Sightings of TFs from the Generations line have been reported all over the web. On Seibertron.com, there are 97 sightings of Cybertronian Optimus Prime from WFC as of this writing. Amazon, Hasbrotoyshop, and TRU have been taking orders for them online. I’ve been keeping my eyes open for their availability in stores for some months now. For some odd reason, here in the West Coast they are still very scarce. But I finally located some at my local TRU this past Monday.

At this moment, my TRU is the only place that has them in very limited quantities. They are nowhere to be seen at my Walmarts or Targets. But I’m just glad I was able to get some. I will be opening these very soon and doing reviews. Until then, feast your eyes on these pics of them in the package.

Sharp TransFans will notice that Hasbro tweaked the Transformation Level on the package to more accurately describe the difficulty of the toy. Hasbro used to simply let the size of the toy dictate the Level, which was absurd. For Generations, Hasbro has extended the scale from 0 to 5 instead of the usual 1 to 4. All 4 figures in the above pics are Deluxe size, but their Levels are different. Prime and Bee are rated 4 for Advanced, Drift is 3 for Intermediate, and Thrust is 2 for Easy. I commend Hasbro for going with this approach.

The Classic line is currently my favorite line of TFs. Generations toys are a direct extension of this, so I couldn’t be more thrilled. There are many more toys planned for this line already, including Red Alert, Dirge, Cybertronian Soundwave, Blurr, Cybertronian Megatron, and many more that I’m forgetting. I eagerly look forward to all of them. Transform and Roll Out!

In my last post I went into some TF pre-orders I made recently. This week I added another one.

G1 Blaster by Hasbro, SDCC and HasbroToyShop Exclusive

There are always exclusive figures released for the SDCC. And this year is no exception. Hasbro has certainly embraced this trend and in recent years they have been releasing TF figures where they first become available at the SDCC. Sometimes they don’t sell out and you can find them later on HasbroToyShop.com, online vendors, or other conventions. But sometimes they are quite rare and buying them later comes with a significant markup. I haven’t been to a single SDCC but I have many of its exclusive TFs, including Alternator Nemesis Prime, Titanium Menasor, Alternator Rodimus, and Classic 2.0 Soundwave with 4 Mini-Cassettes. Nemesis Prime I got at AX 07, Menasor came from HasbroToyShop, and Rodimus was acquired for me by a friend that went to SDCC 2007. As for Soundwave, he was also available from HasbroToyShop right after SDCC 2009, but he sold out very quickly so I missed my chance. Fortunately for me I won an ebay auction sometime later for about the same price. But I was not about to make the same mistake with Blaster, this year’s SDCC exclusive TF. SDCC ended last Sunday and Hasbro put him up for sale on HasbroToyShop this week. As soon as I found out, I pre-ordered one. He also comes with 4 Mini-Cassettes like 2009 Soundwave. But as far as I know, there has never been a re-issue for Blaster or any of his cassettes in the United States. This is indeed special. My purchase was absolutely required. I’ve played with the toy when I was a kid. He’s not bad. Blaster is much bigger than Soundwave. As of this writing, he is still available from HasbroToyShop. Miss out and you’d be feelin’ the Blaster Blues.
 

That’s it for now… Transform and Roll Out!

There appears to be a drought of TFs released by Hasbro over the last few months, at least for me on the West Coast. I think the only figures offered by Hasbro at this moment are the Generations figures and the “Hunt for the Decepticons” sub-line of ROTF figures. I haven’t seen the Generations figures anywhere, despite the fact their sightings are reported all over the internet now and many online retailers have them in stock. I’ve only seen the Hunt for the Decepticons figures at one Toys R Us in my area and they’re supposed to be everywhere too. Oh, btw, I picked up the leader class Starscream recently released in this line. He’s a great figure. I may do a review on him in the near future.

To illustrate my point about the drought, I looked thru my records of TF purchases and since March I have only acquired 3 newly released figures: Animated Arcee, ROTF Mindwipe, and the aforementioned leader class ROTF Starscream. I’ve reviewed Arcee, and both Mindwipe and Starscream are recommended figures. For me, buying only 3 new TFs over a period of 5 months is like Kobe Bryant taking only 3 shots in a game.

However this is not to say I only bought 3 figures for this entire period. I did buy more TFs, but they are either old figures that I never got, old figures that I decided to get more of, or non-Hasbro Transformers (such as FansProject products). And I pre-ordered some TFs recently, which is the topic today.

