Oh yeah, I just want a give a big ol' FU to the Supreme Court for allowing internet sales tax to go into effect at the end of last year.

So all of this is going to cost more. :|

 

Probably, but I think this year is particularly expensive. I'm not bitching about the cost of things. Really, if anything, it's about the rate of purchases because we seem to be getting carpent bombed with so much that has been in demand.

Siege... this line is proving immensly popular and every entry looks amazing and fan pleasing. I mean, that "Commander Class" Jetfire is something we didn't even know existed 2 months ago and it *litterally* the Jetfire everyone always wanted. So chances are, many of us will get all of it.

Studio Series has some excellent entries this year. More Constructicons, a Prime with a Trailer, Jetfire and some cool odds and ends. There are some pretty dumb releases too in it (Crankcase), and some things that could be skipped (Cogman?). But let's say I'll get 70% of this line.

Masterpiece... this year we're getting Sunbow Optimus Prime, Hound, Bumblebee and Wheeljack for sure. I'll probably wait for KO for Hound and Bee, but I'm comitted to Wheeljack and Prime. And other "long desired wants"... that amazing Movie Megatron is coming out too.

And Takara? We are finally getting Dia Atlas and friends. And Star Convoy at some point.

It's just an onslaught of "wish list" items. I don't think 2020 could top it. What would "Siege" Blurr really say that Legends Blurr didn't? Well get more Constructions in 2020 and maybe better molds of AoE Optimus and TLK Megatron for Studio Series, and maybe another Dinobot I could imagine. But they've already hit most of the 2007, and ROTF cast, leaving the Fallen, Sentinel Prime, and minor characters from DotM and AoE.

And as far as Masterpiece is concerned... with respect to MPM, the big one outstanding is a new Starscream. Probably even more than Blackout now that Studio Series Blackout is a thing. For mainline Masterpiece, BW Silverbolt, Starscream 2.0 maybe?

If they do a Titan Scorpnok, a Commander class Star Saber, pretty much everyone else that is left in the live action movies for Studio Series, and for WFC art 2, the rest of the 1984 and 1985 casts except combiners, combined with something like a MPM Starscream, Sunbow Starscream and BW Silverbolt could all make 2020 pretty close to 2019.But 2019 is big. It's really big.

I really wish I could get on the Beast Wars Masterpiece train. Goddamn. Unfortunately it's just second fiddle to G1 things. But dare I say, if they get through the Season 1 and 2 cast Transmetals aside, the BW Masterpiece shelf is going to be the best looking of them all.

 

Well, it's only February, and between WFC:S, Studio Series, BotBots, and other impulse buys and catching up of older figures (MP, UT, CHUG, etc.), my wallet is already screaming at me to stop.

If that schedule holds true, it looks like I can try to take a break in March and June. I'll get Greenlight, but that's just one figure for that month.

 

This is why I found out ebay has a listing limit for new sellers.

Gotta get space and funds for all this new stuff  

 

On the contrary, it is a pretty cheap year for me. I love the new Siege toys, however, I cannot justify buying all the Generation 1 characters again even if they are in Cybertronian modes; I will have to stick with my first version CHUG toys.

The only toys that I can see myself buying this year are Cog, Skytread, Sixgun, Brunt, Big Powered, and Star Convoy. I need Omega Supreme, but between Omega Supreme and Scorponok, I will have to save my space for a future Scorponok so that I can complete the big 4 City Bots. I hope Hasbro starts doing Beast Wars soon so that I can round off my G1 collection with all the important characters; yes, Beast Wars is still part of the G1 universe right?

I wanted to cutoff my CHUG collection at 1987, but TakaraTOMY just had to go and announce Big Powered; I guess I could limit myself to LG-EX releases from now on as there are so few each year now anyway... It also seems that we are coming back full circle as well with Armada and Cybertron Optimus Prime; you have to ask yourself, if you still wish to continue this journey.

And as a child that grew up with Power Rangers, I hope Hasbro realises that they cannot do Power Rangers for adults like Marvel Legends; there NEEDS to be a Zord toy line as well. The Zords are as important as the Power Rangers; in fact I say they are more important. As a child, I could without the Power Rangers, but I always wanted the Zords.

 

Try converting that into Canadian.

 

My list so far for this year. Wheeljack+ and V3 Optimus are already paid for, and Ectotron has money down on his PO. If I get everything(maybe) and pay full retail(nope), it'll be approximately $2200 altogether. Hopefully I can get Omega and most of Siege and Studio Series on sale at TRU. I thank Primus we still have TRU in Canada.

