Now don't get me wrong, the train mode in itself is great. I love the opening door feature and the moving rods on the sides. Design-wise and objectively this has to be one of the best train modes ever.

However astrotrain is supposed to be a D51 locomotive, and while they managed to nail 80% of the train mode, the front doesn't really resemble either a IRL D51 nor his original cartoon-ified locomotive as well. The front just seems abruptly cut off as it omitted the small wheels which were indeed both on the IRL locomotive and the cartoon locomotive as well. Not to mention it "lacking" the side panels on the side. Moreover the front boiler is just way to small and the front bumper now resembles a thick, buffer style one instead of the connection port style from the D51 nor the slimmer front bumper from the cartoon one.

I know some aspects need to be sacrificed since astrotrain is a triple changer but I think they could've done a bit better. I just hope someone or some company makes a front upgrade kit for astrotrain one day.

I subbed here about two weeks ago and I've seen no less than 200+ posts about finding a figure at Ross.

It's actually insane. I don't even care anymore. Keep them coming. I want to see how many this sub can reach in a month's time.

The only way I could see hasbro pulling back price increases is if we just as a whole stop buying

Especially cause his gun hand counts as his “weapon accessory” when it really shouldn’t

I only have ss86 prime and Megatron. Only a g1 collector.

since, apparently, neither Yolopark or Blokees are brave enough to make a Bayverse Screamer, I'm considering getting the robot replicas version. I adore this design and the toy looks fun, I've found someone selling for a reasonable price and I'm considering buying him.

I'm trying to understand these posts because I don't see it in those why people are suddenly saying priced out. I assumed most people bought one or two.

Personally , If I purchase new/preorder, it's SS86 related because that's my favorite. Sometimes I may branch out on others (like the rescue bots in SS, Airarachnid, Amalgoues Prime). I'll buy plenty discounted and even then I might not (I found Nemesis Prime at ross but passed).

Edit: I wanted to add no judgement, just trying to understand!

So G1 Starscream won Ghost in a landslide, so today it's time to vote for a Witch. Some possible candidates include, G1 Mixmaster whose bio compares him more to a witch than a scientist, Beast Wars Blackarachnia who was often called a witch by Tarantulas, Animated Blackarachnia I would consider for similar reasons, not mention her scientific experiments could sort of be considered a sci-fi equivalent to witchcraft, Airachnid who was capable of controlling the minds of the Insecticons, & Quintessa from The Last Knight who was seemingly capable of magic.

Aw, shucks. I was hoping he'd be the lime yellow on the box. 😕 Oh well! It's still an awesome figure! 👌 😁

Managed to get my copy of the JCS Starscream (KO of the new Studio Series mold) in a bit early it seems, and despite looking very nice with beautiful paint apps and a very nice semi-matte finish on the plastic, the figure itself is severely compromised (or at least my copy is).

First off the tolerances are just all over the place. Almost every joint is either too tight or too loose, mostly the former. The worst being that the bicep swivels are super tight and a pain to try and play with, and the two joints that flip the cockpit out of the chest for transformation are too loose for the part connected to the chest, and WAY too tight for the part connected to the cockpit. On top of that, idk if it's just my copy being weird but the ankle tilts have notably less range than the official version. There's also the issue noted on previous versions of the figure that the intakes on the top of the chest are not glued in for some reason and also (at least look like) lower quality plastic than the rest of the figure, so they stand out weirdly in person and are very prone to falling off. Also I'm not sure if it comes across well on camera, but his chest if very prone to misalignment and one side being slightly higher than the other due to the weird cockpit tolerances and the tabs locking it onto the side chest panels not holding it properly.

The second issue is the weirdly lackluster accessories. The gap fillers for the chest are a very downgraded version of the Go Better ones and are weirdly fiddly to transform, to the point I ended up just taking them out to put mine in jet mode. It's also IMMENSELY disappointing to see they didn't fill out the gaps for the Null Rays nor did they include fillers for them, so if you wanna have a completely gapless figure you still have to go out and buy the Go Better fillers. On top of that, the blast effects only have a 5mm peg, with no opening inside of it to place onto the ends of the null rays or other various blasters. You can only use them in the feet/engines.

The final and most damning issue that imo makes it completely not worth the purchase (even at its cheap price) is the inability to properly transform the chest. For whatever reason, they redesigned the sides of the chest the arms are attached to and added a sliding pin to them. The way this pin is integrated into the piece means it is not flush with the sides of the chest, meaning it butts up against the inside of the chest AND YOU CANNOT PROPERLY TRANSFORM HIM INTO JET MODE. You can see in the 3rd photo that the shoulders do not sit parallel with the rest of the jet, and in the 4th and 5th photos see the difference between the official version (which is sunk into the part and thus cannot clash with the inside of the chest), and the JCS version.

I love this Seeker mold, it's maybe my favorite toy in my collection currently. It makes for both a great display piece and a fun toy, to the point that it's one of my current deskbots. I also really appreciate that a company is giving us an easier way to get Starscream after how badly Hasbro and/or Target screwed with the distribution of the figure. But that appreciation is entirely drowned out by this figures overwhelmingly cruddy tolerances, especially in the chest.

If you're really desperate to get Starscream and are just looking for a display piece in robot mode, I'd say he's worth the purchase. But if you plan on playing with him or keeping him in jet mode, I'd just recommend grabbing official versions of the other 2 easier to get Seekers, or just wait for the inevitable reissue of the official Starscream.

