Because this damnable tablet doesn't like when I say color. I guess it's British.

Thundertron's a lion, by the way, not a wolf.

This is why I want gestalts like Tripredacus and Magnaboss. Designed to fit into a specific size class and sold as that size class.

Fall of Cybertron stuff looks good to me, except Soundwave. He looks pretty lame. I find it ironic that the only Prime toys I'm interested in are cars, and I usually find the car Transformers to be the most boring. Prime is a joke. I can't believe they cancelled Animated for this garbage.

How does this new Soundwave look compared to the deluxe?

The return of the Voyager class makes me renew my hopes for a better G1 Galvatron, but that may be premature.

Said the guy with G1 Ironhide in his sig...


I would hope Hasbro would be smart enough to do that as well as putting them out in "gift sets" only. I think idealy it would be more like Combiner Team size class and less like all the toys in an odd shaped box.

The con colors only have to be interesting enough to move at the show. Given the multiple colors that the Bruticus mold has had over the years, there's plenty of options... but what it comes down to is that Hasbro wants these exclusives to plug (the Prime cartoon and) the FOC video game. Other decos would not have that effect. They don't want to plug a G2 or Energon or RID or Battle Gaia homage to the con crowd.

For the regular Transformers collector/non-attendee... well, it kinda sucks because the game deco is popular with us too AND within a certain tolerance of G1 colors, which the biggest portion of us probably want. But because Hasbro is catering to the casual fans/gamers with that deco, we're getting... something else.

(Again, would it have killed someone to ask about the origins of that deco? Would have been nice to pin it down to a specific incarnation or find out if it's just random.)

My hope is that Hasbro sees the desire and gives us a completely-accurate G1-colors version through another outlet. Amazon, TRU, etc. It could easily be made different enough from the game colors to work.

So... Soundwave?

Or Prime...

Any way I'm thinking of getting FoC Brute but going for symmetrical limbs...

And now the rationalization begins:

His colors don't look that bad. He looks ok. It'll look better in person. You know you want that combiner toy. It doesn't look that bad...

I never said I did not want him, but what do you think of the different limb ideas? I like Blast-Off arms with Brawl legs myself.

It doesn't look that bad though.

I'm actually pretty pleased with this years botcon news. You don't think Hasbro thought fans would be really excited about getting a Soundwave with lil guys to shove in his chest? We've been bitching about that for years. I'm sure that they thought that would get everybody pumped. AND MP10 coming out stateside? That's huge. He has a trailer and hasbro was NEVER going to release him alongside it, right? RIGHT?! Those are two pretty big surprises.

I know we all want the high back that the reveal of alternators and masterpiece optimus gave us, but that was when the brand starting turning into what it is now. Things. Are. Different. Now.

We just gotta relax and enjoy the ride.

I can't wait until someone gets their hands on Bruticus so we can finally see the different limb configurations. For example, maybe Swindle as an arm will have proportions to better match Blast Off.

Since I don't care about Masterpeice figures; The Bruticus news dampens all the rest of the news for me, as Bruticus is my favorite of the Decepticon Combiners. So knowing my wallet is gonna get anally raped trying to get the version I want, kinda kills my thrill of all the other news items.

SDCC exclusives are not much more expensive than their retail counterparts, if at all. I don't see bruticus being more than $60 or $70 bucks. His box isn't fancy so it won't drive up the price like Cliffjumpers nutty boxing.

Because Generation 2 toys were flying off the shelves back in 1994?

In all fairness though, I probably will buy Bruticus if it turns out to be a cool toy. Vibrant colors aren't necessarily a bad thing. I'm not sure they fit the Combaticon theme, but I don't see too many green construction vehicles either and nobody minds that.

From Allspark's report:




So it is indeed a fancy box. I'll be really surprised if it's under $75. With deluxe MSRP around $13, that's $65 for the figures alone. Minimum $10 for the fancy box, maybe more.


Cliffjumper will probably be around $25, like last year's ML Thor in crazy Mjolnir box.

Till he sells out, and the only way to get one is through scalpers wanting to sell him for 2 or 3 times that price.

