While "recycling G1" remained the theme of Generations, the end of the Prime
Wars Trilogy saw a shift to a different storyline (to the extent there's much
story with any of the Generations toys), the War for Cybertron. No, not the
same as the War For Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron story from early in
Generations, this time around most of the altmodes look like Earth vehicles
with some extra greebles. Announced as a three year cycle, Siege is the
first part. Siege brings back Targetmasters more explicitly (the Decoy
Armors were sort of Targetmasters) in the Battle Masters class, as well as
Micromasters in the...um, MicroMasters class. I suppose the next year will
bring Actionmasters in larger numbers...I wonder if the third year will see
Yuusha characters? I'd joke about Big Powered, but we've already (in late
2018) seen grays of a retool set built around Overlord that will be Big
Powered, so they're already blowing through the last of the G1 stuff in Siege
(or Legends, the line is still called that in Japan).
- Siege: Targetmasters and Micromaster patrols come
back, along with pseudo-Cybertronian modes. Set at the start of the Great
War, before the Autobots were driven into guerilla warfare.
- Earthrise: Jump ahead to the dawn of the Terran phase
of the conflict.
- Kingdom: A few more G1 toys from the 1986 movie,
another truck version Optimus Prime of course, plus a big chunk of Beast
Wars. Sadly, they're mostly skipping the Japanese-only fiction. Introduces
Fossilizers, which are basically Weaponizers but made of dinosaur bones.
Bolded names got Strongly Recommended, while italic indicates a
rating of neutral or worse.
Depending on whether you go with the implied storyline of the toy packaging
or the explicit storyline of the Netflix series (in which modern Earth was
entirely skipped), this is either a time travel story or the story of the Ark
landing on Earth but not actually putting everyone in stasis. Either way,
there's a mix of 1986 movie toys (and as happened in 2010, some toys are part
of this line and some are off in the movie-based line, Studio Series this
time), Beast Wars toys, and the new Fossilizers (like Weaponizers, but they
turn into dinosaur skeletons). It brings back the $10 single figure price
point as "Core Class," basically the Legends class but a little smaller.
More comparable to the Thrilling 30 Legends figures, but without partner
figures. Autobots and Decepticons are joined by Maximals and Predacons, the
sigils aren't used for the Maximals and Predacons, but there's new blindpack
cards with one of several random "fates" revealed by peeling back a film,
reminiscent of the Power of the Primes cards, but both easier to collect (not
as many variants) and harder (can't tell which one until you open the
package).
CORE CLASS
Tiny guys with 3mm grip hands. Any skeletal figures in this class are not
really Fossilizers, as they don't come apart into accessories.
- Wave 1: Optimus Prime (truck), Rattrap (rat),
Vertebreak (pachycephalosaur skeleton).
- Buzzworthy Bumblebee and Spike Witwicky: An obvious
headswap of a Core Class Bumper, plus a little exosuit Spike, sold under a
mix of the Buzzworthy line and Kingdom.
- Wave 2: Starscream (jet), Megatron (tank).
- Wave 3: Dracodon (green Vertebreak redeco or retool),
Soundwave (tapedeck).
- Wave 4: Hot Rod. Will be reissued in wave 1 of Legacy
if you can't find it in Kingdom packaging.
DELUXE
As Siege had a Weaponizer in each wave and Earthrise had a Modulator, Kingdom
has a Fossilizer in each wave. These use the FOSSIL system (Fossilized
Osteo-Skeletal Shield Integration Loadout).
- Wave 1: Cheetor (cheetah), Blackarachnia (spider),
Warpath (tank), Paleotrex (T.rex skeleton Fossilizer). Review also includes
Kingdom Cheetor.
- Netflix Kingdom: Cheetor (see above, more show-accurate), Deep Cover
(Siege Sideswipe redeco), Deeseus Drone (Siege Ironhide redeco), Sparkless
Decepticon (Siege Barricade redeco). Didn't bother with any but Cheetor.
- Wave 2: Airazor (hawk), Ractonite (styracosaurus
Fossilizer), Huffer (semitractor), Arcee (re-release of Earthrise version,
not reviewed).
