I would argue that Huffer (who didn’t get a Prime Wars release except as an Optimus redeco) and Gears (who didn’t get a Prime Wars release at all) are the main 84 characters beyond Jazz and Trailbreaker currently MIA from listings.

No OFFICIAL Huffer or Gears toy followed the animation design. (And Cosmos and Pipes are the most neglected 85 bots when it comes to animation accuracy; keep in mind that you can’t really make Pipes and Huffer from the same mold without compromising one or the other. Ditto Gears and Swerve.)

I’m really curious how Gears might look in WFC.

 

Mft made huffer and pipes from the same mold, both look fairly animation accurate as well

 

yeah and the MFT Huffer is awesome!

 

Agreed

 

T30 Cosmos is definitely a great figure. One of the best legends figures to date for sure. And I love deluxe Warpath. I'd honestly be disappointed if they took up slots in Earthrise.

 

Just down to preference, they are not bad but they are definitely NOT G1 style which is my preference. A G1 style Cosmos and Warpath would be amazing, WFC-E Cliffjumper is leagues better than T30 Cliffjumper etc

 

What accessories are each Minibot coming with to justify the Deluxe price?

Cliffjumper comes with a cannon and skis.

 

I'd have to agree with you there, T30 Cliffjumper was disappointing. I guess having yet another Smokescreen figure coming out in Earthrise has put me on edge with how many figures the line will have.

 

I think most of the Minibots have good figures already and should be left alone for the time being. The only Minibots I’d want to see are improved redesigns (Huffer and Pipes) and characters who haven’t gotten Generations toys yet (Hubcap and Bumper).

We’re looking at at least 2 more Deluxes, if waves 1-4 of Siege are any indication.

 

17 Minibots plus 6 Throttlebots. Bring back the Legends size class post-WFC Trilogy and you've got the next trilogy's worth filled already.

 

Out of prime wars, Wheel is the only one I didn't like. The vehcile mode was spot on, but the bot mode the way the canopy went over the body just didnt do it for me, even with the clear takara mode. I would prefer a better robot mode.

 

I think we’ll see wave 2 and wave 3 getting revealed at Toy Fair. Then wave 4 and wave 5 will be revealed at SDCC

 

keep in mind that between siege, selects, 35th anniversary siege, store exclusives and the refraktor 3 pack that war for cybertron saw over 70 numbered releases last year

 

It's an interesting exercise in both whetting ones appetite and managing ones expectations to see what the constraints within this are.

For instance within the 16 deluxes available at retail, 3 were Weaponizers and 3 were 'G1 immigrants'. If we work on the assumption that Earthrise will map fairly closely to that pattern we have 10 slots for other, most likely traditionally 'G1' characters. of the total 13 were original molds. Nearly every mold received at least one secondary use, typically with nothing more than a different headsculpt and deco, giving us an extra 15 characters. There were also two reuses of a PotP design. If my maths is correct that's 33 deluxes available. 31 if you're inclined to disqualify Lancer and Greenlight as outliers.

So, we have leaked listings for 12 deluxes in Earthrise. It's too soon to say with any great authority how reuses will go, though we can be confident about some things based on obvious inference (Trailbreaker is going to share a mold with Hoist), statements from Hasbro (Cliffjumper is not a pretool of Bumblebee), and credible hints (Arcee will have a new mold).
so, first three waves look like...

Wheeljack, Hoist, Ironworks, Cliffjumper,
Arcee, Smokescreen, Alicon, Airwave,
Fasttrack, Runamuck, Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker

I feel confident we've got around 9 unique molds in that list, with one definite reuse in the aforementioned Trailbreaker and two question marks in Smokescreen and Sunstreaker. While I can imagine Sunstreaker being done from Wheeljack, I can't imagine Smokescreen being redone from any of the other candidates, so let's call that 10 unique molds. We can assume wave four will have a unique mold modulator, so that takes us up to 11. Following this logic, the hypothetical wave four would thus have two new molds in it and one redo. Smokescreen feels like a pretool for somebody else, so lets say Jazz/Prowl for arguments sake, and I feel we're due a Bumblebee, even if he's just 'shared engineering' with Cliff. So I feel like we've got one mystery character with a new mold waiting for us. Tracks! Is that you?

Of course, there's all sorts of variables here. There may be more than 16 deluxes at retail. The Modulators may have a lot of retooling between then, skewing the ratio of original to reuse. 13 original molds might be more arbitrary than I've assumed. But even within that, I still feel like we've got a useful roadmap. And it's not crazy to extend that logic over to WfC:III

So we've got some sense around how those molds might get a second use (Runamuck to Runabout, Alicon redeco in this rumoured Quints boxset, something as nutty with the Modulators as making Powerdashers from Weaponizers), but the biggest question for me, after having done this exercise, is what's Arcee's second use going to be. And Spinister, for that matter.

I can't be arsed doing Voyagers and Leaders. Someone else pick up my batton?

 

two viable arcee uses could be either lifeline (paradron medic) or elita-1 (we need something better than the combiner torso). also im still in favor of hasbro releasing "stealth runamuck" rather than runabout. reason being is that traditionally they were actually two different, albeit similar, molds. also the whole pattern of fan vote figures only getting redone by hasbro as that fan vote character, plus a stealth deco fits the story of sneaking onto the ark. based on past experience with fan vote repaints, runamuck (white and orange) will be the mass retail figure and his repaint (be it runabout or "stealth runamuck" in red and black) will be exclusive to a box set

 

I don't know who will get exclusives, but here are a couple of repaints I see in the future in broad terms:

• A seeker pack; could be coneheads or other seekers but most likely Coneheads.
• probably so kind of Glyph from the Cliff, Probably a GS.
• And some other online JP continuity exclusives.

 

glyph should be a bumblebee repaint, cliffjumpers would be tap-out

 

My bad, can never keep the ubscure bugs straight.

 

No worries  I only remember those two specifically because they were in the 3h wreckers stuff which was my favorite botcon story

 

Both solid calls. Anyone from Unicron Trilogy that'd work?

Makes sense. I've started thinking of Runabout as yer Walgreens 2020 exclusive, which has traditionally allowed for some retooling (TR Brainstorm and Clones, PotP Wreck-Gar, and Siege Ratchet). It could definitely go either way. I look forward to finding out!