All of the coneheads are difficult to come by outside of the US. Thrust can be had for about twice what it should be if you look, but the postage sucks. Dirge and Ramjet though are effectively impossible to obtain (I mean sure, I could spend $500 plus insane postage, but no, I damned well won't.)

Runabout is the same as Thrust, and so is Bluestreak.

Megatron never made it to Australia. The Quintesson Judge wasn't much better.

There were serious distribution issues here for the wave 3 deluxes; very few Sunstreakers or Trailbreakers were made available.

Skywarp and Thundercracker, as US exclusives, were looking like another impossible item, but we're getting a release here in a few months. I have a sneaking suspicion though that there won't be enough, and they won't hit shelves (being available only briefly via mail order).

Unless you're in the know, anything released through Selects is effectively non-existant. They can be ordered here via a couple of retailers, but you need to know that it can be done (and it is through retailers that I never associated, and still don't associate, with Transformers toys). And there was a lot of Selects stuff in Earthrise (and plenty that should not have been).

 

Siege figures 100%. The character cast, the paint, the fun alt modes, I couldn't get enough. Honestly, I always despise the battle damage toy lines of anything that come out (like Jurassic World particularly for an example) but for Transformers, it made sense to me and looked great. Probably if the Siege characters (that never got a ER counterpart) had been vanilla ER molds, I would have liked them more. But with everything together, Siege wins.

And possibly because a lot of my ER figures had some sort of issues, be it parts or paint while my Siege ones had little to none. The only real Wowing factor from ER to me was the Prime.

 

Of the primary line:
Wave 2 deluxe (Allicon, Arcee, Airwave, Smokescreen) ultra tight distribution and wave 3 deluxe (Trailbreaker, Fasttrack, Sunstreaker, Runamuck) had much tighter than normal distribution because the shutdown of international trade in mid 2020 didn't have wave 2 arrive until August/September. Wave 3 landed about a month after wave 2, and there wasn't any restock of wave 2 and minimal restock of wave 3. Airwave lingered, because Modulators didn't really sell, but the rest flew off the shelves. In short, both Wave 2 and 3 deluxe as a whole were hard to find, and Wave 1 clogged the shelves all year.

Wave 3 Voyager (Quintesson Judge, Megatron) had almost no retail distribution. Seems like a couple cases per store, tops, and no restock. Megatron was easier to find because he was problem mistaken for Siege Megatron, but the Quintesson Judge was online only for most people.

Wave 2 Leader (Doubledealer) was on shelves very briefly.

Lastly Titan-class Scorponok had two shipments: mid-August and before Black Friday. This is more of a feature of how Titans are stocked at Target though, but you had to pretty much be checking out Target on the right weekend in August to pick him up, unless you ordered it online. Every store got 1-2 cases of 2 figures each.

As far as the rest of the line, Wave 1 and 2 Voyager were delayed, but plentiful, especially Grapple and Snapdragon. Wave 1 leader lingered for a while. Hasbro kept restocking Commander class seemingly. The first shipment was at the same time as Scorponok in August (which itself was weird), and it was restocked once a month or so.

This seeming contrasts, interestingly, with Studio Series, but that's actually deceptive. Hasbro (usually) does a hand-over-hand distribution pattern with Generations and and Studio Series to keep new product on the shelves. Wave 9 Deluxe (Off road Bumblebee, Roadbuster, Shatter) and Wave 8 Voyager (Mixmaster, TF1 Megatron) landed just before the lockdowns, which meant they were in retail stores distribution facilities already and didn't have to be manufactured, shipped across the ocean, taken off the ships, and distributed. Wave 9 Voyager (Scrapperm Sentinel Prime) had very narrow distribution because of the same issues with Earth Rise (and a whole lot of other things), but because Wave 8 shelf warmed, nobody really noticed. Wave 10 Voyager (Blitzwing, Skipjack) were plentiful because manufacturing and international shipping hand found a new sustainable normal and caught back up. As far as deluxes went, Wave 10 deluxe (Soundwave, Topspin, Cliffjumper) was easy to find, because it landed in mid September, again, once international trade had stabilized. Basically Studio Series deluxe "lucked out" in that it by sheer timing book ended the worst of the international trade shutdown.