- Wave 3: Scorponok (BW version), Wingfinger
(pterodactyl Fossilizer), Tracks (sportscar), and bonus Target exclusive Road
Rage (Tracks retool) review. Not reviewed is the repackaged Earthrise
Wheeljack.
- Wave 4: Waspinator (wasp), Shadow Panther (Cheetor
retool). Plus bonus review of the Covert Agent Ravage/Decepticons Forever
Ravage HasCon exclusive set, since there's more Cheetor retooling here.
- Wave 5: Pipes (Huffer retool), Slammer
(Modulator/Weaponizer).
- Exclusive Batch 1: Shattered Glass Blurr (Studio 86
Blurr retool), Transmutate (Paleotrex retool), Tricranius Beast Power
(Ractonite retool with a bunch of bonus Fire Blasts). None are particularly
impressive.
- Battle Across Time Collection 1 and 2:
Technically one mold is a Voyager, but the boxes both say Deluxe Class.
These are the Amazon exclusives for Kingdom, and feature a beast toy and a
G1-style toy. These first two have box art that links up. Maximal Grimlock
and Autobot Mirage (retool of Voyager Dinobot in BW Grimlock white,
Earthrise-style retool of Siege Mirage) in the first box, Maximal Skywarp and
Sideswipe (head-swap redeco of Airazor based on BWII Skywarp, and Sideswipe
retool that makes him almost a shape-twin of Earthrise Sunstreaker in vehicle
mode).
- Walgreens has Red Alert (Battle Across Time
Sideswipe redeco with Siege lightbar) as its Kingdom exclusive, although it's
proving elusive (I got mine online during one of the brief times when it was
available there).
- Origin Bumblebee: A Target exclusive with Bumblebee
turning into his hover saucer mode from the very first G1 cartoon episode.
While thematically closer to Studio Series, the packaging has the War for
Cybertron logo on it.
- Golden Disk Collection: Another batch of Amazon
exclusives, because Battle Across Time wasn't enough, and I'm getting them
all. Puffer and Road Ranger two-pack (Pipes and Huffer retools), Jackpot
with Sights (Studio 86 Jazz retool with Pteraxadon), Mutant Tigatron
(Tigatron retool in early prototype colors) and Terrorsaur (near-total retool
of Airazor).
- Shattered Glass Slicer with Exo-Suit: I only got
this one from the second wave, but it's a pretty good set. Redeco of
Earthrise Wheeljack with new guns based on Energon Downshift's, and a redeco
of Fasttrack (well, Black Roritchi).
VOYAGER
No particular gimmicks at this size class.
- Wave 1: Optimus Primal (gorilla), Cyclonus (space jet).
- Netflix Voyager Optimus Primal and
Rattrap: Unlike Netflix Cheetor, these are not more show-accurate, just
darker. A little. And since they don't come with trading cards, you get
even less for the $40.
- Wave 2: Dinobot (raptor dino), Inferno (Earthrise Grapple retool, not the ant version).
- Wave 3: Rhinox (rhino). Not bad, but pales next to
the Thrilling 30 version.
- Wave 4: Tigatron (tiger), Starscream (Earthrise
repack). Theoretically, anyway, I've only seen Tigatron shipped with more of
Rhinox. As usual, not getting a repackaged version of a toy I already have,
though.
- Wave 5: Blaster with Eject. Boom box and tape
(which is compatible with Siege tapes).
- Shattered Glass Megatron: A redeco of Siege
Megatron with some extra pieces to flesh out a spaceship fan mode. Really
needed either one more piece to secure the front, or retooled legs to better
support the new mode.
- Generations Selects: G2 Ramjet (Earthrise redeco, I honestly forget if I
ordered this), Artfire with Nightstick (Inferno and Fire Drive redecos),
Shattered Glass Starscream (Siege mold, not getting).
- Mutant Tigatron: Part of the Golden Disk set, orange and blue with a
mutant head, based on the early ads for "Tigertron" (apologies
for scan quality, the scan is from the 90s). See Golden Disk Collection
above for review.
