 toy as a kid, but I don't remember it too well.  I remember I liked Skar (the bat Powermaster) a good bit, and I liked Doubledealer's bird mode a lot, but I think I rarely used him in robot or missile truck mode.  Seeing this version in robot mode doesn't give me much in the way of nostalgia.  But when I go back and look at the original G1 toy I can see that this version is in many ways very faithful.  There's painted details on near his knees, feet, thighs, and shoulders that are callbacks to the original toy's stickers, and much of the sculpt is similar.  What's throwing me off are the proportions.  ER Doubledealer has a much smaller head, narrower waist, and thicker limbs that make him look like a 'roided-up version of the G1 toy.  All-in-all, not too shabby.

Doubledealer wasn't in the G1 cartoon (the Japanese version, Doubleclouder, was in Masterforce, but I didn't see that until I was an adult), or the US run of the Marvel comics (although I think he did show up in Marvel UK).  I guess the toy's fiction was that he was a mercenary who did jobs for both the Autobots and the Decepticons.  My impression of him as a kid was that he was a lifeless missile truck, and if Knok bonded with him he turned into an Autobot robot but if Skar bonded with him he turned into a Decepticon vulture, and Knok and Skar were always fighting over him.  Regardless of the mental fiction you want to assign to him, Hasbro's got you covered.  Out of the box you'll see Autobot insignia on both shoulders.  However, there's a panel on the top of his shoulder.  Flipping it around covers the Autobot emblems with Decepticon emblems.

Like the other Leader-class figures in the War for Cybertron trilogy, Doubledealer seems to make up for his smaller stature with a lot of accessories.  He comes with his large shoulder missile, his large gun, a smaller gun, two smaller missile pallets, a... thing (maybe a radar?), and a flat part with two stabilizers on it.  What he doesn't come with are Knok and Skar, although you may recall from an earlier review I did that they're available as part of "Soundwave's Spy Patrol", though, as remolds of Ratbat and Frumble.

Speaking of, the panel on Doubledealer's chest can open, and there's a hollow space inside big enough to fit either Knok or Skar (or Rumble, Frenzy, Ratbat, Ravage, or Wingthing) but not both at the same time.  And while we've got his chest open, note the molded bit that looks sort of like the back side of G1 Knok.  It's actually just pegged on, so you can pull it off.

With it off, you can flip out the peg on the newer Knok or Skar and peg the engine onto their backs.  Really makes me wish that Hasbro had included a second one shaped like Skar's back.  But I digress.

So, I think Doubledealer's head is on a ball joint.  I say think because it swivels, but there's not enough up/down or sideways tilt to be useful, but a little too much to be play on a mushroom swivel.  His shoulders rotate and can extend laterally 90 degrees.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and curl more or less 180 degrees.  His wrists swivel.  his waist can swivel.  His hips have soft ratchets that can go forward and backward a little under 90 degrees and out to the side 90 degrees.  He does have thigh swivels, but they're a little limited as the entire blue outer thigh rotates around an inner joint.  His knees can bend about 75 degrees.  His feet don't tilt up or down, but he does have 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

The instructions tell you to put the big missile into a peg hole near his head, the radar into a peg hole on one shoulder, the small gun onto a peghole on the other shoulder, the big gun in his hand, and the missile pallets near his ankles.  He also has a peg hole on the other side of his head, on either forearm, or under either foot.

Without the part with the stabilizers attached he'll have a flap with two more peg holes along his back.  If you want that part on him, though, you lift the flap up and use two tabs to connect it to the underside.  In that configuration he'll wind up with two pegs holes behind his head, and a new single peg hole on his back.  The instructions will indicate that the stabilizers, which are on ball joints, should stick out behind him like wings.  They can be rotated and tucked in, though.

I'll also note here that the big shoulder missile has another peg hole, and the big gun has a peg hole on top, one on each side, one on the butt, and the barrel is a 5mm peg hole.

