TRU (and eBay) tend to be the exclusive location for these in America, but not always. Sometimes K-Mart gets 'em. Also tossing the new Studio Series (with theoretically superior paint jobs) into the mix.

STUDIO SERIES THUNDERCRACKER: This is the Nitro Zeus mold with a new Seeker-style head, in blue. 3/7/18: TRU in Torrance CA. $29.99, four to a case.

Other Store Exclusives

WALGREENS WRECK-GAR: Retool of the Deluxe Groove mold, with the axe from the Thrilling 30 Wreck-Gar, and a Dinobot-mold Prime Armor. 10/27/18: Amarillo TX. 11/2: Fayetteville NC. 11/5: Greenville SC.

AUTHENTICS: Replacing the repackaged Legion figures that have been perpetually available at stores like Dollar General. The "Bravo" assortment has Legends-sized figures for $5, first wave being Bumblebee, Megatron, Optimus, and Starscream. These are simplified designs in the same vein as the Cyber Battalion figures. The "Alpha" assortment adds a few joints and is closer to Battalion size, but is still very simplified, and packaged on a large blister card. First Alpha wave is Optimus, Grimlock, and Bumblebee. 3/30/18: Bravo Optimus and Megatron at Dollar General in Amarillo TX. 3/31: Bravo Megatron, Bumblebee, and Starscream at Family Dollar in Amarillo TX. $5.25 at FD. 5/10: Alpha Bumblebee and Optimus Prime at Family Dollar in Amarillo TX, $10. 5/11: Had to check five more FDs, but found Grimlock. 5/14: Bravo at FD in Lanett AL. 5/31: Alpha at Dollar General in West Point GA. 6/1: Alpha at Dollar General in Amarillo TX. 9/1: Bravos at Walgreens for $7. SOOOOOO not worth that much. 10/19: Alphas at Big Lots for $10.

CYBER BATTALION: Not exactly a single store exclusive, but seems to be limited to "second tier" retailers like Walgreens or Meijer. These are largely Legion designs scaled up to Voyager size, but with extra joints, changed details, and so forth. Some are entirely new, but they draw inspiration from Legion-style transformations. Sold in non-window boxes at Deluxe price. 9/3/17: Bumblebee (movie-style Legion design, but with G1-inspired head) at Walgreens in Amarillo TX. Cosell is Megatron. Someone else in town spotted Jetfire and Prowl at a Walgreens I didn't check today, hopefully they'll still be there tomorrow. 9/4: Well, Jetfire was. It was stuck between plush animals on the top shelf of the cleaning supplies aisle. 9/6: Optimus Prime (based on the Legion Generations truck that keeps showing up in Dollar General) has been spotted in Brooklyn NY, alongside BB, Jetfire, and Prowl. So far no one has found a Megatron, despite it being on a lot of co-sells. 9/8: Optimus spotted by someone else at the Walgreens in Amarillo that I never visit (a part of town that's far enough away and has few enough draws for me that I almost never go there). 9/21: Walgreens in Simpsonville SC. 3/19/18: Sideswipe and Shockwave have been spotted in California. 3/29: Sideswipe and Shockwave at Walgreens in Quincy MA. 3/30: Sideswipe at Walgreens in Amarillo TX. (Sideswipe is clearly meant to be G1 Sideswipe, but the vehicle mode brings in slements of PRiD Sideswipe.) 4/1: Found Shockwave in Amarillo. Sideswipe definitely seems to be the shelfwarmer of the two. 4/6: Shockwave wave Big Bear CA. 4/8: Jetfire in Quincy MA. (They seem to be pushing out leftovers of that pair while sending the Shock wave.) 6/7: Shockwave at Walgreens in Fayetteville NC.

G1 REISSUES: Not entirely sure these are Walmart exclusives (they may have ben intended as TRU exclusives and Walmart picked them up). Hot Rod, Starscream, and a Constructicons gift set. Hot Rod is $30, Starscream is $35, but there was no shelf tag for the Constructicons I saw. 10/1/18: Walmart in Amarillo TX. 10/2: Walmart in Fayetteville NC. Constructicon set is quite expensive, $74 on the website, no guarantee of the same price on the shelf though. (It is $74.00 here, though.) 10/6: Mt. Zion IL. 10/14: Walmart in Canyon TX. 10/19: Quincy MA. 11/3: Orlando FL.

