Harvinger Studios, Savage Crucible

Rob Post posted this just now in response to some recent breakage posts on FB. Maybe it ends up on IG, I'm just sharing with the Crucible trust here.
ef202c046d98585696747b9e720b629c.jpg


Sent from my Pixel 8 Pro using Tapatalk
 
TheGillMan said:
I've never really understood the whole concept of the back scabbard. I guess if you're a thief or a ninja who is scaling walls and what-not, then it might make sense, but a warrior type who needs to be able to draw quickly? It just seems like it would cost you valuable seconds.
Click to expand...
The bigger problem is, for most swords and certainly for these two we're talking about, you literally cannot draw the sword from your back. You'd have to remove the scabbard and then draw the sword. So yeah, I guess if you need to climb something fairly sheer, you'd want to attach it to your back to get it out of the way. But that's it.


adrienveidt said:
Okay, I'm gonna need to see video of a dude waist-drawing a sword as long he is tall to believe it. There's gonna be something different about that scabbard to allow it, imho.
Click to expand...

To be sword-nerdy for a moment; in the toy form we have it, Stormbringer is too long to be drawn from -anywhere-. Swords of that size aren't worn. Period.
Could you? Yeah. It's actually not that difficult. The blade only actually reaches the underside of his breastbone, just about. You don't have to factor in the length of the hilt when it comes to how difficult it is to draw from the scabbard. So if you make sure the throat of the scabbard is fairly low/far back (accomplished by wearing the sword at a shallow angle to keep it from dragging on the ground behind you - which IS how many longswords were worn), you can certainly get the sword out. Especially if you follow the tradition of some curved swords and cut a notch out of the upward-facing edge of the scabbard, allowing the blade to come free without -completely- clearing the scabbard throat first.

The bigger problem is how WILDLY impractical it is to wear a sword around that long. Even longswords and rapiers, in historical writings, were complained about because they're such a pain in the ass, tripping people behind you, banging into things, knocking things over. And large swords have large hilts, which means a ton of hilt projecting in front of your body. It's just unrealistic to try to -exist- in the world.

adrienveidt said:
My understanding is that back scabbards have a slit along the upper side, plus a generally wider mouth; that allows one to pull the sword forward to the front.
Click to expand...
In fact, there's just no such thing as back scabbards. It's complete fantasy. Doesn't exist. And even in movies/TV they have to do 'movie magic' to get the weapons from the scabbard into the actor's hand, or vice versa.


adrienveidt said:
A waist scabbard has to be drawn almost entirely outwards from the mouth as a long side-slit risks the sword falling out entirely.
Click to expand...
While slits in the scabbard weren't -common-, they ONLY exist in waist-mounted scabbards because that is the only kind of scabbard that actually existed.
They were used for curved swords, though. Not super long swords. As above, it just gets to a point where wearing a sword of a certain length is impractical in and of itself, to the point where it doesn't even -matter- how you'd draw it.


adrienveidt said:
Damien likely has better expertise
Click to expand...
I feel called out by this.



TheGillMan said:
Okay, I have to issue a retraction. On my lunch break I went back and reread the bit about the length of the Sword...it actually says Stormbringer is almost the length of Cymoril, not Elric. Since Cymoril is at least a foot shorter than Elric, I'd estimate Stormbringer to be around 5 ft. Still, a pretty long damned sword.
Click to expand...
Tip to pommel, 5 feet is a big sword. But you're talking about a 4 foot blade. BARELY longer than many rapier blades.



JakeEkiss said:
And the real answer is, a sword over a certain length would realistically just be carried, either rested on the shoulder parade style or over the shoulder in it's sheath, but that would be for transport. You might have one stored on the back (again, strictly for transport), but if you were even somewhat thinking you would need to use it, you'd have it out and ready to rock long before you needed it. Having a big sword means avoiding instances where you'd need to snap draw it.

We also have to appreciate Moorcock is not a realist. He's not necessarily describing stuff that would actually work with exacting detail and accuracy.
Click to expand...
I wrote up a bunch of my post before reading this and I am not going to delete it all but.. yah, this. The larger two-handed swords were just carried. That's it. That's the big secret.
 
I'm a full on nervious nelly about breakage and I haven't had any issues with this line. I find the elbows and knees need some heat but that's like 90% of lines these days.