Hadn't seen that. I only saw the pics which made the box look pretty simple. A book style box isn't usually complex.
Even so, I don't expect it to he expensive. When you toss five toys in one box you can afford to make the package more fancy because its one package.

Simply put the sky isn't falling yet. No reason to freak out now.

Oh Hai Nemesis Prime! (Or SDCC Sgt. Slaughter, or insert expensive SDCC exclusive here).

Freaking out about what might happen if thing happen that could've been different isn't much fun.

They can go full Scramble City? I thought and arm was an arm with him...

Unless you're outside the US of course, in which case you're screwed.

Phazer

Of which how many were in-demand Items? Or How about we compare to Cobra Commander and Starscream? Or Alt Rodimus? Nemesis Prime was just another black Prime, who I do have mind you, but wasn't anything special, and was packaged in a normal box. Even Matrix Prime, another plain redeco but with a fancy box, didn't go for much becuase he wasn't that different then what we thought we'd be able to get easily at retail.

Nope, look at rear pictures of Swindle and Brawl, their are clearly hands folded away that are not their own, seeing as they are bigger then Brawl's head.

Don't get me wrong, I want Bruticus to hang around HTS.com as long as Titanium Skywarp, or the NYCC Prime set.


I don't think that will happen, but here's hoping : )

Ok, the rundown:

TFP: really sad to see very little new stuff. Legion Airrachnid (hope she's better than the deluxe) and Thundertron were it, right? And they were the only things not on display. At least with Thundertron it feels like some fun is coming back into mainline TFs. Reminds me very much of Cybertron-era stuff. As an aside, does anyone know where his art on the wiki came from? Lastly, I love that characters that have existed in some form or another for some time, and have now been on the show, like the 13, can't get toys yet, but someone like Thundertron with the absolute minimum of fictional exposure is in wave 4. Still, glad to get him.

FOC/Generations: Happy to see some of the newer stuff. Very happy about the return of non-mainline voyagers, but it's weird that Soundwave was the only one they showed or even mentioned (besides a probable Grimlock). Very glad that Soundwave has the original gimmick back, and I think the way they did it (disks instead of tapes) works much better on a cybertronian toy than any Earth mode Soundwave. Kickback looks great, though I hope the altmode is more coherent than what they displayed. However, his appearance here makes me wonder if they'll do a TFP insecticon toy now, or at least anytime soon. Sideswipe should be good. Ultra Magnus gives me the perfect out to not buy the Optimus version of the toy.

SDCC: It kinda sucks that Decent Colors Bruticus has to be an exclusive, but I'll go for it. I do think, though, that he'd look better with the retail (purple) Blast-Off than with Drab-Off. TerrorCliff, on the other hand, looks fantastic. This is how you take a jivey situation like the cancellation of the FE line and turn it around. Hopefully, fans of the other FE molds will see things like this in the future. Really, really great.

MP Optimus - I wasn't ever really intrigued by this since I have MP-01, but this looks a lot more playable and fun. I also like that the trailer is included.

And that's kind of it, isn't, at least for regular TF toys?

Then you get a pass to hitch all you can (though I tjouht you only liked strict G1 representations. What gives? Do you have a soft spot for Cybertronian alt modes?)

Anyone in the States spending all their energy complaining about something that has not come to pass before even attempting to squire the toy is just being a chicken little. The sky ain't falling. Of it does we'll all cross that bridge when we get there metaphor.

That tablet really ain't workin' for ya, Cheets. /: )

Er... I got Nemesis Prime from HTS well after SDCC had ended. It can be done.

The Chinese MMO website. Star Seekers are a faction in the game.

-ZacWilliam, pro tip: if you click on wiki pics there should be a description of the source under them on their page.

*sigh*
I'll be back to normal Tuesday.

As a fan of the movieverse and classics, Hasbro has left me high and dry this year. Oh well, more money in my pocket

Although, quite frankly that's not what mainline Prime Thundertron looks like at all. Don't know how they'll reconcile those two, if they'll even bother.

He loves the state...

Anyone want to draw a sketch from memory? Plllleeeaaassse?


