Skurge the Executioner BAF Wave

PantherCult said:
I think its a mild handwave to compare Nimrod to Xemnu and Armadillo, but sure... they could release figures that way...
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That's fair. My point was more that Nimrod required a unique sculpt, and they didn't think he'd sell on his own. Something they curiously went back on with the new release.
PantherCult said:
To use your earlier example... your proposed two pack of Enchantress and Executioner forces me to buy the one chatacter from the BaF wave that I didn't need. Instead I was able to add a whole pile of new characters - WBN, Phantom Rider, Warbow, Ai Aipac... and sure I had to buy another Iron Man, but at least it was an armor I didn't have. Enchantress was the ONLY one in that wave that was a rebuy for something I already had a decent version of on my shelf.
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I don't want to be forced to buy those figures, especially in a wave that I wouldn't buy anything from otherwise. To me, you're arguing against your own wallet.

If the wave was like:

Spider-Man
Scarlet Spider
Black Cat
Aunt May
Spider-Slayer
The Spot
BAF: Big Wheel

I imagine you wouldn't be as thrilled about having to buy that wave to get a new character. Wouldn't you rather a Big Wheel/Spider-Man two-pack?

We know Hasbro tends to put less popular BAFs in more popular waves and vice versa.
PantherCult said:
Without the BaF, Phantom Rider and Warbow are definitely not happening.
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Are we certain? Francine Frye, the Rose, and Hypno-Hustler were recent single-carded figures.

I think you raise a good point about X-Men/Spider-Man figures versus Avengers figures. I'm not sure how much faith Hasbro has in the Avengers comic brand anymore.
 
Beamish said:
BAF waves should be themed.
Why Hasbro would go from themed waves to hodgepodge waves is just crazy.
The "let's clean out the vault and stick them all together in a BAF wave" approach is lame.
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They set the stage when everything was BAF to do themes for the retro card waves. In any logical sense, the BAFs should be themed and you use the blister cards for odds and ends because it is way more flexible (mix and match themes, however many unique figures you want to release in a case, etc.) But they went the opposite over time.

Schizm said:
Literally asking for less for your money makes no sense to me. It's not hard to sell or buy just the pieces/figures if one really wants to go that route.
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In theory at least, Hasbro was sculpting and selling us 7 figures for the price of 6 - but the expense to design and sculpt and make the 7th figure had to come out of the budget for the wave. If they felt the BAF model increased overall wave sales by say 15% (and reduced peg warmers that blocked future sales), that didn't impact the budget for any single figure. But if the blister cards sell as well as the BAF waves, then the development budget is being stretched thinner, then the BAF is a worse model for getting figures with dedicated sculpts out. And the evidence with the BAF waves being not as prominent suggests that may the case.

I love the BAF as a concept but not how they execute it, with mixed waves and variable production numbers of figures to account for online sales more than stocking brick and mortar. There is a lot of waste when some BAF parts are probably made at twice the rate of other parts in the same wave given the preorders for the figure given they mostly sell the figures now by single cases, not mixed wave cases.
 
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fac said:
I love the BAF as a concept but not how they execute it, with mixed waves and variable production numbers of figures to account for online sales more than stocking brick and mortar. There is a lot of waste when some BAF parts are probably made at twice the rate of other parts in the same wave given the preorders for the figure given they mostly sell the figures now by single cases, not mixed wave cases.
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I’ve always wondered about that. For any given BAF, how many parts were produced over and above the maximum number of BAFs that could actually be built. That’s got to be a lot of waste.
 
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I think it was at one point, but now that there's an equal amount of BAF in every case it's probably better.

Re-issues like Power Princess, obviously, will make The Void's legs the most available pieces. But this is a topic I'm also curious about!

Maybe someone could ask at a con?
 
If this was advertised as an Avengers wave with a few swap outs, I think the overall discussion would have been different:
Iron Man
WWII Logan (he's an Avenger, so he counts)
Enchantress
Dark Spider-Man
BAF Skurge
Phantom Rider (in the "friends of Avengers" spot previously used by figures like Nighthawk and Namorita)
Stingray
Echo

Just adding Stingray or Swordsman as a classic Avenger and Echo as a modern Avenger, another female and a MCU tie-in may have been accepted better.
Personally, I'd take out WWII Logan and replace him with another villain like 80s Melter, Fixer or Graviton.
 
fac said:
They set the stage when everything was BAF to do themes for the retro card waves. In any logical sense, the BAFs should be themed and you use the blister cards for odds and ends because it is way more flexible (mix and match themes, however many unique figures you want to release in a case, etc.) But they went the opposite over time.