TITAN GUARDIANS: Walmart has brought back some of the old (4-5 years ago) Titan Guardians for $5 each to flesh out the low end of the G1 reissues displays. These are rotocast softer plastic non-transforming figures with limited articulation (shoulders, neck, waist), same ones that showed up at Big Lots in 2012-14 but with "Walmart Exclusive" stickers slapped on the tags. Tray assortment I saw has three TF:Prime Bumblebees, one TF:Prime Shockwave, five G1 Optimus Prime, two G1 Megatron, one each of G1 Starscream and Soundwave. 10/3/18: Amarillo TX. 11/11: Fayetteville NC.

    On a routine patrol, four 'bots in stasis....

MINI-CON WAVE 3: This one's tricky, because several have shown up online but not necessarily in stores. There's Sequoia the bear, Swift the Cheetah-Bot, and a single-pack version of Fireplug the Dalmatian. Swift is clearly meant to go with Bumblebee, Sequoia with Brushfire, and Fireplug with Heatwave. 5/2/17: Swift has been available on HTS for a while, I forgot to mention it. Sequoia at TRU in Amarillo TX, but no Fireplug or Swift.

THE FORSAKEN WAVE: So, Target is in the middle of a reset, has clearanced the older Mini-Cons to $1.49...and is getting in a wave of Swift and Silverback. You may or may not be able to get them, but they don't have the same SKU as the clearanced ones and might not be in the system at all. Check the clearance areas, stockers tend to dump things there when they can't find a matching peg. 8/4/17: Found at Target in Amarillo TX. I was able to buy a Silverback for $1.49, but the rest of the ones I found were put in back until such time as the price issue can be solved. 9/15: Local Target will actually sell them now, at last, for $4.99. TRU in Amarillo has Silverback but if they got Swift it had already sold out.

FLIP-BOTS WAVE 1: Basically Legion-sized Rescue Bots at the $5-6 price point. Tip them on their back to make the head and arms automatically pop out, no articulation. Optimus Prime, Medix, Hoist, Heatwave. 7/23/17: TRU in Amarillo TX. And yes, I added the "If they ever are" on 7/21. 8/4: Target in Amarillo TX. 8/9: Walmart in Amarillo TX.

FLIP-BOTS WAVE 2: Blurr, Chase, Sideswipe, reship of Optimus Prime. 9/15/17: TRU in Amarillo TX.

FLIP-BOTS WAVE 3: Muscle car Bumblebee, muscle car Boulder, single-packed jetplane Blades. 4/13/18: TRU and Target in Amarillo TX. 4/14: Walmart in Amarillo TX.

FLIP-BOTS LAUNCHERS: Bumblebee Quick Launch Garage with a little spring-launcher thing that sends the toy through a garage facade, jet-mode Airport Blastoff Blades with a runway-themed launcher. Blades is severely shortpacked. 7/29/17: $9.10 at Walmart.com. 8/11: $12.99 at both Target and TRU in Amarillo TX. Blades seems to be one per case.

FLIP-BOTS CONSTRUCTION TEAM: Boulder, Salvage, and new cement mixer character Mortar (mostly orange). 9/21/17: Available on HasbroToyShop.com for $16.

FLIP-BOTS GRIFFON ROCK RACING TEAM: Chase, Blurr, and Sideswipe. 2/18/18: Found at TJMaxx in Amarillo TX for $13.

FLIP RACERS CHOMP & CHASE RACEWAY: (Chase sold separately) Your basic race track that goes through a bit of scenery, in this case a weird hybrid of Chase's police station and a giant T.rex Optimus Prime head. Comes with a clear red Morbot Flip Racer. $40 price point. 12/15/17: Target in Amarillo TX.

BASIC WAVE 9: This is all repackaged stuff from the "Energize figures with unposeable partners" line, but it shuffles some of the partners to be correct. Optimus with Cody, Chase with Chief Burns, Boulder with Graham, firetruck Heatwave with Kade, helicopter Blades with Dani, and Bumblebee car gets to be with Doc Green. 1/7/16: TRU and Target in Amarillo TX. 1/14: Walmart in Amarillo TX.

SCOUT WAVE WHO KNOWS? Seriously, the official wave number is about twice as big as the last one I used, probably because slight assortment tweaks got labeled as distinct waves. Anyway, the latest batch is Heatwave (Morbot racecar retool), Bumblebee (redeco of the Rock Resue Team version, without the Mini-Cons), possibly others. TFWiki calls this Rescan Series wave 16. 11/9/18: Target in Amarillo TX.

EPIC WAVE 5?: $10 price point. Hollow "Titan Hero" style figures, but the chests open up to let human-scale figures ride inside. This wave adds Optimus Prime (truck), and seems to have reships of Boulder, Heatwave, and Bumblebee. 10/14/18: Walmart in Amarillo TX.