Doubledealer's bird mode gives me much more nostalgic feels.  I think I used to pretend it was my pet.  It's interesting, again, how it's very similar to the G1 toys in many ways; the way the head is turned to one side and stored in the back behind the wings, the way the arms fold under the bird's chest and the birds legs fold down from the wheels, and the way the upside down front of the truck is basically the bird's tail.  His forearms aren't folded up and tucked between his biceps, though, so there's a bit of a gap, and folding the legs up is a bit of a pain due to clearance issues that cause them to get caught up against his thighs and minor frustrations lining up a tab inside his knee with the back of his thigh.

The flap on the part with the stabilizers give him a more bird-like tail, but the part doesn't connect directly to Doubledealer in this mode.  Instead, his big gun plugs into his shoulder missile to form a larger ICMB, and the stabilizer part uses a pair of peg holes to attach to the underside of the ICBM near the back.  Then the ICMB uses some black clips to pinch onto the bird's back.  Note that the stabilizer part must be detached from the robot back to attach it to the missile; the flap it was tabbed into is now on the bird's belly.

The bird doesn't have a ton of articulation.  The head can swivel, and his neck is double-jointed so it's got good up/down range, but he can't really look side-to-side.  A hinge lets the purple part of his bird legs move up and down, but the rest of it is pegged into place.  The wings can bend backward where they connect to his back and forward close to the tips, and there's a hinges to tuck them in or spread them out near the middle.

The instructions suggest that the missile pallets plug into the bird's sides, while smaller gun and radar are plugged into the robot hands tucked into the bird's belly.  He does have the two forward-facing holes under his head, one on his back, and several others on his belly in this mode, which prompted me to try to split the ICBM and have part on top and part on the belly the way I remember the G1 toy doing.  It kind of works; the missile half is shorter than the G1 version, so it looks like it sits a bit far forward even though it doesn't protrude any more than the G1 toy's did, while the gun does in fact sit farther back on his back.

Doubledealer is, again, a triple changer, and here's his truck mode.  It's similar too his G1 truck mode, but his forearms wind up curled up toward the sky instead of in toward each other, and his chest cover spins around and sits on top instead of being removed.  The result is less clean, but I'm not going to complain about less partsforming.  I will note that the position of his legs (forming the front of the truck) is slightly different than their position in bird mode.  It's slightly easier to get them in position for this mode, and frustrating that they didn't use the same position for both modes.

Instead of using the back of his robot head to mount the ICBM, the ICBM uses a pair of pegs to fit into the flap that was on his robot back.  The instructions suggest using this hands to mount the smaller gun and radar, and putting the missile pallets into the peg holes on the sides of his forearms.  In this mode there's also two on the front of the truck and one on either side you could use instead, plus two on the back.

The part with the stabilizers is once again partsformed, this time using a pair of pegs to lock into the peg hole his shoulder missile sits in and its mirror on the other side.  The flap on it can be folded up and the stabilizers rotated up for "driving."  Then you can fold it down and rotate the stabilizers out, then lift the flap with ICMB on it so that the missile is pointed up for "launch mode."  The flap is even keyed to fit with other Siege and Earthrise bases like Omega Supreme, Ironworks, the upcoming Scorponok, Quintesson, or Airwave, Prime's trailer (assuming you didn't replace the door with the Nonnef one), or any of the little Battlemasters that turn into "shields."

Doubledealer is... alright.  I think he should have come with Knok and Skar, or at least another engine part for the Soundwave Spy Patrol Skar, but instead we got a bunch of other little accessories I could have done without.  He's extremely faithful to the G1 toy, except when he's not.  I'm not a huge fan of the partsforming flap with the stabilizers, but in the toy's defense it's kind of optional for all three modes.  And despite having the original as a kid I don't have a strong attachment to the character, because he's appeared in very little Transformers fiction (unless you're big Masterforce fan).  So, if you like what you see here, then by all means get him.  He's a solid effort on HasTak's part.  But if you're feeling pretty meh on him after reading this then I don't think you're missing too much if you skip him.