In theory at least, Hasbro was sculpting and selling us 7 figures for the price of 6 - but the expense to design and sculpt and make the 7th figure had to come out of the budget for the wave. If they felt the BAF model increased overall wave sales by say 15% (and reduced peg warmers that blocked future sales), that didn't impact the budget for any single figure. But if the blister cards sell as well as the BAF waves, then the development budget is being stretched thinner, then the BAF is a worse model for getting figures with dedicated sculpts out. And the evidence with the BAF waves being not as prominent suggests that may the case.
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I think the "cost analysis" and what Hasbro can "tolerate financially" is at least partly contrived at this point. The present model seems to be to raise prices, give you at little as possible for said price, have something wrong with figures that will later be addressed by some other figure you'll be on the hook for in the future and selling you mostly re-use and re-issues with $#!ttier plastic that breaks; just pray we don't give you all of that and MORE locked behind a $60 paywall. Have a Nice Day! :)
 
Beamish said:
If this was advertised as an Avengers wave with a few swap outs, I think the overall discussion would have been different:
Iron Man
WWII Logan (he's an Avenger, so he counts)
Enchantress
Dark Spider-Man
BAF Skurge
Phantom Rider (in the "friends of Avengers" spot previously used by figures like Nighthawk and Namorita)
Stingray
Echo

Just adding Stingray or Swordsman as a classic Avenger and Echo as a modern Avenger, another female and a MCU tie-in may have been accepted better.
Personally, I'd take out WWII Logan and replace him with another villain like 80s Melter, Fixer or Graviton.
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I would remove both Spider-Man and Logan from this line-up. They have their own lines!!! More than two anchors in one wave is just unnecessary and lame. One should be just fine.

Also - more women!!! So sick of one per wave - or none per wave!!

So with that:
Iron Man
Enchantress
Phantom Rider
WWbN
Stingray
Echo
Namorita
BAF Skurge

:)

If they wanted to get really fancy and use new tooling, I'd happy swap in Meteorite for a Masters of Evil connection.
 
Schizm said:
I would remove both Spider-Man and Logan from this line-up. They have their own lines!!! More than two anchors in one wave is just unnecessary and lame. One should be just fine.

Also - more women!!! So sick of one per wave - or none per wave!!

So with that:
Iron Man
Enchantress
Phantom Rider
WWbN
Stingray
Echo
Namorita
BAF Skurge

:)

If they wanted to get really fancy and use new tooling, I'd happy swap in Meteorite for a Masters of Evil connection.
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Had that been the lineup, I would have been all in at full price and I would be raving about how this was one of my favorite waves ever. Instead, I skipped the wave entirely, will consider Phantom Rider and WWbN only if I see them for under $20 shipped, and I’m holding out for a re-release of Executioner.

I don’t understand why Hasbro seems hell bent on playing “keep away” with fan demanded characters and versions of characters like Stingray and Namorita (green swimsuit) while happily churning out far more obscure characters and versions of characters.

It wasn’t always this way. By 2019, Hasbro was crossing names off our want lists faster than we could come up with new ones, and they were almost always the “right” versions. Maybe it’s all in my head, but I could swear that there was a shift of some sort in 2020.
 
So essentially a wave with Jack will look something like this:
Jack of Hearts
White Tiger (Hector)
Viper
Ion
Proteus
and a Wolvie reissue to anchor the wave.

Basically Jack being the only new sculpted character with everyone else being 100% reuse. And no BAF because that would blow the budget
 
Defenders/Defenders for a Day

Jack of Hearts - takes the majority of the budget

Everyone else - new heads
Namor (classic green swimsuit- A/B lister) - almost all reuse
Red Guardian II (articulated Widow body) - almost all reuse
Devil-Slayer - almost all reuse
White Tiger I (Hector)- almost all reuse

Pick 2:
Nebulon - almost all reuse
Slither - almost all reuse and gets us another Serpent Society member (extended head but no extended limbs)
Solarr - almost all reuse

BAF Orka (Controller body) - almost all reuse (Orka was in the 2001 Defenders book)
 
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