That's not a great way to respond to someone asking a question. We're not all in the fandom 24/7. To answer your point, N_M_S - Fun Publications who run Botcon, the Transformers Collectors Club, and the Figure Subscription Service, are ending their partnership with Hasbro at the end of the year, meaning that this year's Botcon was the last by them, that the club - in its current form - finishes at the year's end, and that this will be the final subscription service. A shame, really - for their flaws, Fun Publications did bring us some good and unique exclusives. Take this set, for example - they dug up the Grand Maximus Pretender shell!
Wait... Spacewarp (from the megatron double pretender) Is a She? That means that Astrotrain has a little sister. Lol
These sets is the primary reason I'll be sad to see Tfss go. It was a really nice way of getting some more obscure characters in some modern toys that we weren't going to see in the main lines. And despite the high cost, I overall liked the toys they offered at Botcon too. For this set... I want the Fractal/Scorp duo (and maybe Toxitron and Lifeline) but not Prime, Megatron or Counterpunch... Spacewarp's been a chick since the character was originally debuted, so far as I know. Granted her toy was never actually put out and now she, like Quickslinger, is a bitty toy. (Also when did Quickslinger become a shuttle, she was a motorcycle...) ^_^ However, I really do like the innate space-bridge abilities... Niiiiice power upgrade for Spacewarp, and very fitting given her name^^
Ah, thanks. Hadn't heard that. Does explain the headline I skimmed recently about a trademark for Hasbrocon (or something like that). TFSS 4.0 is the only one I've ever purchased. Not sure if I'm getting 5.0, but I have some time to decide. So does this mean the TFCC is going defunct as well?
I have to be honest, I have always waited to see these reveals and never once felt bad for not ordering. I just don't see the appeal for the price. BUT to tnose who dig these character interpretations I hope your excitment hits a fever pitch. Hmmm, will this be that last of these? EDIT- commented before reading above comments. I might not dig the service, but sad to see it go for those who do. Afterall, we are all fans.
Allowing that "hiding under a rock" was a bit harsh, that's a bit too easy. This has been talked about, at heavy length, for four solid months now. One hardly has to be in the fandom 24/7 to have heard about this, and I can't really fault someone for wondering if a question about the club ending is trying to pull our collective leg.
Well ill be selling or trading the pretender commanders. I have no interest in them but the rest are top notch.
You are, of course, always right to choose for yourself what price is an appropriate value for whatever Transformers you buy. Personally, I think the fact that we pay for 6 (7, really) figures all at once creates a sense of "sticker shock" that undermines the actual value we're getting for the price. It's part of the reason I've maintained the data pages for so long. In the case of TFSS 5.0, we're only paying roughly 2.6 times what we'd have paid for these same molds at retail. For limited run exclusives, that's actually quite good (exclusives used to regularly cost well over 3 and sometimes even 4 times retail), and it doesn't even properly account for the fact that some of these molds aren't readily available anymore (or, in the case of the Pretender shells, ever) at any price. Nor does it account for the fact that FunPub exclusives use a LOT more paint than you'd find on most Hasbro retail versions. But, even granting the value per figure is pretty good, I again readily acknowledge that a $330+ price tag (it's more after shipping and credit card transaction fees, of course) would give almost anyone pause.
we already have an amazing Counterpunch, he was made from Universe2 Sideswipe. i'd replace CP with something else, like maybe Exhaust/Malboor made from the Wheeljack tooling. as for Rack-N-Ruin, i'd use Unite Warriors Blastoff and Strafe for them and include a double sided 5mm connector peg that can be plugged into their knuckle ports for Conjoined Twin action. or, if we must oust the combiner stuff, use this final fss to "finish" some incomplete sets. like say "Only Human" versions of Ultra Magnus and Springer, Redwing, WOH Hooligan, Pre-BW versions of Blackarachnia, Inferno, Quickstrike, and Silverbolt
I've never bought something like this before. Do I have to buy ALL of these? I'm really only interested in Prime and Megatron, and maybe Lifeline.
that's adorable actually. I can't unthink it. There's a lot of stuff I wish FunPub had gotten around to like the aforementioned Hooligan or an actual SG Ratchet but with that said for the most part I think they made decent choices. The opportunity to own the Grand Max pretender shell without ripping it out of a Grand Max, an additional opportunity to own Oilmaster and making both clever homages to various things, Fractyl to go with Packrat, all decent choices with Medic being a lot like Scourge where it should've happened some other way by now but HasTak didn't do it so FunPub did. Im do feel Counterpunch is the weakest of the bunch. I sort of blame Hasbro for that since that's the alternate head when they could've done Exhaust. I'm sure Hasbro's wary of Exhaust as they probably know about the MP debacle but since, like Ratchet, they didn't bother using the extra head anyway still seems like a missed opportunity. Meanwhile while I get that FunPub wanted to use that head I feel they could've done better by instead just making Slicer since they'd still have a blue body, still would sort of homage one of their past figures, and it would ultimately be a better fit for the mold. I doubt Hasbro had any plans for Slicer anyways and since they're gonna explain these guys in fiction anyway I doubt it would've mattered.
I got mine, Looking forward to Toxitron and those Pretenders ( I want to get Oil Master eventually) I also can't wait to see what that 7th figure is going to be.
Does anyone know why Toxitron, Fractyl and Counterpunch are considered Wreckers? Toxitron is a Decepticon, Fractyl is a Predacon and Counterpunch is the Decepticon personality of Punch... I thought Wreckers were Autobots? I'm confused... Also does anyone know if the final figure is a CW figure or if Toxitron has a new head for combined mode?
I think if you start from the premise that we wouldn't be getting any new FP-exclusive heads except Pretender OP, and that FP saw an opportunity to provide a number of heads we've never gotten before, FP did a pretty decent job of picking characters out. It doesn't work out thematically like Thunder Mayhem, but it's decent. Yes, they said something to the effect of them having to have everything shipped out before January 1
Is the website not working for anyone else? I try to sign it, but it just stays on the same page. Did anyone notice all the differences in these images and the ones from BotCon/Club magazine? I just got my copy today and I can tell you there's differences on nearly every one of them. Counterpunch was the most glaring. He had a lot more yellow in the first set of images, which I prefer much more than this almost all blue one. Fractyl seems to have different paint apps on his legs and chest. Scorponok's wheels and gun are different colors. Chest and face paint apps are a little different too. Lifeline(Paradron Medic)'s hip panels are now unpainted and her smaller gun is grey instead of green. Optimus uses a different head. His shell's brown is lighter and now also covers the hand minus the fingers. The "gold" is now more of a orange instead of a bright yellow. Toxitron didn't have the Autobot symbol on his chest. There's also a lot of other color changes here and there. The old one had purple paint apps on his knees as well as purple upper legs and inner/combiner leg panels and green truck panels on the arms. Megatron seems to be the only one who doesn't have any really noticeable differences. Oh wait, there was red on the inside of his shell's elbows and it didn't have that black square on the mohawk. Overall, the first set of images looked much better than these ones. I'm not surprised they've had trouble with the factory following their color layouts if they sent them two different photoshopped images for the same figure with varying color schemes.