The line will initially contain knights, dwarves, elves, orcs, ogres, witches, wizards, trolls and everything in between.-FH |
ItsAllTrue: To get started, what is Mythic Legions? We’ve seen some rad images from FanExtasy and read some reports from our favorite sites online, but what about the line, what first impression, would you like to directly get across to potential collectors?
Four Horsemen: Mythic Legions is our new 4” scaled fantasy action figure line that utilizes Onell Design’s Glyos system of interchangeability to allow figures to mix and match parts for maximum customizability. The line will initially contain knights, dwarves, elves, orcs, ogres, witches, wizards, trolls and everything in between. We want this to be the beginning of an in-house line that creates a world of 4” scaled figures that cover many genres. We plan to expand into a number of different themes in the future. There’s no set plans for any of the other themes yet, but we’ve talked about space, western, and military among others!
IAT: It’s been reported that Mythic Legions will also bring about the return of the Fantastic Exclusive process, but with the tooling patterns largely finished it appears you fellas have cooked up something a little different in terms of fan participation and voting. What should expectant fans look forward to having input on?
FH: There were a couple of major problems with the old way of doing Fantastic Exclusive that revealed themselves over time. The first was from a business aspect. When we set out to design characters and put them up to a vote, we really had no idea how expensive this stuff was going to get and how many variants it would take to cover tooling costs. The designs just weren’t made with variants in mind. This time we are starting with a line that has a sustainable set of designs built in, so that no matter what the choices are the tools are usable all throughout the line. Believe it or not this is the first time we have created an in house line that has re-use built in from the beginning!
This time we are starting with a line that has a sustainable set of designs built in, so that no matter what the choices are the tools are usable all throughout the line.-FH |
The second issue with the old Fantastic Exclusive system was that once the scale and character was chosen the voting became very predictable. Here we are providing all the parts for fans to choose from, but we won’t have any idea of what the figure will look like until the voting is complete. That will also go past the design of the figure into the actual characterization. Fans will help flesh out the narrative of these characters.
IAT: While some early reports noted that the scale for Mythic Legions wasn’t finalized, you’ve recently clarified that 4” is the way to go. Was the possibility of a 6” scale just some confusion due to the various news outlets or was that something that was considered before the strengths of a 4” line were evident?
FH: The line has been planned as a 4” line from the beginning. We’ve been working on this line for a little over a year now, and the scale is very much part of the core concept. Right before Toy Fair we decided to leave it a little bit vague when we addressed the scale of the line. We did want to hear what the fans had to say, and there have been some very strong and completely valid points made for the 6” scale. We’ve spent the last week reviewing the comments and discussing things, but ultimately we are trusting our instincts and sticking with our original plan.
IAT: One of the nicer advantages to 4” scale seems to be the opportunity for larger items that would simply be too expensive in a 6” scale line. Are there any plans for a larger item on the immediate rader to keep us hooked early or is that a more “down the road” selling point for the 1:18th scale?
FH: We are in the early stages of our first oversized piece for the line. If it’s possible we’d like to have a prototype ready to show by this summer.
IAT: Will there be any backstory for the line? We saw a ton of characters at the show, do those folks have names and histories already? And, if so, how will fans learn it over the course of the toy releases?
FH: There really isn’t a backstory for the line yet. We want to shape it organically with the help of the fans. We’d like to tell the story piece by piece a little at a time through web comics, bios, and maybe a few unexpected avenues.
IAT: With unique characters in the mix, how will the variant releases of those characters be handled? Something more akin to the light-deco Power Lords, the translucent OSM, or something completely different?
With Power Lords one of our goals was to make a collection of figures that could live on the same shelf together. We feel like we can take it even further with this line.-FH |
FH: The variant releases will be closer to Power Lords than OSM. One thing that we realized with OSM is that fans didn’t really display their transparent figures with the infinity editions. With Power Lords one of our goals was to make a collection of figures that could live on the same shelf together. We feel like we can take it even further with this line. The designs were created with a high/medium/low paint strategy in place. A lightly painted figure won’t look out of place at all next to a deluxe highly painted figure.
IAT: What, if any, plans are there to use Kickstarter?
FH: Kickstarter is something that we’ve looked at, and it could be a good fit. It’s not something that would happen before the Raven Kickstarter orders are delivered, though. We aren’t sure yet, but it would be one more way for fans to get involved!
IAT: Alrighty, as we wrap up, are there any specifics to offer up just yet? Timeframe, price point, will they be released as waves or singles?
FH: These would definitely be after the Ravens. (Which should be sometime in June if everything goes smoothly.) It’s too early to say for sure on price, but the plan is for something similar to Power Lords. It will be a tiered set up with cheaper less painted figures that fans could bulk out their armies with, and slightly higher priced figures with more deluxe paint. How we release them depends on a number of issues. One big one is whether or not we do a Kickstarter. If that campaign is successful it could mean that we start out with a huge launch. One thing that we are very committed to is frequent figures releases to avoid long waits for fans.
