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Alternatives to Build-a-Figures


RyanDaly

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I've been thinking about the Stiltman wave ever since last weekend and the creative method Hasbro employed to include non-essential-but-enjoyable extensions on an army builder character, the Hand ninja. This got me thinking about other creative alternatives Hasbro could employ with waves besides the standard build-a-figure piece to make larger than standard characters.

Here are a couple of ideas I came up with

X-Babies wave

For an X-Men wave, instead of each figure coming with a BAF piece, he/she comes with 2.5 to 3 inch X-Baby character in the Arthur Adams style. This idea was partially inspired by the Stiltman wave's Spider-Gwen figure coming with Spider-Ham (instead of a BAF piece, I assume).

Xbabies.thumb.jpg.65309bbf96c7ff06fe80886178039d0b.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Moloids

For a Fantastic Four wave, instead of each figure coming with a BAF piece, he/she comes with a 3 inch Moloid character. This works especially if the line comes with Mole Man. Also, since the Moloids would fall into the army builder category, it makes sense for there to be an army builder in the wave so you can have potentially countless Moloids. Thus, I think the wave should also include either a Doombot or a Skrull warrior. 

Moloid.thumb.jpg.a569736a15b97cb2bd3fce3ff6b5f3db.jpgMoleMan.thumb.jpg.bc71e7f08738567bd6727a96464c91d7.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts? Any other ideas for variations on the BAF theme that don't have to be half-sized figures?

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26 minutes ago, leokearon said:

Mini figs could work, but if they are follow on the Gwen/Spider-Ham approach they will be glorified statues.

Yeah, ideally if Hasbro were to do this it would be more like packaging a 6" Legend with a 4" Universe figure, although even those would too big for some. Maybe the mini-figs wouldn't need every point of articulation but at least nine.

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I'd pass on kiddie X-babies & never cared for Moleman/ Moloids. I'd much prefer a "Giants of the Marvel Universe " line. All characters in the 10ft + hgt range could be made here. I'd make it 1 figure per quarter so you can stretch it out for 3 yrs at least. Feel free to add any other large scaled characters I might missed. The price range would depend on the scale of the characters. Bigger ones costing more.

Sasquatch- 10' tall, alternate snarling/ open mouth yelling heads & closed fists/ clawed open handsat

Champion- 10' tall, alternate heads & hands

Titanium man classic version- 10' tall. Alternate hands & various weapons FX.

Orka- 14' tall, alternate head & hands/fists

Sentinels, classic Byrne DOF P version- 16" tall. Alternate habds/fists, weapons FX

Giantman/Goliath - Pym version. 16" tall. Alternate heads open hands/fists

Goliath- Erik Josten- 16" tall . Alternate heads fists/open hands

Stranger- 12' tall. Alternate heads, fists/ open hands, power FX

Watcher- 10' tall. Alternate heads and open hands and fists.

Warstar- 10' tall, comes with 4' tall B,nee that fits in C'cil back, alternate fists/open hands.

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Dragon Man at 15"

Giant Man (Raz Malhotra) at 16"-18"

Goliath (Tom Foster) at 16"-18"

Ant-Man & Stinger 2-Pack scaled up at 16"-18"

Yellowjacket at 16"-18"

Atlas at 16"-18"

Titan from the Shi'ar at 16"-18"

Groot at 14"

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I’d add Wasp ( she went a Giant - Wasp for a spell) & Stature 

as far mini pack ins:

impossible Man

Pip

Tom Thumb

Cosmo

even with limited articulation ( like that BS new 3 3/4” Legends line) it would be better than mini statues. Remember at the end of Marvel Universe line the articulation was sparse.

 

 

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53 minutes ago, Gigantor said:

I'd pass on kiddie X-babies & never cared for Moleman/ Moloids. I'd much prefer a "Giants of the Marvel Universe " line. All characters in the 10ft + hgt range could be made here. I'd make it 1 figure per quarter so you can stretch it out for 3 yrs at least. Feel free to add any other large scaled characters I might missed. The price range would depend on the scale of the characters. Bigger ones costing more.

Sasquatch- 10' tall, alternate snarling/ open mouth yelling heads & closed fists/ clawed open handsat

Champion- 10' tall, alternate heads & hands

Titanium man classic version- 10' tall. Alternate hands & various weapons FX.

Orka- 14' tall, alternate head & hands/fists

Sentinels, classic Byrne DOF P version- 16" tall. Alternate habds/fists, weapons FX

Giantman/Goliath - Pym version. 16" tall. Alternate heads open hands/fists

Goliath- Erik Josten- 16" tall . Alternate heads fists/open hands

Stranger- 12' tall. Alternate heads, fists/ open hands, power FX

Watcher- 10' tall. Alternate heads and open hands and fists.

