2016 Toyfair Australia Transformers exhibit

[griffin]

Wrapping up the 2016 Toyfair Australia coverage, from the Preview event, comes the photos from the Transformers display in the Toyfair, plus our
Q&A with Hasbro (mostly about product we will or wont see here).

On Saturday March 19th, at the 2016 Australian Toyfair in Melbourne, the Ozformers fansite was lucky enough to attend for the ninth year, to visit
the Hasbro exhibit. Once again we were allowed to take photos of their display and ask some questions about upcoming products.
Plus, this year we had a lunchtime fan preview event, with several local fans invited to personally meet up with one of the Australian Reps, and a
Hasbro employee from America who works with modelling and engineering at the Rhode Island office of various games and toys.
Hasbro America had authorised us to officially reveal the Titans Return Astrotrain and Ravage toys at the preview event, while the Hasbro
Australian rep brought with him for us to play with, the Voyager Galvatron toy and Crashbash Titanmaster, along with the Combiner Wars Gen2 Bruticus.


Following the lunch preview event, we headed into the Melbourne Convention Centre and straight into the Hasbro exhibit.
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Inside the main entrance to the Hasbro exhibit, this Transformers advertising was the first thing you see. It has the three release dates
along the bottom of the wall.


The Transformers display. Combiner Wars on the left, RID at the back and Titan Wars on the right and on the middle table. Rescue Bots were on the
other side of the Hasbro exhibit, with the other Playskool toys.


Now that Titans Returns has been made official, it looks like Hasbro are now able to use this "blueprint" wallpaper now. (which showed up at BotCon last year, and probably wasn't meant to be)


On the Combiner Wars side, there was nothing new as we know that the main retail line doesn't have any more figures to release, and we just have some boxsets to release here.








On the Titans Return side, a small selection of items... and no army of Titanmasters like at the New York Toyfair.


Legends & Titan Masters.


Leader class - Powermaster Optimus & Blaster.

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Deluxe and Voyager - (out of packaging) Hardhead, Blurr, Galvatron.

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Back of Scourge's card (most cards and boxes were pinned to the wall, so couldn't get photos of the packaging backs).

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Titan class - Fortress Maximus. I was surprised to see two of them on display.

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Later in the day, the robot-mode Fort Max was moved to the middle table, to get two of the modes next to each other (for the benefit of the retailers).


Leader Blaster was plugged into Fortress Maximus, by connecting ramps, while Astrotrain was on the table in all three modes.

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(continued in post #4)

[GoktimusPrime]

"Emissary"? <---guessing Hasbro couldn't secure the name 'Spike' then.

Great pics btw.

[MEEEGGGAAATTTRRROOONNN!!!]

Some really wonky posing going on!

Good stuff though -- can't wait for the rest!

[griffin]

Next up is the Robots In Disguise section, which was oddly half filled with licensed items, rather than Hasbro toys. Of the three shelves for RID, the
top shelf only has licensed items, and the other two shelves had a number of licensed items on the right-hand end.

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.

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The small number of Minicons, showing us a couple of the new Weapon Minicons.


The back of Doomitron's card.


The smaller powersurge toys - Bumblebee and Sideswipe.


And Powersurge Optimus, with electronic features when you plug the Minicon into his chest.

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More licensed items on display.


Finally, Rescue Bots.

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The Trailer sets, the large fiehouse, and the new Optimus and Trailer toy (which comes with a blue redeco of Mirage).


Cartoon team 4-pack.


Megabots Optimus and Hightide on the right, and on the left, the two race cars that have pull-back motors.


Back of the box for the firehouse playset.


And it's contents.


Then the Q&A with Hasbro Australia. (note, we are not able to ask anything that Hasbro America haven't officially revealed, so we can't ask
to confirm or deny any rumoured toys)

Q - What upcoming store exclusives for Australia that are allowed to be made public?
A -Note, Retailer details are subject to changes from now until they are released.

Platinum Edition Planet of Junk Clash (Wreck-Gar, Autobot Hot Rod, Scrapheap) - NO
Platinum Edition One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall (Optimus Prime, Megatron) - Myer
Platinum Edition Armada of Cyclonus (Cyclonus, Scourge, Sweep) - NO
Platinum Edition RID Bumblebee & Grimlock - NO
Chinese New Year - Year of the Monkey Optimus Primal - NO
Superion (Gen2 deco) boxset - ToysRUs & Target
Menasor (Gen2 deco) boxset - ToysRUs & Target
Bruticus (Gen2 deco) boxset - Target (only)
Victorion boxset - BigW, ToysRUs & Target
Japanese Masterpiece imports - on hold for a while. Tracks should be the last one for a while.

Q – Any more Hasbro Masterpiece toys this year?
A - There is one coming, but it hasn't been officially revealed yet.

Q - Any chance of getting more of the HK bonus coins and their other freebie items here?
A - Possibly, as the Ultra Magnus coins did well.

Q - RID Happy Meal toys coming here?
A - Should be Early 2017.

Q - Any planned Transformers exhibitions or promotional displays planned for here that you know of (like at Conventions)?
A - Some things are being planned for this year, but nothing has been locked in yet, so nothing can be announced until it is.