-ZacWilliam, lion head chest? Does he look like he could get a Razorclaw remold?

Thanks, guys. Spark, care to describe what he looked like?

First and foremost, he doesn't have all those parts jutting off everywhere. He's got a pretty humanoid silhouette, except with some mechanical petticoat details hanging off his waist. He has gold lion claws sticking up off his shoulders outside of that and some small claws as gauntlets. He has a mecha beard thing going on, as well as weird kind of feathery "hair" jutting back from his head. Then there's the lion head in his chest (which also has a little goatee of sorts), the peg leg, and a big sort-of-scimitar that I think comes from the tail. The main color is white, with a lot etched runic details kind of like Vector Prime.

Also, his arms aren't huge or anything. Fairly standard heroic proportions.

Could be a random Star Seeker, then.

Ah, cool. Thanks man!

Take a look to the left and see where I'm from, NOT the United States.

For the record, I never claimed "the sky was falling", nor did I even say that the retail Combatacons were ugly; just that I prefer the game acurrate ones and that I think it's stupid that I'll probably have to pay through the nose to get them, if at all.

Even if they show up at Fanexpo like some SDCC exclusives have, which is not guaranteed, as an unemployed stay-at-home dad it's still likely to cost much more than I can spare.

This is what I get from your description:




Ignoring the TERRIBLE quality of the sketch I did in 2 minutes, is that sorta close? Any major details off anyone who was there?


-ZacWilliam, trying to get a mental image sketch artist style.

OK I see and hand like thing in Swindle's leg and I think I see finger on the outside of Brawls leg. Primus I may just get them all and hope for an Autobot team some where down the line, I hope it;s not the Arielbots though.

Pretty close, although the lion head doesn't dominate the entire chest. It's kind of like if you took Leobreaker's chest, then made it so the head could slide back into the mane and fold down a bit. His beard's also much more pronounced, kind of like Blackbeard's (actually, almost exactly like Blackbeard's). He has shoulder pads of sorts, but they don't go out far. His regular foot is one of the rear lion claws with little folding fin things on either side of the foot for robot mode stability. Take all that and then stretch it horizontally a bit and you're pretty much there. His lion mode pretty much looks like Leobreaker with coat tail fins in the back and a scimitar tail.

Adjusting... Adjusting... Adjus....

OK, is this closer then?




Again, please everyone forgive the TERRIBLE sketch, just doing these quick to try to get his basic idea...


-ZacWilliam, he really does sound very Pirate-ish from the descript...

Yep, that's about right. The lion head/mane is all organic-y in the style of Leobreaker, not like G1 Razorclaw, but otherwise, that's pretty much him.

I don't really want to have a fight about it, but WFC/FOC is G1 as far as I'm concerned and despite clumsy marketing attempts to fudge otherwise.

That said, I'm not very fussed about this set as I don't think the FOC designs are very good, and this is a particularily poor engineering attempt at them.

That doesn't mean I don't see how other people who want them are screwed over by a broken distribution model.



Nah, given the mess the GI Joe Skystriker caused I expect it to be very messy for people in the US too. Expecting anything else from the historical evidence is over-optimistic.

Phazer

Ok, cool. Thanks.

Wanted to do something with this info a little nicer than those sketches. Sooo... Argggg, me maties, I give you what may be the first ever Capt. Thundertron fan art:





Anyone from Botcon want to give me a detailed color-guide I might even attempt that.


-ZacWilliam, is curous to see, when the toy is revealed, how close this second hand description got me.

You're like a police sketch artist!

Say.... you should turn it into a wanted poster.

I was not looking for a fight. I've said it before and maybe you thought I was joking but I enjoy reading your opinions and I respect a man that sticks to his convictions. I was happy when you came back.

I'm not holding this to Shadowstriker levels because that was a Joe offering with some cross market appeal. The Joe stuff always goes insanely fast and that one even faster because od the TF fans going for it as well. It's. Not a fair comparison at all.
TF stuff in recent years has been fairly easy to obtain if you pay attention. Sure there's stuff like the Alternators but they've improved since then.
I'm not worried because recent years show this kinds thing wont be impossible to snag.