Damien said:
I wrote up a bunch of my post before reading this and I am not going to delete it all but.. yah, this. The larger two-handed swords were just carried. That's it. That's the big secret.
Click to expand...
There's a character in Abercrombie's the Heroes, Whirrun of Bligh (who I would commit a federal crime to get an action figure of) who carries a "magic" sword (he's nuts) over his shoulder like a piece of gym equipment through the whole book and I think that might the only time I've seen a giant sword carried in a realistic manner in a book. He's either got his arm draped over it or he's leaning on it or he's swinging it.

TheGillMan said:
Wait....are you telling me if I get into a really bad spot I CAN'T just summon forth Arioch, Chaos Lord and Duke of Hell???
Click to expand...
My favorite post of the day, this
 
My SC figures have gotten their new home.

1e359907-5d63-47ba-abb4-3955ec464f86.jpeg by lionpride75, on Flickr

The one figure may not stay on the horse, as I had purchased that for the NECA D&D Warduke,and he's yet to go into a display (if I can find the other half of the Hasbro D&D cartoon figures in my mountain of boxes/bins, they can fill the empty shelf with the NECA figures).
 
Besides the Frazetta Warrior cape connector break incident, which they ultimately sent me a replacement for, I haven't had any major issues with any of my SC figures. It really makes me scratch my head at those FB posts with people saying they broke them out the box or had multiple figures break, and wonder what they're doing with them.
 
So the post from Rob Post said they released a little over 100,000 figures and by my count they have released about 19 figures, so doing some dirty napkin math we can see that their runs are around 5,000 per figure. Some may be less, Elric we know was more, That gives us a good idea what the production runs of these are like.

I know that 5,000 units are considered a large production run for 3rd party Transformers, 3,00 is more typical and where the first real price break occurs. (Heck Rob Post said his factory won't do less than 3,000 units MOQ.) I wonder how it compares to Mythic Legions or Boss Fight?

AGAIN; these are estimates and shouldn't be used as facts for production runs. I'm only extrapolating based off what I learned talking to guys who designed and engineered for Master Mind Creations and FansToys 3rd party Transformers on the TFW2005 boards.
 
3,000 is around what DimeNovelLegends shoots for, afaik; but I think they fudge more characters in that run than a solid 3,000 of one product.
 
Considering the popularity of TFs, runs of 3-5k for 3Ps makes a lot of sense and explains why the good ones get so many production runs. If it doesn't sell out wildly to justify successive runs it's rare that a TF figure can't find 3,000 buyers across the planet. It's hard to lose money on a 3PTF if all you have to invest for is 3-5k of them against a planetary-sized market.

That also explains Hasbro Pulse pricing levels. Despite having vaster production capacity they also have a vast amount of non-productive parasite executives to payroll. The need for quarterly profits is also why one has to pre-pay for a pre-order from a company with a multi-billion net worth.
 
Last edited:
3,000 - 5,000 production runs kill some 3rd party transformer companies. Some sit around for a long, long time. If you ain't big or have buzz behind you can be dead on arrival. Many Transformer fans WILL NOT buy 3rd part as they see it as IP theft. It is always a risk. It's why so many have one figure, it fails, and retailers deep discount it 3 to 5 years later. BBTS still has figures from low production runs 5, 6, even 7 years later. 3,000 to 5,000 units is a huge risk.

It also doesn't explain Hasbro. That's just greed. Correlation isn't causation.
 
I don't see 'so many' 3P TF companies failing at all, much less products. Of course there are bombs but if the TF market couldn't support it it very obviously wouldn't be the biggest 3P/KO market in human history.

I have no idea how you think mentioning 'greed' is a refutation of my 'a vast amount of non-productive parasite executives to payroll' snippet.
 
I watched dozens of 3rd party come put and disappear. That's why I think they fail.

Maketoys
Fansproject
Warbotron
Omnigonix
Impossible Toys
Generation toys (someone bought the molds and still puts product out as them)
GCreation
TFCtoys (they moved on to other lucrative projects outside of toys, and occasionally dip back into it every few years)
Mayhem Mechanics
Open and Play
IGear
Zeta
Perfect Effect
Unique toys

All of these made toys, they all folded. New ones spring up all the time that's why there is so many. A lot just make one product and go.

At leat this is my experience collecting them for 12 years.

If your collecting experience is different than please share. But in the third part transformers community they will tell you that market has shrank for a variety of reasons and companies who were once big are now gonr But again if yours is different please share.

As for the geeed comment, I think prices are high because of greed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top