Considering Trailbreaker and sixshot haven't come out, these should be late 2018 maybe 2019. I'm starting to fade.

 

I actually do wonder if there's partforming (like this or zeta) where would the extra parts go in alt mode? Bruticus can get away with it as there's a trailer, I love my gen toys.. I mean Transformission and motomaster's trailer has the extra parts. I guess with the toyworld/zeta devvie the extra parts just sits aside?

Personally I don't mind parts forming so long as the parts have a place to go in alt mode, but if extra parts just sitting there I like it less

 

TF-Direct is culprit of this practice and they are based out of China. They are making a killing each figure, charging standard US pricing + shipping. I wonder how they are still in business. At least Ebay sellers such as Baba give you free shipping on top of the much lower than US retail cost. I understand people have to eat, but fuck, filet mignon and wine every night? Taobao is good, but the language barrier is a...barrier. Gotta hand it to Chrome Magnus for going that route.

 

Such is the regrettable nature of a hobby. Expenses that come with this are hardly desirable, and I do agree that in many instances sellers do so enjoy charging much more for a figure than it is likely to actually be worth. I guess that depends on the buyer though, and where they do there shopping. With Fans Toys, and especially with this five piece ensemble, I, for one, have my fingers crossed that all of them won't cost more than $100, although it would be nice if they competed, at least financially, with Zeta. Then we, the consumers/collectors, would be the winners. Yeah, wishful thinking, but stranger things have happened.

 

TF-Direct actually does offer free shipping on a lot of stuff. I also don't quite get why their business so baffling to you. They offer the exact same service that domestic retailers do. It's no more hard to understand that places like BBTS, TFSource, The Chosen Prime, or any other number of retailers.

Also, for places other than the USA, TF-Direct actually offers fairly competitive costs door-to-door. People in other countries need to worry about a lot more than just listed cost + shipping, and TF-Direct tends to provide ways to work around them. Yes, there are cheaper routes on eBay, but TF-Direct isn't competing with the eBay market. They're in the same market as the aforementioned retailers.

 

I guess at this point we have no idea what FT's next release is. Has anyone gotten a response about outrider and berzerk? I was pretty sure they would be first in '18.

 

I believe they said Arcee was the next one that would be out. I'm fairly certain I read that in some thread but I'm not 100%.

*Edit - This is the post I read.

 

Supposedly Arcee followed by Blitzwing -> FansToys release schedule (past/present)

At one time Trail Breaker was going to be around the beginning of 2018.

 

That's why I rarely use TF-Direct. For a Chinese retailer their prices are not competitive at all compared to USA retailers in most cases. Also I remember they were selling Reximus Prime (oversized MP08 Grimlock) for $160. Meanwhile I got mine off Ebay for like $110. If I'm willing to pay TF-direct prices I might as well buy from a USA retailer instead. At least with a USA retailer I'll get my order in only 3-10 days depending on the shop instead of 2 to 2.5 weeks. Taobao is really not that difficult to learn. Just set your desktop Chrome browser to auto translate and you're good to go.

 

Um...because they are based out of China. What's so competitive offering the same pricing and shipping cost as US retailers and having to wait 8 to 12 days to receive? And the main crux of this is how they are making a killing on mark up. They buy the figure at 30 dollars and sell it at 100 dollars unlike US sellers who have to pay to have the item ship to them and still charge 100 dollars. TF-D has a bigger profit margin. And Hoff, there is no such thing as free shipping. It's included in the cost. Free and business do not go together, it's a marketing gimmick.

 

Plus there's the reissue for Sovereign on the way in addition to FT-20G.

 

Sounds like you're describing basically what Zeta's does, but to get closer to toon, you can keep the wings off the legs and get a better silhouette than with the horizontal stabs.

You used the worst possible photo of Zeta's, with no nose cone, and the wings on the legs instead of the back.

 

And from what I've seen from their previous combiners, they're kind of average. Granted, I think their Computron looks awesome so time will tell with that one in particular.

I appreciated the part where Minerva wore Shuta as pants though.

B-but that's my favourite continuity!

 

Very excited for this but the MP combiners are presenting me with a dilemma.
Constructor looks great in combined mode but frankly the individual bot modes are kind of average. And the alt modes aren't amazing either. This means I'm perfectly happy for him to live in Combined mode.
But I have the first two of UT's Combaticons (Brawl and Swindle) and they look amazing in bot mode and do a damn fine job in alt mode as well. Now looking at FT's Superion I'm seeing much the same thing. And worse, with XTB's Mensasor, I think I genuinely prefer their bot modes to the Combined mode.
I simply can't afford to double up on Combiners, let alone have the display space for it, but I'm starting to think it will be a damned shame if these awesome bot modes don't see the light of day very often!
What a crazy problem to have.

 

In regards to the above conversation about stores and pricing, don't get too scared off by the whole translation thing with Taobao. I've only recently started using it and it's actually bloody easy. Chrome translates the web-page automatically and apart from that, it's just like buying from ebay or Aliexpress. My 5th order from them is on it's way now and my sixth is heading for the warehouse today.

In terms of savings, I paid a total of US$100 to ship KFC Stratotanker to my door.
US Stores are charging US$140 for the figure alone and international shipping is rounding out around US$50 at the moment!!

For me this savings is incredible, and also nicely answers the other objection people have to buying from China - "I prefer buying from a US store that will look after me if there's a problem."
This is the grossest of false economies.

Even ignoring the international shipping that I'm paying, a savings of 40% on a figure is stunning. If 1 in 4 of your figures have an issue and need to be replaced, it's actually cheaper to buy 5 figures from China (the original 4 and a replacement for the faulty one) than it is to buy 4 from US stores and get the faulty one replaced. Plus you end up with a fifth (admittedly faulty) figure you can use as spare parts or an alt mode display.
(4 x $100 plus $100 for a replacement = $500
vs
4 x $140 = $560)
Unless you are so unfortunate that more than 1/4 of your figures are arriving faulty, it's genuinely cheaper to buy from China and just outright purchase a replacement for any faulty figure you receive, using the money saved on all your other purchases. And for me, I have more than 100 figures in my collection (across MP, IDW and misc stuff) and I have had a grand total of two figures with faults ( and in both cases the fault consisted of a missing panel smaller than a fingernail.)
If I had purchased my entire collection through TaoBao, I would have saved myself thousands of dollars.

The long and the short of it is, look into the TaoBao thing, it's totally worth it.

 

You could always use a middle man when shopping from taobao..I use taobaoring,they take 8%..Very reliable

 

I'll just have to wait and see how the reviews turn out. Zeta's Air Raid got quite good press and looked pretty nice.

 

And the same thing applies to free shipping from the US retailers.

Again, their pricing may seem a lot worse to you as a US customer, but worldwide ordering from them can be cheaper than any US seller. And 8 to 12 days? That's NOTHING for international customers. People in the US are lucky to have lightning fast shipping for dirt cheap.

You rail on them for profit margin, but how much do you really think freight costs the US sellers? If they're ordering in bulk the freight might be adding like $5 in cost per unit. So TF-Direct is some horrible company for having maybe a 5% higher profit margin?

It's fine if you prefer other companies because you feel you're getting a better deal, but it's totally unfair to criticize a company for having a slightly different business model.

 

See question here:
Buying Transformers on Taobao