I don't know what I've spent year to year, and I don't want to know.  

Masterpiece
Optimus Prime V3
Bumblebee V2
Wheeljack+
Hound
Streak+
MPM Megatron
MPM Jazz

G1 Reissues
Soundwave
Gears
Warpath
Powerglide
Rumble/Ravage
Frenzy/Laserbeak

LG-EX
Big Powered

Generations Select
Ricochet
Swoop
Redwing(!?)

Transformers Collaboration
Ectotron-1

WFC
Omega Supreme
Jetfire
Thundercracker
Reflector X3
Brunt
Sixgun
Chromia
Greenlight
Lancer
Impactor
Mirage
Rescue Patrol
Pteraxodon
Aimless
Caliburst
Smashdown

Studio Series
Jetfire
DOTM Prime
Devastator
DOTM Megatron
BB Optimus

Cyberverse
Ark Optimus Prime
Scraplet -however many I can carry

Botbots
Whichever ones I feel like

 

That's 1 reason I cancelled LG Big Powered today. LG Greatshot and LG Grand Max are still up on e commerce sites. Hoping I can get later. I don't do masterpiece. If I did I would have to give it up. $300+ for BW Megs, $250+ Dinobot, $400 MP 44 Prime, I don't even want to think on the price for Black Arachnia, and the eventual Rhinox, Scorponok, and Terrantulus. I also don't buy cyberverse (I got Shockwave to simply use as a true Shockwave {Siege} drone/clone). Only getting Studio Series, Siege, and the exclusives like Select and SDCC. Caught a break with the mistake 9.99 wave 2 deluxes. Have some speedway points I can cash in for some amazon gift cards. So that will help for either Jetfire or Omega.

Have we gotten a definite confirmation of Greenlight? a preorder? What about Lancer? She has been hinted. Maybe the NYCC exclusive like Grotusque was couple years ago?

 

I'm right there w/ you. I think the marketing strategy is to stay in our pockets year-round, and it's working. I'm still trying to digest SS wave 5 and boom we've got all these unveils. I wish theyd slow down.

the thing I dont like is, it's all about the preorder these days. going thru this frantic process of securing something for retail price then wait months to get it. getting old fast..

 

Yeah that's a bit pricy.

 

So as an example, I added up what I'm going in for this year for sure. I seperated the maybes into their own.

February
Studio Series Deluxe Wave 5 Barricade + Sideswipe - $40
Studio Series Voyager Wave 5 (Optimus TF2, Bonecrusher) - $60
Studio Series Leader Wave 2 (Megatron TF2, Jetfire) - $100

March
MP-20+ Wheeljack - $65

April
Siege Micromasters Wave 2 - $20
Siege Deluxes Wave 2 (Chroma, Ironhide, Prowl, Sixgun) - $40... i got the $10 pulse ones.
Siege Voyagers Wave 2 (Soundwave, Starscream) - $60
Studio Series Deluxe Wave 6 (Scrapmetal) - $20
Studio Series Voyager Wave 6 (Optimus / Bumblebee, Rampage) - $60
Studio Series Drift with Baby Dinobots - $30
LG-EX Big Powered (Dia Atlas and friends) - $160

May
Siege Combat Hero Megatron - $33
Generations Select Red Swoop - $20
Generations Select Ricochet (Stepper) - $20

June
Siege Exclusive Autobot Greenlight - $30

July
Siege Deluxes Wave 3 (Refraktor x3, Red Alert, Brunt) - $100
Siege Voyagers Wave 3 (Springer, Thundercracker) - $60
Siege Leader Galaxy Force Optimus Prime - $50
Siege Commander Jetfire - $80
Generations Collab Ecto-1 Ectotron - $40

August
Siege Titan Omega Supreme - $160
MP-44 Optimus Prime 3.0 - $315 if you got it at Amazon.co.jp

September
Studio Series Deluxe Wave 7 (AoE Helicopter Drift, Hightower) - $40
Studio Series Voyager Wave 7 (Long Haul) - $30
Studio Series Leader Class Jetwing Optimus Prime - $50

SUB TOTAL: $1633



Hasbro Non-Transformers
Marvel Legends X-Men Caliban BAF 5 of the 6 - $100
Marvel Legends 90s Professor X - $40
Power Rangers Lightning Collection Lord Zedd and White Ranger - $40
SUB TOTAL: $200
----------------------------------
TOTAL FOR CONFIRMED BUYS: $1813



Maybe Laters:
MP-18+ Streak - $80
MPM-08 Megatron TF1 - $160
MP-45 Bumblebee and Spike 2.0 - $120
MP-47 Hound - Probably $110
SUB TOTAL: $470



Probably Passing
MP-43 Beast Wars Megatron - $313 =(
MPM-9 Jazz (TF1) - Probably $80
MP-46 Black Widow / BW Black Arachnia - Probably $120
SUB TOTAL: $513


Unknowns I absolutely will buy
Takara Legends "Star Convoy" PotP Leader Prime remold - ?
Siege Skywarp Voyager (speculated 2 pack) - $30 to $60
Siege Ratchet exclusive - $20-$30?



