Post by nevermore on Dec 13, 2015 0:43:13 GMT
For us Europeans, "waves" used to not work quite like they do in the US. US waves usually consist of "new figures plus some extras of the old ones from the previous wave(s)". Conversely, for the longest time, European "waves" tended to consist solely of "new" figures, without any "repeats".
This could have both good and bad results. If the wave 1 figures are still clogging pegs, stores sure don't want even more of them. But if there's too little variety in a wave, it could also result in royal pegwarmers... I'm looking at you, 2007 Movie Deluxe Swindle and Bonecrusher.
But the most baffling phenomenon is the "solid case wave". I'm not talking about the pipe dream of many a fan, i.e. solid cases of individual figures that could be ordered by stores on an individual basis. No siree, I'm talking about cases containing nothing but multiples of the same figure shipping as a wave in what's supposed to be a multi-wave assortment. So if the store is out of, say, Armada Max-Cons, they order more... and get Scavengers. Nothing but Scavengers. We all remember those days.
Recently, things have changed. European waves are much more likely to have the same case assortments as their US counterparts, which means "repeats" of older figures that debuted in previous waves are a thing over here as well now. I'd say it started with... Beast Hunters? That was at least when I started to notice the change.
Meanwhile, the US now also gets "only new figures, no repeats" waves on occasion. Combiner Wars does it a lot.
However, even though it's now very likely for us Europeans to get the same case assortments as the rest of the world, we do still get the odd "Euro Special" wave.
Wave 2 of the 2014 "Classic" Legions consisted of Grimlock (Beast Hunters Rippersnapper redeco), Strafe (Beast Hunters Windrazor redeco), Megatron (2008 Universe Megatron re-release), plus more of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Starscream from wave 1. This case was released at "Dollar" stores in the US and at general retail in Australia. Both in the UK and Germany, this wave entirely omitted Megatron for unknown reasons.
This year, we had the glorious wave "1.5" or "wave 2.0" or whatever case of the RID Warriors... a solid case consisting of eight Drifts. From what I've been told, this case was available at The Entertainer stores in the UK for a while before Optimus Prime showed up, and I've personally photographed the following little parade at multiple Karstadt department stores here in Germany (plus one Galeria Kaufhof department store):
I've also been told that Hungary initially only got Warrior Optimus Prime but no Drift...? Wuh...?!?
Now, we did eventually get a "proper" wave 2 case containing 3x Optimus Prime, 2x Drift, 2x Strongarm and 1x Steeljaw, followed by a regular wave 3 case (Sideswipe and Jazz, with more of Optimus Prime and Drift) and a regular wave 4 case (Night Ops Bumblebee and Gold Armor Grimlock, with more of Sideswipe, Jazz, Optimus Prime and Drift). This week, I found wave 5 (Megatronus, Fracture, Alpine Strike Optimus Prime and Night Strike Bumblebee) at multiple Galeria Kaufhof department stores and Toys"R"Us stores. Since most stores only had a few figures (and none even had a complete set), I cannot say for sure what the case assortment is.
Meanwhile, there's Combiner Wars. As you UK folks will most likely know, wave 2 of every CW size class was infamously skipped at European retail. This means no Blackjack, no Huffer, no Air Raid, no Breakdown, no Dead End, no Offroad, no Motormaster and no Thundercracker. Instead, after six months of nothing but wave 1 figures, we skipped straight to wave 3 with the Protectobots plus Viper, Warpath and Cyclonus. Wave 4 of the Legends followed soon afterwards. On top of that, the UK skipped wave 3 of the Legends as well and only got Groove and Warpath as part of wave 4 (2x Rodimus, 2x Skywarp, 2x Groove and 2x Warpath). While that case was also released in Germany, we did at least get a "proper" wave 3 case (3x Groove, 3x Warpath and 2x Viper). Recently, wave 4 of the Deluxes (Prowl, Ironhide, Sunstreaker and Mirage) has popped up in the UK and Germany. All is as it should be...
... but then there are two more apparent "Euro Special" waves. All of these are not officially confirmed by distributor case breakdowns, but are only based on my personal observations at multiple stores; but then, the patterns are too similar across the board for it to be nothing more than one giant coincidence.
First, the Voyagers. In the US, wave 4 debuts Battle Core Optimus Prime and also includes another shipment of Motormaster, specifically the "improved" version with fixed hip joints.
I found multiple Battle Core Optimus Primes at two different chains (Karstadt department stores and Toys"R"Us stores) as well as at an "independent" store (Spielzeug-Paradies Wagner, which is part of the "Idee + Spiel" trade association). Some stores had a lone Battle Core Optimus Prime, and those that had additional figures always had Hot Spot. But never Motormaster.
So my conclusion is that the "Euro Special" wave 4 case contains Battle Core Optimus Prime and Hot Spot instead of Motormaster.
The other "Euro Special" wave is a Legends Class case that contains... Blackjack. Yes, a wave 2 figure that had previously been skipped. But not Huffer. While there is a wave 4 "revision" case in the US that contains Blackjack, Groove, Rodimus and Skywarp (two of each), this is not quite what I've observed: Seen at multiple Spiele Max stores and Karstadt department stores, all those stores also had the wave 1 figures Powerglide, Windcharger and Bombshell, which had gone from the Spiele Max stores' shelves months ago, and had never been available at those Karstadt stores before at all. Also present were Rodimus and Skywarp. In some instances, those might have been leftovers from a regular wave 4 case... but at least one of the Karstadt stores previously only had wave 3 rather than wave 4!