50 minutes ago, tekering said:

Any wild theories as to why they're calling it "Alternative Universe" Optimus?  

Just that it might have something to do with the Netflix show or the comics.  Like, they're not killing off Prime already in either, but in the alternate universe that is the '86 movie he died.

Too bad Siege Magnus doesn't have a spot to put AU Prime's Matrix in.

Also, I forgot how bad the trailer looks without add ons.  Maybe I should buy another kit.  As it stands, I'm thinking about re-buying the Reprolabels for ER Prime, partly to go on Netflix Prime, and partly because I want to pull them off the trailer, paint it, and re-apply.

4 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

So who's gonna be selling Thrust to complete the Coneheads?

Hopefully it'll be a regular retail release. I do my work at night, so I had to get up early for the livestream (actually my kid woke me up before 8:00, so I went to Target and bought Ghost of Tsushima before getting online) then spend the rest of the morning trying to lock in my exclusives.  After eating a late lunch I wound up sleeping on the sofa for two hours.  With Hasbro making all these major characters store exclusives they've officially found a way to make shopping from home more exhausting than going to stores.

5 hours ago, technoblue said:

I'm cautiously optimistic. Optimus doesn't really interest me, unless the Netflix version is swapping out the grey on his legs for blue.

It looks like it might be from the pictures.  I wanted Elita-1 but didn't want to pay shipping, so I decided to do a second order with Prime and Elita.  Hopefully the rest of him isn't too dirty.  If it is, though, I might look at swapping parts to have one definitive Optimus.  So all together I preordered Exhaust, Hubcap, Bee, Elita-1, Soundwave, Prime, the Prowl/Ironhide pack, and the Coneheads pack.  And this is on top of having Centurion, Tigertrack, Maverick, Super Megatron, and a buttload of regular Siege and Studio Series coming out between now and the end of the year.

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot.  Alternate Universe Optimus came today... because the one toy my collection has been missing is Prime's lifeless corpse from that scene that made me cry in the theater when I was 6.

Found the workaround. Got an order for the Autobots and the Coneheads.

18 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Ironhide, too, suffers the partsforming trend, but he does look good in both modes. I hope the van roof/shield can fold up and attach to his back.

It bothered me at first, but then I thought of it as his G1 sled and now I'm cool with it.

18 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

I guess the exclusivity issues are going to continue as a regular part of doing business. I guess it's good for Hasbro from a financial POV, but on the collector side, it sucks.

It wouldn't leave me seething with rage if I could just find the Amazon exclusives already...

EDIT: Apparently these are the links

Seekers

Autobot Alliance

But they don't seem to be working as of 11:40 am EDT.

Bee

Elita

Soundwave looks like he's sold out already.

And I swear Amazon must think the preorders start at 11:00 Pacific.

11 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

Walmart preorders are up.

link? I'm searching and getting nothing

Nevermind.  I got my preorders for Bee and Soundwave.  Forgot to add Elita; I'm not paying for shipping, I'll wait and see if she turns up in stores.

Got Hubcap and Exhaust at Pulse.  The Pit's not up yet.  And while Hasbro posted about Amazon having their sets on Facebook they didn't have a link, so...?

Oh, I'm in for both Amazon sets, Soundwave, Bee, and Elita-1 at Walmart, and Hubcap and the Pit of Judgement at Pulse.  Maybe Exhaust.

9:30 - Show started.  Nothing major so far.  They announced that Rotorstorm will be getting an IDW head, no just a repaint of Spinister's head.  They unveiled Maverick.  They brought up the new Siege show on Netflix and unveiled a t-shirt.

9:35 - A second wave of the Netflix collection.

Five new Deluxes. Elita-1 (remold of Arcee), Wheeljack, Red Alert, Impactor, and Bumblebee (remold of Cliffjumper, but he'll have a VW alt mode).  To save my time and sanity these are the new figures, Wheeljack, Red Alert, and Impactor are dirtier versions of the ones you we already got at retail.