I’m really not a fan of pre-orders. I only do them when it appears that pre-ordering is the only way I’ll be able to get something. If possible, I prefer to just go down to the store and buy my TFs (or any other collectibles for that matter), or wait until after the whole pre-ordering period and buy them from any number of sources. I realize that retailers like this system b/c they can use it as a way to gauge demand. And sure, pre-ordering gives the impression that if you pre-order, you will have “secured” the item and thus you will be guaranteed a copy when it’s released. But this system really doesn’t solve anything for the consumer. For extremely limited items, all it does is move up the point in time at which potential buyers compete to place the order. At the time of pre-order, there are usually no real reviews of the item from other people, so if the item turn out to suck, you’re stuck with it. Pre-orders usually can’t be canceled, and the item often can’t be returned or replaced. Some retailers even require part or whole payment up front. Sometimes the retailer don’t get enough stock from their distributors, so even if you pre-order you’re still not guaranteed one. And sometimes the retailer gets way too many that after the pre-order period, they can’t get rid of them fast enough so the item becomes way cheaper than what you paid for it. And more often than not, pre-orders don’t get released at their stated release dates, so budgeting can be an issue for the hardcore collector. The whole system just sucks.

Anyway, sorry about the rant. This wasn’t the purpose of the post. I guess when I started to think about pre-orders, how much I hate the system just flooded over me. Most of the pre-order horrors that I experienced had to do with anime PVCs (which for the most part I no longer collect). Fortunately, I usually don’t pre-order TFs. But it does happen from time to time and stuff I pre-ordered recently appears below.
 

Crossfire 02 Munitioner and Explorer by FansProject
I touched on these already. Look at this post for the full details. However I just pre-ordered on these last weekend from TF Source. I got the combo deal so I saved myself $7.99, though that’s really not a whole lot considering how much they are to begin with. Supposedly their release is pushed back to late August, but some fans appears to already have them in hand! I don’t know what the deal is, but FansProject is obviously done. I can’t wait to get mine.
 

G1 Seacons by Hasbro, exclusively from BBTS

At Botcon this year, news came around of a re-issue of the complete Seacons set in their G1 colors. Supposedly the Seacons have never been re-issued since G1. I’m not sure if this was meant to be a Botcon exclusive at the time. This is an official Hasbro product, but it is released exclusively thru BBTS, and it might have first been available at Botcon. So yeah, not sure what is the exact nature of this threesome, but BBTS is making this available to everyone on their website. There is a July release that retails for $74.99, and a later August release that is slightly cheaper at $59.99. I’m on a mission to buy all the G1 combiners so buying this was a no brainer. But I’m not in a hurry to get this so I went for the August release. Check BBTS for complete details. I have two Seacons from G1, Seawing and Overbite. Seawing is complete and in great shape. I think I got him at a Osco Drug. Overbite is in good shape too, but I don’t have any of his accessories. Actually, I don’t even remember buying him. But regardless, I’m glad at the chance to own the whole set.
 

Faith Leader by iGear

The Masterpiece G1 Optimus Prime figure has been around for quite some time now. It is hands down the greatest Optimus Prime figure ever made. Size-wise, this figure was made to scale with other MP figures (up to a certain point) and figures from the Binaltech/Alternator line. While that’s great, Hasbro has been scaling down the figures in recent years. For example, MP Grimlock is only about the size of the MP Seekers, and Alternity figures are way smaller than Binaltechs/Alternators. This creates a problem for MP Prime as he is now way too big in relation to these newer figures. And so enter iGear. Like FansProject, they are in no way related to Hasbro. Their PP01“Faith Leader” is supposed to be every bit identical to MP Prime, with the exception that it’s smaller so it will scale better with classic figures and MP Grimlock. Faith Leader in truck mode is almost the exact same size as Classics Optimus Prime in truck mode, but in robot mode Faith Leader is much bigger. I’m told the first batch of PP01 sold out real fast. So when the 2nd PP01 went up for sale, I pre-ordered with a quickness. Faith Leader is about $100 with around $18 ship to the United States. It is available only thru the iGear website and they require payment upfront. These policies definitely made it a turn-off and normally I would not even consider playing by these rules. But this is something I really want and I’ve heard good things about the figure so I pre-ordered one. I normally don’t keep track of the statuses of my pre-orders, but I already paid for this in full so I’m watching it with more diligence than usual. Still, my decision to pre-order Faith Leader is somewhat questionable. It’s expensive, there’s no diecast like the MP, you gotta pay in advance, and technically it’s a smaller knock-off of a Hasbro product. This is not a feel-good purchase for me, and I put the blame partially on iGear and partially on myself. Maybe after I get Faith Leader I will have something more positive to say. Peaugh’s video review of the figure appears below.