Perhaps most instructive was with Studio Series Leader class. Wave 4 (Scavenger and Shockwave) hit, again, just before the lockdowns and shut down of international trade, so like Wave 9 Deluxe and Wave 8 Voyager, they were in retail distribution centers. The one who got screwed, somewhat hilariously considering how integral he was to everything, was Wave 5 (Constructicon Overload). He landed in the early fall, in the middle of the traffic jam. With a lot of backed up inventory of Wave 4 leader and so much more, stores got seemingly one shipment of him (which went likely 2-4 figures). Most people got him online for a markup. Target, notably, canceled most people's $30 pre-order of him. Hasbro put some stock up very briefly on pulse, but a lot of people's Studio Series Devastator is now lacking a torso, lol.

Another way to look at it is like this:
Quarter 1 2020 (pre-pandemic, Jan/Feb 2020) - Studio Series Deluxe Wave 9, Voyager Wave 8 and Leader Wave 4 all hit distribution centers and start making their way into stores.
Early March 2020 - Early shipments of Earthrise Wave 1 start to arrive with an intended April street date. But by end of Feb/Early March, they are making their way across the ocean, to the US, to distribution centers.
mid March 2020 - Lockdowns begin.
Late April / May / June / July 2020 - stockpiled figures in distribution centers trickle out. Earthrise Wave 1 slowly pushed as idled containers are opened and good distributed. ER Voyager 1 Wave is the laggard.
August 2020 - International trade begins to normalize. Scorponok / Skylynx distributed week 3 of the month. Earthrise Deluxe Wave 2 starts limited distribution
September - Earthrise Deluxe Wave 2 and Voyager Wave 2 hits full distribution. Studio Series Voyager Wave 10 briefly lands, and 11 follows soon after. SS Deluxe Wave 10 lands as originally scheduled.
October - Earthrise Deluxe Wave 3, Voyager Wave 3 and Leader Wave 2 rapidly distributed. Studio Series Wave 5 (Overload) very briefly lands, but Wave 4 is super stockpiled, so stores don't order much.
November / December - Periodic Holiday restock. Earthrise Deluxe Wave 3 restocked, but Voyager 2/3 and Leader 2 seemingly not.

If you're interested in logistics (and I am), 2020 was a fascinating case study in it. But really it was a year unlike any other for companies of all sorts of products. Nowdays release schedules have a pretty fixed cadence, Transformers going from a 14 month line cycle to a 12 month one (discussed by Jon Warden a bunch) is just our side of seeing it. Power of the Primes was the "transition" line for that business model, which is why it felt abbreviated compared to the seemingly endless Titans Return (which, let's recall, had TWO Titans in it, Fortress Maximus AND Trypticon). To start the new cadence, Siege Wave 1 basically kicked PotP off the shelves, and by the end of 2019, the new annual cadence was established. But Covid's economic disruption threw a giant monkey wrench in perpetuating that into Earthrise, which is how we got the late Quarter 3 / Quarter 4 2020 traffic jam. The alternative was to fully delay products to keep them spaced out, which would have meant pushing back Kingdom Wave 1 and breaking the cadence PotP/Siege built. Something had to take the hit, and it was Earthrise (which given the Earth theme, is pretty sad). There's been a lot of speculation that the lavish new molds of Netflix WFC (specifically Soundwave, Bumblebee and Arcee) and elements of Galactic Odyssey (Ratchet and Prowl molds, if not characters) were all originally planned for Wave 4 Earthrise Deluxe and Voyager. Siege, just a year before, had 5 waves of Deluxe and Voyager and 3 waves of leader. So there is perhaps some truth to that. That's something I missed out on earlier: a lot of people missed on on narrow-release exclusives like Galactic Odyssey, Thrust and Runabout, and Netflix WFC Wave 2 (later released through Hasbro Pulse). Some of these were almost certainly meant for the main line and moved, just like Studio Series 86 is all figures moved out of Kingdom when they adopted the Beast Wars theme.

Adding to this, is that the leaked release structure of the non-exclusive Kingdom line looks a lot more like how Siege looked, and not like Earthrise.

Again, this is the Transformers side of things, but it effected litterally everything. It effected other lines like Marvel Legends and Star Wars. It effected consumers electronics, computers, even clothes. What's actually fascinating is how the screwed up release pacing of Earthrise matches Nike's similar screwed up shoe distribution because they're going through pretty much the same channels: big container ships, West coast ports, then trucks to distribution centers. That's a lot of manual labor of loading and unloading. And sure enough, just like Hasbro, Nike was very eager to "hard reset" into their 2021 product lines.

