There are some exciting potential exciting releases in the Generations line according to a sneaky bit of investigation on the Hasbro website - Voyager Brainstorm and Roadbuster, Deluxe Arcee and Hardhead, and Legends Brawn, Gears and Gnaw. (These are the ones that stand out for me.) The Headmasters figures would be interesting, especially given the quality of FansProjects offerings, I like the idea of Hardhead though as presumably it would be a repaint of the Warpath mold which I don't have but want. Roadbuster would be ideal given the Voyager Whirl (although I'm fairly happy with the old Cybertron Defense Red Alert repaint). I wonder whether Brawn could actually be Outback as he's one of the few minibots that hasn't had a modern (Classics) update and they were G1 mold buddies. Gears would also be great for the same reason.
Seems that we're also going to get a full compliment of Age of Extinction Dinobots, the designs look pretty good from the few leaks we've seen, I'm on board with some Dinobots. Hope we get some official Classics versions soon! Speaking of which, Planet X have released some colour pictures of their FOC Swoop, looks pretty damn good to me, nice that it compliments Grimlock, looking forward to seeing more. FansToys have released prototype pictures of a Masterpiece Slag, wow! This looks great, makes me realise how I want Classics Dinobots. Could be expensive, but again would display brilliantly with the official Grimlock we've already got.
It seem that Star Saber has won the Takara Tomy competition for an anniversary Masterpiece figure, I was personally hoping for God Ginrai (who came third) as I was hoping for something for my Classics Masterforce shelf, but Star Saber is a good second choice, hopefully he won't be too crazily large. More on this later. I guess they still might do some of the other figures on the list - often when companies do fans choice they know roughly who's going to win so have designs lined up for all of them.
My new thinking about Beast Wars has got me thinking about the rest of my collection, if money was absolutely no object, what would I buy; I would buy every single G1 figure (possibly in duplicate so I could have one in each mode), every single Beast Wars figure, every single Classics figure, I'd create a Micromaster City (with all the WST), every single Masterpiece and every Grimlock, Ravage, Razorclaw and Steeljaw figure. It then follows that what I should actually collect should be a scaled down version of this, whilst this is almost what I already do, I have purposely not bought into Masterpiece, but if I'm honest, they're fantastic figures and it looks like it has a very healthy future with Bumblebee, Wheeljack and Ultra Magnus on the horizon.
My compromise I think will be to stick with the G1 reissues, leader, base-mode and animal based figures I already have. Then for Classics and Beast Wars pretty much only get the figures that appeared in the cartoon (including the Japanese series), keep the Grimlock et al figures I already have, but to get some Masterpiece figures. To limit the number I get I'm just going to the Season 1 (1984) figures. Okay, and Ultra Magnus. Previously I have not collected Classics figures that belong in Victory, but with MP Star Saber I think it would be good to collect those as well (assuming he works with those figures), this means getting Botcon Leozack and Generations Black (Sky) Shadow. Doubt we'll ever see Classics Deszarus though and the Botcon version just isn't working for me. I think display the Masterforce and Victory era figures together would make quite a nice display, especially as we're getting a couple of unofficial Overlord figures.
I've bought a few Marvel figures this month - Avengers Assemble Black Widow, I haven't opened it yet but it's nice to have a more cartoon accurate version (with the gold belt and wristbands), I've also picked up Legends Man-Thing (it works in the 3.75" scale), since watch the Halloween episode of Ultimate Spider-Man I'm quite liking the idea of putting together a Legion of Monsters collection - really need a Werewolf by Night and N'Kantu the living Mummy in 3.75" scale. I also bought a couple of Chitauri figures from the Avengers movie line as originally they were only in the Ultimate Universe, but they've made an appearance in the 616 universe now as well as in the different cartoon series. I'm looking forward to Christmas and getting some additional funds!
