We missed a day yesterday on our Beast Wars II cartoon galleries, but we had posted two over the the weekend on one day to make up for it.  So today we're back on schedule with our 9th day of Transformers Beast Wars I updates featuring Episode 9 - The Strongest Tag Team

In this episode Starscream and BB manipulate the Insectrons by getting them drunk, making them fight amongst themselves, with the hope that they will also attack the Cybertrons by confusing them as to which faction is good and which bad.  Tasmania Kid discovers Starscream’s plot and straightens things out with some of the Insectrons, but not before Power Hug and the other Insectrons have a drunken scuffle.

Meanwhile Galvatron awakes and decides to have a drink from the same oil, leading him to go on a drunken rampage across the Insectron forest.

We also discover Big Moss's third mode in this episode, as well as having a nice Chibby Starscream character

Simon Plumbe, head of Auto Assembly, has posted an update regarding their 100% record on credit card security across the 12 year history of the convention.

We know that many Transformers fans across the globe are currently concerned about repeated incidents of credit card fraud that have been taking place recently that are affecting many of you in these difficult financial times. To allay any concerns that you may have, bookings for Auto Assembly 2012 are still open and have been unaffected by this and we have not had any issues regarding credit / debit card fraud since the convention started in 2000.

We have been using PayPal to handle all our transactions safely since 2004 and are happy to offer alternative methods of payment for anyone wishing to attend the convention if you do have any concerns about paying using any electronic method. I can personally assure you that none of my team have access to any of your financial details or any of your personal information other than your name, address and email address which we need for the purpose of the convention itself.

In addition, I offer my personal guarantee that none of this information is shared with any third part organisation or individual not involved in the running of the convention.

In addition, I would like to offer assurances to all of you that our sister convention, Auto Assembly Europe, also uses PayPal for all of its bookings and transactions and as such is also unaffected by any credit card issues but they too will also be able to help with any concerns you may have once bookings open for this year’s event later in the year.

Simon Plumbe
Auto Assembly Committee Head

In a few months it's that time again. The 4th C.O.N.S. opens the doors. On the 22nd of July 2012 we will transform Germany with even more power. This year we have space for more dealers and even more fans like ever bevor. We will care for the entertainment with a really great program. This years special guests are:

 Simon Furman - Comic Author
 Andrew Wildman - Comic Artist
 Neil Kaplan - The voice of Transformers R.I.D. Optimus Prime and more

 The rockband Rampage will once more do the musical entertainment. The pre-sale for the tickets has already started and everyone can get a ticket now for 8 Euro. Those of you who want to attend as a dealer has still the possibility to do so. But here is the space already limited.

 Tickets available: here
 Dealers can book their stand: here

 The exact address is:

 Haus Seerose
 Steeger Straße 38
 41334 Nettetal
 GERMANY

 Here are the official flyer and the first teaser:

Source: NTF-CONS.DE

Today's gallery of Beast Wars II screen grabs is now online.  Today we look at Episode 8 - Friend of Foe? which introduces even more Insectrons, Scissor-Boy, Drill Nuts and Powerhug.

In this episode we question whether the Insectrons are friends of the Maximals, or enemies, as the three new Insect Robos attack the Cybertrons Tasmanis Kid, Diver and BigHorn, after DrillNuts "Destron Detector" goes off.

TFW2005.com member Masabon has posted inhand images of Transformers Encore Soundblaster, Enemy and Wing Thing.  He has also posted translations of the tech specs and the Japanese profiles.

Wing Thing is based on Transformers Generation One Action Master Soundwave's partner

To make up for the delayed publishing of episode 6 of Beast Wars II, I have decided to also publish the 7th episode from the show that was called The Insect Corp Arrive.   The original episode synopsis was "Within a forest on Gaea lies the Insectrons. But who's side are they on?" and the episode feature the debuts of the Big Moss and Tonbot.  Manterror also briefly appears in the episode which sees Big Moss and Tonbot get tricked by Starscream into believing that they are the famous Cybertrons and that Lio Convoy is actually a Destron.  Starscream and BB attack Thrust and Dirge several times in the episode referring to them as the "manzai-combi" which is a reference to the traditional style of stand-up comedy in Japan.  During the episode Tonbot, who is mainly a humourous character, speaks English a few times.  He's some preview images:

Click on any of the images to jump to the image gallery

It's much later in the day that we planned but our Beast Wars II cartoon image gallery continues with the 6th episode from the show that was titled Mystery of the Ancient Ruins.   The original episode synopsis was "A strange ruin holds many mysteries for the Maximals" and featured the debut of the character Mantis, a recolour of the Beast Wars Manterror figure.  Here are some preview thumbnails.  The episode also revealed the connection between Apache and Lio Convoy including the first time they met when Lio Convoy save Apache's life on the battle field.