Warstar- 10' tall, comes with 4' tall B,nee that fits in C'cil back, alternate fists/open hands.

Sooo many great choices here.. oh man the possibilities!! Orka ? The Watcher? Just awesome ..

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These are great ideas. I love the whole "Giants" idea. If that happened I would sign up manana. It's well known how much I hate the size of the Saquatch figure and if they were to similarly screw up Champion of the Universe I would quite simply lose my isht. I would comfortably pay a premium or deluxe price just to get the Sasquatch situation fixed alone. If there was a system that could prevent similar hiccups with the larger characters in the future, I'm all in.

I also like the ideas of small figures like Moloids or X-Babies or the 'Vengers or even little demon minions for characters like Goblin Queen. I wouldn't have a problem giving up the occasional BAF for little details like that. I'm afraid I might be in the minority though. If anyone is old enough to remember the Indie Spotlight action figures, the first and only series was a Maxx series where the Max's was actually the "Deluxe" figure and the other characters in the series (which were unrelated to Maxx) all came with one ore two different versions of the Isz creatures. I actually though that was quite brilliant back in the day.

My alternate idea would be additional parts for characters in a wave. I've kinda outlined this before, but what if instead of a BAF for an FF wave, they included additional parts with each character in the wave to simulate Reed Richards powers? What if Super Skrull had only been a figure in the wave and each figure came with alternate parts for his power set? Other characters this could work with are Sandman, Hydro Man, Absorbing Man, Kamala Khan, Iron Man, Apocalypse and even that atrocity that was the Cannonbal figure. In all honesty I woulda taken some legs and a few different blast effects (blasting off, flying, sonic boom) over a BAF like Caliban or Titus.

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Titus/Caliban/Spi/der were some serious wasted dud BAFs imo.  Also including normal sized characters to be the BAF is sheer nonsense as well. The last wave that I bought every single figure was the Kingpin wave & then I sold off every fig in that wave to make back the $ I spent on it. Only kept that atrocious 6 armed Spiderman fig to use his human arms for fodder for my custom JJJ figure.

1bNEnYU.jpg

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For a Giants line, I would add

  • Bi-Beast - I know his stat says he was originally 20 feet tall but but 20 inches seems a little much for this monster so I would scale him down closer to the 15-16 inches (sorry Gigantor)

 

  • Devil Dinosaur - could be a 20 inch giant or could be part of a larger rider series with Moon Girl.

 

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I feel like Hasbro has been exploring how to sell figures without BAFs for awhile... between retro waves, 2- and 3-pack sets, deluxe figures and exclusives, seems like they have more figures released without a BAF piece than ever before, and also more BAF sized figures getting released as a deluxe solo or in a set than ever before. 

that said, i don't think the BAF model is going away and i tend to believe hasbro knows what they're doing.  They continue to serve as a big incentive for buying figures in a wave that you might otherwise skip.  Just looking at Gamerverse II, how many of us will pick up the 2 gamerverse figures just to complete Joe Fixit? How many are gonna buy venomized Miles, etc just to complete Venompool?  And while we might complain about it, i'm sure we can also all think of an obscure character we enjoyed getting a figure for, that might not have been made without being part of a BAF wave.

Personally i prefer a figure receive alternate heads, hands, appropriate accessories over a BAF piece but i realize that a lot of characters probably would not get figures made if they had to sell entirely on their own merits.

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Guest EUPHORICVIKING

The removal of BAFs would be great for colllector's. 

Then they would have to put actual effort into their figures.

I'm all about cherry picking when I can. Thankfully  Joe-fixit wave is part of the Gamerverse and I can wait for the single deluxe release. 

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5 hours ago, bashpics99 said:

I feel like Hasbro has been exploring how to sell figures without BAFs for awhile... between retro waves, 2- and 3-pack sets, deluxe figures and exclusives, seems like they have more figures released without a BAF piece than ever before, and also more BAF sized figures getting released as a deluxe solo or in a set than ever before. 

that said, i don't think the BAF model is going away and i tend to believe hasbro knows what they're doing.  They continue to serve as a big incentive for buying figures in a wave that you might otherwise skip.  Just looking at Gamerverse II, how many of us will pick up the 2 gamerverse figures just to complete Joe Fixit? How many are gonna buy venomized Miles, etc just to complete Venompool?  And while we might complain about it, i'm sure we can also all think of an obscure character we enjoyed getting a figure for, that might not have been made without being part of a BAF wave.

Personally i prefer a figure receive alternate heads, hands, appropriate accessories over a BAF piece but i realize that a lot of characters probably would not get figures made if they had to sell entirely on their own merits.