Night Rescue Heatwave: A slight redeco of the previous Epic Heatwave, replacing some of the yellow with orange. 5/4/18: Target in Amarillo TX. 6/6: Walmart in Amarillo TX.

QUICK DIG BOULDER: Entirely new mold, Boulder turning into a sort of "four tread/leg" vehicle (think Alphonse from Dominion Tank Police, or Huffer and Pipes from TF:Animated) with a backhoe. 5/16/18: Target in Amarillo TX. 6/6: Walmart in Amarillo TX.

BUMBLEBEE RESCUE GUARD: A large (but still simple) sports car Bumblebee with two animal helpers based loosely on the firehouse dalmation and Valor, but about twice as big. $40 price point, partially explained by light and sound gimmicks. 8/3/18: Target and Walmart in Amarillo TX.

OPTIMUS PRIME RACE TRACK TRAILER: Similar deco to the 2016 Racing Trailer, but this one is a new mold and comes with Flip-and-Change Bumblebee and Blurr. The trailer becomes a launcher that takes robot mode FnC's and fires them off down a track. No connector at the end for Hot Wheels track compatibility, as far as I can tell. 8/3/17: Up on Target.com (and actually for sale online). 8/11: TRU in Amarillo TX, $65. 8/12: Walmart in Amarillo TX, $49.44.

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    PLUSH CLIPS: These transform by turning inside out, so the cloth of the altmode gets wadded up inside the chibi head of the robot mode. Optimus Prime (tractor-trailer), Starscream (jet), Hot Rod and Bumblebee (seem to be the same "mold" of car, but with different patterns), Soundwave (tape player). $6 at Target. 11/2/18: Spotted at Target in Amarillo TX. On an endcape, decided they weren't quite worth $6. 11/16: These have been moved to the stocking stuffers aisle and dropped to $5.

    TF CCG: Oversized warrior cards and regular sized "battle deck" cards, $15 for a faction starter with 4 warriors and 40 battle cards, $4 for a booster with one warrior and 7 battle cards. 9/28/18: Found at Target in Amarillo TX. Note, there's ONLY an Autobot starter, if you want to play Decepticon expect to buy a lot of boosters. The full rules are not included in the starter, just the "basic game" that can be played with one starter and none of the card abilities, glorified "War". Everything about this release stinks of abandonware, like they committed to making it and then changed their minds after it was too late to completely stop it. It is easily the worst bad-faith release of a CCG I can recall seeing, and I was around for the CCG boom. Not going to bother reviewing the mechanics, just gonna say to not waste your money. 10/5: Now also part of Walmart's collectible stuff aisles.

    HALLOWEEN COSTUMES: The 2018 costumes are focused on the Bumblebee movie, with the usual padded-muscle costumes of BB and (the inevitable) Optimus Prime adding molded plastic chestplates. BB also has a blaster hand and a stinger hand that can fit over small forearms. The usual easily damaged thin plastic that probably won't survive one event, of course. 9/5/18: Should be out at all Walmarts now.

    MY BUSY BOOK: TRANSFORMERS: A board book with figures and playmat, using the Evergreen designs. Has robot and vehicle mode painted sorta-decoys for Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, and Hot Rod. 8/31/18: $10 in the Bargain Priced kidbook section at Barnes & Noble.

    HOLLYWOOD RIDES R/C BUMBLEBEE: A 1:16 sale Last Knight styled Bumblebee with remote control (2.46GHz controller) and USB connection. $25 price point. 8/3/18: Target in Amarillo TX.

    JUICE DRINKS WITH TOYS: A 10 ounce squeeze bottle of apple juice cocktail (20% juice) with an embedded capsule that contains a toy. Shrink wrap labels with images of PRiD characters (Optimus Prime, Strongarm, Bumblebee, Grimlock, Sideswipe), cut the label off to get at the capsule. The blind assortment has five decoy-like painted figures and five pencil toppers, using the five characters on the packaging. (There's also MLP bottles with each of the Mane Six and small pony figures.) $1.87 at Walmart. 1/30/18: No idea how long these have been out, I don't generally shop the juice-ish drink section, I just happened to notice these today walking through the aisle after getting something nearby. (Update: I'm told these have been around since at least October of 2016. And the juice cocktail itself is undrinkably vile...maybe past expiration date, I neglected to check.) 2/3: Got a few more, the toy mix also includes really bad jigsaw puzzles, so your odds of getting the figures you want are even lower.