-----------------------------------------
Some Numbers for Comparison

I've been tracking my Tranformers and non-Tranformers purchases for about 4 years ever since I caught myself double-buying some Transformers I already had. This has given me a nice spreadsheet of "real" data to draw from going back to Combiner Wars.

Power of the Primes:
51 bought of 51 desired out of 54 total - $1189
(includes intentional double buys of Dinobots for a Combiner with 3P parts)

Titans Return:
63 bought of 64 desired out of 72 total - $1408

Combiner Wars:
54 bought of 54 desired, out of 69 total - $1244

Studio Series Released to Date
19 bought out of 20 desired, out of a total of 34 - $514

Total Projected Cost of all Known Studio Series Released from 1/1/2019 to 12/12/2019 - $896

Siege Released to Date + Wave 2 Preorder
23 bought out of 23 dired out of a total of 23 - $446

Total Projected Cost of all Known Siege Releases through the end of 2019
42 Released Action Figures (including known exclusives, the 35th anniversary figures) - $1215


----------------------------
Discussion
Power of the Primes changed Hasbro's release schedule and wave numbers largely to get retailers into ordering later cases of the line, and avoiding Last Wave scarcity. This created a line that ran, roughly, from November 2017 until November 2018, or about one calendar year. This brought PotP's total to just under $1200, and probably closer to $1000 if you waited and got some things for less than MSRP.


Titans Return and Combiner Wars ran longer due to the older release schedule, but were also somewhat less expensive, yielding line-wide totals of $1408 and $1244 over about 15 months each.

With Siege running from around November 2018 until probably November 2019, when Part 2 (probably unveiled this Summer) will start to be pushed, we're looking at probably another handful of figures to be unveiled in Wave 4 (with Mirage and Impactor deluxes) and that'll be about it. Let's imagine those figures are probably 2 more deluxes ($20 each, so $40), 2 Voyagers ($30 each, so $60), and another leader (Alpha Trion remold of Shockwave?.... $50). That is an additional $150 on top of the $1215 known cost from Wave 1 through Wave 3+Mirage and Impactor, for a Line-Wide Total of $1365, before exclusives.

In other words, Siege itself is modestly more money, in somewhat less time than its predecessors, but it also has more, and more expensive figures than its immediate predecessor, PotP. Still, the "About $1200-$1400" total of a line, which dates to Combiner Wars, still holds with Siege, just in 1 year instead of 15 months.

So if it were just Siege, 2019 wouldn't be all that different from any other year for mainline collectors.

What gets us is Studio Series.

21 Studio Series figures saw wide release in 2018. If you bought all 21 for MSRP, the cost to you was $660. If you bought all of them plus all of PotP, you spent $1849 on mainline transformers in 2018.
In 2019, if you do the same - buy all of Siege (will spilled into 2018) and all of the 2019 Studio Series releases, you'll spend $2111. More than 2018, but pretty close.

But here's the thing. That 2018 number is deceptive to a degree. As would be a 2017 and 2016 number. Because not included in this calculation are the non-completionists "one offs" people bought into. For example, the some non-terrible figures from the TLK line like Voyager Megatron, Hound, Scorn, Nitro Zeus, Hotrod. Or exclusives that came out of no where like TR Monsterbots, Prime Wars Trilogy Exlusives, TR Arcee, or SDCC Optimal Optimus. You add all these up (and sure we'll have them in 2019 too, see Combat Megatron), and you'll exceed the $2111 face-value number.

The short of it is, at risk of stating the obvious, is that Studio Series makes this hobby much more expensive if you're a completionist. For $896, you can buy all the G1 Sunbow Masterpeices coming out in 2019. Or all the Beast Wars Masterpieces. Or you can get both of those, and just stick to Studio Series, and skip Siege, and come in at again, about $2000 for 2019.

Basically, if you want to stay sub $2000... Studio Series, Siege/CHUG, Masterpiece... choose two. Chosing 3 roughly adds $1000 beyond that.