I’d like to thank the Four Horsemen for taking some time out to answer my questions! For the latest 4H News, stay tuned to IAT or get the info directly from SourceHorsemen.com!
The smaller scale hurts me, but orcs before dorks, dwarves before whores. I’m in.
Not interested in the 4 inch scale really.
I’ve been a 4H fan for years, and wish them all the best on this endeavor, but this line is not for me. It’s the scale that’s really killing it. I don’t collect smaller figures. If it was the same idea, “generic” genre figures from the 4H, in a 6″ or 7″ scale, I’d be all in.
Glyos compatibility is a non-issue for me, though it seems to be a big focus of the promotion of most of the 4H 4″ lines. I just want to get some awesome figures. I have no desire to pull them apart and swap their pieces with other figures, especially when the styles and/or colors of the swapped pieces then don’t match the figure.
yep. pretty much.
Very interesting news indeed!
The 4″/1:18 scale is truly booming these days and so much new great stuff is coming out it’s truly exciting to be a fan of the “original” scale of action figures (Of course essentially 12″ is the “true” original scale, but I wasn’t alive for that). Since the 4H are already dipping deep into fantasy with MOTUC, Seventh Kingdom and Gothriopolis, I’m sure their venture into the smaller scale will be equally great!
My only concern is that the GLYOS compatibility will, like with their Power Lords line, make them skimp out and give the figures swivel hips rather than ball-hinged or double-hinged. The hip joint is so important I don’t know why anyone would ever skimp out on it.
Now to wait and see how this goes. Hopefully it’s another home run.
Power Lords will be upgrading the hip issue soon though. the Assassin shown with the other Power Lords figures has increased articulation while maintaining the Glyos compatibility, so articulation should very much be a non-issue by the time the Mythic Legion figures come out
Thanks, Ideal! The 4H have said we will get ball-hips on these which is the only thing those amazing Power Soldiers are lacking.
Great stuff, but I just can’t afford to add yet another line to my collecting, and can’t be bothered to chase more variants. If they’d decided to release this after MOTUC finished, I’d be all in. But I can’t collect this now, and if I miss out on the entry-level stuff, there’s no point in me trying at all. }Sigh.{
I’m disappointed to see that these will be 4″. I probably won’t collect them unless they are really affordable (doubt it). But I’m happy for all of the 4″ collectors out there. These look incredible!
These things look great, but I will most likely not be getting these at the glyos compatible scale of 4″. I get the reasoning why they went this way and the interchangability is cool but 4″ figures just seem less epic. I’ve also not been a fan of the gloys system. Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea is amazing and game changing in the toy world, its just not for me. So sadly, like powerlords I will be out on these.
Can’t wait to get these. Here’s a list of small anthro warrior glyos heads some of us put together on the forums that we might like to get. Ass smaller warriors they could display with six inch figures and with the popularity of Armorvor variants and customs out there I think any of these would be a slam dunk.
1) Koala
2) Panda
3) Kiwi
4) Meerkat
5) Frog
6) Horned Toad
7) Various Lizards
8) Small Monkey / Chimp
9) Weasel
10) Wolverine
11) Prarie Dog
12) Raccoon
13) Platypus
14) Kangaroo
15) Turtle
16) Aliens
17) Mutants
18) Chihuahua
19) Pug
20) Jackalope
21) Badger
22) Otter
23) Ferret
24) Mongoose
All 10 of you came up with that list? Impressive.
That would be my fear for this scale decision, the dozens of fans raving for more. Domestically, 1:18 scale is dead as disco. This is literally the decision to release your new album on 8 track. I’m trying real hard to stay positive as an old school Fantasy freak and tabletop gamer, but hearing from iz confirms to me how uphill this journey is about to be.
1:18 is dead? I guess I must have been imagining all those figures I’ve seen at TRU, Wal-mart, and Target.
to be fair, i don’t mean entirely dead… but in the sense that disco is dead, in the sense that the 8 track is dead, in the sense that latin is dead, yes.
will there always be holdouts for that scale? sure. are they the majority (as in 50% or more) of the buying power in the collector toy market? not even close. i would argue they’re not even a significant percentage. why do i say that? well, you point out all those toys at TRU, Walmart and target, and i would ask… which toy lines exactly? TRU has it’s true legends line of in-house stuff through chap mei taking up an entire aisle at my local TRU since a recent reset… and while i’ve enjoyed a few of those pieces, even photod them and put those in the IAT photo thread on the motuc board, there me doing that, and there’s matt k at the fwoosh… putting those in displays with motucs. and that aisle is never less than half stocked, so either that aisle gets more employee hours than any other, or those pieces aren’t exactly selling gangbusters. paop and schliech make compatible statue lines, but those are statues… and i simply refuse to address any of the product from the bridge direct. they’re more expensive, but worse product, than the chap mei stuff… complete dreck. and those aren’t moving for shiz.
then, you have the retaliation joes sitting and warming pegs, leftovers from 2 failed mattel dc lines still (in some areas), and MU, which is losing peg space to ML… am i missing any? (i know we’re talking adult collectibles, so i’m not considering the kid-aimed lines like ben 10 or mega bloks… are you factoring those in? cuz those are different entities entirely, and they’re still not selling.)