    VALENTINES: 1/8/18: Walmart has lenticular G1 Optimus and Bumblebee "hand out to the class" Valentines for $2.48. BB is sort of a weird hybrid of Generations and Prime. 1/13: Target has sticker-set and thumb tattoo ones, again with the same Optimus and BB designs, plus some others. I guess maybe these are the upcoming Cyberverse ones?     FIDGET IT SPINNER: Fidget spinners with Transformers themes. Character face on the center, wheels or target crosshairs on the lobes. Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Megatron (all G1) in the first batch. 9/21/17: Available on HTS, $6 each.

    RiD COIN BANKS: Tall and very leggy hollow coin banks of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee in RiD(2015) designs. Optimus might have movable arms, btu BB definitely doesn't. $10. 9/16/17: Spotted at Walgreens in Amarillo TX.

    GO KARTS: Battery powered little kid go karts in the colors of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee (both G1) with the molded faces of each on the front between the handlebars. $129 at Walmart. 6/21/17: Walmart in Amarillo TX.

    RUBIK'S CREW: A 2x2 Rubik's Cube puzzle in the shape of Optimus Prime's head, with a little body that can plug in for a Funko-Pop-ish figure once you solve it. $13 at Walmart, part of their train/endcap setups. 6/10/17: Walmart in Amarillo TX.

    WATCHES: The first movie transforming watches of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, possibly with slight redeco, but in Robots in Disguise packaging with the heads of the PRiD versions on the blister card (no remolding, still the movie heads). $15 price point. 5/23/17: TRU in Amarillo TX.

    ALT-MODES: These are blind-box chibi figures. In "vehicle" mode they're giant heads atop their vehicle modes, and pulling a faction symbol tab on top of the helmet makes the vehicle swap out with a tiny marionette-like body (or spin all the way around to vehicle again, it's kinda iffy). Collation is a bit iffy, I grabbed four boxes and got two each of Prowl and Nemesis Prime. The rest of the assortment is Optimus Prime, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Starscream, Ultra Magnus, and Megatron. 7/22/16: Toys R Us in Amarillo TX. In with the rest of the TFs rather than in the Funko kiosk, $6.99 each. 1/3/17: Wave 2 at Target in Amarillo TX. One new mold, Bumblebee/Cliffjumper (identical molds for the two). Reissues of Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream. Redecos Acid Storm, Sunstorm, Smokescreen.

    PEZ: G1 Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Bumblebee. Megatron could use a bit more paint (especially on the forehead), but otherwise decent. $2.49 at Toys R Us. 10/31/15: TRU in Amarillo TX. 7/14/17: RiD versions out now, I've seen Optimus and BB but suspect there might be more. 2/8/18: Pez Conenctibles, which come with torsos and arms that snap onto the dispenser, are available in RiD Optimus and BB varieties, $5.

   I've stopped tracking most of the "artifacts" stuff, since Transformers has reached the cultural saturation point where you can be pretty sure there'll be party supplies, water bottles, t-shirts, and so forth readily available.

    DOLLAR TREE KNOCKOFFS: Sold as Robot Transforing Vehicle, these are Legion sized, and $1 each...you get what you pay for. There's a jet (with elements of Thunderwing from the Classics Clear Skies Team of Mini-Cons), a tank (clearly based on the G1 Micromaster Sidetrack), a missile truck (which sucks), and a military ship. They're molded in two colors each, and color-flip version are also available (so a green tank with gray guns, or a gray tank with green guns). 3/23/18: Amarillo TX. (Later notes: the jet IS Thunderwing, just misassembled. The missile truck is Red Hot with some tweaks. Best guess on the boat is that it's a bullet train turned upside down and with boat details added.)

    MECARD: Bakugan with cars that pop open into sorta-robots when you run them over the metal card, basically. The ones I saw didn't impress me (Prince Kong, Tanatos, Mirinae). No price on the peg, wasn't motivated enough to drag one to a a working price check. 3/2/18: TRU in Amarillo TX.

    SCREECHERS WILD: Cars and other vehicles that turn into disk-shooting critters. The $7 price point is cars (spider, hawk, pterosaur, scorpion), the $10 price point has a trukkmunky and a T.rex/tank. The $10 ones are more "Turns into a rolling platform with a beast riding it" though. There's a tie-in cartoon on YouTube. They transform by driving up to and capturing a disk. The included checklist doesn't say which one is what price point. If there's a game that goes along with them, there's no rules in the $7 package (I got Nightweaver, not terribly impressed).     BEN 10 OMNI-LAUNCH BATTLE FIGURES: Omnitrix-face-shaped disks that pop off the wrist launcher and unfold into aliens, similar to the War for Cybertron minion disks. 1/13/18: Spotted at Target in Amarillo TX. (They didn't have shelf tags yet, dunno the price.)     HAVEX MACHINES: Folded-up pods that (in theory) auto-transform into fighting vehicles when a Micro-Machines-sized car is rolled up into them. In practice, the car is way too light to trigger the action, even though the "pod" mode is very touchy. One set is a mecha rig (Combat Bot), the rest are various sea/air/land vehicles (Star Blaster spaceship kinda like a B5 Starfury, Mech Ray and Lightning Sub submarines, Mech Bug walker, Sonic Jet and Strike Chopper aircraft). $15 price point. 8/25/17: TRU in Amarillo TX.