Some mulitpacks (a Voyager with some battlemasters). Optimus is one, looks like the Earthrise mold without the trailer, with a gold version of Pteraxadon and a gold version of the one that turns into a ramp/shield.  The other one is Soundwave.  It's a remold of Siege, but it's an Earthrise figure with a tape deck mode.  He'll come with Ravage and Laserbeak.

One new Leader spoiler pack.  They're not saying who it is.  My money is on Doubledealer, though.

9:50- Three new Generations Selects figures, but they've been leaked.  Deluxe-class Exhaust, Greasepit, and Hubcap.  No pics here; they've been floating around for awhile.

9:55 - Autobot Alliance and Seeker Elite.  It's the Amazon-exclusives I mentioned.  Hmm.  I hope we get Earth-mode Bluestreak and Ratchet, too.

10:00 - The Quintesson Pit of Judgement that was leaked yesterday.  Hasbro Pulse-exclusive.  @sh9000 and I put up pics yesterday.  They're probably still on this page or the previous one.

Preorders will start at the various stores at 11:00 am EDT.

1 minute ago, Scyla said:

What is a two pack of Coneheads good for...

Thrust was leaked awhile back, and might be headed for a regular retail release.  The real question is why does Hasbro keep releasing one character of a group and then making the rest a limited store-exclusive thing?

Anyway, if you're missing the show I'll be posting stuff here.

The show hasn't even started, and there's leaks that Amazon will be carrying two exclusive two-packs.  One will have Earth-mode Prowl and Ironhide (Prowl is a retool of ER Smokescreen, Ironhide might be a retool of his Siege mold).  The other will be Dirge and Ramjet, both retools of ER Starscream.  Would be nice if they were more widespread releases, but at least the Amazon-exclusives haven't been too hard to get.  I think G2 Sideswipe is still available.

4 hours ago, Negotiator said:

where do we watch the hasbro thing?

Looks like Facebook.

2 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

If I was their marketing guy, I'd tell them to milk the G1 teet until naught but dust emerged.

I think, if Hasbro is into trilogies, I'd have done the G1 Trilogy... Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3.  Then the next trilogy could be the Japanese Trilogy; Headmasters, Masterforce, and Victory (maybe toss a little Zone and Battlestars in with Victory).  Then Beast Trilogy (Beast Wars, Transmetals, Beast Machines).  Then a G2>RiD>Machine Wars Trilogy.  Then a Unicron Trilogy.  Then see where the fandom is at after that.

There's definitely a part of me that would love to see Hasbro just keep making better and better G1 toys forever, but lets consider what G1 characters still need to be done in War For Cybertron, assuming that they're focused on the cartoon (and unofficially wrapping up Titans Return).  Bee, but we know he's inevitable.  Jazz and the Dinobots, but they're rumored to be in the Studio Series.  Inferno, but I'm sure we'll see a retool of Grapple sooner or later.  Same goes for Runabout.  The combiner teams, but I doubt we'll see them again so soon after Combiner Wars and Power of the Primes.  Actually, a lot of season 2 and 3 characters that War For Cybertron haven't touched, including Perceptor, most of the minibots, and most of the Season 3 cast are covered if you count the Prime Wars stuff (and even then it seems like some of the Season 3 cast will be redone in either WFC or SS '86).  Between what we know is coming, what's rumored to be coming, and what's been released in either WFC or Prime Wars I think the biggest gaps are going to be Blaster, his tapes, Tracks, Skids (who was a super minor character in the cartoon), Huffer, Pipes, maybe a new Gears, and Sandstorm.  We've even gotten limited releases of Japanese-series stuff like Dai Atlas and Star Convoy.  Maybe G1 is pretty close to complete, especially if you're leaving out characters that never appeared in the cartoon.  And on the flip side, Beast Wars will be 25 in 2021.  Aside from being a major anniversary, that's three years longer than the gap between the start of G1 and the first wave of Classics back in 2006.  I do think that G1 is always going to be a bigger cash cow for the franchise, but maybe it is time to let the Beast Wars fans have their day in the sun.