walking into walmart, i see a plethora of smaller scaled spidey crap toys not selling, i see TMNT which are not 1:18, i see WWE in two lines, neither of which are 1:18, and i see ML. about the same in target… and in both, i see a continued dwindling of the figure section of the toy aisles, across all lines and brands. what case are you trying to make to me here? wallie and target are not exactly pushing adult collectibles, but the pieces they sell that sell to us, those are all 6 inch scale. except for the off-scale walking dead stuff…
as for the stuff that is in scale, the glyos lines and the OSM and power lords stuff, i’ve made the case before, but here’s the gist… they are niche properties, and are certainly not getting made in quantities that could be lend themselves to “army building” like the horsemen are talking about doing here. those lines have respectible fan bases, i’m not knocking those fans, but these are also not those toys… the price point will be higher, that’s a market reality. these will be better articulated than the existing power lords products, and will definitely feature more detailed sculpts and more paint aps… and if you kill the paint aps to make some of the “drones” more affordable, you’re killing some of the sales potential. there are already fans, on the horsemen’s own site, complaining about rebuying the same guys over and over to get to the ones they really want… how long will that interest last in these figs at a higher price point?
there’s also a fundamental disconnect between the glyos lines, and the glyos compatible lines… yeah, the parts swap, but the design sensibility is completely different and decidedly incompatible… ever notice how omni-directional onell and callgrim sculpts are? with the pieces made from the core glyos items, and the callgrim items, most of them look differently if you move a piece. SMC picked up on this too, if you move a part, it looks different upside down or backwards, and it can do all of that… now look at the mailled fists of those dwarves above… you gonna put that on someone’s head? turn it around backwards and use it as a pelvis? hell no you won’t, and neither will i… neither will anyone else. that as a sell point is just beyond useless. to put this another way, look over at october toys and see some of the cool cluster theory huge masses of parts onell fans have built up over the past couple years… and then go look at photos from the OSM or power lords fans. insteado building cool new items out of the pieces, the osm are displayed as they were bought, standing straight up in a nice little row. the power lords are displayed as they were bought, in a nice little row.
i would also ask, they state in this interview that they want people to bulk out their armies with figs priced about where the power lords are… PL range right now from 10 to 25 bones… now again, when i said dead, remember i’m using a sense of scale here… how many people are army building the 20 dollar a pop SWB 6 inch stormtroopers? a few… are they a buying majority? hell no. not even close. if you’re shooting several characters types in sequence, dwarves, elves, orcs, ogres, etc… in a fairly rapid pace because you’re “very committed to is frequent figures releases to avoid long waits for fans.” how many of each can you expect customers to afford, especially if they range closer to the 20 dollar range than the 10? even at 10, how many of these are getting produced? remember, the lines the guys are talking about maintaining compatibility with sell hundreds of units, not thousands… let’s say those figs are bargain priced, all the elves you can buy for 10 bucks a pop, if there are 1000 units made, how many of us get 10 figures? 100. 100 total customers. that’s great as a niche sale item, but it’s far from the sales of like a NECA pacific rim kaiju, whose moving 10s of thousands of units, and in that roughly same price point because of better market position and lack of nonsensical parts swapping. if you give me a choice between an army of 3 inch tall dwarves at 18 bucks, or an army of 8 inch kaiju for 25… you’d have to be a dwarf to take those odds. 🙂
to round out my last two points of contention, firstly, we see the lawyer above immediately bang the same drum that has ultimately limited the 7th kingdom and gothitropolis lines… the reliance on anthro characters. anyone wishing to see the horsemen branch out from that idea is at odds with the vocal fanbase at the horsemen’s site. there are 2 voices there out of the dozen or so regulars, who’ve been preaching the virtues of trying something different, but by and large, they get trampled by the louder people, who are not right. when that’s happening right under their nose… let’s just say, i hope the horsemen don’t limit their online reading to their own site.
secondly, the gaming community doesn’t overlap with the toy community nearly so much as we’d like to believe. ever wonder why the world of warcraft figs are essentially statues? ever wonder why magic the gathering has had two previous attempts to make figures and they never got to market? ever walk into a gaming shop and see how many figures there are on the shelves? the answer is, gamers aren’t buying toys, mostly. they’ll buy miniatures, and they’ll buy statues, kind of, but they just don’t jibe on the figures… don’t ask me why, i straddle the communities and am constantly baffled at how many times i’ve shown gamers a kick ass fantasy figure only to watch them shrug and go back to their dice. it’s just not happening. my younger brother is a prime example, he and his kid still play hero quest, and he has the best collection of said pieces for that game of anyone in north america… he’s custom made pieces for their games, including a huge storage chest/game table, and he’s invented custom encounters and maps for the game… and they haven’t played with figures in a decade. gamers are not a reliable new market to sell these figs to, only the figure community… who are psyched right now to be getting game of thrones figs and magic the gathering figs, in 6 inch scale, from funko… whatsmore, the 1:18 scale doesn’t really have anything at the moment fantasy oriented, besides the el-cheapo true legends stuff… in 6 inch, you’ve got motuc still, you’ve got the aforementioned funko stuff, and the upcoming ravens themselves (not to mention the previous work from the fantastic exclusive project) if mythic legions survives long enough to range into other concepts, great, they made well have better luck cutting for themselves their own new niche… but i don’t see room in a small niche already, for a brand new line to blow things open. i see a limited market that is already at capacity. maybe i’ll be proven wrong, it’s happened before, i’m not the pope… but i am observant, and i pay attention to facts, and i look at historical precedent… and when i see someone pitching a new toy line by advocating what else the toyline could do to get more popular, with virtually no regard paid to what the toys are already doing or what kind of potential they currently possess… that’s not the kind of PR i’d ask for.
