Europe’s largest Transformers convention, Auto Assembly, has unveiled their first ever exclusive. Exclusively available and up for preorder now is Robot Manuel X! Robot Manuel X is a homage to Robot Man X, a Generation 2 recolor of Autobot Topspin who was available in the early 1990s in South America. He is a redeco of the MechIdeas Demolition Crue Apex.
Robot Manuel X will retail for £47.25. He is an extremely limited piece and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. To allow as many attendees as possible to add Manuel to their collection, he will be limited to a maximum of one per person, and as with all unofficial third party releases sold at Auto Assembly, he is an adult collectible only available to ages 18 and over. He will also be available to those buying the Auto Assembly 2013 non-attendee pack, which will go live shortly. Preorders for the exclusive toy are available – open link to view.
Robot Manuel X is one of a two-part set and his “spark-mate” will be made available at another Transformers Convention this Summer, which will be announced at a later date.
Auto Assembly 2013 will be taking place over the weekend of 9 – 11 August 2013 at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in Birmingham in the UK. Guests attending include Dan Gilvezan (Generation 1 Bumblebee), Neil Kaplan (Robots in Disguise Optimus Prime) and Steve Blum (Transformers Prime Starscream), as well as comic guests Simon Furman, James Roberts, Andrew Griffith and many more. Find out more, preregister and buy your exclusive Robot Manuel X at the Auto Assembly 2013 homepage!
Simes
The reality with making these available for Auto Assembly attendees is that – as I have said before – it's not viable and certainly unfair to force toys on our attendees by including these in the ticket price. The only practical way to offer any sort of exclusive is to produce less than the actual attendance figure for the convention.
While this means that some people won't get one, it also means that it is SAFER to do and reduces the financial risk of excess stocks remaining. In fact, that is a problem we had when we produced official comics with IDW as there was a minimum order quantity of 1,000 and if they don't sell then you're stuck with supplies of a comic that becomes dated very quickly.
In terms of the ordering for these, we have been advising people for years to book early for Auto Assembly (and offering varying incentives such as reduced ticket prices, additional free gifts in the goodie bag and so on) and now, for 2013 the ability to pre-order the toy is part of this. Being frank, when tickets go on sale for Botcon people register very quickly to ensure that they don't miss out on the toys so I don't think it's a great deal to ask that people who haven't booked for Auto Assembly 2013 do so now to ensure that they don't miss out!
Finally, as for the Non-Attendee Pack, because of the nature of what we offer in the pack, we need to finalise numbers of these before the convention as we always include a copy of the convention magazine signed by all of our guests amongst other items.
Pricing wise, this is something that we do need to work on because we will have a range of items to include but with the current popularity of the toy and range of things we are looking at including, I am potentially going to do an "all-in" bundle rather than selective options simply because of the variations in shipping and the extra complications it would add from our end to process.
All of the bookings and Non-Attendee Pack orders are processed by just myself and my wife so we will need to make the whole thing as effortless and painless as possible this year!
orangeitis
I wouldn't be pointing it out if it wasn't a thread title.
Scaleface
I do hope this means we will see a "Robot Manuel Z" at TFcon this year.
CZ Hazard
The first lot of orders we are taking are for attendees, then there are orders opening for non-attendees, and then there are a certain amount held back for the show itself so everyone has a chance to buy them. They are limited to one each.
When Ceno says "while stocks last", that is referring to the second figure being available at AA. The same goes with this figure, the priority for stock is AA, but any left after pre-orders and allocation will hopefully go to the other convention, giving every attendee the best chance we can to buy both figures without jumping through hoops.
Oracle_Aesir
Maybe they don't want to risk making about 1000 toys that might not be sold in the end, just so every attendee has a chance to get one
Macross7
Bet TFCon is the other convention.
Protoman
Oh……… you will see……………
Macross7
If they are going by the toys (as shown earlier in the thread), the Twintwist version is white & black. At least to me, this one (Topspin) has more interesting colors.
Whats also worth noting on the vintage packages is Topspin has a white chest in the art but yellow on the toy. The Twintwist has yellow in the art but a white chest. The company could milk these molds 4x. One for toy version & one for artwork version for both characters.
barrelks
Can't wait to see the non-attendee pricing, hopefully there is a package with just the figure (though whatever else they have planned may be pretty damn cool as well, or help defray the cost if I don't like it). Really have to think on this if they are making another one for another convention.
Girl Pants
Wow, always cool to learn of a new obscure TF I've never heard of. This will go nice with Solarbot.
Macross7
Anyone think it isn't fair to attendees that they might not get one when they attend but people that don't attend will get them. Seems everyone who attends should be able to buy one. Enforce the one per person rule (mark the badges of attendees to show they got one) Any leftovers will be sold to non-attendees.
Jotaro Kujo
Really? They were? Because I am pretty sure they were created to be Apex and Geminus, and if the company that makes them says, "Hey, these are going to be third party custom-class exclusive our-version Pounce and Wingspan" they're their versions of Pounce and Wingspan too, no matter how much you may want to think otherwise, what the company that made them says, goes, not what you do.
Oh, and I am pretty sure they're remolded as well. And they, as put in multiple reviews, already have the beast-ish molds built in. As if maybe… they had planned this already. Huh. What do you know…
n10zguy
Yeah, I can't imagine why anyone would have been stupid enough to think this was an Autobot Clone repaint. Last I checked, Neither Fastlane nor Cloudraker had yellow on them.
Shin-Gouki
Was going to post this info myself
caretaker27
I can't wait to order a non-attendee pack. I lucked out last year and got one with the custom head. The extra goodies were so nice, and a real nice touch. I definately hope I am able to order one in time, I am sure these will go quick.
barrelks
Great exclusive. Doubt I will be able to get a non-attendee package since I have yet to budget for the original pair of these guys, but I always loved that recolor, and I love exclusive stuff. Way to go all those involved, great exclusive.
Autovolt 127
the deco looks nice.
Boardwise
It's a great looking exclusive.
Unfortunately I won't be able to make it this year, but already spoken to a friend who wasn't going to get one to pick one up for me. Now to get the other one.
Primax
I've been waiting for this repaint!! Hopefully there will be a non attendee option for just the fig…. and the exchange rate improves! lol $72.49 USD right now.
CZ Hazard
They are G2 Decepticons originally.