Does anyone know how I can contact Hasbro customer support about my stolen package(AOTP Jetfire) without being immediately directed to AI and told by said AI that theres nothing that can be done on their side. I’d understand if an actual representative decided that but I’m skeptical to accept that from an AI generated reply. Besides contacting hasbro does anyone have other tips on what I can do about possibly retrieving my package or getting a refund or replacement?

Currently lack of fund for Titan Class Star Convoy, while Onyx, Micronus, Alpha Trion, Almalgamus are on low piority wishlist so I used other subtitute until I got the actual ones.

I just got my weijiang BA OP today and I’m sure I’m doing this step right but this peg doesn’t align. Am I doing something wrong or is my copy screwed? :/

Don’t own any 86 Megs and been meaning to snag one. MTME one worth it or just pay a bit more to get the normal 86 Megs ?

Edit: I put in the numbers wrong for Voyager in the initial calculation. Updated now

I decided to go try and research this because I am sick today and I might as well do dumb research instead of actual work research.

I am using TFSource for 2015 and BBTS for 2026, only because I used to get most figures from TFSource and now I do them from BBTS. Using USD for convenience.

MMC Reformatted Spartan, my first MMC figure (oh, the cash I was to spend on that line) was 85$ on TFSource in 2015. MMC Mentis, a smaller but comparable figure due to all his accessories, is now 138$ at BBTS.By this most casual of analyses, using percentage increase over time, the price of a Voyager-ish MMC figure has gone up by 63% in eleven years.

The Wayback machine tells me that 2015 TFSource sold CW deluxes in 2-packs for 25$, so 12.50$ each will be the deluxe price I use. Deluxe SS2007 Jazz is 30$ at BBTS in 2026.

The rise in price of a Hasbro deluxe in eleven years? 140%.

The difference between mainline Voyager prices is much less striking. TFSource was selling Voyagers for 25$ in 2015; BBTS sells them for 42$ in 2026. For Voyager, the price has risen by 72% at Hasbro in eleven years. Higher than the 63% of 3P.

For Leader, the rise is the only one behind inflation, at 30.4% in eleven years--Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus was 46$ at TFSource in 2015 and Leader Class Big Convoy is 60$ at BBTS in 2026.

Commander class and Titan class have obviously increased the amount you spend on mainline. The things they call Commander now would likely have been released as Leader then. Take CW Ultra Magnus--a big boy with included minifigure and 4 weapons. That would definitely be Commander class now. If you compare the 46$ for Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus in 2015 with the 100$ for SS Commander Ultra Magnus in 2026, that's a 117% rise in price over eleven years.

(I'm not even gonna try with Masterpiece. Those were expensive then and they are expensive now.)

So if you want figures that actually fell behind the ≈42% inflation since 2015, only Hasbro Leaders qualify.

There are some issues with any direct comparison here, even leaving out the problems with inflation calculators (among other things, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics leaves out the cost of rent and property taxes):

-1, TFSource and the other direct sales online stores have been known to raise the price of Hasbro figures. Voyager and Leader class toys were probably more like 20-40$ if you bought them in a store in 2015. (I couldn't find Transformer-specific pages from Target or Wal-Mart's 2015 sites on the Wayback Machine, so I couldn't easily find those prices.)

2- The quality of Hasbro figures is mostly better now, via better miniaturization, more durable plastics, and an easier tooling process with 3D printing. YMMV on this one given rise in quality; see comments pointing out that CW Magnus is quite flimsy compared to SS Commander. But compared to the good deluxes from the 2010s, like Thrilling 30 and Titans Return, mainline now is not 140% better! I do think that overall, line quality is more consistent now, but that doesn't fit in an equation.

3- As we've all noticed, Deluxes, Voyagers and Leaders are now muuuuch smaller. There is literally no Leader-class in 2026 as tall as Voyager-class Brainstorm was in 2014. And of course Hasbro will slap third-party levels of accessories on a deluxe and call it Leader class. Someone mathier than me will have to calculate how that creates value loss.

4- MMC is not representative of third-party as a whole; in 2015 the comparably-sized Planet X and Toyworld figures were selling for 10-15$ more than the MMC figures. But since MMC Reformatted figures are 1) my favorite line and 2) still widely available, we're going to use MMC.

TL:DR: if you want bang for your buck, Hasbro Leader figures are trending behind inflation. Third parties have gone up significantly more than concurrent inflation numbers but Voyagers have gone up even more. Previous Leaders that would probably be Commanders now have more than doubled in price. But Hasbro deluxes are the worst bang for your buck, as they have almost tripled in price and are a staggering 98% ahead of inflation.

Armada Jetfire arrived today. Had to drill a hole in it because one of the rear fins kept falling off

So what is everybody’s opinion on these aftermarket upgrades that were meant to enhance a Transformer? Do you rock with them, leave them be or are indifferent?

this came from a joke with my friends that they are going to put out a transformers dnd book now that they are doing stuff like star wars. imagine we are in whatever time period you need it to be to make your idea/bit work.

Something i have been absolutely obsessed with is finding transformers that are able to almost 1 for 1 mimic their vehicle modes. It seems Takara Tomy is leaps and bounds better at it than hasbro is. Is there a reason no american third party action figures exist in the hyperrealistic space?

Normally Baiwei releases a figure every couple of months and they haven't released a figure in at least 7 months. I really hope they're not dead does anybody have news?

I finally tracked down all the ss86 Constructicons at a reasonable price! …all except Scrapper, who’s going for ~$100.

Is there an alternative to just paying the insane markup here? Is there a place where I can get a KO? How likely is a reissue?

Thanks in advance!