- Netflix Spoiler Pack: I originally passed on
this because it's yet another Siege Megatron plus Skelivore (a mostly
clear purple Paleotrex redeco) and some Fire Blasts and a tiny Matrix and
AllSpark. But it later went on deep clearance online (about the cost of a
Deluxe), so I grabbed it.
LEADER
The first two waves contain exactly one totally new mold.
- Wave 1: Megatron (Beast) (T.rex), Optimus Prime
(repackage of Earthrise version, will not be getting).
- T.Wrecks is a Target-exclusive red and blue deco of Megatron, but I was
not impressed enough by the mold to want a redeco of it.
- Wave 2: Ultra Magnus (significant cosmetic retool of
Siege mold).
- Wave 3: Galvatron (cannon, close to animation
colors). Lots of people report issues with shoulders assembled incorrectly,
involving pins that need to be knocked out to fix. Fortunately I got one
with the correct shoulders. Updated 4/5/22 with the scan info from the
moderate redeco (no battle damage paint) released in Legacy.
- Generations Selects: Galvatron (toy colors). I don't plan to get this, I
find the color scheme ugly. There's also a "reformatting" Galvatron which
reminds me of the original Tron action figure line and comes with a couple of
ships and a bunch of minifigures for Unicron.
COMMANDER
- Rodimus Prime: Leader-sized bot turns into the
front bit, trailer becomes a battle platform. It could have been strongly
recommended except for some serious design flaws and really common assembly
errors.
- Shattered Glass Jetfire: Mostly black redeco of the Siege Jetfire mold,
in keeping with the "repurposed as" list for Jetfire that the TFCC
established, rather than giving him Starscream colors. Won't be getting. I
mean, it's a nice mold, but not "$80 for a redeco" nice.
TITAN
- Autobot Ark: I guess they wanted something that wasn't
a redeco but also at least kinda tied to Beast Wars, but Unicron was already
taken by the HasLab version. The Ark turns into a giant robot and hauls
itself out of the volcano to join the fight. Hidden inside the chest and
acting as a bridge display set is Mainframe, who also transforms into a
Teletraan-1 wall panel.
Much of the Siege mentality continues in this year, but they've embraced the
Micromaster-style connected bases more fully with a new (and incompatible
with Titans Return) "AIR-Lock" ramp system, Battle Masters that turn into
"shields" that are also ramps, and "Modulators" that are like Weaponizers but
also turn into bases. Some Siege toys are re-released to compensate for poor
distribution, others because they had extras I guess? Regular release toys
outnumbered by exclusives, in any case. Regular sets and most of the
exclusives contained pieces of a galactic map laid out in hexes, anywhere
from a third of a hex (Battle Masters and Micromasters) up to a 20 hex chunk
for Scorponok. I finally got around to assembling all the pieces at the end
of 2022, and a couple of pieces had to misalign to match boundaries, plus a
lot of the route lines failed to connect. It's as if they lost the original
file with routes and had to rebuild it from guesswork.
And yes, even if you leave out redecos of Siege molds, there's more
store-exclusive Deluxes in Earthrise than non-exclusive. And with five
store-exclusive Seekers alone plus G2 Megatron, there's more exclusive
Voyagers than non-. This is getting well and truly out of hand.
GALACTIC ODYSSEY COLLECTION
A pile of exclusive redecos tied together in a prequel story that bridges the
time between Siege and Earthrise, it includes a lot of Amazon exclusives, but
not all Amazon exclusives. The focus is on five worlds visited by either the
Ark directly or by Autobots from the Ark during their trip to Earth, making
use of the full map.
- Encounter 1: Paradron Medics - Ratchet (retool of the
Ironhide retool from another exclusive) and Lifeline (Arcee redeco). Really
getting tired of the Arcee mold.
- Encounter 2: Micron Micromasters - Redecos of three
Micromaster sets (Battle Squad, Hot Rod Patrol, Race Track Patrol), split
into three Autobots and three Decepticons. The Hot Rod Patrol redecos are
split by faction, but both are homages to VENOM vehicles from MASK.
- Encounter 3: Biosfera Clones - Reissue of the Autobot
Clones with very minor paint differences. First one to ship to me, so it has
all the "what this collection is about" infodump.
