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ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Combiner Wars (30th anniversary coming up or not, why was Cyclonus prioritized over Scattershot to be Silverbolt's moldmate?).

My guess is to simply balance out bots and cons. Scattorshot came eventually, so any "priority" was really just on the order of design/release. For regular release you had 6 autobot voyager torsos and only 3 cons, with Red OP, Cyclonus and Scattorshot not having dedicated limbs or as "free agent" torsos. Those were the only 3 that didn't have to be released with their limbs. Red OP was always going to be a wave 1 release as the big name, and I don't think they would want to release a 2 con case when there are only 3 for the whole line. So that basically made Cyclonus need to be in wave 3 or 4. Scattorshot was easier to fit around this than Cyclonus was is my best guess.

Well, it still rankles that Cyclonus got favored not only as first pick but also with a full set of alternate parts including for torso mode, whereas Scattershot got stuck recycling the Superion combiner parts.

Scattershot wasn't planned initially I think, or at least was added on later like Trailbreaker was with the new non-head parts. Also look at this way: Cyclonus looks so different it lessens the chance of "you already have this toy", while Scattershot released later feels more like a "second chance". There's a little bit psychology involved with these decisions, you know?

Legacy Menasor will feel more accurate to the source material, yes, but the material itself lends itself to cop-outs with the liberties taken (all to make the limbs more proportionate I bet, seen Streetwise as a limb, toy vs. animation? ).

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Combiner Wars (30th anniversary coming up or not, why was Cyclonus prioritized over Scattershot to be Silverbolt's moldmate?).

My guess is to simply balance out bots and cons. Scattorshot came eventually, so any "priority" was really just on the order of design/release. For regular release you had 6 autobot voyager torsos and only 3 cons, with Red OP, Cyclonus and Scattorshot not having dedicated limbs or as "free agent" torsos. Those were the only 3 that didn't have to be released with their limbs. Red OP was always going to be a wave 1 release as the big name, and I don't think they would want to release a 2 con case when there are only 3 for the whole line. So that basically made Cyclonus need to be in wave 3 or 4. Scattorshot was easier to fit around this than Cyclonus was is my best guess.

Well, it still rankles that Cyclonus got favored not only as first pick but also with a full set of alternate parts including for torso mode, whereas Scattershot got stuck recycling the Superion combiner parts.

Scattershot wasn't planned initially I think, or at least was added on later like Trailbreaker was with the new non-head parts. Also look at this way: Cyclonus looks so different it lessens the chance of "you already have this toy", while Scattershot released later feels more like a "second chance". There's a little bit psychology involved with these decisions, you know?

Legacy Menasor will feel more accurate to the source material, yes, but the material itself lends itself to cop-outs with the liberties taken (all to make the limbs more proportionate I bet, seen Streetwise as a limb, toy vs. animation? ).

I feel like Scattershot's lateness in the line was less about his being a last-minute addition and more about that being the case of his retooled nosecone and wings. Every CW Deluxe and Voyager mold had a planned head pretool made by Hasbro (minus Sky Lynx due to both his uniqueness and his coming late in the line [he was probably a late addition]) and Scattershot fits the bill for Silverbolt's quick and easy head pretool. Reportedly, Cyclonus had his own head pretool as King Starscream, but which never saw the light of day, much like Onslaught's pretooled Demolishor head, Rook's pretooled Brawl/Ironclad head, Trailbreaker's pretooled Hoist head, etc.

Sabrblade wrote:

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Combiner Wars (30th anniversary coming up or not, why was Cyclonus prioritized over Scattershot to be Silverbolt's moldmate?).

My guess is to simply balance out bots and cons. Scattorshot came eventually, so any "priority" was really just on the order of design/release. For regular release you had 6 autobot voyager torsos and only 3 cons, with Red OP, Cyclonus and Scattorshot not having dedicated limbs or as "free agent" torsos. Those were the only 3 that didn't have to be released with their limbs. Red OP was always going to be a wave 1 release as the big name, and I don't think they would want to release a 2 con case when there are only 3 for the whole line. So that basically made Cyclonus need to be in wave 3 or 4. Scattorshot was easier to fit around this than Cyclonus was is my best guess.