Hong Kong forum TOY-WORLD.COM.HK have posted scans of the March 2012 issue of Figure King featuring MP-11 Starscream, TakaraTomy's Transformers Prime figures and nd the upcoming campaign Microns.  You can find some mirrored images below but we hope to have a full scan of this issue for you shortly.

The exclusive figure for this years Roll Out Roll Call convention has now been revealed and it's another G.I-Joe / Transformers cross-over Pretender.  Last years exclusive was a Pretender of The Kraken which was received with mix reaction from fans, well this year the exclusive is the S.N.A.K.E armour from G.I-Joe only as a up-scaled Pretender figure.  We've seen the prototypes of these and they are big!  The figure are being made exclusively for the show and will be very limited.  They are available in three colour schemes red, white and blue and come with a sticker sheet to allow you to customise the figure to your favourite faction.  You can view the reveal below.

Update: The link has now been corrected to the actual gallery

Following straight on from the previous story is todays Beast Wars Second cartoon gallery.  Episode 5 is titled Galvatron Revived and we have over 350 images from the episode.

Galvatron awakes from his offline state. The Cybertron's better beware.

It's a day late but you will now find our gallery for Transformers Beast Wars II Episode 4 - The Lake Trap cover over 350 images from the episode.

Tasmania Kid's eagerness to impress leads to troubles.

Transformers Galaxy Hong Kong Fans Group we have some in-hand images of the recently released Takara United figures UN-28 Axalon, UN-30 Optimus Primal, and UN-31 Beast Megatron

Headrobots have updated their Twitter and their Facebook accounts with teases for new products. The first, is a head upgrade for Hunt For the Decepticons Banzaitron, called the Ronin Shadow Mercenary kit whilst the second  is an upgrade for Generations Skullgrin called Tauros.

Ronin Shadow Mercenary kit will feature a new head and a gun for the figure.

Japanese online store Hobby Search has new images of the recently reissued Transformers Encore Soundblaster and Transformers Encore Twincast.

Soundblaster comes with an Orange RatBat and a Red/Blue Rumble figure whilst TwinCast comes with an Orange Ravage and a Black Steeljaw.

You can see Soundblaster here and Twincast here

DVD Talk have a review of the Transformers Prime Series Blu-Ray disks

Video & Audio Quality
Presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio, this 1080p transfer of Transformers Prime: Season One is excellent but not perfect. To be fair, a few small problems are inherently due to the source material, including mild aliasing and jagged edges. Mild compression artifacts can also been spotted along the way, which seems like more of an authoring issue than anything else. Either way, what's here is largely impressive, as the image is typically razor sharp with vivid, striking colors and strong black levels. So while there's room for improvement, I'd imagine that most fans of Prime will be pleased.

The audio is a touch more consistent, as each episode arrives with your choice of DTS-HD 5.1 or LPCM 2.0 mixes. The former creates an enveloping and dynamic soundstage from start to finish, often filled with plenty of surround activity once the action heats up. A bit more low end would've helped to sell some of the action, as well as some added "punch" for the gunfire. Dialogue is crisp and the score is also well-represented with no obvious sync issues. Overall, fans won't find much to complain about here, as this ambitious audio presentation is leaps and bounds above most animated TV shows.

Bonus Features
Unlike the show itself, almost all of these bonus features seem to be aimed directly at older fans. The bulk of these are 14 Audio Commentaries that largely focus on episodes from Discs 1 and 4; more often than not, they do an excellent job of covering all the bases. Featured participants include several producers, a number of representatives from Hasbro, animation and art directors, composer Brian Tyler, several directors and writers, a handful of voice actors (including Peter Cullen and Ernie Hudson) and...Bumblebee, just to name a few. These are generally fun and informative audio commentaries... which is good news, because the remaining bonus features don't dig quite as deep.

Disc 4 houses the remaining extras, which lead off with a promotional Behind-the-Scenes Featurette (11:03). It's short and not especially enlightening, though I enjoyed seeing a handful of voice actors do their thing. Also here is a slightly more in-depth Toy Featurette that focuses on Prime's characters and how they selected the roster (16:30), as well as a ridiculously short Teaser for Season 2 (0:20). Like the episodes, these bonus features are presented in 1080p and do not include optional subtitles.

Also included in this "Limited Edition" package is a softcover Graphic Novel that serves as a Prime prequel of sorts. It's a nice little bonus and quite substantial at 96 pages, but I'm assuming that later releases of this boxed set will omit the book (although I'm guessing it'll still be available separately).