Liokaiser was because of Hasbro's "must have repaint potential" policy, Overlord was because of his comic relevance (and had also been released by Hasbro in Europe and APAC back in the day) and Black Shadow was just the only phase sixer left out.

 

That only holds true for Sky Lynx. The Brawl mold was repainted into Nosecone, and both Air Raid and Skydive were made with the Thrust and Starscream heads in mind.

If they wanted to stick true to their “own” characters, and make a repaint combiner, they would have used the unused Hoist head for Trailbreaker, the unused Ratchet head for First Aid, Bluestreak from Prowl, and two other easy repaints of popular characters. Like their own repaint of Nemesis Prime using the Toxitron head, which it was original designed for, or a Sideswipe from Breakdown or Tracks from Wheeljack. Maybe even the new member of the Technobots that was supposed be a Rook repaint using a Brawl head.

Instead, we got Liokaiser with four new headsculpts.

I’ll give you that. He certainely is a fan favorite.

I would use the arguement that he has gotten a Hasbro toy before, because his only appearence in IDW outside of flashbacks or namedrops was when he got murdered by the DJD.

 

I truly hope there’s a Deszaras I’m development right now because of this.

 

That could be very cool.

 

Also don't forget he was part of the concept stage of PotP. So he's definitely on the list somewhere. We're going to get one eventually. The right factors just need to align for the decision to be made.

 

New pics of Star Saber. I'm so glad I opted for the D4 exclusive.
Flame Toys

 

Daaaamn that last pic is right out of a mecha anime. LOVE IT.

 

Absolute banger.

 

Wait if I understand this correctly D4toys preorder includes the LED light up feature and third party distributors don't?

If so that a real bummer....

 

Wait what?

 

I believe the LED feature is for all releases. The exclusive from D4 I think is the unmasked head with a LED.

I REALLY want this in my collection, but gosh almighty I can't bring myself to spend for $400 on this when it really seems like a Bandai Metal build inspired figure and those go for about $240 each these days.

 

This is correct. The way it was worded though makes it seem like the other way around. But it's the normal blue head that's not included with the normal release, not the light-up eyes.

 

So to keep this up to date as July is drawing near, but how would a retool of this body for Nova Prime? They look pretty alike with the wings and the Prime-like head sculpt.

 

I'd like to see that, but I think they're waiting to see if the figure succeeds before going into any repaints/molds since Star Saber's not a proven money maker in the west who are a good bit of this figure's target audience.

 

Like Tarn, they saw it was good so doing a Megatronus figure was within reason. Makes sense.

 

Looks very much like a super-pumped up Gundam.

 

I reckon Star Saber was picked to potentially interest non-Transformers fans into the brand.

Also gimme Kuro Kara Kuri Grimlock and Nova Prime

 

Possibly.

Also yes lawd!

 

Dear lord in heaven I’d love a grimlock.
Question is: Dino mode or robot mode?

 

For fun, I'd go with Dino mode. Robot mode Grimlock is cool, but when you consider he still talks as a T-Rex and still dish out the pain in anything he's in (because he's a giant carnivorous lizard) just without his sword it really seems moot. Plus his Robot mode can look rather plain imo where in Dino form you can cram as much detail as you want and it totally be within reason.