Well, it still rankles that Cyclonus got favored not only as first pick but also with a full set of alternate parts including for torso mode, whereas Scattershot got stuck recycling the Superion combiner parts.

Scattershot wasn't planned initially I think, or at least was added on later like Trailbreaker was with the new non-head parts. Also look at this way: Cyclonus looks so different it lessens the chance of "you already have this toy", while Scattershot released later feels more like a "second chance". There's a little bit psychology involved with these decisions, you know?

Legacy Menasor will feel more accurate to the source material, yes, but the material itself lends itself to cop-outs with the liberties taken (all to make the limbs more proportionate I bet, seen Streetwise as a limb, toy vs. animation? ).

I feel like Scattershot's lateness in the line was less about his being a last-minute addition and more about that being the case of his retooled nosecone and wings. Every CW Deluxe and Voyager mold had a planned head pretool made by Hasbro (minus Sky Lynx due to both his uniqueness and his coming late in the line [he was probably a late addition]) and Scattershot fits the bill for Silverbolt's quick and easy head pretool. Reportedly, Cyclonus had his own head pretool as King Starscream, but which never saw the light of day, much like Onslaught's pretooled Demolishor head, Rook's pretooled Brawl/Ironclad head, Trailbreaker's pretooled Hoist head, etc.

I'm afraid that may never get properly resolved outside of Developer Commentary. Still, nice point of discussion any day.

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:Legacy Menasor will feel more accurate to the source material, yes, but the material itself lends itself to cop-outs with the liberties taken (all to make the limbs more proportionate I bet, seen Streetwise as a limb, toy vs. animation? ).

Which source material, Menasor's animation model, or the way the animators typically misinterpreted it? Because he way Menasor was typically drawn was the animators just plain screwing up; they turned the smaller Stunticons from limbs into stuck-on accessories. Being accurate to that - as I fear the Legacy version is going to do, based on the reveal of Drag Strip splitting - is inferior and a complete waste of plastic. As is the unnecessary ditching of the CW joint system.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:Legacy Menasor will feel more accurate to the source material, yes, but the material itself lends itself to cop-outs with the liberties taken (all to make the limbs more proportionate I bet, seen Streetwise as a limb, toy vs. animation? ).

Which source material, Menasor's animation model, or the way the animators typically misinterpreted it? Because he way Menasor was typically drawn was the animators just plain screwing up; they turned the smaller Stunticons from limbs into stuck-on accessories. Being accurate to that - as I fear the Legacy version is going to do, based on the reveal of Drag Strip splitting - is inferior and a complete waste of plastic. As is the unnecessary ditching of the CW joint system.

I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate and say a little bit of both, given changes to the standard did not get communicated throughout the whole production.

I tend to write an article like this for posterity at the end of every line to see if toys from the yearly generations line (which seems to have the most coveted mainline toys year after year) did make it to shelves. And yes, in spite of a global pandemic, and warnings of toy shortages, every toy from the Kingdom line has made it to US shelves. The final one is core class Hot Rod. He was found at a Walmart store in Auburn, Maine, by tf fan Mumble-bee.

Now even if you don't find Kingdom Hot Rod at your particular store, he will be rereleased in the Legacy line. So will Blaster and so will Galvatron, other toys that fans have expressed trouble finding.

Here is the source for the original sighting.

Too slow, America.

I ( or rather my family, I was at work) just finally spotted Slammer and Pipes in store at a local Walmart on Friday. So Blaster and Core Hotrod are the only ones I've not seen in store, but again as mentioned, those are reappearing in Legacy, so not to worry for those that wanted them.

I think the issue was more last year. I never saw ER wave 3 Deluxes, or Voyagers in store. They were easy enough to get online,but still, I wonder where they all went. I got Fasttrack from Amazon Last year, but I saw that he was actually a clearance item at Best Buy online. How about actually putting some product in store? People will buy it.

One would be think repacks for future lines would be based on what was the hardest to find and is the most in demand. ER Arcee and Wheeljack don't seem to fit that Description, and I think I only ever saw ER Prime in Kingdom packaging Once, so I'm not sure if that even made a difference or not.


Putting tail enders like Blaster and Core Hotrod are always a good choice. It worked out well for most of us that never saw Siege Astrotrain to get him in ER. Same with Rung. Singe though....not so fortunate. Thankfully his price seems to have come down in the secondary market.