So again, I hope Hasbro gives another chance to some of the major characters that had narrow distribution in 2020. It'd be pretty sad if for some people this "ultimate g1" line that WFC is has a big hole in the middle of it, of missing iconic Earth forms.

I mean who wouldn't buy a redeco of ER Ironhide in Studio Series 86 with a detachable head?

 

Idk man, Earthrise definitely hits a lot of categories, like the look of G1 is hit on the mark, but personally for me, Siege just hits different. I personally love the War for Cybertron era of Transformers, so the Cybertron modes and battle damage is awesome, and as toys they are a lot more solid and fun to pick up and mess with, Earthrise I always feel like I have to be delicate with or they'll break. I don't personally mind the kibble on Cybertron modes, and I love all the looks of the Siege guys, I kinda wish they'd carried it on further so we could see what they would have done with some more of the characters on Cybertron

 

I'm so confused by the poll results. If it weren't for figures like Scorponok or Snapdragon, and a handful of other figures, I'd call Earthrise one of the most forgettable lines to have come out in a long time. Hell, it almost feels like Hasbro forgot about it as well, we were getting badass stop motions and it felt like there was a plan for a full trilogy of toylines, then they just gave up.

That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, of course. I got a lot of enjoyment out of it.

 

I just did a quick count of the figures I've actually purchased from each, and they are about equal. Siege figures tend to feel better in transformation, but some of the "Cybertronian Modes" are garbage. The Earthrise figures hit all the marks for looks, but some of the transformations are a pain.

Pluses and minuses for each, they are coming out about equal in my mind. Since I pick and choose and only actually buy the figures I'm about 90% certain I will like, my view is likely skewed, because, warts and all, I don't have any figures from these two lines that I dislike.

 

I prefer Earthrise due to the toys not only being highly accurate to the G1 cartoon in bot mode but also in alt mode and due to the relative absence of battle damage.

 

I think Covid happened and interrupted marketing efforts across the board last year, and Earthrise suffered for it.

 

Sure, but covid doesn’t really explain the conclusion to the trilogy. They still produced toys. It seemed obvious that the part three was originally intended to be season three stuff to tie into Unicron.

then they added beast wars and moved a bunch of stuff to studio series, where the designers allegedly removed greebling and 5mm ports.

I’m not complaining about beast wars (in fact I’m quite a big fan) but I do find it very odd that they completely gave up on the story they were telling.

And again, they still have products on the shelf, still have full packaging designs, and still have some form of advertising with their photography and the backgrounds they use. I don’t think covid can be entirely to blame for everything that’s occurred.

 

Siege just because like everyone one else said, earthrise had Qc issues and siege to me, had stuff that was more articulate and a lot of people were excited over updated versions of the characters we have longed for.

 

I prefer Earthrise, but barely.

Siege had:
A new m.o. with the cybertronian designs while still being recognizable.
Great QC.
I liked the battle damage.
I bought almost the entire line (At 16, lol)

Earthrise:
Cheaper toys.
The best optimus thus far.
And scorponok, who is the only reason I like the line more than Siege.

 

Both were great to choose one over the other? That’s like eating cereal without milk.

 

Siege was the blueprint for everything that ER perfected.

 

I have to say Earthrise if for no other reason I didn't have to clean off and repaint the battle damage off of the figures so they look better.

 

In my area, I never saw the Allicon at all. The other Deluxes of ER Wave 2 and 3 I saw only once except for Arcee, who lingered at Aldi around Christmas. There didn't appear to be any restocks (or in some cases, initial stocks) of those cases. Snapdragon was easy to find and actually plentiful in a few stores. Doubledealer was also easy to find. But I never saw the Wave 3 Voyagers, Megatron and Quintesson Judge. Sky Lynx wasn't hard to get, provided you were looking regularly, and no stores in my area stock Titans so Scorponok was a complete no-show. Targets appeared to get one case of Runabout, who sold out quickly, and restocked Thrust two or three times but he never sat for long. The Clones were easy to come by, Skywarp and Thundercracker were not.