- Encounter 4: Dominus Criminal Pursuit - Barricade
(Smokescreen retool) and Punch/Counterpunch (redeco of previous exclusive
version from Prime Wars).
- Encounter 5: Botropolis Rescue Mission- Ironworks
(redeco) and Overair (Airwave redeco) along with a redeco of the Astro Squad
and a retooled Battle Squad turned into another G1 Astro Squad member, plus a
redeco of Doubledealer's missile to let them form a Countdown-lite base.
BATTLE MASTERS
Three new ramps, plus reships. Retailers largely decided this size class was
over, and it's not back in Kingdom.
- Wave 1: Soundbarrier (shield/ramp), reship of
Smashdown.
- Wave 2: Slitherfang (cobra to shield/ramp), reship
of Rung.
- Wave 3: Doublecrosser (robot to crossroads ramp),
reships of first two waves. Not really worth chasing down.
MICROMASTERS
- Wave 1: Hot Rod Patrol (Daddy-O, Trip-Up) and
Military Patrol (Bombshock and Growl). Daddy-O is Big Daddy, they lost the
name again.
- Wave 2: Race Track Patrol (Roller Force and Ground
Hog, names swapped compared to G1), Astro Squad (Fuzer and Blast Master,
tweaked to sort of have solo vehicle modes).
- Wave 3: Repackage of the Battle
Squad, plus reships from waves 1 and 2. Y'know, if they were gonna end
Earthrise's Micromasters on a Siege repackage, they could've gotten some more
Spy Patrol 2 out there, eh?
- Galactic Encounter: Micromasters on Micron: Amazon exclusive redecos of
the Hot Rod Patrol, Race Track Patrol, and Astro Squad.
DELUXE
- Wave 1: Hoist (tow truck), Wheeljack (race car),
Cliffjumper (sports car with big cannon), Ironworks (Modulator contruction
site, semi-documented comm station mode).
- Pictures of Ironworks third mode, with and without Shapeways add-on: 1, 2, 3.
- Decepticon Clones: Technically between classes at a
$25 price point, but I'll put them here. Slight redecos of the Titans Return
versions, sold as a Target exclusive to help pad out the Decepticon side of
the table. Slighty improvements, IMO.
- Generations Selects Batch 1: Exhaust (headswap
redeco of Wheeljack), Greasepit (accessory swap redeco of Ironworks).
- Wave 2: Arcee (sportscar), Decepticon Airwave
(Modulator), Quintesson Allicon (bah wheep graghna wheep ninibong),
Smokescreen (sportscar).
- Wave 3: Trailbreaker (Hoist retool), Decepticon
Fasttrack (Weaponizer, based on Scorpnok partner), Sunstreaker (sports car,
shared engineering with Wheeljack), Runamuck (sportscar), plus bonus Target
exclusive Runabout.
- Autobot Alliance: Amazon exclusive two-pack
with Ironhide (retool of Siege Ironhide with a new roof) and Prowl (retool of
Smokescreen). Both of mine had significant assembly defects that required
repair...it's a good set but with the indifferent QC and the fact that it
sold out before mine even arrived makes it a rather risky gamble.
- Lots more store exclusives: Netflix, Walgreens, and lots and lots of
Generations Selects.
- Netflix and Walgreens: Netflix wave 2 Elita-1
(Arcee retool) and Bumblebee (major retool of Cliffjumper), and Walgreens
exclusive Bluestreak (retool of Smokescreen). Not getting the purely redeco
figures in the Netflix set (Impactor, Wheeljack, Red Alert), so lumping these
together as non-Selects.
- Siege Retool Selects: Rotorstorm (Spinister
redeco), Autobot Tigertrack (Sideswipe redeco), Deluxe Centurion Drone (Brunt
retool), Accessory Pack (part of Centurion's box). The accessory pack is
pretty good, too bad the set sold out quickly in pre-order. Painted tiny Optimus
Prime that I ended up doing.
- Earthrise Selects batch 2: Hubcap and Bugbite
(Cliffjumper retools/redecos), Hot House (Airwave redeco), Black Roritchi
(Fasttrack retool/redeco).
VOYAGER
- Wave 1: Autobot Grapple (crane truck, serious design
flaw in some of the connection pegs), Starscream
(F-15-ish jet).
