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BAFs, a relic of the past or does the incentive remain?


Dabboi

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32 minutes ago, burroughsd said:

What if Hasbro was more judicious with the use of BAFs?  For instance, instead of spreading out Constrictor (2012), Eel (2016), Cottonmouth (2016),  King Cobra (2018), and Rock Python (2019) (all of whom were pegwarmers), what if Hasbro made them a themed wave with a kick-ass Bushmaster BAF?  I think collectors would be more willing to purchase those characters if you knew you were getting core Serpent Society characters in one fell swoop as opposed to dragging them out over the years with uncertainty about which characters would be made and when they would be available. 

I have no idea if those would sell better or worse than the current plan, but I know I would be all over that idea. 

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2 minutes ago, Jmacq1 said:

As I said earlier, the trick would be getting retailers to even buy the assortment to begin with, unless you threw a Captain America in there with them.

Yeah, I get that. A niche wave will only appeal to certain collectors. Then again, an all MCU wave only appeals to certain collectors, though I understand why those are more popular. So I think your suggestion is a good incentive. Captain America and one of his allies, maybe Falcon or D-Man, or Nomad, or classic Bucky, plus four or five Serpent Squad members and another Serpent BAF. I think a wave like that could move.

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8 minutes ago, RyanDaly said:

Yeah, I get that. A niche wave will only appeal to certain collectors. Then again, an all MCU wave only appeals to certain collectors, though I understand why those are more popular. So I think your suggestion is a good incentive. Captain America and one of his allies, maybe Falcon or D-Man, or Nomad, or classic Bucky, plus four or five Serpent Squad members and another Serpent BAF. I think a wave like that could move.

Would it though?  Or would it leave a bunch of pegwarming Serpent Society members clogging shelves (as all of them so far seem to have pegwarmed at least a bit).  And maybe a Cap Ally too if it's Nomad or D-Man whom general audiences don't recognize (though I guess some people might grab D-Man thinking he's Wolverine).

Old school fans and collectors love getting those b/c/d list characters (I'm certainly among them) but a LOT of them are slower sellers than the big names or the movie-based figures despite that.

At this point I think they'd almost be better off making exclusive box sets to fill out some of the remaining teams (kind of like they did for Alpha Flight).    And even that's iffy on a lot of the villain teams.  

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13 hours ago, Jmacq1 said:

Would it though?  Or would it leave a bunch of pegwarming Serpent Society members clogging shelves (as all of them so far seem to have pegwarmed at least a bit).  And maybe a Cap Ally too if it's Nomad or D-Man whom general audiences don't recognize (though I guess some people might grab D-Man thinking he's Wolverine).

You're right about Serpent Society not being great for Target/Walmart.  The AoA wave didn't fly off the shelves around here.  They would need to be a fan channel offering.  I thought about the box set too, but I wonder if some people might prefer to spend $20 a pop and spread it out instead of $100+ at one time.    

If the point is that Hasbro needs Cap and IM and Wolverine and Spider-Man in the waves to sell anything, why not just have have waves that are designed for Target/Walmart that are mostly the big name characters or movie characters (if they can ever sync up the release schedule again)?  What if they had a yearly wave that was a stripped down version of the most popular characters as a gateway toy to bring in new collectors and grow the business?  (I will never understand why Hasbro didn't make 10 gajillion retro Spider-Man and sell him everywhere),  Then the BAF could be the bait to new collectors to "get 'em all."    

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1 hour ago, burroughsd said:

You're right about Serpent Society not being great for Target/Walmart.  The AoA wave didn't fly off the shelves around here.  They would need to be a fan channel offering.  I thought about the box set too, but I wonder if some people might prefer to spend $20 a pop and spread it out instead of $100+ at one time.    

If the point is that Hasbro needs Cap and IM and Wolverine and Spider-Man in the waves to sell anything, why not just have have waves that are designed for Target/Walmart that are mostly the big name characters or movie characters (if they can ever sync up the release schedule again)?  What if they had a yearly wave that was a stripped down version of the most popular characters as a gateway toy to bring in new collectors and grow the business?  (I will never understand why Hasbro didn't make 10 gajillion retro Spider-Man and sell him everywhere),  Then the BAF could be the bait to new collectors to "get 'em all."    

They did that in the UK and Ireland (maybe the rest of Europe)  a while back, with some bare bones MCU Marvel legends. Basically re-issues with no BAF pieces and fewer accessories (or in some cases the exact same), but they were roughly €10 cheaper than the standard figure.

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Definitely vote to keep the BAF parts.  There's been some great points here about how the BAF parts keep the shelves a bit clearer, which I can see the sense in that. 

For me it really comes down to what the theme of the wave is or which characters are in the wave.  If it's a theme I really like I'll buy the whole wave and the BAF feels like a nice bonus, or if I'm going to buy most of the characters in the wave anyway, I'll usually finish the BAF since I have most of the parts.  

I think where the problem arises is when Hasbro invariably pairs a desired BAF with a less desired wave such as Sauron, Strong Guy, and Mr. Hyde.  Like many I choked down the whole wave for Sauron, thankfully I played it smarter on the other two.  While I wasn't originally a fan of the model, I think this is where deluxe releases can be good, giving people a second shot at BAFs that got saddled with a less than stellar wave.  

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While I'm not a BAF fan and i cherry pick figures, i do agree that in it's way it should retain it's BAF status, i mean that's what made Marvel legends since wave 9 or the Galactus wave as referred. It seems to be like a signature thing for the line. And obviously if i don't want the piece of course i could kindly give the BAF piece, whether is selling, trading or giving it away it works fine.

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I was actually thinking about this today, after seeing the 2nd price hike for Legends here in Canada this year to 33.99, which with tax rounds out to be almost 40$, this made me think how expensive it's getting to buy whole waves, especially when you want say 4 figures out of 6, and the BAF, you might as well bite it and buy the wave, I like to cherry pick and get a sick to my stomach feeling in 2021 when I really want the BAF because I know the best bet to be sure to get it is to just buy the Wave, but Spending 40 bucks on afigure for a BAF part seems rough, anyways I understand the need for BAFs, we couldn't get the great C, D and lower tier characters without em, and I love getting the obscure, so it's a double edge sword, in an ideal world I'd like the figures to be A. cheaper or B. just release BAF's as deluxes instead.

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