IF i were advocating for the success of the mythic legions, in a long term sense, i’d say take the line to kickstarter, market the hell out of it as well or better than they did the ravens, and i’d add stretch goals of new bucks, not just colorway swaps or alternate pieces, but full on different bucks… get as much bang as you can out of that initial investment. then, release, steadily, at a predetermined, advertised rate and price point, figs over the course of the year, so customers can plan ahead and budget and get the pieces they want with the regularity of a bill. this would maximize the initial push to get these into people’s houses, then, you just have to hope that word of mouth explodes. but that first wave of product had better be pretty damned flawless. funko has the assets to fudge a wave of product and recover, the horsemen already did that and it was a huge deal, to them, and the product line. they really can’t fudge one up again, not on an in-house lines. i’m not saying that the line can’t make it, but what i am saying is, they sound as if they intend the line to be bigger than i think the reality is for the product they’re trying to sell. the 3rd party transformers prove that people have money to spend, i think the key to a successful entry into the market is really being upfront with timeline to expect product, and cost so people can budget. that, moreso than per piece price point, is going to make or break this line.
We could argue impressions about what sells in what volume all day, but without real numbers that neither of us have that’s going to be a fruitless debate. I do think you’re vastly overestimating the performance and popularity of the 6″ lines in general. You say that ML is taking pegs from MU, but MU (or Avengers Infinite) has figures on the shelves all year long while ML can only get a release tied to a movie. Star Wars has both scales, though Wal-mart doesn’t even carry the 6″ versions, and neither scale seems to be flying off the shelves in the stores I frequent. It looks to me like the 6″ market has collapsed significantly and has maybe reached a point where it can maintain a limited presence at mass market retail, but it doesn’t seem to be growing. The 4″ market seems the same as it’s been.
I would agree that compatibility with the other Glyos lines isn’t a huge selling point because of the differing styles. I do think that it could be a big deal within the line itself though if planned correctly. It wouldn’t take too many armor and helmet variations to equal a lot of potential combinations.
Here’s the problem as I see it. Retail is completely f**ked nowadays, because toys have stopped being cheap, disposable playthings.
-Retailers want high priced figures because they assume a higher profit margin. Limited availability leads to panic buying as scalpers rush to find the ‘rare’ ones. Results: lots of ‘commons’ warming pegs, needing deep discounting to move, profit margin much smaller than anticipated.
-Retailers want lower pricepoint figures because in some deep corner of their accountants lizard brain they ‘get’ that toys cost too much. Manufacturers respond by making really cheap-a$$ figures with reduced articulation and paint apps which don’t sell because they’re STILL expensive and they look like Dollar Store knockoffs. Figures warm the pegs, eat up the return allowance, very little profit made.
-Retailers want MOVIE TIE-IN figures, because it’s an EVENT and that drives traffic, as well as doing the ‘heavy lifting’ of promotion. However, not every BIG MOVIE moves toys, esp. when toys are ill-considered, poorly thought out (Superman has a sword and handcuffs?!) and manufactured on the cheap. Results: see both above.
It’s all a constant mistake. Combine THAT with the shrinking number of places you CAN buy toys and it’s all just trash.
I mean, Mattel can’t sell DC Comics figures to save their lives YET they are making a HUGE push for DC heroes in Imaginext.
Meanwhile, Hasbro keeps pushing along. Where is my 4″ Agent Coulson, Hasbro?!
I pretty much agree with all that DR is saying up there. I would love an army of Romans and Samurai and Spartans but I will never have them because the damn things are going to be hard to get, expensive per piece and the fantasy elements will get more votes. Limited runs, special colorways, event-only specials. Screw it. That’s not TOYS, man. That’s a damn lottery. It’s too damn bad.
Steve H. clearly stating what needed to be said. The dose of reality there at the end was particularly sobering. Good stuff.
The only problem I have with that list is that I’m thoroughly tired of the 4H doing anthropomorphs.
I’ve been saying that for years, I know.
Even my legion of Armorvors? I love ’em, but I can’t tell you were all the cat heads are. I’d be happier with the 4H sticking with skulls and real faces – get Djordje in there!