I agree, ER was worse. Wave 3 was really weird. And the exclusives were on another level of hard to find where even pre-ordering online was not a given for getting a toy. Glad Kingdom is better for everyone than ER was.

william-james88 wrote:I agree, ER was worse. Wave 3 was really weird. And the exclusives were on another level of hard to find where even pre-ordering online was not a given for getting a toy. Glad Kingdom is better for everyone than ER was.

I've bought two Blasters (one for a buddy) in store. I had to get Sunstreaker from BBTS. Just to help make your point.

william-james88 wrote:I agree, ER was worse. Wave 3 was really weird. And the exclusives were on another level of hard to find where even pre-ordering online was not a given for getting a toy. Glad Kingdom is better for everyone than ER was.

Other than finding Earthrise Arcee at a Walgreens once, the ONLY time I ever saw any figures from wave three on store shelves was at my local Aldi of all places. Got the Alicon, Smokescreen and Airwave then. Kingdom has definitely been much easier to collect and find, with the only figures in store i haven't seen being Commander Rodimus, Titan Ark, Pipes, Slammer, and the new Blaster and core Hot Rod. (And in the latter 2, I haven't been to any store recently so they may very well be on shelves where I am and I don't know it.)

Slashercon wrote:Other than finding Earthrise Arcee at a Walgreens once, the ONLY time I ever saw any figures from wave three on store shelves was at my local Aldi of all places. Got the Alicon, Smokescreen and Airwave then. Kingdom has definitely been much easier to collect and find, with the only figures in store i haven't seen being Commander Rodimus, Titan Ark, Pipes, Slammer, and the new Blaster and core Hot Rod. (And in the latter 2, I haven't been to any store recently so they may very well be on shelves where I am and I don't know it.)

Not to be too technical, but those examples you sighted were from ER wave 2 not 3. But no big deal. I know a few people found wave 2 somewhat hard to find as well.

Also, you reminded me, I *technically* never saw Kingdom Rodimus in store either, but I got it from Amazon shortly after it came out, and it has been readily available, even at a discounted rate on many sites, so not seeing that particular item in store wasn't a big loss.

I don't think I've heard any complaints about anyone wanting Kingdom Rodimus, and not having it due to lack of availability.

Slashercon wrote:

william-james88 wrote:I agree, ER was worse. Wave 3 was really weird. And the exclusives were on another level of hard to find where even pre-ordering online was not a given for getting a toy. Glad Kingdom is better for everyone than ER was.

Other than finding Earthrise Arcee at a Walgreens once, the ONLY time I ever saw any figures from wave three on store shelves was at my local Aldi of all places. Got the Alicon, Smokescreen and Airwave then. Kingdom has definitely been much easier to collect and find, with the only figures in store i haven't seen being Commander Rodimus, Titan Ark, Pipes, Slammer, and the new Blaster and core Hot Rod. (And in the latter 2, I haven't been to any store recently so they may very well be on shelves where I am and I don't know it.)

You're mixing up waves 2 and 3. Wave 3 was Sunstreaker, Trailbreaker, Fasttrack and Runamuck. Wave 2 was scarce enough, wave 3 was almost non-existent.

There were some ER figures that I never saw on shelves anywhere, like Trailbreaker and Sunstreaker. But generally, I saw at least SOME of every figure in the Kingdom line. The WFC lines have been an odd journey. But I admit I got kind of used to their consistency. It'll be interesting and possibly a little jarring to go back to Transformers lines that aren't bound to each other, and thus, will probably have some inconsistency...

DeathReviews wrote:There were some ER figures that I never saw on shelves anywhere, like Trailbreaker and Sunstreaker. But generally, I saw at least SOME of every figure in the Kingdom line. The WFC lines have been an odd journey. But I admit I got kind of used to their consistency. It'll be interesting and possibly a little jarring to go back to Transformers lines that aren't bound to each other, and thus, will probably have some inconsistency...

I feel the past 6 yearly generations lines have had some consistency, even though characters repeat. We have had through lines all across them. I think it will be the same with Legacy and whatever comes next where deluxe Kickback would be in scale with Combiner Wars Silverbolt.

william-james88 wrote:I feel the past 6 yearly generations lines have had some consistency, even though characters repeat. We have had through lines all across them. I think it will be the same with Legacy and whatever comes next where deluxe Kickback would be in scale with Combiner Wars Silverbolt.