These are all the outstanding TF pre-orders I have at this time. I’m hoping they will all get to me by the end of August, but with pre-orders you never know. I intend to do reviews of all these figures.

Stay cool my fellow TransFans, and until next time… Transform and Roll Out!

Transformers Animated is officially over in the United States, so all the remaining toys that were planned for this line are now released in limited quantities through major retail chains as store exclusives. Personally, I don’t like it when items are released as “limited” or “exclusives” purely to stir up demand, but I don’t think that is what’s going on here. The remaining TFA toys will only be purchased by a small but loyal following, so the sensible solution is to release them in limited numbers. Hasbro saves money by producing less units overall, the stores get to advertise them as exclusives, and the real fans that want them still get a chance to buy them. It’s a win-win-win for all. This is much better than the alternative where the toys don’t get released, in which case the fans don’t get them, and Hasbro can’t recover any sunk cost that already went into the planning (and possibly manufacturing) of these items.

All the remaining Animated toys are products of this nature. Toys R Us carries most (if not all) of the Animated figures released this year. Earlier in the year I found Cybertron Mode Ratchet at TRU. Unfortunately I never made a blog post about him, so let me just say now that he is a great figure. He was advertised with Arcee, another figure that I really wanted. Her sighting was reported as early as January of this year on Seibertron.com, so I’ve been hunting for her at my local TRU for at least some months now. I finally found her this week.

I’ve yet to watch all of the Animated series, so I haven’t seen her character yet. But looking at the toy and at images on the web, Animated Arcee most definitely takes cues from G1 Arcee. This may be the most accurate Arcee figure ever produced. Check out some images of Arcee in the pacakge.

I will be opening her soon and doing a full review. Until then… you better stay close to her! Transform and Roll Out!

February looks like another good month of robot action. I have acquired even more transforming robots. They are:

Robotech Masterpiece BETA Fighter VFB-9H by Toynami
This is a figure I have wanted for quite a while now. Toynami has made a reputation of producing figures of sub-par construction (I heard the Maia Sterling Shadow Alpha was even recalled), but the Beta appears to be the exception. I’ve seen very favorable reviews of this piece on many Youtube videos and blogs, so I look forward to this fighter with high anticipation. Word is that Toynami contracted a new factory in China to produce their figures, and the improved results are reflected in this piece. Prices over the holidays hovered around $130 to $140 at the low end while some dealers were asking $160+. So yesterday when I saw this on Ebay for $114 shipped Buy It Now, I jumped on it immediately. Actually, this was the price of many dealers and I don’t know what accounted for this price drop. Maybe all of a sudden Toynami recovered a lost stash somewhere, or maybe they simply decided to make more, who knows. But I’m glad I waited. I paid this morning and I’m hoping to get it by this weekend. I will be doing a review of this for sure. Stay tuned.

Transformers Animated Leader Class Bulkhead by Hasbro
Transformers Animated is officially over so I’m buying its figures while they’re still up for grabs. There’s not a whole lot left in the stores at this point. Last week I was once again at TRU to return my Samurai Prowl because of the broken peg issue. While I was there, I saw that they were clearing out all TFA Leader Class figures at $20 apiece. The only thing they had was Bulkhead. I’ve heard good things about him, and he is one of the central 5 Autobots in TFA, so I went ahead and bought him. That was a good decision b/c I am very impressed with this figure. He’s got a sturdy frame and nice clicky joints. The toy captured the Animated look extremely well, and his transformation is unique without being overly difficult. I won’t go into all the details here since I plan on doing a full review. But at $20, you owe it to yourself to get this if you haven’t already. At this price he’s one of the best TF values around.

Transformers Alternity Bumblebee by Takara
I was very impressed with Alternity Cliffjumper, and so I was also on the lookout Alternity Bumblebee. I generally don’t like buying repaints, but I’m a sucker for repaints of G1 characters. About 2 weeks ago, my buddy Gemini informed me that OtaCute had these on sale at $24.99 each. They also offer SAL shipping, and for one Alternity figure its about $8. I thought this was way too good to be true. But at this price we could not resist. Gemini already had Bumblebee and needed CJ, so we decided to combine our orders and save even more on ship. The grand total for 2 Alternities plus SAL ship came to only about $60. I still had my doubts, but this week they arrived just fine. OtaCute came thru no problem! These prices are unbeatable and I will definitely check OtaCute from now on when I need Japanese TFs. I already opened CJ so I will most likely keep Bee in the box.

