The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[M'Kyuun]

I fence sat on Alchemist too long before he was sold out on Pulse and I've yet to see any of the Primes in a store. Anyway, I wouldn't mind a repaint of this guy, but IMHO Animated Ratchet isn't a good fit as neither mode, nor the transformation, is right for the character as he appeared in the show or as the OG toy appeared. I have the OG toy, and honestly, I think an extensive retool/repaint of WfC Earthrise Trailbreaker would be a far better choice. I contend however, though the transformation is GREATLY simplified from the OG toys, that Alchemist would make for an excellent Prime Bulkhead. I know they already released a Legacy Prime Bulkhead, but that toy in nearly every regard shared far more similarities with Animated Bulkhead than the Prime version. All things being equal, they could just release this guy with a retooled chest and a new head and market him as Animated Bulkhead, at which point I'd consider him my modern Prime Bulkhead fig.

Honestly, I wish they'd abandon the necessity of homogenizing every non-G1 look with G1 attributes. The distinctive looks are what set them apart from every other series and I wish Hasbro would honor that. Moreover, I find the very different looks of both Prime and Animated appealing and I'd rather the toys adhere faithfully to those looks without trying to pigeonhole everything into one big G1 melting pot when the original intent for Animated and Prime was to distinguish them from G1 and other series. That same mindset should inform the toys as well.

[mikeszekely]

42 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Honestly, I wish they'd abandon the necessity of homogenizing every non-G1 look with G1 attributes.

I'm like 75% with you.  If we have a G1 version already, like Arcee, Prowl, Optimus, Bumblebee, etc, I really don't want a G1-ified version of a Prime or Animated character, and I don't think fans of Prime or Animated who have been waiting 15+ years for modern updates want that either.

That said, there are cases where characters from other continuities don't really have G1 analogs, like Bulkhead or Knockout from Prime or Blackout and Barricade from the Bayverse, where I kind of wish that there was a G1 version and I don't mind the G1-ification.

48 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Anyway, I wouldn't mind a repaint of this guy, but IMHO Animated Ratchet isn't a good fit as neither mode, nor the transformation, is right for the character as he appeared in the show or as the OG toy appeared.

Honestly, I agree, and it's possible that 2026 Ratchet will be an entirely new mold.  I'm just spitballing.  I think the alt mode makes for a good Bulkhead, but the bot mode less so (to be fair, though, that's arguably a step up from Legacy Bulkhead).  I do wonder, though, if the leak for an Animated Ratchet is actually supposed to be a Prime Ratchet.  Swap the Lenses with knives, put on a new head and chest, maybe new shoulders, and you're definitely in the ballpark.

[M'Kyuun]

In a perfect world, all these non-G1 figs would get their own molds that correspond aesthetically with their particular series, theme, or line. Alas, in a world of ever-shrinking budgets and ever-increasing overhead, we are worlds apart. From the instant I saw Alchemist, I thought "Prime Bulkhead" immediately. My mind hasn't changed, and I think it'd be a wasted opportunity not to do a slight retool and crank out another somewhat G1ified Prime character. I can also see what you're seeing insofar as retooling and repainting him into Prime Ratchet. They could easily get a twofer out of this mold. A trinity if they make an Earth mode Prime Ironhide.

 

[lechuck]

Weird, my previous posting seems to have disappeared? In case anyone missed it, AMT Predaking pre-order will open in August.
https://www.taghobby.com/archives/792414

[Scyla]

1 hour ago, lechuck said:

Weird, my previous posting seems to have disappeared? In case anyone missed it, AMT Predaking pre-order will open in August.
https://www.taghobby.com/archives/792414

I’m still contemplating if I should preorder this. After Rodimus got such raving reviews I want something cut from a similar cloth.

I have no use for AMT Rodimus because I have the Kuro Kara Kuri one but I get the feeling Takaras build quality cannot compare to Flame Toys.

[mikeszekely]

5 hours ago, lechuck said:

Weird, my previous posting seems to have disappeared?

Looks like everything from sometime Saturday until yesterday. Including my last two reviews.😞

[26662]

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Looks like everything from sometime Saturday until yesterday. Including my last two reviews.😞

I wouldn't take it personally - if that's where your mind went.  I experienced the same a handful of times over the last year.  My first thought was that I had broken a rule and the Mods had simply acted per their authority.  Now?  I think it was just a system hiccup.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, 26662 said:

I wouldn't take it personally - if that's where your mind went.  I experienced the same a handful of times over the last year.  My first thought was that I had broken a rule and the Mods had simply acted per their authority.  Now?  I think it was just a system hiccup.

