• Season 1: All Deluxes, started out with War for Cybertron (WfC, not to be confused with the 2019-2021 trilogy) but rapidly drifted into "eh, whatever."
• Season 2: Deluxes, Voyagers and even combiners, dominated by Fall of Cybertron tie-ins and retools of same.
• Thrilling Thirty: Commander Class, Deluxes, Voyagers and Titan Class. While there's some Fall of Cybertron in the mix (especially retools), there's a shift back to Neo-G1. Ran in the background for 2014.
• Cyber Battalion: A weird little side line aimed at second tier retailers. It actually launched in 2015 with super-limited (i.e. not worth paying scalper prices for) releases, but finally started to come out more in 2017. Still findable on shelves at Walgreens in 2020, but nothing new in a while.
• Authentics: Similar to Cyber Battalion in that it was mostly aimed at retailers like Dollar General or Walgreens. Started in 2018.
• R.E.D.: Robot Enhanced Design, another shot at the non-transforming action figure concept along the lines of Robot Replicas, with alternate hands like many Japanese figures have. Started in 2020.

    While technically the Studio Series is the Transformers version of the Black Series in Star Wars or Marvel Legends, R.E.D. (Robot Enhanced Design) is a little closer to the sort of toy found in the Black Series. Action figures that don't transform, but are screen-accurate and come with optional hands rather than trying to make articulated hands. Unlike Legends, it doesn't (so far) use the Build-A-Figure gimmick, instead focusing on accessories. In the US and Canada it is a Walmart exclusive, although the packaging is not marked to indicate this.

• Wave 1: All G1 animated designs. Megatron, Soundwave, Optimus Prime.
• Wave 2: Arcee (TF: Prime), Cheetor (Beast Wars).
• Wave 3: Coronation Starscream (TFtM, with cloak and crown), Bumblebee (G1).
• Wave 4: Optimus Primal (BW), Reformatted Megatron (purple with gridlines redeco of wave 1 version).
• Wave 5: Ultra Magnus (white redeco of G1 Optimus Prime), Knock Out (TF: Prime).
• Wave 6: Galvatron (TfTM) and Shockwave (G1). So, take wave 1 Megatron, wave 4 Megatron, and this Galvatron and line them all up as a process shot.
• Wave 7: Optimus Prime and Megatron from Transformers: Prime. Megatron sold out instantly online and never made it to any stores around here, I've had Optimus sitting around waiting for a wavemate before I bother reviewing it.

    The idea behind this was to provide "Evergreen" toy designs that could be sent to stores like Dollar General without having to recycle old molds as had been done for several years. The results were...not necessarily preferable to more recycling.

• Bravo Wave 1: The Bravo size class is meant to sell at $5, replacing old Legion figures, but bigger and cheaper to make. And boy are they cheap. Assortment is Optimus Prime (semi tractor), Bumblebee (sportscar), Megatron (sorta-tank), and Starscream (WTF-15).
• Bravo Wave 2: Just Grimlock, scaled down and simplified from the Alpha version.
• Bravo Wave 3: Another single-figure wave, this time Ratchet.
• Bravo Barricade: Decent police car and robot, even has elbows. Needs window paint pretty badly, though. No full review, I've got enough backlog as it stands.
• Bravo Arcee: Despite the lack of real heels, it can stand pretty well, arms are a bit questionable but do have decent articulation. No lipstick. Transformation is very finicky, and not helped by the fact that the shafts that hold the knee joints need to be collapsed into the thighs and they're high friction rubbery plastic. Still, once everything is finally in place, it's reasonably secure. She comes with a pistol that becomes the car's fin.
• Bravo Optimus Primal: First to come in the new "plastic-free" packaging, along with a repack of wave 1 Bumblebee. Quite good, probably the best Bravo class so far, especially once you wash it to remove mold release oil that renders the joints floppy.