    MECH X4: The spoof of giant robot shows on Disney XD gets merch a year or so after the show launches. 8/11/17: Spotted a $20 basic set with the main mech and its support vehicle that combines with it, a larger no-shelf-tag-yet light and sound MECH X4, various rubbery monsters and roleplay gear, all at TRU in Amarillo TX.

    VOLTRON: Toys based on the Netflix series finally hitting stores in January 2017. A mix of non-transforming Voltron figures, lion figures, masks, a big non-transforming Voltron, and a really expensive 16" Voltron sold separately as lions that do combine. Dunno the prices, the store I first saw them at was stocking them on WWE pegs and hadn't posted new prices yet. 1/3/17: Target in Amarillo TX. 8/11: Forgot to mention this earlier, but new metal-including combining lions are now available at Walmart and Target locally, probably most places.

    MARS Converters: $10 large toys, generally found at Walmart and various discount stores (TJMaxx, Family Dollar, etc). Current wave is dinos and dragons, with a red T.rex, a blue sorta-stegosaur, and a yellow dragon. 9/30/16: Family Dollar carrying these as part of their holiday toy expansion. 4/20/17: The vehicle waves are starting to show up again at Walmart in new packaging, with a "Cybotronix" line name in addition to MARS Converters. Spotted the blue sportscar and the gray sportscar in the new packaging today. 10/13: Tank and fighter jet join the assortment, found at Family Dollar. 11/4/18: A two-pack of the red and blue dinosaurs has shown up at Ross, $18. 11/9: There's also two-packs of the tank and jet, plus the blue and silver sports cars, part of their holiday displays at Ross.

    SUPER WINGS: This is a show for very little kids, like "too young for Rescue Bots" level, from what I've heard. At the $10 level there's Rescue-Bots-level aircraft that turn into cockpit-torso'ed robots: Jett (cargo jet), Donnie (cargo heavy lift prop plane), Jerome (fighter jet), and Dizzy (pink female helicopter). 3/31/17: These are finding their way back into non-TRU stores after months of absence or "stick it in a corner somewhere" stocking, and the larger sized Paul is now in the assortment. Cosells indicate Grand Albert, Bello (safari striped bush pilot plane) and Mira will also be available at this size soon, if not already. 5/22: Grand Albert and Bello Deluxes at Target in Green Bay WI. Decided to not try to fit them in my luggage, though. 8/13: New rescue vehicle sets have hit TRU as part of the Fall reset. The main four characters each get $15 sets that use a "Legion" sized figure as the driver, and a vehicle that turns into a mech suit for which the little figure forms a head. Transtectors, basically. Dizzy's Rescue Tow, Jett's Robo Rig (fire truck), Donnie's Dozer (more of an all-purpose construction vehicle), and Paul's Cruiser (Paul displaces Jerome in the main four, apparently). There's also a super-sized $40 Jett's Robo Rig that uses a $10-size "Deluxe" Jett as the pilot and head. They all have functionally the same transformation. 1/21/18: Finally found Deluxe Mira at TRU in Amarillo TX. 2/8: New Legion-type set found at Walmart in Amarillo TX for $9.80. Astra (space shuttle), Flip (cargo plane), Todd (drill plane o_O) and Agent Chace (sic, jet). 3/29: Found Deluxe size versions of Astra and Todd (Chace and Flip are cosells, but didn't see any on the shelf).

    OTHER KNOCKOFFS: 2/18/18: Dollar General's Easter baskets include a really cruddy looking non-transforming 4" tall Optimus Prime in their $5 baskets. 11/18: Tuesday Morning is carrying Voyager-sized but not Voyager-detail "Mega-Tech Dinos" in near duplicates of TF5 Voyager packaging, $5 each. Tech Predator is Scorn, with back frill removable to use as melee weapons, and Armor Dinosaur is Grimlock. The package warns that "Specificiations colours and contents may vary from ollustrations." Heh.