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By JediTricks
Published: June 3, 2009
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On the final day of Botcon 2009, this was the Hasbro Designers panel, and it ran late due to the last panel running a little long, so this panel started at 11:08am PST. And it starts with a slideshow.
As usual, no photography allowed, so you'll just have to take my word on all of this.

 

- Human Alliance Skids and Arcee with Mikaela, the slide that didn't make it into the Saturday panel. Both TFs are new in this set, not the same as their Deluxes. Mikaela can ride on Arcee or drive in Skids, the Mikaela figure is wearing a brown jacket, white pants, and tall biker boots - no recreation of the trailer scene in her shorts, sorry kids.
Hasbro hopes we dig the Human Alliance line.
Images of the gray-model are shown off, the prototype figure is a simple buck with no detailing. The figure snaps onto the back of Skids with a big gatling gun over the robot's head.

- Next up, the 25th Anniversary reissue Insecticons. Joe on the panel says that they have all their vac-metallization and pushed hard because some of the other reissues were missing their vac-metal. These are identical to the Japanese release, not even the modified wings.

- 25th Anniversary reissue Perceptor shown. It's the same one as when we were little. They wanted to clarify from Saturday that it does come with the original missile launcher, it just doesn't shoot anymore.

TRANSFORMERS: ANIMATED
- Hasbro is glad that the fans are still excited by it.
- Arcee. Hasbro'd like to give the guys at Cartoon Network credit for helping envision the character, especially Derrick Wyatt (head designer of the TF:Animated cartoon), for getting her into the story and getting her closer to G1 than ever.
Shown is the gray-model bot and vehicle, plus a robot mode scale shot with movie Bumblebee, she's more slight but roughly the same height. Mentioned and shown is that her wings in vehicle mode do come off if you don't like them.
- Rodimus Minor gray-model, shown in scale with animated Jazz, roughly the same size. Sporting that bow again. Hasbro said they wanted to do an Animated figure with skinny legs, change things up for him. Shown without the bow, Hasbro mentions he has good proportions, and is highly posable.
- Cybertron Ratchet. The EMP blaster from Animated Lockdown can be used on this Ratchet as well. The accessories in his hands are electrical paddles like a defibrilator.
- Hydrodive Bumblebee is shown without the scuba gear in a gray model. He's a little smaller than Deluxe Bumblebee to be more in scale with the other TF:A figures. Hasbro says "you finally have your Bumblebee."
- Blackout. He's not in a Cybertron mode because they needed a helicopter in this line. Hasbro admits to bending the rules by making an animated character out of a movie character. He's sporting twin gatling guns on his left forearm.
- Wingblade Optimus Prime. Even though the set comes with the Deluxe Optimus figure, they designed all the pieces this set comes with to also fit on the Voyager.

2010 SNEAK PEEK
- Brakedown. Scout-class. Gray-model shown, as well as deco, going G1 with it. There's compatibility with Jungle Attack Ironhide's accessories. They're designing Scouts from here on out to use accessories from other figures.
- Skystalker. Scout. Deco will be black metallic. It's noted that they design him with a gerwalk mode. He's sporting big hooks for hands. Hasbro mentions his feet are spring-loaded so he can swoop in and attack. His wings have detachable axes. Bill on the panel says the figure's a gargoyle.
- Scattorshot, he's more recent so not as many pictures, and sports only a preliminary deco.
- Deluxe Ratchet. They're doing arch enemies releases together, this one will ship with movie-style Lockdown.
- Speaking of, here's movie-style Lockdown, shown in gray-model next to the TF:A figure, they're pretty much the same height and build, though movie Lockdown seems a little lankier. They took the basic design and just bumped up the detail, put on a good looking deco that's basically the same. They're taking cues from their storyline in Animated, this Lockdown also has a removable blower and can attach the EMP blaster gun that comes with Ratchet.
- Deluxe Dirge is shown.
- Drift imagery is shown, it's line art, and preliminary. It has pretty standard goodies, the style is realistic but not especially "movie" styled, seems to take its cues from classics, so it fits the character well.
- Voyager Jungle Attack Ironhide. He's on a mission in the jungle (the name seems to suggest it's some sort of attack). Shows 2 blades clipped to the truck rear as well as the guns on top. They're going to try to make accessories universal. He's gearing up to fight...
- Voyager Bludgeon. Jungle tank. Samurai robot with skull armor. Cool deco. Beyond the info mentioned yesterday, such as the main cannon pulling out to become a sword and the mech-alive smaller sword reveal behind his head, both swords will stow on his left hip for more samurai styling.
- Leader-class Starscream is shown. Gray model. Eric on the panel says this is his favorite toy from the movie line. It's going to have hidden missiles and gatling guns reveal from the forearms. Tons of detail on this guy. Sports a try-me feature, press down and the chest and mouth each open up and it'll have speech, though they haven't decided what yet. There's also a button on the back to trigger the transformation sound. Looks very impressive.
- Human Alliance Barricade with Frenzy (not really a HUMAN alliance in this set, but close enough). Totally new Barricade looks very nifty. Lots of spots for Frenzy to clip on and use little weapons. Shown is Frenzy popping out of the robot chest with little guns to use. My notes say something about a cockpit missile station, but I honestly don't remember what that means. He's cool though.

At 11:22am, the slideshow ends and the panel thanks us.

Instead of the normal Q&A that would follow on something like this, Aaron Archer comes out and tells us there's a special guest surprise, it's Sgt. Epps from the movie, actor/rapper Tyreese Gibson. Audience goes a little nuts, forgets that they're at a Hasbro Transformers designer panel and just goes into "celebrity!!!" mode, thus ending the action figure-centric portion of the panel. There's some comments and Q&A. The Tyreese part of the panel ends at 11:41am, where the crowd then mobs him for more attention.



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