It was a pretty empty Hasbro presentation yesterday due to snowstorms, but the folks who managed to make it got to see a lot of crazy-ass stuff.

Of course, Beast Hunters is ongoing this year.  The highlight for me, beyond the usual "yay, Shockwaves and dragons and Ultra Magnuses" is the retooled Beast Hunters Ratchet.  I was already excited for a possible retool of Ratchet in the style of the other retooled toys, but I didn't imagine they'd make him friggin' Dinobot.  Hasbro's (inadvertently?) made him a mix of two of my favorite characters, and my brain doesn't know what to do with this.  (In a positive way.)  It's a Ratchet/Dinobot Fuzor, complete with a rotate blade.  Maybe next year they can take things further and throw some Hot Shot in there too, and we'd have the perfect center of my Favorite Transformers Characters Venn Diagram.

Link: Beast Hunters Deluxes

Link: Beast Hunters Voyagers

Kre-O's also giving us two more waves of blindpacked Micro-Changers.  That's 24 more guys!  And there's folks like Arcee and Cheetor and Guzzle and Lugnut in there.  There's three more Kreon Combiners as well, with Defensor, Abominus, and Piranacon in wave 2.  I am so glad these guys are so cheap 'cuz I wannem all.

Link: Kre-O Micro-Changers 1

Link: Kre-O Micro-Changers 2

Link: Kre-O Micro-Changers 3

Later this year,  Hasbro's beginning to celebrate Transformers' 30th Anniversary.  The centerpiece of all this is holy cow the largest Transformers toy ever made, no joke.  A new toy of Metroplex clocks in at a few inches taller than 1987's Fortress Maximus, which was already nearly two feet tall.  The new Metroplex still has both battlestation and city modes, and I really like the direction the new toy has taken these ideas.  The battle station pushes more of an aircraft carrier vibe with a sizable pair of airstrips running down the legs.  That's way cooler to me than covering up those flat surfaces with giant guns.  And the city mode deals with what I thought was the most annoying thing about Metroplex's original city mode, which was all of the obstructed street paths.  You can send a car from the garage in Metroplex's chest all the way out to the tips of his feet.  No big obstructions in the way.  And, of course, the helipad is still there, and Metroplex has electronic lights and speech, and apparently his pupils can look around???  Metroplex is intended to work with Legends Class toys (he comes with a Legends Class Scamper), and in that vein Hasbro is giving us new Legends versions of Optimus, Bumblebee, Megatron, and Starscream.  There's obviously a whole catalog of older Legends Class and Cyberverse toys as well to fill those ranks.

Link: Metroplex

Link: Generations Legends

In the smaller end of the 30th Anniversary line are a series of Deluxes that are based on the IDW comics.  You know those Spotlight issues that are coming out now?  Those are the issues that will be backed in with these toys, and the titular character gets a toy in the body that's seen in that issue.  So Orion Pax, Thundercracker, Megatron, Bumblebee, Trailcutter (Trailbreaker), and more are getting this treatment.  And, oh, hey, two new Voyager Triple Changers, Blitzwing and Springer.  Blitzwing's okay, but Springer is my Best Possible Springer.  He's based directly on Nick Roche's design from Last Stand of the Wreckers.  Seriously, dudes!  That's like the only thing that would make me excited about a new Springer toy, Triple Changer or no.  That shoots him up to the top of my list.  Sorry, Chinese Springer I just bought.  Your helicopter mode is a pretty toy-y gray, but this new guy is friggin' Nick Roche Springer.

Link: Generations Deluxes

Link: Generations Voyagers

Here's some odds and ends that don't really fit into the Transformers Wiki's coverage.

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During the G.I. Joe portion of the introductory presentation, a memorial clip was shown that mourned the loss of Renegades character designer Clement Sauvé.  A piece of music was composed just for the presentation, a Sad Piano version of the Renegades theme song.  It was very touching and I'm glad they put that together.

Hasbro has a new Totally Not Lego brand coming out soon called "KRE-O," and this section was put in a tiny room away from everything else and heavily guarded.  No photographs were allowed.  Hasbro was afraid that somebody from LEGO might get inside and find out how to make construction bricks or something.  And then they put a bunch of photos of three of them in their press kits.  Well, yeah, sure, but now LEGO will never know that Hasbro is also making kits of Jazz, Ratchet, Prowl, Cliffjumper, Megatron, Sideswipe, and Sentinel Prime!

Crap.

Anyway, it looks really neat, and I will probably get Ratchet. I loves me some Ratchet.

Addendum: "KRE-O" must be pronounced as if you are Dr. Cliff Huxtable yelling at your son.  I've decided this.

It's that time again!  And same as last year, the Transformers Wiki is sending me and another fellow over to Times Square in New York this weekend for  Hasbro's Toy Fair 2011 Collectors Event, where we'll be learning about G.I. Joe, Transformers, Marvel, Star Wars, and all sorts of other things.  But, really, we'll be there for the Transformers.  Coming with me this year is Matthew Karpowich, otherwise known as "Monzo" on the Internet.  He's our dude who sets up this stuff, and was the guy who netted us this opportunity for the first time last year, so he's more than earned his right to attend.  Plus he's got a mind like a steel trap.  I won't even have to pay attention.

Because Toy Fair stuff is gearing up, USA Today gives us a look at the first Transformers Prime toy, Deluxe Class Arcee!  Woooooo!  Man, I wasn't sure if they were going to be able to pull these off, especially Arcee, but they really seem to have done it.  I mean, I was trusting Hasbro/Tomy to be able to do so, I guess, since, well, they managed to succeed at engineering Animated-style toys, but it's hard to truly believe until you see it.

So here we are.

UPDATE: Oh, hey, and UGO has Starscream.

UPDATE 2: And IGN has Bumblebee.

UPDATE 3: And Ain't it Cool News has a Prime/Megs/kids giftset.