If there’s only one anthropomorph left for the 4H to do, I’d love to see their take on Miyamoto Usagi.
So basically you want heads of every animal, ever. Plus aliens and mutants. Got it.
Simply put, humans are boring and anthropomorphs are exciting. It should come as no surprise anthropomorphic action figures will always out sell human action figures. Mythic Legions will have to rely heavily on humanized beasts if it is to do well beyond the hipster market.
It actually DOES come as quite a surprise that anthropomorphic figures “always” outsell human figures. Please give one example where that’s true. I had no idea G.I. Joe or DC/Marvel Universe stuff was outsold by Battle Beasts. What in the Blue Hell are you talking about? And what do hipsters have to do with anything? Is this post supposed to be sarcastic or ironic or something, and it just completely went over my head? “Humans are boring”? Wha?!
Man, where’s Tek when you need him. LOL
I must be in the minority, but the only way I would have been interested in this line is if they were 4″. The main thing that draws me to this line is the army building options, and that just isn’t as doable in the 6″ scale, for both price and space reasons.
Nah, I’m totally with you. It just so happens that the people who comment on IAT are mostly just dedicated to the 6″ scale like MOTUC and ML.
I’m very excited to see how these figures come out personally. 🙂
if you don’t mind my asking, and i’m not trying to single you out here or put you on the defensive, do you frequent any 1:18 scale chat boards? it seems like the majority of activity i see from the 1:18 fan community is on sites that do seem to focus mostly on 6 inch scale stuff (or close, like the NECA stuff) and within those communities, there are 1:18 scalers chatting about those lines, but i don’t see many 1:18 communities managing on their own. are there? maybe i’m just not plugged in enough.
that said, as i’ve likewise pointed out elsewhere, that’s one more aspect of my statement that “1:18 is dead,” the toy sites that draw the most traffic, the fwoosh, critical mess, poe (till he shuttered up) IAT, AFI, OAFE, are all mostly dedicated to the 1:12 community and then they have overlaps with the 1:18 community. the only one that seems to get good traffic that i know to look up is hisstank.
Though they aren’t dedicated solely to 1/18 figures there would be a lot of discussion on Star Wars forums. It looks like Rebelscum for instance is bigger than the Fwoosh, at least going by members.
I’m going to challenge you a little bit also. As Stack already points out, the Star Wars collecting community is HUGE and the site traffic of even medium Star Wars sites get often outweighs the best superhero-based toy sites. AFI & Fwoosh do well, but Poe, the Mess, and I aren’t even on the radar in comparison. And AFI, consequently is a DC-heavy site and those guys would rather talk about JLU/IE/Multiverse sometimes than DCUC nuts as that might sound.
I don’t know that I feel either scale is in a position to much to dismiss the other. In 6″ we have some great stuff coming in at 7″ from NECA, and Funko is doing both scales, while ML is limping along, DC is dead,& MOTU is online-only. What is the great 6″ success right now? Wrestling figures might be the only one. Meanwhile, the aisles are chock full of bad 4″ figures, so they’ve at least got the NA Buyers attention.
The whole toy aisle is in a sad state more so than one scale being dead, I think.
When I heard the news (and the unannounced scale) I was SO into the idea of an army of skeleton warriors for He-Man and the Masters to go up against, enlisting the aid of a dwarven clan.
But, otherwise, it’s only GI Joe or superheroes. Thor, maybe? Meh…
Speaking of fantasy freaks and tabletop gamers, one of the hottest if not the hottest Kickstarter categories happens to be games and associated miniatures. That category is way, way more popular than the 6-inch action figure category and people have raised millions with game-related ventures.
All it would take would be for someone like the Four Horsemen’s buddy Phil Reed, who works for Peter Jackson Games to create a card or dice game to go along with these figures, maybe utilizing the Gyos feature so that every time a figure sustains damage it loses a limb and the limb goes to the opponent who can then build more powerful warriors.
That kind of cross-over appeal could attract a market that would make the 6-inch action figure adult collecting community look small in comparison.
The Legendary Monster Kickstarter guy Richard T. Broadwater failed a number of times to reach his Goal until he coupled his action figures with a card game. The guys behind the Sigma Six styled action figure Kickstarters failed too.
Just imagination what 4-inch Four Horsemen figures could do if they caught on with the gaming crowd? You could easily play a game with 4 inch Glyos compatible figures, but with six inch figures — Not so much.
I think people that are entirely focused on the scale issue aren’t looking at the other possibilities available out there if you think outside the box. We already know the figures will be amazing, it’s just a matter of getting hard-core six inchers to warm up to the idea.
It’s Steve Jackson Games…….
Yes it is. Thanks!
I’m really excited at the potential of this line. Going with the 4″ scale was the only real option if the Horsemen wanted to have a real chance to put all their ideas in figure form and if they manage to do it I think many of the compatibility complaints will go away. Even if there was nothing else at the scale (and there’s plenty), what does it matter if your shelf is already full of skeletons, knights, ogres, etc? And who’s to say they couldn’t work in other characters like a barbarian in furry shorts?