So my conclusion is that the "Euro Special" wave 4 revision case most likely contains Blackjack, Powerglide, Windcharger, Bombshell, Rodimus and Skywarp.
This could have both good and bad results. If the wave 1 figures are still clogging pegs, stores sure don't want even more of them. But if there's too little variety in a wave, it could also result in royal pegwarmers... I'm looking at you, 2007 Movie Deluxe Swindle and Bonecrusher.
But the most baffling phenomenon is the "solid case wave". I'm not talking about the pipe dream of many a fan, i.e. solid cases of individual figures that could be ordered by stores on an individual basis. No siree, I'm talking about cases containing nothing but multiples of the same figure shipping as a wave in what's supposed to be a multi-wave assortment. So if the store is out of, say, Armada Max-Cons, they order more... and get Scavengers. Nothing but Scavengers. We all remember those days.
Recently, things have changed. European waves are much more likely to have the same case assortments as their US counterparts, which means "repeats" of older figures that debuted in previous waves are a thing over here as well now. I'd say it started with... Beast Hunters? That was at least when I started to notice the change.
Meanwhile, the US now also gets "only new figures, no repeats" waves on occasion. Combiner Wars does it a lot.
However, even though it's now very likely for us Europeans to get the same case assortments as the rest of the world, we do still get the odd "Euro Special" wave.
Wave 2 of the 2014 "Classic" Legions consisted of Grimlock (Beast Hunters Rippersnapper redeco), Strafe (Beast Hunters Windrazor redeco), Megatron (2008 Universe Megatron re-release), plus more of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Starscream from wave 1. This case was released at "Dollar" stores in the US and at general retail in Australia. Both in the UK and Germany, this wave entirely omitted Megatron for unknown reasons.
This year, we had the glorious wave "1.5" or "wave 2.0" or whatever case of the RID Warriors... a solid case consisting of eight Drifts. From what I've been told, this case was available at The Entertainer stores in the UK for a while before Optimus Prime showed up, and I've personally photographed the following little parade at multiple Karstadt department stores here in Germany (plus one Galeria Kaufhof department store):
I've also been told that Hungary initially only got Warrior Optimus Prime but no Drift...? Wuh...?!?
Now, we did eventually get a "proper" wave 2 case containing 3x Optimus Prime, 2x Drift, 2x Strongarm and 1x Steeljaw, followed by a regular wave 3 case (Sideswipe and Jazz, with more of Optimus Prime and Drift) and a regular wave 4 case (Night Ops Bumblebee and Gold Armor Grimlock, with more of Sideswipe, Jazz, Optimus Prime and Drift). This week, I found wave 5 (Megatronus, Fracture, Alpine Strike Optimus Prime and Night Strike Bumblebee) at multiple Galeria Kaufhof department stores and Toys"R"Us stores. Since most stores only had a few figures (and none even had a complete set), I cannot say for sure what the case assortment is.
Meanwhile, there's Combiner Wars. As you UK folks will most likely know, wave 2 of every CW size class was infamously skipped at European retail. This means no Blackjack, no Huffer, no Air Raid, no Breakdown, no Dead End, no Offroad, no Motormaster and no Thundercracker. Instead, after six months of nothing but wave 1 figures, we skipped straight to wave 3 with the Protectobots plus Viper, Warpath and Cyclonus. Wave 4 of the Legends followed soon afterwards. On top of that, the UK skipped wave 3 of the Legends as well and only got Groove and Warpath as part of wave 4 (2x Rodimus, 2x Skywarp, 2x Groove and 2x Warpath). While that case was also released in Germany, we did at least get a "proper" wave 3 case (3x Groove, 3x Warpath and 2x Viper). Recently, wave 4 of the Deluxes (Prowl, Ironhide, Sunstreaker and Mirage) has popped up in the UK and Germany. All is as it should be...
... but then there are two more apparent "Euro Special" waves. All of these are not officially confirmed by distributor case breakdowns, but are only based on my personal observations at multiple stores; but then, the patterns are too similar across the board for it to be nothing more than one giant coincidence.
First, the Voyagers. In the US, wave 4 debuts Battle Core Optimus Prime and also includes another shipment of Motormaster, specifically the "improved" version with fixed hip joints.
I found multiple Battle Core Optimus Primes at two different chains (Karstadt department stores and Toys"R"Us stores) as well as at an "independent" store (Spielzeug-Paradies Wagner, which is part of the "Idee + Spiel" trade association). Some stores had a lone Battle Core Optimus Prime, and those that had additional figures always had Hot Spot. But never Motormaster.
So my conclusion is that the "Euro Special" wave 4 case contains Battle Core Optimus Prime and Hot Spot instead of Motormaster.
The other "Euro Special" wave is a Legends Class case that contains... Blackjack. Yes, a wave 2 figure that had previously been skipped. But not Huffer. While there is a wave 4 "revision" case in the US that contains Blackjack, Groove, Rodimus and Skywarp (two of each), this is not quite what I've observed: Seen at multiple Spiele Max stores and Karstadt department stores, all those stores also had the wave 1 figures Powerglide, Windcharger and Bombshell, which had gone from the Spiele Max stores' shelves months ago, and had never been available at those Karstadt stores before at all. Also present were Rodimus and Skywarp. In some instances, those might have been leftovers from a regular wave 4 case... but at least one of the Karstadt stores previously only had wave 3 rather than wave 4!
So my conclusion is that the "Euro Special" wave 4 revision case most likely contains Blackjack, Powerglide, Windcharger, Bombshell, Rodimus and Skywarp.