I would agree with that mostly in that Prime Wars (Trilogy), and WFC (Trilogy) (2015-2021) (7 production years years and 6 lines...eerily *almost* mirroring the original series in terms of time) as they were basically under the same design team the whole time, and slowly brought things more and more into focus with the original series, and giving occasional nods to other series.

What about T30 though? (mid 2013-2014). I know it was a mixed bag, and was the last line designed by Archer before transitioning to Warden. I feel some of it works with current year Generations, and some do not.

o.supreme wrote:

william-james88 wrote:I feel the past 6 yearly generations lines have had some consistency, even though characters repeat. We have had through lines all across them. I think it will be the same with Legacy and whatever comes next where deluxe Kickback would be in scale with Combiner Wars Silverbolt.

I would agree with that mostly in that Prime Wars (Trilogy), and WFC (Trilogy) (2015-2021) (7 production years years and 6 lines...eerily *almost* mirroring the original series in terms of time) as they were basically under the same design team the whole time, and slowly brought things more and more into focus with the original series, and giving occasional nods to other series.

What about T30 though? (mid 2013-2014). I know it was a mixed bag, and was the last line designed by Archer before transitioning to Warden. I feel some of it works with current year Generations, and some do not.

Legacy is just a continuation. There is zero daylight between those figures and these in terms of design and scale.

Artist Ken Christiansen has a pretty cool job and has been featured several times in our articles. He draws the initial design for Transformers toys before any actual toy design (like CAD file) is drafted. He basically draws a character in both modes for the the Hasbro designers to then use as a basis for the toy's design. And below we see the initial design of Tigatron and Cheetor in their alt modes, which Ken posted on Facebook. It had been rumoured that Tigatron was initially supposed to just be a redeco of Cheetor in the Kingdom line but it was then chosen that he would get a new voyager class mold and a seperate character would be a Cheetor redeco (which turned out to be Shadow Panther). These were just rumours of course, but these drawings from Ken definitely bring some more truth to them since the beast mode for Tigatron is, as Ken puts it, a "new tiger head sketch and recolor over the Cheetor concept".

I can't wait to get Core Hot Rod. I am excited for him.

Soundwave is pretty neat. I find him more fun in boombox mode than robot mode honestly. I think I prefer Megatron to him.

Got Kingdom Rhinox. I almost didnt But I was getting sick of T30's loose legs. Whoever at Hasbro came up with the leg transformation. Should be hung by there toes and used as a Pinata. I wanted to try and swap the Thrilling 30's Show accurate head with the Kingdom head but that Kingdom Head won't budge

Kingdom Rhinox is one of those figures that I transformed to alt mode once and vowed to never do so again

Feels good to have the season-one Maximal cast, at least. I'm looking forward and hoping to complete the Predacon side, as well. Once I get Terrorsaur from Pulse all I'll need is Inferno and Tarantulas!

Autobot N wrote:Kingdom Rhinox is one of those figures that I transformed to alt mode once and vowed to never do so again

Lawl same.

TOO MUCH ENERGON! wrote:

Autobot N wrote:Kingdom Rhinox is one of those figures that I transformed to alt mode once and vowed to never do so again

Lawl same.

I guess I'm a masochist, I've transformed mine 4 times now. The first, using Hasbro's instructions was the worst, by far. I'm not sure where they went wrong, but some of their steps just didn't make sense. The second and third weren't too bad once I generally knew where everything went and how to get it there. It was also pretty soon after the first time. This was a month or 2 ago. The 4th was last night and not as pleasant, mainly because I forgot what order I did the legs. I eventually stumbled into it. He's back in bot mode now. I store them in totes in alt mode, so there will eventually be a 5th, I'm just not looking forward to it that much.

Edit: That being said, he's still pushing floppy-assed T30 Rhinox to the ebay pile.

Autobot N wrote:Kingdom Rhinox is one of those figures that I transformed to alt mode once and vowed to never do so again

I thought the same, I just don't like the transformation on him. Plus, there are issues with the chest that I don't like either. He's strange, he feels like what the T30 should have been in terms of stylization and T30 is closer to what they were going for for this line.