Great point. If the 4H can keep this afloat into “other” Legions and I can get some Cowboy Knights, I’m game.
See, I would COMPLETELY buy into a Cowboy Knight line, but they’d have to have horses. Or Motorcycles. Or Biplanes. Or large flightless birds.
Cowboy Knight roping a large, flightless bird from a biplane.
I would buy the HELL out of that line. 🙂
Stack, I like the way you think. During Toypocalpse I asked the Horsemen if there was any chance of possibly getting a Mythic Legends sized Glyos compatible Barbarian buck down the road. I can’t tell you what the answer was, but it made me very happy. 😉
oops! I meant Mythic Legions, not Legends…
These look awesome but booooo on 4″.
The disconnect I see here is that IMO Glyos are less in the “action figure” category, and more in the LEGO category in terms of what the diehards actually do with these.
These Mythic guys are clearly and distinctly in the action figure category, and aside from “I prefer blue tunic and wood shield on skeleton dude” I don’t see how the build aspect is a huge advantage here. Helmeted dwarf beard head on a Power Lord body…for what, exactly?
And while these are awesome looking, they are (intentionally, it seems) a little generic and seem better poised to support existing lines like MOTUC, LOTR, Hellboy, GoT, 7K, Gothitropolis as opposed to totally clashing with Glyos/OSM/PL or pretty much every other 4″ line that these don’t go with.
Simpler paint apps for cheaper buying options is a decent idea on paper but I think those will be more useful for customizers than assuming army builders out of the gate.
I think that “disconnect” is actually the gap being bridged here, don’t you? The Armorvor already did this to an extent. More folks collect and use them as action figures (the head swapping being the same exception) than build with them like LEGOs.
If anything, that observation may be more towards Glyosdom not being as tuned in (the same is true of Power Lords and OSM) than it is for “Regular” action figure collectors not being game.
I’ve been able to build all kinds of characters mixing and matching my OSM, other glyos figures, even Robo Force. The only real limits are your imagination and opening up your mind to different possibilities. So far we only have two different bodies to work with in Power Lords, but more are coming.
I’ve also seen some super cool, top secret upcoming stuff from other (Non-Four Horsemen) companies that is going to be Glyos compatible that will work great with Mythic Legions.
All I’m saying to the people who can’t see beyond scale is that they have a little trust that the Four Horsemen know what they are doing.
If you can’t see the possibilities yet, you’ll see them soon enough. 🙂
Lol, a 4 inch fantasy line with an eye towards army building has been done before and it failed horribly. The Palisides army of darkness figures were lovely, but due to the size nobody bought them, and they withered and were clearanced to super low prices.
There are plenty of small scale cheapo fantasy knights out there, of varying prices, sculpting and articulation. That’s kinda not the point: what people want are 6-7 inch fantasy knights.
I wish them luck, but I don’t think this’ll do well for them.
It’s easy to say a line won’t do well because everything ends. You’ll be right eventually.
I think this is a different baby than the Palisades attempt though. If any of us had heard about Glyos beforehand, we might’ve doubted it too. But Matt & Onell has proven time and again what Glyos can do. I think there’s a ton of potential here for the concept – all of the disappointed six-inch collectors are proof of that. They’d buy it, if only it were 2″ bigger, right? I don’t take the comments here as indicative of anything. I’m primarily a 6″ collector and I’ve attracted those to me in droves, so it makes sense. I just wish my optimism and goodwill had rubbed off a little more. 😀
I’m a little confused by the comments here. I know that IAT is primarily a 6″ collector site, but there are loads of good 4″ figures out there and collectors who collect them. Enough, at least, to maybe give us some pause before we scoff at them. There is also the phenomenon that is Glyos to consider too. There’s no discounting what the “Onell Family” has been able to do.
All opinions are welcome here and I can understand the disappointment, but there is a little too much focus on what these are not, instead of what they are, or can be.
Are you surprised? There seem to be a lot of 6″ fans, or at least a vocal minority, who apparently have a need to instantly mock and dismiss anything that isn’t their preferred scale. Sadly, I think these people would rather see the Horsemen fail than be successful with 4″ figures.
I’m hopeful that most folks here still want to see this do well even if they don’t feel like they can be along for the ride. I’ll at least pretend that’s the case. 😀
“Sadly, I think these people would rather see the Horsemen fail than be successful with 4″ figures.”
I’m afraid you’re right. That makes me sad.
Couldn’t disagree more with that last part of your statement, stack32. I don’t think any toy collector with even a shred of insight would hope that the 4H fail at anything. They’re good guys and they’ve given us so much. I’m not buying this line, but I hope they make millions off it.