- Exclusive Seekers Sets: This time around, it looks like most if not all
of the Starscream redecos and retools will be some sort of store exclusive.
- Thundercracker and Skywarp: Target exclusive
two-pack, a bit of a pain to get given how they kept being in stock for
minutes at a time before selling out.
- Ramjet and Dirge: Amazon exclusive two-pack,
retooled with cone heads and new wings. Sold out shortly after I ordered
mine, scalpers have gone nuts and want $200+ now. Sigh. Good, but not
triple price good...for that price, you can probably get some good 3P
versions of the characters and not enrich a scalper.
- Thrust: Exclusive to Target, sold out in something
like 15 minutes while I wasn't at the computer. Got lucky and found a lone
one on a nearly empty Christmas-week shelf, though.
- Wave 2: Snapdragon (Robot/Jet/Reptile) and
reships of Starscream.
- Wave 3: Megatron (nearly complete retool of Siege
Megatron), Quintesson Judge (turns into a battle station or something).
Status: haven't seen Judge in the wild, not particularly impressed and will
wait and see if I ever see it in person. It keeps coming back into stock
online and going out of stock immediately, gonna pass on it. Fortunately,
someone who did get it sent me the map piece.
- Netflix Soundwave: Retooled extensively and
given an official tapedeck altmode. (Spotted and passed on the Optimus Prime
redeco with clear yellow Soundbarrier and Pteraxadon redecos that is the
wavemate.)
LEADER
- Wave 1: Optimus Prime with trailer, Astrotrain reship (or first ship, for most stores).
- "Rest Mode" Amazon Exclusive: All done in grays as a corpse. Listing it
here because I might buy it, might not. Probably not, though.
- Wave 2: Doubledealer (Triple-changer missile
truck and robot falcon), plus reships of Optimus. Has undocumented features
related to the Knok and Skar in the Spy Patrol 3rd Unit set.
COMMANDER
- Sky Lynx: In addition to the classic G1 modes, he
also gets a base mode. Unfortunately, that base mode suffers from some
quality control issues and may require user modification to hold together.
TITAN
- Scorponok: the year's big guy, many years after his
counterpart Fort Max. Deluxe Fasttrack (sold separately) turns into his
spear. He's a Headmaster, and thanks to 5mm sockets and pegs you can attach
Weaponizer or Modulator limbs to the head to make a Gunmen.
Battle Masters (aka Targetmasters) and Micro Masters (Micromasters) join the
fun, as the story apparently disconnects entirely from the Prime Wars. The
line-wide gimmick is the use of clear plastic energy effect "Fire Blast"
pieces that can be connected to 3mm pegs on the figures.
Note, due to a poor choice of fonts in early promotional materials, the early
Siege logo looked like it said STEGE, and you're going to see that as a
nickname for the line even though the final release went out of its way to
avoid that error.
In addition to Autobot and Decepticon symbols, the packaging (but not the
toys) for Siege toys get additional sigils that tell you something about the
character beyond their faction. Some of the earlier reviews have me musing
upon their meaning, but I finally got enough examples to figure out the
patterns reasonably well. This file has my
deciphering of the sigils, and I will further update it as necessary as I get
more information. Last updated: 11/13/19.
Similarly, we originally had to guess at what to call the icons for various
weapon stats, I finally read a Hasbro Pulse article that provided a key to
the names of the icons that were used (and also gave some stats not provided
on the toy's instructions). On 11/15/19 I went back and fixed all of the
abbreviations and also added the Division/Unit/Rank info.
BATTLE MASTERS
Filling the cheap end at $5-6, these are single-packed Targetmaster updates.
Some turn into melee weapons rather than ranged, so Battle Masters does work
better to cover the full range.
- Wave 1: Firedrive (rifle), Lionizer (sword), Blowpipe
(rifle). Note that Lionizer was a rifle in G1, and also was an Actionmaster
partner, so they're mixing up some of the properties.
- Wave 2: Aimless (rifle, heavy retool of Blowpipe),
Pteraxadon (axe, new character).
- Wave 3: Caliburst (Blowpipe redeco with new Fire
Blast), Smashdown (minotaur to hammer).