More Robots = More Awesome. Transform and Roll Out!

Out of all the Transformer lines that I collect, Transformers Animated is the most recent one next to ROTF. I admit, when I first saw the Animated designs, I was like, “WTF?!” For a G1 purist, the cartoony and whimsical look of TFA was an absolute abomination. It was easy for me to disregard the show completely.

But being the hardcore TransFan that I am, I couldn’t stay away for long. I first saw the Animated toys back in the summer of 2008. I didn’t buy any, but they did grab my attention. I was impressed with the way the toys looked, but at the same time I wasn’t sure if I wanted to invest in a line in which I do not intend to watch the show. Fast forward to around April or May of 2009. I was at Target when I happened upon this Voyager Sunstorm and Activator Ratchet 2-Pack for a measly $5! I wasn’t collecting TFA, but it would have been a crime to not buy the set at such a price. And so I made the purchase and these two became my first TFA figures, one whole year after the initial launch of the line.

I opened the set sometime later, and I was thoroughly impressed with Sunstorm. I was still skeptical of the cartoony design, but I was impressed by the mechanical engineering of the toy and how well it captured that animated look. The Sunstorm figure was robust and had good articulation. The transformation from robot to jet was clever, and the toy designers succeeded in integrating the animated style as part of the transforming function to produce a high-quality figure.

As collectors, we all know that once you buy that first piece in a set or line, you have opened the floodgates to the rest of that line. And so I started to acquire more TFA figures. My next purchase actually came from Cragislist. I bought 15 figures for $80 from zversus. He’s both a big TF fan and a big Gundam fan so check out his youtube vids. But anyway, they were all in really good shape, and with a modest $85 investment I now own 17 TFA figures. Not a bad start to the collection of this line if I dare say so myself.

Between then and now, I bought about half a dozen more TFA figures. I found good deals on all of them. Ultra Magnus I found with my buddy Gemini at TRU for $20 (he got one too). I had a coupon for Wreck-Gar. The only exception was Leader class Megatron. I paid MSRP for him at Amazon, but I don’t regret it one bit b/c he’s such a cool figure. Overall, I’m very impressed with the Animated line of toys. I’m still kinda turned off by their designs, but over time it has kinda grown on me. At least now I find it tolerable. And their looks are still heads and shoulders above the bug-like designs of the Michael Bay TFs. Gemini gave me the Season 2 DVD for xmas and I shall be watching it soon.

But back to the post at hand. Prowl is a character I wanted for a while in this line because, well, he’s Prowl. He’s a very important character in G1, 2nd in command only to Prime in the first two seasons. In Animated he’s one of the 5 central Autobots. I love both ninjas and samurais so I was looking for the Samurai version. I was very happy to find him on the shelves of TRU on Tuesday. I had to pay MSRP, but at this point I’m not really complaining. TFA is officially over, so once these figures are gone, they’re gone.

I will be opening him soon and doing a full review. Stay tuned… Tranform and Roll Out!

I’m starting the new year right! This weekend I bought some more Transformers and Macross stuff and I got good deals on all of them. Here’s what I acquired:

Macross Zero SV-51r Gumma Nora Type Valkyrie 1/60 Scale by Yamato
Yamato always produces great Macross fighters. My most recent Yamato purchase before this weekend was the VF-11B from Macross Plus. Other Yamatos I have include the 1/60 scale YF-19 (with fold booster and fast pack, purchased separately) and a whole bunch of 1/60 VF-1 fighters that were made in the early 2000s (non-Perfect-Transform versions). I am happy to add the SV-51r to my Macross collection. The best part: I found a brand new one for $160 shipped! The English site of AmiAmi had one on sale at 50% off which was only about $113. Shipping from Japan is expensive, but at $160 total it’s still a steal for a Perfect Transform 1/60 scale Yamato. I’ve wanted the SV-51r for a while now. It’s very different from fighters in the VF line and I can’t wait for this piece to arrive.