No, I know it's nothing personal.  It's not just me, this thread is missing everything from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.  Like you said, probably some kind of system hiccup.  It just sucks to see that work gone, because of course I don't have any of it backed up locally.

[mikeszekely]

Crap. I messed up the conversion from Pacific to Eastern and Seaspray sold out at but Pulse and Walmart.

[M'Kyuun]

49 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Crap. I messed up the conversion from Pacific to Eastern and Seaspray sold out at but Pulse and Walmart.

Glad I checked in. Got my PO in for Seaspray on Pulse.

[mikeszekely]

Looks like Pulse put up a few more, got an order in.

[sh9000]

Ordered Seaspray.

[Dangard Ace]

Tfw2005 has a bunch of pics for SDCC 2025 preview night

https://news.tfw2005.com/2025/07/23/san-diego-comic-con-2025-hasbro-booth-preview-night-542748

[Scyla]

Boo on that Nemesis Prime. No trailer is disappointing, no "normal" head sculpt an oversight and the price tag is steep. 

And while the main color layout is not wrong like on the latest RiD Scourge it is too light (maybe it will look better in hand under less bright lights).

[sh9000]

[sh9000]

[mikeszekely]

9 hours ago, Scyla said:

Boo on that Nemesis Prime. No trailer is disappointing, no "normal" head sculpt an oversight and the price tag is steep. 

And while the main color layout is not wrong like on the latest RiD Scourge it is too light (maybe it will look better in hand under less bright lights).

And yet, I'm going to wind up buying it for the minicons, aren't I?

[lechuck]

Looking much better than the grey prototypes, however excluding Divebomb the proportions suck with the rest. Razorclaw looks bad with that oversized waist (like Haslab Fire Convoy) and blocky upper body instead of a nice v-shape.

[sh9000]

With Takara Tomy's new partnership and the OG 1/55 toys coming back, I would love to see a 1/55 G1 Jetfire getting reissued or a Missing Link G1 Jetfire.

[mikeszekely]

Uh... 🤨

[JB0]

24 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Uh... 🤨

Yeah, that about sums it up.

 

Spoilers: Even wearing Megatron as a shirt won't stop him from betraying Skeletor at the worst moment.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, JB0 said:

Yeah, that about sums it up.

I won't say a word of complaint if they put out an Evil-Lyn wearing that Kotobukiya Bishoujo Starscream outfit...

[danth]

I'll admit to being a sucker for some collabs, but they definitely go too far sometimes. 

[mikeszekely]

5 minutes ago, danth said:

I'll admit to being a sucker for some collabs, but they definitely go too far sometimes. 

My number one rule for Transformers is "must transform."  If they want to make a repaint of Tigatron that transforms from Battle Cat into He-Man I'll put money down on a preorder.  But I'm not opening my wallet for a non-transforming Man-At-Arms in Bumblebee cosplay.

[JB0]

46 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

I won't say a word of complaint if they put out an Evil-Lyn wearing that Kotobukiya Bishoujo Starscream outfit...

In the words of Castlevania's Alucard: I'm interested in this.

[sh9000]

 

[M'Kyuun]

36 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

My number one rule for Transformers is "must transform."  If they want to make a repaint of Tigatron that transforms from Battle Cat into He-Man I'll put money down on a preorder.  But I'm not opening my wallet for a non-transforming Man-At-Arms in Bumblebee cosplay.

Right there with you, at least regarding Transformers that don't transform; since the entire toy line and subsequent show were premised around that feature, and it's literally in the name, non-transforming Transformers omit the very thing that makes them so. As far as MOTU, I never had an interest so crossovers don't interest me anyway, but done in this manner, not in the least.

[sh9000]

 

 

 

 

Looking forward to these.

Edited July 26 by sh9000

[mikeszekely]

I'm in for Armada Nemesis, just for the dang minicons.

The Hot Wheels Collab actually looks really good.

AOTP

Sureshot was supposed to come out some time during Legacy.  Glad to see that they found a slot for him.

Yeah, Blastoff's a retool of Vortex, but he looks good.  Minus the animation error visor.  Maybe the Combiner Wars head will fit.

Don't give a crap about Jalopy, and I'm really disappointed that Hasbro's cut down on the number of figures that they release in a year but they wasted a slot on another one of these crappy guys.

Quickstrike is... fine, I guess?  I'll pick him up, but I'm guessing that bigger Beast Wars fans are more excited than I am.

