Lucky you. I still find Earthrise to be the worst toyline we got in 35 years, including Pretenders and Action Masters. At least those two lines had original ideas. Earthrise was turds mixed with repainted turds.
It's not a coincidence that the few outstanding figures - Snapdragon, Scorponok, Sky Lynx - tried hard to recreate the fun experience of older toys, where most other ER releases did wonders to take the fun out of Transformers.
tl;dr
Mini MPs: no MP, no toy, no fun.

 

Nine months in, Earthrise still has more figures pending release than actually released.

 

To be fair, I've been avoiding the few stinkers like Arcee and Megatron, I've been having a bash in my corner with Sky Lynx, Cliffjumper, Wheeljack and 100 Micromasters!

 

Fully agreed. This line has reminded me why I love Transformers. So much to enjoy about it from the micromaster teams to the Titan Scorponok; heck, I even like putting together the sections of the map. They make for a nice overall display to play around with.

 

Agreed! I have no idea why, but even the Micromasters are better than the ones in the siege, Much better joints and Alt-modes.

 

Gotta admit I feel this way about Earthrise. First off, I wanted them to continue with the Cybertronian alt modes. The real world alt modes throw off my mostly Cybertronian collection. I also feel like the gaps and hollow bits were more prevalent, more noticeable, and larger in this line (like Sunstreaker's legs and arms, Doubledealer's legs, Wheeljack's legs, the Datsun mold's legs, etc.) than they were with Siege (with Impactor as a notable exception). That's not to say that Siege figures didn't have gaps, just that they were smaller and less noticeable in general. Then they started with all of the Re-dos...I don't need them, I already have those characters from Siege and I feel like the Siege figures look better in every way.

I'll end this with a disclaimer that I like the figures I've bought. Upgraded with the gap filler kit I picked up, Wheeljack is one of my favorite of the WFC Deluxes. Cliffjumper is excellent. Doubledealer is decent. I really want a Scorponok and a Snapdragon, but have too many other pre-orders I'm waiting on to buy them right now. I missed out on the Coneheads and I'm kicking myself. Still, that's all I want from Earthrise whereas I bought most of Siege. I feel like Earthrise could've been better with a littler more TLC...which is why I'm stoked for Kingdom and Studio Series '86. All the figures I've seen from those seem ridiculously solid, whereas the Earthrise stuff felt a little unfinished to me. In short, I don't hate it, I just feel like Earthrise could've been better.

 

Only thing I'm bummed about is that wave 2 and 3 of the Deluxes still haven't come out.

And that Wal-mart hasn't shipped my cheap Doubledealer and Snapdragon (<--that I ordered in FEBRUARY!!!)

The major Partsformers are still garbage though.

 

At this point I may have more Selects figures than Earthrise figures. Only have one Wave 2 figure. So with the understanding that this is an incomplete grade:

I like Earthrise, but I preferred Siege, and am way more excited for Kingdom than ER wave 2 and 3 (despite having Sunstreaker and Trailbreaker, two of my favorite G1 characters)

I like the Cliffjumper and Wheeljack molds, but not as much as Hound and Prowl and Sideswipe.
I don't much care for Hoist.
I like the Modulators, but not as much as the Weaponizers.
I like the Shield Battlemasters, but not as much as the weapon Battlemasters.
I like Skylynx, but I prefer Jetfire
I like ER Prime, but prefer Siege Prime
I like Snapdragon, but prefer Apeface
I like the ER Seekers, but prefer Siege tetrajets
I like every Siege Leader over Doubledealer
I don't like ER Megs, and love Siege Megs (all 3 versions that I own)

In Earthrise's favor:
I love Grapple more than Siege Soundwave or Springer
ER Micromasters are a big improvement over Siege
I do prefer Scorponok over Omega, but that might be personal pro-Scorponok bias.
I think the ER-derived exclusives are probably better than the Siege ones. Even though they aren't classified as ER, I'll still give it credit.

 

What’s the issue with his roof?

 

Huge disagreement there, especially since the primary characters they were based on (Cog, Sixgun, and Brunt) were themselves originally nothing more than partsformers. If anything, they're a great update/upgrade since Sixgun didn't originally have an altmode and Brunt didn't have a robot mode.

 

I feel the exact same way and even though I'm definitely happy for anyone who loves the Earthrise figures and plans on getting them, I just felt like the Siege deco and fun factor can't be beat. Earthrise Megatron, Ironhide, Ratchet, etc don't appeal to me at all and if anything, the Earthrise just doesn't fit in with all of those Siege figures I collected and sort of puts a stint in my excitement for almost 75% of the entire line from here until the Kingdom lineup that we have seen so far. I would say out of 20 figures that are just released or coming up, I only want maybe 5 of them- I'm not a 100% collector but I feel like the excitement and overall appeal can't be beat...well...until I see those Studio Series figures coming out. Lol

 

Yeah, Earthrise isn't terrible...it isn't as good as Siege. Hard act to follow though.

 

Sorry, I was talking about Cliffjumper and Arcee (and to a lesser extent Megatron). I have no gripe with the guys who's GIMMICK is partsforming, That's different then tossing aside 1/2-1/2 your alt mode in my book.
Heck, the guys you listed were some of the few I generally enjoyed from Siege. The Weaponizer gimmick was so cool. (actually wish they'd done more molds, the Modulators and Fossilizers are a lot less interesting too me.)

 

Mine is slightly worse than his.

 

Others (Versions) - *
Tiers (IMHO) - Bad/Mediocre/Decent/Good/Excellent
Siege 24 - 5M/7D/4G/8E
Earthrise 20 - 1B/3M/3D/8G/5E
Siege
Sideswipe* - Decent
Cog* - Mediocre
Hound* - Decent
Skytread - Decent
Chromia - Mediocre
Ironhide* - Decent
Sixgun - Mediocre
Prowl* - Good
Refraktor* - Decent
Brunt - Excellent
Impactor* - Good
Mirage* - Decent
Spinister* - Excellent
Optimus Prime* - Excellent
Megatron* - Mediocre
Starscream* - Good
Soundwave* - Decent
Springer - Excellent
Apeface - Mediocre
Ultra Magnus* - Excellent
Shockwave* - Excellent
Astrotrain - Good
Jetfire - Excellent
Omega Supreme - Excellent

Earthrise
Hoist* - Good
Wheeljack* - Good
Cliffjumper* - Excellent
Ironworks - Decent
Arcee* - Mediocre
Airwave - Good
Allicon* - Mediocre
Smokescreen* - Excellent
Fasttack - Good
Sunstreaker* - Decent
Runamuck* - Good
Starscream* - Good
Grapple* - Excellent
Snapdragon - Mediocre
Quintesson Judge - Decent
Megatron - Bad
Optimus Prime* - Excellent
Double Dealer - Good
Skylynx - Excellent
Scorponok - Good

 

I think the best thing to come out of Earthrise in my opinion was the Optimus Prime- it made me realize how much I would like to have figures with as little kibble as possible. At first because I was a new collector maybe, it didn't bother me and I barely saw it...but then you get a taste of aged wine and the rest looks like warm beer. That is the only real reason I could see myself getting the ER counterpart to the Siege, is if it was engineered to create a more form factor figure. But again, I'm still sort of learning the ropes and trying to figure out what a good figure is to me and the price I would pay for such.

 

Others?

 

I just preordered an Allicon.

Never thought I would do that. I liked the design, squat little SOB. Gonna get rid of those holes in his shoulders and figure out how to flip his hands into his arms.

 

I'm still working on that comment; others, as in Prowl is also Smokescreen, Bluestreak, and Barricade.