So what's not included? The other things you may buy if you're like me. Probably about $300 in Eaglemoss this year (down from 2018, where I went a little nuts, but I won't exactly be buying a Klingon Bird of Prey again or anything), $$300 in Marvel Legends and Miscellaneous other figures.

More annoyingly, 3rd Party. Some people are way bigger into this than others. I go in mostly for upgrade parts now (like combiner stuff) and don't go in for 3P MP or Legends Scale collecting. This means that going in for a really cool 3p Deathsaurus or Star Saber is going to be hundreds of dollars on top of this, and might not happen at all. When Planet X released their Dinobots a few years ago, I paid for them without thinking twice. If Deathsaurus and Star Saber came out two years ago, there would be no question. Now? I like both, but I don't know if I like them enough. And more, I gotta wonder if an official Star Saber and Deathsaurus isn't terribly far off.

People have different tastes, different finances and will make different choices of course. For me, it's looking at, by doing the napkin math here, 2019 will come in at about $500 more than 2018 for just Transformers stuff of all types. What this will probably end up doing is pushing 3P out almost entirely , and past Wheeljack and MP-44, sticking Masterpieces to be entirely KOs or 4th Party Improved KOs. LT-02 Optimus Prime set a big precedent for that for the forthcoming Megatron. Why spend $160 on an official figure when an improved KO will come in at $110? Bumblebee 2.0 will probably wait for a $35 KO instead of a $110 official. Which again means 3P is probably going to take the brunt of it. It also means, for me, Beast Wars Masterpiece isn't happening, unless they too get KO'd.

So yeah, this is probably the biggest year ever for Transformers collecting in terms of number of dollars that could be spent and likely will be spent. However the there is a band of well over $1500 on how nuts you can go. Low end, probably about $1500 to get all of "just Siege" and a Masterpiece and nothing else. High end, well over $3000 if you get all of Siege, all of Studio Series, all the Masterpieces, and probably another $500+ in things we don't know about yet.

I'm honestly not sure 2020 could get close just due to the sheer quantity of releases. And that's probably a good thing.

 

All I want is MP Hound so I'm looking forward to a cheap year. Like, 2018 cheap.

 

Yeah, the 35th anniversary is shaping up to be the greatest and most expensive year in the history of the franchise. The summer is just insane; I don't think I can process so many awesome releases in such a short time.

I usually keep a list of planned purchases for the year but this year I had to sit and write down my goals in terms of the different sublines that I collect (due to budgetary and space constraints). And coming from years of 3p collecting I decided to cross out a lot of stuff and it's still crazy expensive.

 

Haha! Not too long after I posted that, I got wind of the Amazon pre-orders for WFC:S Jetfire, Galaxy Force Prime, Springer, Mirage, Smashdown, and Omega Supreme, so of course I had to grab them all. Fiscal responsibility? What's that? My wallet is now begging for mercy.

 

I seen a few people on YouTube talking about it too and that was what they said. This year your going to have to sell some organs and maybe a few fingers,....maybe a arm to afford all of this. I seen so much i want in the last day or so and i dunno how i am going to be able to buy it all.

 

Too expansive in my opinion.

I know some fans hate that there is complaining about those rising prices but I cannot justify to myself to spend for excample 350 or so for mp44 V3 Prime.

Yesterday I´ve transformed some of my Takara masterpieces while my wive (who has nothing with Transformers) was sitting next to me working on her pc.
When she looked at me trying to transform mp35 Grapple (missed a step so I´ve couldn´t get right ) I flipped out that this was one from a time that Takara still made nice and fair priced masterpieces and that those days are over 

She is happy about it cause I didn´t buy a transformer for a long time now 
These days I only collect official masterpiece G1 figures so I`m looking forward for masterpiece Hound, so far he looks very good.
Hopefully the price will be reasenoble, so around 100 Euro´s.... 
But untill then I don´t buy one so this will be a very cheap Transformer year fo me  

 

I started thinking this same thing the past couple days with all of the reveals. It isn’t so much the dollar amount that I’m concerned about...it’s all the space that stuff is going to take up. I set a space limit for myself when I got back into collecting last year and, well, I’ve pretty much filled that up. I can honestly say that I’ve only gotten things I really want; they just keep cranking out MORE stuff I want. As cool as Omega is, for example, I just don’t have room for that big bastard!

 

Huh?

Let's check the numbers:

Ectotron - $40
Scraplet - $8

Total: $48.00

Sorry it looks like, you just need to learn how to budget your life.

 

Yeah, 2019 seems like it wants to kill me.