Quintus reminds me of the mainline TFOne Quintesson toy.  It'll do, I think.

Brawl looks pretty sick.

I could have got excited for Animated Wreck-Gar... if he wasn't also another retool.  Legacy Evolution wasn't a great line.

Amalgamous Prime looks pretty cool.  For the guy who's artifact is the origin of Transformer T-cogs he's kind of not very out there.  Doesn't look like the Covenant version, looks mostly like TFOne.

Razorclaw's a pass.  Give me G1 Razorclaw!

Big Convoy!  Need him for my Prime shelf!  Interesting that they're not calling him "Big Prime" or something, they're keeping the Japanese name.

Commander Onslaught looks cool... as a render.  Hopefully he turns out good.  Bruticus is my favorite combiner.

STUDIO SERIES

Airachnid... I guess that's about as good as we can expect from a Habsro Deluxe.

TF5 Barricade's a big want for me.  And they licensed the alt mode!

'86 Windcharger isn't a surprise to me, but I'm very glad to see him.  I do believe that he completes the Season 1 cast.

TFOne Alpha Trion doesn't look too shabby.

Thundercracker... surprised they're not starting with Starscream.  Brand new mold!  Bot mode looks great, need to see more angles of the jet.  Confirmed that Skywarp and Starscream are coming, and each one will have a different face.  Hopefully they'll scale with '86 Megatron better than the Earthrise ones.

TF5 Nemesis Prime probably isn't different enough from Optimus for me, but I might check him out for the new accessories.

Titan TF4 Grimlock.  Should technically scale better. 15"... that's closer to Star Prime than the bigger Titans, so hopefully he'll be $150 and not $200.  They made sure Prime can ride him.  More TF4 Dinobots are coming.  I'll check him out.

[M'Kyuun]

20 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

 

 

 

 

Looking forward to these.

These and the new Seeker mold, which looks pretty decent, considering. The forward fuselage is still too shallow (the bottom should be just slightly above the bottom of the intake), but at least it doesn't appear to have the huge gaping hole like the Classics and the Earthrise toys. However, the arms tuck away neatly, like the aforementioned toys, and it appears to have proper exhaust augmenters, unlike the Earthrise figure. In bot mode, they managed to tuck both horizontal and vertical stabs away for a clean toonish appearance. I wish he had the 3D lower shin vents; I'm not a fan of the black flat elongated trapezoids, but alas, sigh, cartoon. Unlike the previous toys, this one has proper nose gear. Small victories. I wonder what they did for mains? Usually they're housed in the kneecaps, but they don't appear to have any openings. I hope he doesn't just rest on the kneecaps.

When the rumor of an Animated Wreck-Gar was floating about, I was cautiously optimistic. I was hoping he'd be done in like manner to Optimus, skewing very much towards his original toy/toon look. Instead, we're getting a continuation of the Junkion weaponizers. Boo, Hasbro & Takara, boo. Glad I've got the original toy.

Nice to see the remainder of the Combaticons minus Swindle. This is going to be a good-looking team.

I'm in for a copy of TFOne Airachnid.

Mike's more of the live action SS collector than I, but this Barricade (5th movie) looks interesting. For one, it's a licensed Mustang, but the draw for me is that it looks less Bayformerish and more G1ish in its aesthetics. That stacked pistol, though, is the definition of ludicrous. I hope it breaks down into two more normal looking guns.

[sh9000]

Cool.  Looks like I'll be getting Thundercracker too then.

[M'Kyuun]

27 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

Cool.  Looks like I'll be getting Thundercracker too then.

According to Evan, they're all going to have different facial expressions. I hope they don't do a yelling face. A smirk or a grin is fine but a perma-yell face is a bit much.

@mikeszekely Indeed, Brawl looks sick, thus far the best of the team, IMHO. Blast-Off is a pretty significant retool, so much so that I didn't realize it. Had they not mentioned the animation error forehead, I wouldn't have known the difference, TBH. It doesn't really bother me.

Pretty disappointed that the titan is just Bayformer Grimlock. Nice for the fans, but I was really hoping for Animated Omega.

Edited July 26 by M'Kyuun

[mikeszekely]

10 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Pretty disappointed that the titan is just Bayformer Grimlock. Nice for the fans, but I was really hoping for Animated Omega.

The Bayformer crowd has been pretty vocal about wanting more accurately scaled Dinobots, and they've been SUPER vocal about every Studio Series Commander being 86.  I didn't know for sure that it was Grimlock, but I did know that Studio Series was getting the Titan next year, and that it was going to be a Bayformer.