Noisy, I can honestly say I had no idea there were separate “camps” of collectors divided by the figure scale. To me, if it looks cool, if it’s made well, I’ll buy it. The only time i’ve ever been pissed off about a line’s scale was when the DC Infinite Heroes line was announced and I really wanted those figures in the old Super Powers scale, for display/interactive purposes. Then I saw the figures. At that point I was relieved that I felt zero obligation to spend my money on that colossal waste of plastic. Otherwise, I’m not sure what the scale has to do anything, particularly for a new line that is not affiliated with any established property. Did you really want to display your skeleton warrior next to your Mattel DCUC Batman that badly? I’m not seeing the problem here. It’s been interesting to read how passionate some folks are on this subject.
these look fantastic but the scale makes these irrelevant to me.
This just isn’t my thang, but that Dwarf-lookin’ guy with the armor and battle-axe sure looks pretty cool. I’ll always wish success on the 4H and anything they do, but I’ll believe some of this when i see it. I mean, they’ve been pushing their Power Lords revival for awhile now, and yet there is still no Lord Power figure. And if part-swapping is one of the selling points for your toy line, you gotta release more than one or two figures at a time, otherwise, who cares? And I really don’t need the same figure molded in 15 different shades of plastic (transparent! day-glo green!) before moving onto the next “wave” of figure(s). Unless i’m missing the draw of the whole “collecting a toy that’s only available on-line” thing. Which, admittedly, is entirely possible. Not trying to nay-say, but I am skeptical. I hope I’m proven wrong ’cause this could be really neat.
I’m not confused by the comments. Some are the naysayers that always come out of the woodwork when someone decides to try something different. It’s a knee-jerk response and is totally to be expected.
Others are people who are upset that these figures aren’t six inches so they come out to boo and hiss. Some think their opinions automatically speaks for almost everyone else out there without realizing that not everyone always wants the exact same thing that they want.
We’ve had an entire scale of action figures declared dead on this thread. Yup, dead as disco and dead as the 8-track. You heard it here first and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. 😉
Somebody tell these guys they might as well hang it up because it’s all over for anything less than six inches tall…
http://www.collectiondx.com/news_item/12913/acid_rain_world_action_figures
http://news.toyark.com/2014/02/19/toy-fair-2014-redux-toy-notch-lost-planet-3-75-scale-figures-118941
http://www.itsalltrue.net/?page_id=21668
And wave the white flag GI Joe, cuz it’s game over baby!! 😉
I love the 4H – I have all the Ravens coming later this year – but all I have is 6 inch. I’ve got DCUC and MOTUC, and going 6″ is the reason I’ve got SW figures again. I have three 4″ figures – Thor, Beta Ray Bill, and movie Mark I Iron Man. I wish 4H all the luck, but I will be saving money on this go around.
I’m a little confused by so many scoffing at the swapping and cuztomizing options through the use of the Glyos System. Who says you have to mix between lines? I will buy the hell out of Mythic Legions, but any pop and swaps I do will be from Mythic Legion figure to Mythic Legion figure.
Oh yes, I’ll be waiting for you, Crazy Rainbow Death Knight.
Whoa, this thread certainly got a bit inflamed since I last looked at it.
Now personally, I’ve never been a devotee of any particular “scale” for my toys. When I was a kid I played with Star Wars (3.75″) MOTU (5″) and Transformers (Scale? WHAT scale?) with equal abandon, and sometimes even mixed everything together. Was I sometimes annoyed that some characters weren’t “the right size”? Sure, sometimes, but imagination usually handled that.
Now, flash forward to adulthood. The ToyBiz 5″ scales slowly grew in size to finally become 6″, and then Marvel Legends was born with that which was the birth of a whole new scale for figures. Sure there had been 6″ figure lines before, but none had ever really been that successful, and mostly they’d been seen as being “too big” and too expensive. But the 90’s were a magical time with better worldwide economy, and ToyBiz’s ML (and for example their exemplary LOTR line at the same scale) were lavish, over-articulated and came with extensive amounts of stuff. Great times!
Which naturally created a bandwagon effect. There was a big clamor for larger scale figures, and lots of other toy companies got into the game. Later we even got DCUC and MOTUC as a retail and a collector-only line to tie into it.
buuuuuut…
For me, regardless of how good any one scale is, it does not invalidate the existence of any other scale, or my enjoyment of that. For example, I still happily collect Transformers despite that they do not truly have a “scale”. Oh sure, the newer Masterpiece releases are internally CONSISTENT, but they still don’t have a proper scale in the sense that their alt modes are realistic sizes, and they even use fake kibble to feign being something they’re not. Likewise, I have found enormous enjoyment in the exemplary sculpting Hasbro has put into their Marvel Univere line! I’m really stung that GI Joe has pretty much been lost at U.S retail, but that was a decision that was not in Hasbro’s hands. I will maintain that for example Renegades Storm Shadow is a toy that is 100% on par with any 6″ figure on the market in sculpting and articulation, and blows them all away in the accessory department…
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut.