• Alpha Wave 1: Similar (sometimes nearly identical) designs, but bigger and with slightly better articulation and so forth. Bumblebee, Grimlock, and Optimus Prime. Man, Bumblebee is SO BAD, and of course it seems to be longpacked.
• Alpha Wave 2: Just Megatron, a scaled up and slightly altered Bravo with more articulation and a slightly improved transformation.
• Alpha Wave 3: Just Soundwave, in a design similar to the Cyberverse version.
• Alpha Shockwave: Decent winged robot mode, turns into the inevitable spaceship, but I'm pretty sure the instructions and package photos have the spaceship mode flipped upside down. Worth picking up, though. (Another victim of my massive backlog in terms of not getting a full review.)
• Alpha Wheeljack: Has the usual popping off ball joint problems of most Authentics, but it looks pretty good in both modes. There's a few points in transformation where it's liable to lose pieces, though. Note, Family Dollar has raised the price of these to $11.25, but as of June 2022 they're still $10 at Dollar General.
• Alpha/Titan Changer Grimlock: So, the late 2023 assortment saw a "plastic free" packaging version of three larger figures that look like Titan Changers (super lanky, lower quality than Alphas) but are not labeled as such. So, either they're dropping the label from packaging, or the next Alpha assortment is just using Titan Changer designs. Either way, the Optimus and Bumblebee are horrible, but Grimlock looked just not-horrible enough for me to pick one up for $12. It's quite bad, especially compared to the older Alpha Class Grimlock. It has one (1) clever bit, a lever on the back of the dino head that lets you work the jaw. Barely worth $5, and certainly not worth the $12 they want at Dollar General.
• Alpha/Titan Changer Soundwave: Found it at CVS on a day I had a bunch of discounts about to expire, so grabbed it for $9 total. Even worse hollowness than Grimlock, arms are too short in robot mode, legs are fused together. But the SUV mode is okay, and the chest opens (it has to for transformation, but you could put a Titan Master inside it when in robot mode). Probably the best of the 2023 "I guess it's replacing Alpha class" figures, but that's not saying much.

• Titan Changers Wave 1: The same sort of low-articulation and simplistic transformations seen in other Titan Changers, but with Authentics character designs. First wave is Megatron (tank with feet on the sides), Bumblebee (sportscar), Optimus Prime (semitractor). $10 price point, unlike the usual $15 for Titan Changers.
  • Megatron: 10.75" (27cm) tall, almost totally hollow from behind, only articulated at the shoulders. Cannon is pegged on, so can be placed on the forearm or in the hand. Transformation is a decent Legion-style design, and the tank mode is pretty good for an Authentic. About worth the money.

    At first glance they're just oversized Legion molds, maybe with a few more joints added, but some of them are fairly new designs. The principle seems to be "Titan Changers, but with a design team that isn't horrible". Initially came out in very limited numbers outside of Asia, assortments in America are mainly my guesses.

• First Burst: Optimus Prime (mostly based on Legion Generations mold, the one that keeps coming back at Dollar General), Bumblebee (RiD-style vehicle mode, Prime Legion engineering, G1-ish head), Jetfire, Prowl. Walgreens got these, and they rarely get a full case of anything for a store, but I've seen enough to guess at the assortments. It looks like stores either got two Optimuses, two Bumblebees, or one each of Prowl and Jetfire. Assortment numbers suggest two waves shipping all at once.
• Second Wave: Megatron and Starscream molds exist, and there's indications there's six total in the range Walgreens bought into, so these two are probably it. Starscream is a retool of Jetfire, with new head and wings. Only spotted outside of the U.S.
• U.S. Second Wave: Shockwave (flying cannon sort of thing) and Sideswipe (Prowl retool). Both pretty good for what they are.

    Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the toy line, much as an earlier Generations/Universe series did the 25th.

LEGENDS CLASS

    The Legends class is revived here to sell at the same price point as the data discs (and in fact are series 02 to the discs' series 01). They are somewhat smaller than similarly-priced Commanders, but compensate for that by including Targetmaster-style partners.