I don't buy Studio Series but I do recall seeing everything on the shelves, the Wave 10 Deluxes with ROTF Soundwave, DOTM Topspin and BB Cliffjumper were definitely rare. I remember rows of Scrapper and Skipjack around Christmas, so often together and with few if any Sentinel Primes and Blitzwings alongside them I thought they must have shipped in a case together. And Overload was fairly easy to get too, although nowhere near as shelfwarmer-y as Scavenger (three of him are haunting the shelf at the local Walmart to this day).

 

OH I know I'm gonna go to Hell for my take.....

Nah real talk on both lines. To me Siege just had everything going right. It gave us the ideal Generations Optimus and Megatron that we would've made as our definitive Optimus and Megatron (despite the obvious Cybertronian mode). If anything we were all gonna keep them in robot mode anyway.

Wave 1: Solid first wave giving us the defacto Hound and Sideswipe and even giving us THE best Skytread. Cog was neat too. He's a decent generic Autobot that'll get blasted by Decepticons in battle scenes. Ultra Magnus...whew...I'm...I'm kinda tempted on blowing the $35 on the Netflix one...Just to at least have a Magnus. Shockwave I saw everywhere...so no opinion on him (Kinda lookin at the Selects one though...gonna go ahead and say that uh...my Shockwave experience is he a grey boi, so thanks Animated).

Wave 2 comes around, its Autobot heavy...not too bad...It had Soundwave and Starscream....till I messed with Starscream....AND...he became my favorite figure in the entire line..so much so that while yes I still own ER...I somehow keep going back to Siege.

Micromasters were cute, sucks they'll be gone...I even thought of doing something here on the threads for the parts-former gimmick. (Hey I might do that in the near future *wink wink*)

I could type a whole paragraph but for me personally I prefer Siege...Earthrise in fairness has gems but something about the line could make me go rant mode. So imma say...go get Spinister

 

Sorry, I was just specifically pontificating about why we didn’t see more of the rad stop motions and other fun stuff last year, your other points are valid, plans obviously changed (they don’t seem to be able to get through these trilogies as planned...)

 

I like both lines a lot, and it's hard to compare them. Siege had so many molds redone in ER or Kingdom that some of them are somewhat invalidated in my eyes. Still, it had 5 waves of products to ER's 3 so it keeps them closer than they'd otherwise be. Looking at the different pricepoints you have:

Titan Class: Advantage Siege. I love both of these guys, but my Scorpinok's head keeps falling off. I prefer Omega slightly.
Commander Class: Siege. Again, love both the figures here but that Jetfire is just awesome. My favorite figure in the WFC line.
Voyager Class: Seige - Springer and Ape Face are the only two who haven't been replaced, vs Grapple, Snapdragon, Quintisson Judge. That's probably a wash for me, but I prefer the ER Seekers to the Siege ones (though I like both) and we got the main three guys plus all the coneheads, so that swings it to Earthrise for me.
Deluxe Class: Sideswipe, Cog, Hound, Skytread (interesting how none of the wave 1 deluxes have been replaced. Though we know Sideswipe will be later this year) Chromia, Sixgun, Red Alert, Refractor, Brunt, Impactor, Mirage, Spinister, Crosshairs vs Hoist, WheelJack, CliffJumper, Iron Works, Arcee, Airwave, Allicon, Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker, RunAmuck and Fast Track. For exclusives we can add Bumblebee, Elita 1 and RunAbout. Siege has some fantastic figures here like Skytread, Refractor and Spinister, and Mirage and Sideswipe are already so perfect that I'm dubious they'll be improved on. But some of the others are weaker. I'm not a fan of Hound's alt mode for instance. I have to go with Earthrise here.
So that's 2-2 (I don't really get to much into the micromasters to rank those) but for me the gap between the Titand and Commander are narrower than the gap between Voyager and Deluxe, so I ultimately wind up leaning Earthrise.

 

Siege had the better toys, Earthrise had the better display pieces, with a couple of exceptions. I don't own too many of either line but QC was definitely less consistent in Earthrise. Also, while it is definitely not a deal breaker, I do think the partsforming was utilized a bit too frequently in Earthrise.

It's definitely unfortunate how hard to get several Earthrise characters were including plenty of major franchise characters like Ironhide, Ratchet, Prowl and the Seekers.

 

Yes to both. Great line.