Big Bad Workshop General

Yawn.

I sort of dig what Gridiron Studios makes and have a couple of their weapons on my shelves, but I checked out when they started putting their logo on everything.

But I guess they did the smart thing and made Gridiron an "in-universe" arms dealer, so now it makes sense to have a shot gun and guitar amp with the gear skull logo.

I'm also not interested in buddy figures. Vala tried it with Sand...guy* and then Murphy did it with the Gridiron dude. Like, you want your exclusive soldier to have a variety of swappable name patches and some of them have names of people in the company? Do it up. But I'm not going to pay you so you can have soldier doll of your best friend.

Okay, that got a little more ranty at the end than I was expecting, but what a boring theme to base around your vanity figure. Just more soldiers? It makes the NPC line seem epic by comparison.


* I don't feel like looking it up
 
Fletch said:
I think the Poe tease has set me up for a big disappointment. Based on their previous weirdo characters, I was looking forward to colorful characters based on Poe stories like a Raven man or a Red Death. I wasn't expecting just a basic Poe.
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The tease did say it was revealing what happened to Poe when he disappeared before his death. It makes sense they'd start with him.
 
Fletch said:
Just more soldiers? It makes the NPC line seem epic by comparison.
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Legit. I like cool soldier figures, but I admit the NPCs line has sort of revealed to me that I'd been limiting what I thought was possible simply because nobody seemed interested in doing a proper line of background/trope characters who weren't more army guys (the Joe fireman notwithstanding, I've got him on my desk and I LOVE this guy). Street Humans was a weird line (those animal heads...) made by a guy who just didn't understand production, so doomed to fail. Bobby's extras line is just the same idea with the little personality wiped clean and more likely to actually be produced.

I think Bobby's line will be competent, but the NPC line though seems way more thoughtful. Way more intentional. Not just made to thumb their noses at somebody. They really considered "ok, what background folks triangulate into multiple displays with ease, but aren't just more guys with guns. I think they have done a stellar job of selecting what to produce there and the more I think about it the more I think I might be in for that whole wave.

Like, I just keep looking back at these figures. The priest is good for horror shelves, but also Daredevil. And the extra heads specifically to posses other BBWS figures? Brilliant. Great use of universal neck pegs. The cheerleader is good for horror, but maybe also a Spider-man high school scene. Cops and robbers? Every street level superhero display. And look at the masks they chose for the robbers. You got your standard Heat bank heist, you got bunny for Mad Hatter Goons, you got balaclavas, you got one that maybe could be a clown mask or similar... they really thought about it. Everything there is really positioned for maximum variety.

I think this is the line making me most excited from the show and I'm legit shocked to say that.
 
I dunno... I'm kinda into this guy. Masked guy with a camo pattern I don't really have on the shelf in Classified yet, with a skull balaclava does something for me.

Warfare-03__scaled_600.jpg
 
Ru1977 said:
I dunno... I'm kinda into this guy. Masked guy with a camo pattern I don't really have on the shelf in Classified yet, with a skull balaclava does something for me.

Warfare-03__scaled_600.jpg
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I like that guy better than the first one they showed (didn't realize it was based on somebody until today). But I've got tons of options for masked military dudes between this, Joes, and Vala (and probably others I'm forgetting) so I can afford to be really picky now.
 
JakeEkiss said:
I like that guy better than the first one they showed (didn't realize it was based on somebody until today
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I didn't either but I'm not following all the behind the scenes stuff for these lines. Everything I know about vala is from the discussions on this forum.
JakeEkiss said:
. But I've got tons of options for masked military dudes between this, Joes, and Vala (and probably others I'm forgetting) so I can afford to be really picky now.
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True, and I've yet to get any of these. I did get one valaverse figure and it was okay. Not as great to me as classified. And I think I have more fun coming up with character and names for classified figures like the 65th guys than I would for these, but some of them are kinda neat heh.
 
