TFCC Botcon 2016 theme - Dawn of the Predacus

[Paul Agnew]

(for those of us here going).

You know who WON'T be going to BotCon this year?

But wait. A replacement guest has been announced, and ooh it's a good one.

[Verno]

Three of the robots in that preview have 2015 toys that can combine - the combiner just misses two limbs. I'd put money on two of the at show exclusives being Maximal/Autobot limbs to complete a preBW Mangaboss as will be revealed in the comic.

If I was making decisions they'd be an Air Raid as Skywarp and Rook as Santon. Maybe Legend Groove as Lio Junior?

Perhaps. But the bodies Ironhide and Prowl have aren't based on their Combiner Wars toys.

[Paulbot]

Perhaps. But the bodies Ironhide and Prowl have aren't based on their Combiner Wars toys.

Not yet.... but that's page one of the comic.

[griffin]

Hound has a good Beast Wars name to him, and now has a Combiner Wars toy as well... leaving them with just one more Gen1 character that has a Beast-ish name or a link to Beast Wars to make a Deluxe Combiner Wars toy for.
My vote would be Grimlock, from the Rook toy... as its big and bulky, and he was also in Beast Wars. Then you'd have an Autobot pre-Beast Wars combiner that would fit with the Beast Wars theme (and just sell Grimlock with the gimmick/bio of combining with the other four released toys).

[griffin]

You know who WON'T be going to BotCon this year?

But wait. A replacement guest has been announced, and ooh it's a good one.

That's so sad, for the fans who were going and wanting to see him.

In case the BotCon twitter disappears again, the first link is to an announcement that Scott McNeil will not be able to make it to BotCon this year.

The second link refers to Gregg Berger taking his place, from the recent FunPub email...

Hello Members!

We have some exciting news! On Friday afternoon, BotCon registered attendees will be treated to a script reading panel starring Judd Nelson, David Kaye, Venus Terzo, and Gregg Berger! To see this you must be a registered attendee, so make sure you have signed up for your Primus, Golden Ticket Primus, MiniCon or Protoform package. Also, for those who have already registered, if you have not yet added your Judd Nelson VIP Pass to your existing package you can do that today! Visit BotCon for the details and then if you need to register, add the VIP pass or do both, you can do that here.

As you can tell from the above paragraph, there has been a guest change. Unfortunately due to personal reasons, Scott McNeil had to cancel. However, Gregg Berger will now be coming! We will all miss Scott, but we are very excited about seeing our old friend Gregg in a few short weeks.

Registration will close on March 21st so there is not much time left to register. Currently there are only 30% of the Primus packages, 8% of the GT packages and 19% of the Iacon (non-attending) packages, left.

Please note that March 16 is the last day you can join the Transformers Collectors Club. If you are interested in receiving the discounts for BotCon, the 2016 FREE Membership Incentive figure and/or purchasing the TFSS 5.0 (to be revealed in full at BotCon 2016) you will need to be an active member as of March 16. All memberships will end December 31, 2016. Hasbro looks forward to sharing new plans for the Collector’s Club with you in the future.

We appreciate your support over the last 12 years and wish the brand well in their new endeavors.

Thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing each and every one of our Club members at BotCon 2016!

Brian

I'm actually quite surprised at how many sets are still unsold. 30% of the Primus allocation and 19% of the non-attending allocation... plus about a dozen Golden Tickets left.
Even if they didn't reduce the number of boxsets this year (from not selling out for the last four years), having about a quarter (about 400) unsold, of an estimated 1500 boxsets (last year's number), is a lot of expensive boxsets that FunPub have to clear out before the end of the year.


As for the loss of their two main guests this year, it looks like FunPub is getting all sorts of karmic bad luck right now, just before they end their Transformers operations... and it isn't even caused by their mishandling of things this time.
If these things had happened six years ago before things started going bad for them with the Transformers fandom, they would have earned a fair bit of sympathy over the massive bad luck of both of their headline guests cancelling. As much as you want them to fail like this, it is the fans (attending the event) who will suffer most from this.

[griffin]

The latest Podcast that Pete guest stars on has shown off some closeups of BotCon toys, including what looks to be a sneak peak at Terrorsaur.

Some images and the podcast link can be seen here.

teased the Terrorsaur figure, which was first revealed on the Predacus boxart, and seems to be - at this point - a straight recolor of Combiner Wars Airraid.

-Ramjet can be seen at around the 22 minute mark

-Skywarp can be seen just after at the 23 minute mark

-The torso mode for Predacus at around the 24 minute mark

-Seaclamp can be seen at about the 26 minute mark

-TFCC 5.0 Prime's head can be seen at the 39 minute mark

-Terrorsaur can be seen at the 1 hour 14 minute mark.

[MEEEGGGAAATTTRRROOONNN!!!]

A review of the three Tripredacus council members:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S0pLTcqNzc

Also Botcon souvenir figure Terrorsaur (courtesy of Botcon's offical FB page):

[Paulbot]

So the best figure (so far) is the one you can't buy? Of course it would be.

[griffin]

I don't like the cheesy grin... it's disturbing. I do like how they've tried to break up the red with some other colours that match the cartoon, but for some reason, it doesn't feel right, as the original toy had blue and green, not grey and yellow.
And he looks a little too buff for Terrorsaur, who was always a skinny, scrawny character and toy. (even his Transmetal toy, which did look like it had hit the gym, but was still a work in progress )


All these years I've been saying to reveal the at-show toys but keep a couple secret (the attendee and Custom Class toys - as you get the same effect from 2 or 20 secret toys)... and they go and reveal the attendee toy, leaving the bulk of toys still secret.
It's no wonder they struggle to sell the at-show toys, because a lot of people don't have enough time to organise to get one, or would have registered to attend just to make sure they don't miss out (if in America).
I think that this year, since it doesn't really matter how it turns out, they should just reveal most of the at-show toys, and see what difference I think it will make.

[prjkt]

Hah, very creepy face. First thing I saw. Colours will match Predacus pretty well though, and I like the pattern on the wings.