There’s a problem right now for toylines in the US, and that is the retail system. Some years ago, several of the major US retail chains decided that essentially, the only thing that “sells” (and this in their view means “sells really fast”) is movie-based toys. This led to the decline of several toylines previously readily available at retail because they were NOT movie-based. For example Hasbro’s Marvel Legends, Mattel’s DCUC, the Generations collection for Transformers and similar. This has nothing to do with the quality of the toys, although of course the rising oil prices and thus increased retail prices also contribute. It’s simply the fact that a toy which has the logo of a popular movie will sell for a short burst of time, then the store can clearance out the rest and start again. They don’t want toylines to stick around on shelves, and they don’t care much about slow and steady sales trickles. They want bursts, like the immense boost the Transformers brand caught when the Bay movies hit.
This is the policy of Walmart and Target, which after the demise of Kaybee means only Toys’R’Us is left to take the more “collector” oriented toylines in. This, for very natural reasons, leads to a very skewed market.
Want more Marvel Legends? Better make the waves ostensibly tie into whatever new movie is out. The retailers won’t know what characters are actually IN the movie, they just see that there’s a brand name, there’s a movie, and take it. Want to sell DC figures? Try to ease them in through connecting them to the Arkham games. Transformers? Movie tie-ins. (Though in the defense of Hasbro they are gutsily devoting most of this year purely to nostalgia-based Generations Transformers, in the wait for the next movie).
I mean hell, the reason retailers took Star Wars Black wasn’t specifically that it was a six-inch collector line. It was that it was something with the “Star Wars” movie brand on it.
So if anything, whatever issues people may have with finding, restocking or searching for toys, it’s much less an issue of the market wanting one thing or the other and much more that US retail for toys is pretty messed up.
Anyway that was way too long and rambling, but I urge people to not have such preconceived notions of what is “correct” and not, and give anything a try. My shelves are still happily mixed between scales (and non-scales) and a good toy is a good toy, regardless of size.
Over and out. 🙂
You guys should mosey on over to Phil Reed’s Battlegrip Site and check out some of his commentary about this very article and some of the reponses to it. He just went and made some of you famous… 😉
Well “famous” may be just a bit of an overstatement…
Here’s a quote from one of Phil’s very own posters that I thought was interesting:
“I think you might be over-thinking these comments[posted on AFI]. Not all toy collectors can be aware of the ins & outs of the industry. I would say the majority of collectors have no idea what plastic in Asia costs. They just know they want what they want. I think their criticism is just as valid as your acceptance of the small scale.”-MatthewM
So it’s not like the fans of 6 inch scale figures posting on AFI are a bunch of turd-flingers. His own audience isn’t really sold.
Dayraven took it on the chin over there a little bit for his gamer/toy collector crossover bit. No one proved him wrong, though. One poster said he “would’ve” bought action figures of a particular game “had he known they existed.” That’s how into toys this guy is. He loves a RPG so much that he never even said to himself “Hey, they should totally make toys of this stuff. Wait! Maybe they already do, let me look it up…”.
So, yeah, go to Battlegrip and read his informed opinion, but it doesn’t really put any of this to bed.
“So, yeah, go to Battlegrip and read his informed opinion, but it doesn’t really put any of this to bed.”
I don’t think any of us can really know what’s going to happen. All we can do is read, talk to others, apply our own skills and experience to the conversation, and then let history unfold.
The only thing that will really determine who is right/wrong is time.
http://www.battlegrip.com/?p=57578 – Why the Four Horsemen’s Mythic Legions Aren’t 6-Inches Tall
I like what it being said there.
What is scale these days? 2″, 3″, 1:18, 5″, 1:12(6)”, 7″, 8″, 10″, 1:6, 14, 1:4 are all active scales with figures coming out this quarter. Hasbro’s girl’s toys numbers were up double digits for the holiday quarter but boys action figures, including SW, GI Joe, and TF, brought them down into red ink. TRU may not have a Holiday quarter in 2014, if you count isles at Wally World and Target and you will see fewer reserved for toys and fewer still to action figures than just two years ago. Check my The Business of Toys thread at the IAT boards where we discuss just what kind of costs are involved and how bad several companies are doing. come over to the message boards and lets talk about what it takes to be a designer, a manufacture a retailer and yes, even a collector. All are needed or the industry goes away
Tek! Where have you been?? lol
Hoping to keep this a debate about scale and not make it a personal attack against one of the better studios in the business. Unfortunately the baser natures of people seam to be the most vocal.
This was a fairly epic reading of comments, I have to say.
So here’s 2 more cents…
If you collect nothing but 6″ figures…good for you, I guess.
Sounds pretty boring to me.
Maybe I have too much imagination.
My personal collection contains everything from a few 22mm figures to a life size zombie deer…and everything in between, including quite a few examples of the Glyos line, which I enjoy immensely.
Scale, property, company, articulation or lack thereof…none of this has ever been an issue with me.
If I see any figure, be it static or action, of any size, and it looks cool…I want it, end of story.
The fact that anyone would limit themselves, in a world of so much diversity in the international toy market…it slightly boggles the mind.
But hey, different strokes for different folks, right?
I commend the 4H and Onell for bringing this line to collectors, and I will definitely be grabbing them up as fast as I can, including extras for customizing purposes.
The photos are gorgeous and I hope production goes smoothly and these become a force to be reckoned with in the toy world.