Ru1977 said:
I didn't either but I'm not following all the behind the scenes stuff for these lines. Everything I know about vala is from the discussions on this forum.
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No no, I meant the gridiron guy. The one with the white goatee is based on somebody the Gridiron guys know I guess? Bobby also did it, but not who I was talking about this time.
Ru1977 said:
True, and I've yet to get any of these. I did get one valaverse figure and it was okay. Not as great to me as classified. And I think I have more fun coming up with character and names for classified figures like the 65th guys than I would for these, but some of them are kinda neat heh.
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Yeah. Like I said I enjoy some generic military dudes, but until today that's basically all anybody was offering that was in the extra/npc/background character roles. The NPC line has a lot of freshness to it just by going a tiny bit further out. And with the part library BBWS is building, they could go a lot further.
 
JakeEkiss said:
No no, I meant the gridiron guy. The one with the white goatee is based on somebody the Gridiron guys know I guess? Bobby also did it, but not who I was talking about this time.

Yeah. Like I said I enjoy some generic military dudes, but until today that's basically all anybody was offering that was in the extra/npc/background character roles. The NPC line has a lot of freshness to it just by going a tiny bit further out. And with the part library BBWS is building, they could go a lot further.
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I like Gridiron as a weapons manufacturer. But I get that "military guy" isn't something everyone wants or needs. And the best figures in the line ate still, for sure, the monsters.
 
Buttmunch said:
Feels like these NPCs are what shart was trying to do with his ‘street humans’ but done better.
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I hope so, but I'd say not so far. Street humans had street level brawlers, dressed in tank tops and jeans and not overly buff and of various ethnicities. That filled a niche that movie tanktop Logan and WWE figures don't (too buff, too big) nor yet by this NPC line (I have many suited mob level goons and bank robbers). I love what they've shown but I'd also like to see this NPC line scratch that itch for street level thugs smaller in stature than 6" Batman (and beat cops! I've got SWAT through Valaverse)
 
JakeEkiss said:
No no, I meant the gridiron guy. The one with the white goatee is based on somebody the Gridiron guys know I guess? Bobby also did it, but not who I was talking about this time.
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Right, I didn't know the goatee guy was a friend or real person etc. I already wasn't into him as a figure on its own merit though heh.
JakeEkiss said:
Yeah. Like I said I enjoy some generic military dudes, but until today that's basically all anybody was offering that was in the extra/npc/background character roles. The NPC line has a lot of freshness to it just by going a tiny bit further out. And with the part library BBWS is building, they could go a lot further.
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Hopefully they do!
 
bat said:
I hope so, but I'd say not so far. Street humans had street level brawlers, dressed in tank tops and jeans and not overly buff and of various ethnicities. That filled a niche that movie tanktop Logan and WWE figures don't (too buff, too big) nor yet by this NPC line (I have many suited mob level goons and bank robbers). I love what they've shown but I'd also like to see this NPC line scratch that itch for street level thugs smaller in stature than 6" Batman (and beat cops! I've got SWAT through Valaverse)
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Vala's got you covered for that it seems with his upcoming Extras line since it's basically just Street Humans with better articulation, no animal heads, and more likely to actually be released. I think I'm more jazzed for this line because the cheerleader and Priest are moving in a direction I like that I don't see anybody else moving towards.

Aside from any drama behind the scenes, it's such a great time to collect toys. There really is something for everybody, even down to really niche subgroups.
 
I think what I really dislike about 'Gridiron' being a military dude is that he's supposed to be the 'in universe' weapons manufacturer. So why is he decked out like a Texan at Walmart? The whole concept is so fucking try-hard. Like this guy has to be inserted into the mythology twice, because being a weapons manufacturer isn't good enough and being a cool soldier guy isn't good enough. He's gotta be BOTH. But with less than a quarter of a percent of the personality-in-design of a Destro.

It's lame. It's, as the kids say, cringe AF.


The NPC line looks like the absolute best take on a line of non-hero figures that I've yet seen. I don't know yet if I need any of them, but it's very cool nonetheless and seems to be in great hands as far as whoever is doing the concept and design. I think the big deciding factor on something like that is how the scale turns out. I don't want to hear about how real people vary in height and blah blah blah... I don't want regular people taller than my 'reasonably tall' superheroes. I don't want faceless bank robbers taller than Punisher. I don't want my random exorcist priest towering over Ghost Rider or Blade. You know what I mean?

If they nail the scale for my personal needs, I imagine it won't be too hard to persuade me into picking some up.
 
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