Q - Any chance for the Cyber Commander Toys & Cyber Battalion toys here?
A - No

Now for the toys that we should be getting here, and items we probably won't get here (details can change at any time, but at this time, anything
noted as not coming here, find an alternative source if you want them).

Items noted as "on display" were at the exhibit - they are available to retailers so should come here, but there is always a chance that all
retailers turn down the same item... and they don't get released here at all.

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GEN Combiner Wars & Titans Return - not asked, as all the size classes were on display, so we should get at least the first wave or two of each size class.

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Robots In Disguise

Legion - on display

Warrior - on display

One Step - on display

3-Step (Hyper Change Heroes) - on display

Minicon - on display

Minicon Weaponizer - on display

Minicon Deployer - only for the first half of this year (hopefully Crazybolt gets here before then)

Minicon Battle Pack - Wave 1 yes, Wave 2 & 3 maybe not.
----- Wave 1 - Optimus & Sideswipe
----- Wave 2 - Bumblebee & Grimlock
----- Wave 3 - Alpine Sideswipe & Strongarm

Minicon 4-pack - no

Titan Heroes (12 inch non-converting) - no

Titan Changers (12 inch converting) - on display

Titan Guardians (6 inch) - no

Tiny Titans (2 inch) - yes

Power Heroes - on display
(Bumblebee & Sideswipe with large Minicon)

Power Surge - on display
(Optimus)

Platinum Edition - no
(Bumblebee & Grimlock)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Rescue Bots (Kmart exclusive)

Rescan (transforming) - on display

Supercharger (transforming with pull back motor) - on display

Rescue Team (transforming Robots 4-pack) - on display

Elite/Megabots - on display

Rescue Rigs - on display

Racing Trailer - on display

Minicons - not sure (not on display)

Adventure set - not sure (not on display)
(Police station & Garage)

Playset - on display
(Firehouse)

Epic Figure (12 inch Non-Convertible) - not sure (previous wave was in stores)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Mr Potato Head

Mash-Ups Assortment - not sure (not on display)
(High Tide)


Mash-Up 2-Mode Packs - not sure (not on display)
(Boulder & Heatwave)

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A big thankyou to Hasbro America for approving this, and for the possibility of this being an annual event if this one went well... and a thankyou to
Lewis and Philippe from Hasbro for attending the preview event and bringing some future toys for the invited fans to check out.
And finally, thanks to the fans who attended, and the ones who took photos to post up on facebook and on here for me.

[Ralph Wiggum]

"Q – Any more Hasbro Masterpiece toys this year?
A - There is one coming, but it hasn't been officially revealed yet."

Bumblebee probably. Unlikely to be Skywarp, and even then I'm unlikely to get it as I'm trying to discipline myself with TT only.

[Firestorm]

nice pics and nice write up boss bot
it's awesome of Hasbro to let the local fans in on things like this.

the new Titans return stuff looks neat. although Sentinel looks VERY bright in those pics. Galvatron looks the best he's looked to me so far in these pics. Can't wait to see Rewind show up on the shelves.

it's good to know what exclusives we should be getting here. looking forward to picking up Victotion. shame we aren't getting the Sweep set here since I am sure that's one that lots of collectors would want. also a shame we aren't getting the Platinum Edition Primal. as goofy as it is, I kinda wanted it.

The claim that there are some plans in motion relating to a transformers presence at Conventions in the future is interesting. although I'm guessing it will be things like that bumblebee limosine at Supanova last year. still neat though.

it doesn't seem to have been brought up and they aren't amongst the products on display so should we assume we won't be seeing the RiD minicon battle packs or multi packs here? (Optimus vs Bludgeon, Sideswipe vs Anvil, Bashbreaker, Doomitron, Dragonus, Lancelon. etc)

still mostly good info here. thanks again Griffin and Hasbro

[Paulbot]

Have Scourge, Skullcruncher etc been seen in packaging before elsewhere or is it that another first?

Pretty sizeable display considering some previous years.

Blurr looks quite short next to Galvatron who seemed pretty average Voyager size.

[griffin]

it doesn't seem to have been brought up and they aren't amongst the products on display so should we assume we won't be seeing the RiD minicon battle packs or multi packs here? (Optimus vs Bludgeon, Sideswipe vs Anvil, Bashbreaker, Doomitron, Dragonus, Lancelon. etc)

I do actually have info on that, as I went through our 2016 Checklist and got yes or no to various items that weren't on display... but I wasn't able to type it up last night because I was just way too tired (I just couldn't keep my eyes open, so it was taking too long and I was making heaps of mistakes - I'm actually checking my postings now to see if there is anything thing else that needs fixing).
I will post up the extra info this afternoon, and also add it to my second posting.

Have Scourge, Skullcruncher etc been seen in packaging before elsewhere or is it that another first?

Their packaging wasn't at the New York Toyfair, but Scourge was the only one not pinned to the wall, so I couldn't get photos of the other card/box backs.

[Jinto]

Those Titans Return deluxes look bloody ridiculous. About as detailed and well designed as those shampoo bottle tops that come out with the movies. Extremely disappointing.

[Krayt]

Hey bossbot, swap the YOTG with YOTM