- Wave 4: Rung (cerebral scanner) and Singe (retool of
Firedrive). These are suffering badly from tail end charlie syndrome, not
even online sources got in enough to meet demand. If you don't have a
particular fondness for the characters, neither is worth serious effort to
track down, though.
- Note, several of the molds above get redecos as part of one of the $50
Amazon exclusive sets. Rung, Smashdown, and Pteraxadon do not have redecos
or retools yet, that I know of.
MICROMASTERS
At the Legends price point, we get two-packs of MicroMasters. Each pack
represents half of one of the G1 Micromaster Patrol sets, but the figures
have much better articulation and combiner into a weapon.
- Wave 1: Race Car Patrol (Roadhandler and Swindler),
Air Strike Patrol (Storm Cloud and Visper...yeah, couldn't trademark even
Decepticon Whisper, I guess, but Visper was used for the character in Japan
in G1), Battle Patrol (Flak and Topshot...lost Bigshot too).
- Wave 2: Rescue Patrol (Stakeout and Red Heat...not Red
Hot), Spy Patrol (Ravage and Laserbeak, not based on a Micromaster patrol).
- Wave 3: Sports Car Patrol (Blackjack and Hyperdrive,
retools of the Race Car Patrol).
- Wave 4: Off-Road Patrol (Highjump and Powertrain).
- Ten-Pack: A mix of redecos and retools of many of
the molds above. Oddly, some of the retools seem to be aimed at future
regular packs (e.g. Irontread has a retool despite Ironworks being a straight
redeco of Powertrain, suggesting a Big Hauler redeco later).
- Wave 5: Spy Patrol 2 (Ratbat and Rumble), Battle Squad
(Direct-Hit and Power Punch). I had to get the Battle Squad online, and
everyone was already out of Spy Patrol 2 by the time I looked. Supposedly
being re-released in Earthrise.
- Spy Patrol Unit 3: A Generations Selects four-pack
with Wingthing (Ratbat redeco), Frenzy (Rumble redeco), Skar (Ratbat retool),
and Knok (Rumble retool, as a Decepticon).
DELUXE
In addition to regular Transformers, each wave mixes in some "Weaponizers"
that are based on various partners for the Titans...so, while this may be a
distinct storyline, there's still accessories for older toys included. In
addition, they all have weapons meant to be reconfigurable, called the COMBAT
(Cybertronian Omnifunctional Modular Battlefield Assault Tech) System, with
the weapons able to combine with each other.
- Wave 1: Sideswipe, Hound, Skytread (Duocon, but
without individual robot modes), Cog (Weaponizer).
- Wave 2: Chromia (based on Moonracer/Novastar but
with major retooling), Ironhide, Prowl, Six-Gun (Weaponizer).
- Wave 3: Red Alert, Brunt (Weaponizer), Refraktor
(alone turns into a sort of spaceship thing, but get three and you can
combine them into a camera).
- Exclusives batch 1: Amazon-exclusive Autobot
Greenlight, and online-only (but not just one source, usually) Generations
Selects Autobot Lancer, Nightbird, and Powerdasher Zetar. Also has some
comments on Orthia, the all-femmebot Elita-1 combiner.
- Wave 4: Mirage (racecar), Impactor (tank),
Barricade (Prowl redeco).
- Fan Vote Battle Pack: Amazon exclusive three-pack of
Decepticon Impactor (new head), Holo Mirage (clear blue plastic, new head),
and Powerdasher Aragon (Cog retool). Good molds, good colors, kinda
expensive ($70 for three Deluxes).
- Exclusives batch 2: Autobot Ratchet (surprisingly
extensive Ironhide retool), Bluestreak (Prowl/Barricade redeco), Smokescreen
(Prowl/Barricade redeco), Powerdasher Cromar (Sixgun retool).
- Wave 5: Spinister (helicopter), Crosshairs (Ironhide
retool).
- Exclusives batch 3: Hot Shot (Hound retool),
Ricochet (leftover PotP Jazz redeco I'm tossing in with this review).