Transformers Alternators Wheeljack by Hasbro
I love figures from the Binaltech/Alternator line. This line is now officially discontinued and there are figures I regret not buying when I had the chance. Alternator Wheeljack is one of these figures. Prices for Alternators are usually ridiculously high on Ebay, and for Binaltechs it’s even more so. But this weekend I was able to find one at a reasonable price. I won the auction at about $30 shipped for a brand new Alternator Wheeljack. Not a bad price at all considering what some other dealers ask for. I already have the Grimlock mold (in both Binaltech and Alternator) so I know how this transforms, but Wheeljack does have a different head mold and nice blue racing stripes that makes it worth adding him to my collection.

Transformers Alternity Cliffjumper by Takara
When I first started this blog, I made a post about whether or not I should buy Alternity Bumblebee and Cliffjumper. Well, this weekend I finally caved and saw a good auction for Cliffjumper on Ebay, so I went for it. I won the auction at $47 shipped. This was pretty much the pre-order price at many online toy sites, but I missed my chance and now most dealers are asking for him in the mid-50 dollar range. I’m glad I was able to find one without paying any markup. The only reason I hesitated on pre-ordering these guys is b/c Seibertron made a post about his chest and mid section being too bulky, resulting in a chubby figure. But then I saw this Youtube review by Peaugh that offered a very different opinion. So yeah, had to have him. Now I still need to buy Bumblebee.

I just paid for all these guys and I’m hoping they arrive in a week. I will be doing reviews of all of these… if I decide to open them. So stay tuned…

I’m off to see what else I need to buy… keep shopping my fellow TransFans… Transform and Roll Out!

This is a post that’s long overdue. I found ROTF Bludgeon on Christmas Eve at Walmart. He’s still quite rare as of this writing, only 24 sightings on Seibertron and only 1 on the West Coast where I am. Very happy I was able to find him right before Xmas. I would have posted about this sooner. But things have been kinda hectic for me since Xmas and the commotion still hasn’t died down yet, so I haven’t got to opening him or writing about him. But check out these pics of him in the box.

This Bludgeon might officially be in the ROTF line, but his roots are most definitely G1. In G1 he was a Pretender. His shell consisted of Japanese samurai armor with the face of a human skull, and his alt mode was a tank when he was out of the shell. In the ROTF incarnation, the alt mode remains similar, but the robot mode resembles the G1 shell. Very cool indeed. His colors stay true to the G1 version. The master of Metallikato plays a fairly prominent role in many of the comic books, such as G1 US Marvel, War Within, and Stormbringer. It’s good to see his toy done right and receive the proper attention he deserves.

I will open him soon and do a proper review. Until then… Transform and Roll Out!

Today after work I decided to visit Toys R Us. I’m not entirely sure why I decided to go. It might have been that I have not visited any stores for TFs since I found MP Skywarp, and I was suffering from TF hunting withdrawals. Or maybe because I did most of my Christmas shopping online this year, that I actually missed doing some good old-fashioned physical in-store shopping with the crowds of other xmas shoppers to better get me into the holiday spirit. Or maybe because I knew that ROTF Dirge was recently released, and my TF sense was tingling.

Whatever the reason, I’m glad I stopped by TRU. The Thrust figure from the ROTF line is very impressive, so Dirge is another one I looked forward to. I knew that other fans have spotted him for a while now. As of this writing, there are 12 sightings on Seibertron. I’ve also read other WordPress blogs that reviewed Dirge already. So you could say I had feeling I would find him soon. After I fought my way to the TF aisle, I saw that Dirge was indeed on the shelves.

Check out the pics below. Dirge looks like some kind of VTOL type fighter jet. I think this might better fit Ramjet, but it works for Dirge too.

His G1 motto is “Fear is the element that unites all losers”. And his courage is 2?! I guess he must be talking about himself.

I will open this figure soon and give it a proper review. Stay tuned… Transform and Roll Out!

In an earlier post, I mentioned I am on the hunt for Masterpiece Skywarp. Today around noon I finally found him at the Walmart near my work. There are like 34 sightings on Seibertron by now. I don’t know why Northern California is so slow to get these, but I’m just glad I didn’t miss out on a US Masterpiece Edition. There were close to 2 dozen units of these in the store. The best part… only $55! Everyone else reported $60 so I’m getting a $5 break. Any savings is better than none.

Overall, he is packaged very similar to how MP Starscream was packaged. Check out the pics.

Looks great from the front.
 

I love the side artwork.
 

Conversion Level is only 3?! WTF?! All MPs should automatically be 4.
 

I’m very happy with this find. Another great TF to my collection.

TransFans, get him before he teleports off the shelf. Transform and Roll Out!