• Wave 1: Optimus Prime with Autobot Roller, Bumblebee with Blazemaster. Not off to a stellar start.
• Wave 2: Megatron with Chop Shop, Starscream with Waspinator. Ah, much better.
• GDO Hoist: Actually part of the first or second season, but since I'm not going to create a separate page for Chinese exclusives, I'm just gonna link it here.
• Wave 3: Swerve with Flanker, Cosmos with Payload. Both good designs, but ill-fated in release timing.
• Wave 4: Tailgate with Groundbuster, Skrapnel (Shrapnel) with Reflector. Very hard to find in stores, even worse than wave 3.
• Wave 5: Cliffjumper (Bumblebee redeco) with Suppressor (Roller redeco), Nemesis Prime (Optimus Prime redeco) with Spinister (Blazemaster redeco). Ended up getting them online after all, during a sale.
• Wave 6: Acid Storm with Venin (Starscream & Waspinator redeco), Gears (Swerve retool) with Eclipse (Flanker redeco).

    At least the first wave comes packaged with special new-cover (and sometimes tweaked content) copies of IDW spotlight issues for the characters. Or, where there wasn't a Spotlight, some significant issue featuring the character. A few, like Orion Pax, have new comics commissioned for the toy. The price point hasn't changed, but the comics will probably let stores justify keeping them at the initial $15-16 price longer before dropping them to $12-13 like the last several runs of Deluxes across the lines.

• Wave 1: Megatron (stealth bomber from the comics), Orion Pax (Cybertronian truck), Bumblebee (current comics, leader of the Earthbound Autobots) and Trailcutter (with the comic altered so he's always Trailcutter rather than changing his name during the comic).
• Wave 2: Reships of wave 1, plus Hoist (Trailcutter retool) and Thundercracker (redeco of Fall of Cybertron Starscream).
• Wave 3: Goldfire (Goldbug retool of Bumblebee, not reviewed), Waspinator (wasp), Dreadwing (retool of Megatron with G2 Dreadwing head), Skids (hatchback).
• Wave 4: Armada Starscream, Skywarp (FoC Starscream redeco), Mini-Con Assault Team (combiner), Scoop (double targetmaster).
• Wave 5: Tankor (Beast Machines), Rattrap (Beast Wars). Warning: Rattrap has a breakage issue with the shins.
• Wave 6: Crosscut (Skids head swap), Jhiaxus (major retool of Armada Starscream), Windblade (VTOL jet), Nightbeat (Bumblebee head swap). All pretty good.
• Wave 7: Chromia (extensive retool of TF:P arcee), Arcee (sports car).

• Blitzwing - Tank and jet, suffers from a significant (but fixable) design flaw in the shoulders.
• Autobot Springer - Armored car and helicopter. It has a lot of little flaws, but no big one, so it's better than Blitzwing.
• Sandstorm - An extensive retool of Springer, and generally an improvement.
• Doubledealer - A head-swap redeco of Blitzwing. Sadly, didn't fix the shoulder flaw.
• Rhinox - Hey, Beast Wars gets some love!
• Whirl - G1 Whirl update, as opposed to the Wreckers combiner or an adaptation of the current comics version. Notorious for fragile knee joints.
• Roadbuster - The other Dorvack-import character updated, another Wrecker to add to the crew. Sadly, while it comes with stickers like Whirl did, it comes with very badly cut and designed stickers that seem intended for an early prototype.
• Sky-Byte - Robots in Disguise's poetic shark, given his own brand-new mold! It's better than the original Cybershark II redeco, but that's not the highest bar in the world to get over.
• Brainstorm - Final non-combiner Voyager, an update of the G1 design. Beware of neck breaking. And briefcases.

    Might as well fill in some of the gap between Voyager and Titan, yes? $45 price class.

• Jetfire: #21 of 30 of the Thrilling Thirty, a bit marred by the inclusion of random chrome on the weapons. Would be a great $30 toy, but is a so-so $45 toy.
• Thundercracker: A "pretool" of Jetfire, fairly extensively redone to look more like an IDW-style seeker.