- Alphastrike Counterstrike set: One of two Amazon
"$50 for #45 of toys" sets, this one plagued with assembly errors that lead
to broken Slamdances. Contains Covert Clone Sideswipe (G2-inspired redeco),
Slamdance (retool of Skytread), and Trenchfoot (redeco of Blowpipe).
- Netflix Deluxe Wave 1: Chromia (redeco of
Chromia), Scrapface (redeco of Refraktor). Not reviewed are redeco versions
of Sideswipe, Decepticon Mirage, and Hound.
VOYAGER
These double (or triple) down on the COMBAT System, each having at least two
weapons that are meant to combine with each other.
- Wave 1: Optimus Prime (truck), Megatron (tank).
- Wave 2: Starscream (sort of a cross between a
classic "tetrajet" and a Colonial Viper), Soundwave
(flying gunboat crappy mode, but at least his chest opens up to hold his Spy
Patrol minions sold separately).
- Wave 3: Springer (surprisingly animation-accurate
triple-changer), reship of Starscream (a few sightings with Thundercracker
instead may have been a result of a shipping error).
- Wave 4: Thundercracker, reship of Megatron.
Note, Skywarp is only available in an Amazon-exclusive $50 set with three
redecoed Battle Masters, not really tempted to fill out the trio at this
time. (And now it's sold out.)
- Rainmakers Three-Pack: Target exclusive, with Nova
Storm, Acid Storm, and Ion Storm. Note, Nova Storm isn't purple, it's
yellow, in keeping with the Ask Vector Prime facebook account. (There is one
more Target-exclusive version of this mold, Redwing, but you have to get
their credit card to be allowed to buy it, meh.)
- Soundblaster: Part of the Walmart-exclusive
35th Anniversary wave. This is a retool of Soundwave based on G1 Japanese
Soundblaster. They also had cel-animated-looking redecos of Optimus and
Megatron, I passed on those.
- Apeface: The last Siege Voyager, an upgrade of
Titans Return Apeface...and yet not really. I mean, it's a full triple
changer, but I like the TR version better.
- Hotlink with Heartburn and Heatstroke: ONNNNE MORE
SEEKER. The flamethrower-wielding generic Seeker from G1 gets a toy, with
two new nonentity Blowpipe redecos as his flamethrowers, as seen on the
Netflix War for Cybertron show. Not worth the money unless you're really
into seekers or the characters turn out to be breakout hits on the show.
(Update: I think I saw Hotlink get blown up? Maybe?)
LEADER
In addition to the COMBAT System, the Leader toys seem to be going with the
Heavy Lifter thing, with extra vehicle parts that turn into super armor on
the main robot.
- Wave 1: Ultra Magnus (truck), Shockwave (brute armor stuff that can turn into a goblin
glider, not-a-gun space cruiser altmode). Hey, I have just enough room left
on my Ultra Magnus shelf for one more big one, if I juggle them around a bit.
- Wave 2: Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime (extensive
retool of Ultra Magnus) and reships of Shockwave.
- Exclusive Star Convoy retool of PotP Optimus. No plans to pick this up.
- Wave 3: Astrotrain. Already announced as part of Earthrise wave 1, so at
least in ONE case Hasbro realized early on that no one would be ordering the
last wave of Leaders.
- Netflix Ultra Magnus with Battlefield Rung:
Different theory of battle wear paint job, otherwise still regular Ultra
Magnus. Hot pink transparent Rung. A few small energon cubes and a can's
worth of black Play-Doh. Not really worth $60, but was already going on
clearance for $35 by the time I wrote this review.
COMMANDER
Recycling a class name with a major upgrade. Rather than being an Legion
sized figure with extra stuff, now Commander means something bigger than
Leader but not quite Titan, coming in around the $80 price point.
- Wave 1: Jetfire (jet). The only real flaw is how
hard it is to get some of the panels and bits to open up for transformation.
Very cartoon-accurate in robot mode, pretty close in jet mode.
TITAN
Yeah, don't expect to see this on any shelves, pick your preferred online
retailer and reserve well in advance.
- Wave 1: Omega Supreme with Countdown: Dig up one
of the older G1 big guys, and pack with the biggest Micromaster set's
Micromaster. Sure, I'll accept that, makes sense.
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