The flip side is that Hasbro sees the Deluxe-Voyager-Leader thing as distinct waves between the lines, but two Commanders and one Titan is kind of set in stone for now.  Traditionally that's been each line gets a Commander, and the Titan's been the Generations line.  But the divide is actually two for Generations, one for Studio Series, regardless of size, and that means AotP will have two Commanders in 2026.  So who's the other one?  I'm tempted to predict that, with the Dinobots potentially eating more future Titan slots, that Hasbro could keep shoveling out Combiner torsos.  I know I'm personally still down for Hot Spot, Razorclaw, Hun-Grr, and Scattershot as Commanders at minimum.

That said... I haven't heard anything about any other combiners in 2026 (though I suspect Defensor, at least, in 2027).  And I also can't help but notice that, at this point, we've seen every member of the Thirteen except Nexus Prime and Liege Maximo (assuming that Legacy Vector Prime is all the Vector Prime we're getting).  I've been told that Nexus will be a Voyager and be based heavily on his Covenant design (which is disappointing a lot of people who thought he might use AotP Aerialbots and Combaticons like the old Timelines toy), but I haven't seen a listing for Liege Maximo.  Supposedly they're leaning into his G2 design rather than the Loki-esque Covenant version, and in the G2 comics Liege Maximo was huge... I have a hunch that Liege Maximo might be a Commander.

[M'Kyuun]

53 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

The Bayformer crowd has been pretty vocal about wanting more accurately scaled Dinobots, and they've been SUPER vocal about every Studio Series Commander being 86.  I didn't know for sure that it was Grimlock, but I did know that Studio Series was getting the Titan next year, and that it was going to be a Bayformer.

The flip side is that Hasbro sees the Deluxe-Voyager-Leader thing as distinct waves between the lines, but two Commanders and one Titan is kind of set in stone for now.  Traditionally that's been each line gets a Commander, and the Titan's been the Generations line.  But the divide is actually two for Generations, one for Studio Series, regardless of size, and that means AotP will have two Commanders in 2026.  So who's the other one?  I'm tempted to predict that, with the Dinobots potentially eating more future Titan slots, that Hasbro could keep shoveling out Combiner torsos.  I know I'm personally still down for Hot Spot, Razorclaw, Hun-Grr, and Scattershot as Commanders at minimum.

That said... I haven't heard anything about any other combiners in 2026 (though I suspect Defensor, at least, in 2027).  And I also can't help but notice that, at this point, we've seen every member of the Thirteen except Nexus Prime and Liege Maximo (assuming that Legacy Vector Prime is all the Vector Prime we're getting).  I've been told that Nexus will be a Voyager and be based heavily on his Covenant design (which is disappointing a lot of people who thought he might use AotP Aerialbots and Combaticons like the old Timelines toy), but I haven't seen a listing for Liege Maximo.  Supposedly they're leaning into his G2 design rather than the Loki-esque Covenant version, and in the G2 comics Liege Maximo was huge... I have a hunch that Liege Maximo might be a Commander.

Well, I suppose the Bayformer fans are due some figs in SS. We G1 fans have been eating well, so I can't complain. G1 isn't going anywhere, either, as it's their biggest money-making theme in Transformers; the Bayformers fans can moan all they want but dems da facts. I find that particularly delicious.

I'm sure, given Bruticus, that Defensor will undoubtedly be on deck for next year. If they're going to continue releasing two combiner teams a year, then it's anybody's guess which of the three remaining combiners they'll tackle. Whichever they choose, there are plenty more G1 figs coming.

I've only seen elsewhere that Takara has an agreement to do updates of the old 1/55 Takatoku toys, which means potential Jetfire, Roadbuster, and Whirl figs. If so, stuff's happening that I never thought we'd see due to all the licensing issues. It's tentatively exciting.

[Hikuro]

I'll completely pass on the bayverse figures, there's zero appeal from me on that.

Sort of irked that we're doing a new Seeker mold, worse off that we already got an 86 SS Starscream and now here we are with a new mold starting with TC. I'm fairly happy with the figures I got so I'm going to entirely pass on this.

Combaticons look good, Brawl, and Blastoff keeping fairly close to their G1 counterpart. 

Windcharger, Sureshot, they look good. Big Convoy will probably be a buy, the Hotwheels collab I think I'll probably get, I'm pretty sure I mentioned it some time back but they would work REALLY well on the G2 shelf.