    The biggest, most expensive Transformer in years...decades if you don't include limited editions and Japanese stuff. For the foreseeable future there is only one figure in this class ("Titan Heroes" et al are a different sort of thing, and much cheaper):

• Metroplex: Robot, City, Battlestation. Loads of stickers, which may be a deal-breaker for some, but I liked it overall.
  • Third Party: Iron Factory EX-02 Weapon Defense Squad: Turrets and Manacle - Plus some nifty BMOG-ish weapon drones. These are basically well-articulated Six-Gun and Slammer (who gets a robot mode).

    The Fall of Cybertron theme was more strongly kept to this time, although the season was fairly short, wedged between other lines.

DELUXE

• Wave 1: Optimus Prime (battle truck), Autobot Jazz (Cybertronian racer), Shockwave (Cybertronian mobile artillery).
• G2 Bruticus Gift Set: Wave 2 has these sold separately in different (but not game-accurate) colors, which I comment about as well. The bear rides the unicycle, but not all that well.
• Wave 3: Ultra Magnus (Optimus Prime headswap with new weapon), Sideswipe (MASSIVE remold of Jazz), Air Raid (significant Shockwave retool), Kickback (mecha-locust, new mold) and Starscream (jet, new mold). Kickback aside, a very good wave.
• Wave 4: Wreckers retooled from Combaticons. Roadbuster, Impactor, Whirl, Twintwist and Topspin combine to form Ruination. The new weapons are nice, but have some missed opportunities.

• Soundblaster and Autobot Blaster: The first wave of Voyagers was Soundwave and redeco Soundblaster, the second wave was retool Autobot Blaster and new mold Grimlock.
  • Minion Packs: Sold as the new $10 price point between Commander and Deluxe, two-packs of data disks that can go in the chests of any of the three versions of the Soundwave mold.
    • Rumble & Ravage
    • Frenzy & Ratbat
    • Eject & Ramhorn
    • Rewind & Sunder (orange Laserbeak)
• Grimlock: Robot T.rex, as usual. Good robot mode, kinda bricky dino. The other half of wave 2.

    All Deluxes. Started out with something of a theme, but drifted badly, to the point where it was unclear why some toys ended up here rather than in the tail-end movie stuff that year.

• Wave 1: WfC Bumblebee (Tron-bike-ish car), WfC Optimus Prime (armored truck), Drift (sports car), Thrust (Classics Starscream remold).
• Wave 2: WfC Optimus Prime, WfC Bumblebee, Darkmount (halftrack, this is essentially Straxus from the Marvel comics), WfC Megatron (hovertank).
• Wave 3: Reships of WfC Bumblebee, WfC Megatron, Drift and Darkmount, plus WfC Soundwave (combat car) and Red Alert (Classics Sideswipe redeco with lightbar, not quite the same mold details as the Henkei version). Red Alert not reviewed at this time.
• Wave 4: Dirge (Ramjet mold with new wings) and Blurr (Drift remold with sniper rifle), plus reships.
• Wave 5: Thunderwing (space jet), Skullgrin (re-head of Darkmount), and Cliffjumper (re-head of WfC Bumblebee, which looks pretty but doesn't fix any mold problems).
• Wave 6: Sergeant Kup (pickup truck) and Scourge (flying wing), plus reships. Yes, Scourge is Generations while movie-colors Cyclonus is Reveal the Shield, do not look too deeply into Hasbro's branding logic.
• Wave 7: Thundercracker (Classics Skywarp redeco) and Wheeljack (extensive remold of Reveal the Shield Tracks).
• Warpath: Wave 8 is all reships plus this one new mold. Very hard to find in first run, but reshipped along with wave 9.
• Wave 9: Sky Shadow (Thunderwing retool as Black Shadow from Victory) and Junkheap (retool of Wreck-Gar as a generic Junkion). (Note, both are Strongly Recommended if you don't already have the mold, otherwise recommended.) Final batch of the "first season".