I hope the BAF system isn't going anywhere. There are still many, many characters that still qualify (Hyde, Armadillo, Titanium Man, Ursa Major, Lockjaw, etc...), but I think there is a definite place for premium formats for "bigger than BAF" figures and even re-release of BAF's that people may not have gotten. I know a lot of people feel bitter after going through the trouble to build the BAF, but at least they're not straight redos. There's usually at least a few differences between the two.

I did buy that ridiculous Miles and Gwen, the carbo challenged scrawny Gamerverse Cap and inexplicably Asian Tony Stark just for the BAF parts, but if I knew for certain both Venompool and Fixit would be re-release later I may not have. It is an incentive based system. C'mon, it's seriously an extra figure, and usually a pretty damn big one, at that. I don't think it would be in the best interest of the ML line or Hasbro as a whole to get rid of it. Note: it's almost certain Fixit will be re-released with a comic based head sculpt, but again, they will not be exactly the same.

I actually think the BAF should be used in other lines as well. Whatabout the GI Joe classified line? Sure there aren't any huge characters they could utilize this for, but Joe has always had this niche for weird and quirky vehicles. Take the upcoming 3rd (or 4th, whatever) wave with Zartan. As expected, most people are wondering if and when his Swamp Speeder will appear. They coulda done it and incentivized the customer to purchase the whole wave, even though 2 of them were repeats, by making the speeder the BAF. I gotta tell ya, I'm a sucker for that mess. I would have bought the entire set even though I already have the 2 repeat characters. Of course, bigger vehicles like the HISS tank and the Joe Jeep would not apply, but things like the ATV and the FANG copter and the Skimobile and even the Check Point could all apply. Did this not run through the dev team's mind, or do they have bigger or better plans?

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I always thought that Build-A-Diorama , was a pretty cool Idea, I think it would be a fantastic addition to the Legends line, each figure comes with a piece to build a Diorama, that would be reflective of the them of the wave, such as a Spider-Man wave could have a New York City Scene etc.

 

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On 10/2/2020 at 7:00 AM, bashpics99 said:

I feel like Hasbro has been exploring how to sell figures without BAFs for awhile... between retro waves, 2- and 3-pack sets, deluxe figures and exclusives, seems like they have more figures released without a BAF piece than ever before, and also more BAF sized figures getting released as a deluxe solo or in a set than ever before. 

that said, i don't think the BAF model is going away and i tend to believe hasbro knows what they're doing.  They continue to serve as a big incentive for buying figures in a wave that you might otherwise skip.  Just looking at Gamerverse II, how many of us will pick up the 2 gamerverse figures just to complete Joe Fixit? How many are gonna buy venomized Miles, etc just to complete Venompool?  And while we might complain about it, i'm sure we can also all think of an obscure character we enjoyed getting a figure for, that might not have been made without being part of a BAF wave.

Personally i prefer a figure receive alternate heads, hands, appropriate accessories over a BAF piece but i realize that a lot of characters probably would not get figures made if they had to sell entirely on their own merits.

I don't care for Joe Fixit be it a comic based version or gameverse version nor do I care for a Devil Dinosaur, so I would cherry pick a wave with those 2 in it. I'm skipping the just announced Joe Fixit wave as I don't care for any figure in it. I'll wait on a classic 70s-80s Falcon in 21'. A classic Titanium man in 9'-10' scale would be about the only BAF character I'd get the entire wave for to complete.1290791874_Titaniumman.thumb.png.373d64dc0cf4f86620bf1de600c2ed46.png

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Mini-figs where appropriate would be great.  But as an avid Lightning Collection collector as well, I'd just like to see more swappable heads, hands, accessories, and effects.  I like the BAF, don't get me wrong, but if they did away with it, I'd like to see them go in the LC direction.

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On 10/2/2020 at 6:34 AM, Gigantor said:

Titus/Caliban/Spi/der were some serious wasted dud BAFs imo.  Also including normal sized characters to be the BAF is sheer nonsense as well. The last wave that I bought every single figure was the Kingpin wave & then I sold off every fig in that wave to make back the $ I spent on it. Only kept that atrocious 6 armed Spiderman fig to use his human arms for fodder for my custom JJJ figure.

1bNEnYU.jpg

What body did you use for that Peter Parker? The half untucked shirt works nicely.

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This is an idea that wouldve worked for Cannonball. Instead of that stunted blast off effect, extend it over a few other figures. Yeah its still half a figure but surely looks better than stubby mcstubson did. Or better yet just provide the normal figure, develop a method where the lower half can be detached and then attached the extended blast trail.

Also was thinking about Red Ghost and his super apes, but really that would be better suited for a 4 pack or box set.

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