Nah, almost everyone has accepted the hybrid style (well, takara engineered the shoulder to have the toon shoulder as an option!)

I think that we are allowed to know if the divisive design is already shown, at this point  

 

I think that Raiden will be shorter than we hope, but for the transformation. According to Takara, there are 3 train scale:

Same rail,many stories! | Plarail | TOMY Company, Ltd.

I would exclude the advance ones and the big ones: the first is g1 small, the other one is the DUPLO equivalent to Lego (correct me if wrong)

The popular one has train with correct scaling to have ironhide size robot. But the combiner sacrifices A LOT of train parts for feet and shoulder, and this could be the explanation about the shorter height.

 

Really needs to be around three times the size of mp44 ideally.

That being said it depends how they wanna play it. Plenty of free market research from Zeta, xtb, MMC and Fanstoys but one thing's for sure, whichever way they go, if they ever do go down that rabbit hole, it'll polarise fans. 100%.

 

I know TT could care less what 3P does or this board , but it would be great to reveal insecticons in coming months for 2022. Brawn,Windcharger and the Insecticons would tie in so well with an upcoming Skyfire, you know from that one episode. 

 

I'm still holding a candle for a MP Blaster, ever since the Night Stalker release. I think at this point my hand would be covered in metaphorical wax

 

That's what I was hoping for as well. Everything wrapped up in a nice neat package!  

 

All 3P silver pants optimus announced in the same moment made me think about an imminent toy prime announcement

 

Are there 3P silver pants Optimus's? Only one I know of is the KO and Magic Square's metallic reissue.

 

I think we're probably pretty close to a reissue of MP44 . There haven been that many copies going up on yahoo, a lot of the present listings are priced way over MSRP for unused (57500 and up)or priced way over what damaged missing parts copy should cost(37500 and up) An auction that ended the other day was 40000 yen for a unused copy not yet msrp but well over the preorder price. Probably due for Primal and Dinobot as hes going closer to msrp(20000-23000 yen) for a good copy. Cheetor and Primal got reissued previously because the prices there were either MSRP or in cheetors case even more.

I have no idea how they will approach the pluses, the prices have risen over here and they seesaw over there, especially Prowl, Sideswipe, and Wheeljack. I would rather see a new Sideswipe than a plus, but them basing Skids around Sideswipe means we might see another round.  it's not to inconceivable they pushed out TC and SW this year to plan for a round of reissues next year.

 

Eh, I don’t see TC and SW getting reissues unless it’s for the Chinese market. Usually the TT mall releases are one and done if I’m not mistaken. If any of them were to receive a US release it would just be Starscream and Hasbro seems fine with releasing these through Pulse anyway. I’m sure there will be the inevitable KO’s of those two seekers and plenty of people to say the KO is better than the official. Haha. We’ve been down that road, how many times now? Maybe TT knows something we don’t, but I think those are two characters that really deserve their own numbered release. They were prominent background characters and helped further the storyline in plenty of episodes.

Brawn and Windcharger would be amazing alongside the upcoming Skyfire. Add in the insecticons and that’s covering a couple of episodes worth of cast with what we already have.

 

For now these two, but in relatively short distance

 

I thought he was great, too. Really nailed the overall look of the toon. I don't mind the backpack and feet at all

 

Has everyone seen this yet?

New In hand Review of SS86 Slag

I am really hoping that these leader class Dinobots are previews to even better MP versions. The transformation of the chest and dino mouth is really clever. I think with a bit more budget for finger joints, more transformation complexity and paint would make these perfect. Hasbro/TT are killing me. I'm buying tons of CHUG figures these days because they are so good and if they make MP versions I'll be buying those as well. My wallet weeps!

I really don't mind if the MPs go back to having a less complex transformation and slightly less articulation as long as they still look like the toon in both modes and they paint them in the right places. Arcee is an excellent example of strategic paint placement to minimize paint wear.

 

I think it'd be a pretty worthwhile way to get past any worries of appeal to cost on the non-Grimlock Dinobots. The main line is simplifying MP designs a lot lately, and it certainly makes sense to engineer them up too (or hell, for all we know, these Leader Dinobots are simplified versions of MP designs).

 

Yes, that's what I'm hoping. Some of the CHUG figures are so nice these days I'm hoping their plan is to share some of the engineering and design two figures at once. The complex version and the simpler version. And also use the CHUG figures as a sales test to see how popular they are as characters. The SS Dinobots appear to be a big hit with fans so far and hopefully that translates into MP figures later. So far Slag is getting more hype and praise than Grimlock did so that's a good sign!

The rumours are saying that we are getting a new CHUG Menasor combiner next year and I'm very curious to see how that turns out as well. Especially Motormaster. Will they use a separate trailer for combiner parts or attempt an all-in-one design with the trailer incorporated into Motormaster's bot mode? Earthrise Prime's trailer is pretty small which makes me wonder if they will attempt to integrate the trailer. The rumour is that Motormaster is a leader class figure this time so it sounds like he will have a trailer. I'm thinking that however they handle the new CHUG version may be a hint as to how they plan to handle the (possible) MP version.

 

I thought MM was rumored to be commander class? That would seem a little big for sure and a leader makes more sense.

 

I also heard the Commander class rumor. I suspect he's going to be heavily toon-based and the trailer will form the Menasor skeleton with the cars attaching.

 

I think he was supposed to come with two trailers thus explaining the commander class price point.

 

Kind of concerning, Menasor is the one we think has the least chance of happening because of licenses and is the only combiner mentioned. On the hand it may mean their leaning toward doing the others possibly,if demand is there.

Piggybacking off of @Paco Grande , I would be fine if they didnt paint the gray to keep the cost down as long as the other colors are painted. I was seriously disappointed with FT's Snarl as not only was the gray unpainted but so was most of his red chest.

 

On a separate note does the hero x book usually contain news in it, sure would be nice to see some Skyfire line art, also jazz is right next to skids on the cover of the book could this mean jazz is MP-54?