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Marvel Minimates Wave 51: Marvel NOW!


Jatta Pake

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Pretty cool Tenime. I have a lot of respect for collections like that because I know they are not cheap and getting rid of the accompanying figures is usually more of a task than folks might think. A big reason I have always lobbied for army builder packs.

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I think the fact that everyone here is impressed by the size of his SHIELD team is proof that not everybody army builds, at least not to this extent.

Exactly. Because they aren't available as cost effect singles, army builder two packs or army builder box sets. thumbsup.gif

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I think the fact that everyone here is impressed by the size of his SHIELD team is proof that not everybody army builds, at least not to this extent.

Exactly. Because they aren't available as cost effect singles, army builder two packs or army builder box sets. thumbsup.gif

How's everybody's Frost Giant and Hydra Soldier armies?

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I think the fact that everyone here is impressed by the size of his SHIELD team is proof that not everybody army builds, at least not to this extent.

Exactly. Because they aren't available as cost effect singles, army builder two packs or army builder box sets. thumbsup.gif

How's everybody's Frost Giant and Hydra Soldier armies?

Mine are fine, thanks for asking. I would seriously build a SHIELD team if SHIELD agents were sold as singles.

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I think the fact that everyone here is impressed by the size of his SHIELD team is proof that not everybody army builds, at least not to this extent.

Exactly. Because they aren't available as cost effect singles, army builder two packs or army builder box sets. thumbsup.gif

How's everybody's Frost Giant and Hydra Soldier armies?

a giant army of both, thanks for asking....helped largely by the availability of them in the single packs :)

Jeff of the Miniacs

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I think the fact that everyone here is impressed by the size of his SHIELD team is proof that not everybody army builds, at least not to this extent.

Exactly. Because they aren't available as cost effect singles, army builder two packs or army builder box sets. thumbsup.gif

How's everybody's Frost Giant and Hydra Soldier armies?

growing along nicely

frostgiants_zps3ddd7247.jpg

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I think the fact that everyone here is impressed by the size of his SHIELD team is proof that not everybody army builds, at least not to this extent.

Exactly. Because they aren't available as cost effect singles, army builder two packs or army builder box sets. thumbsup.gif

How's everybody's Frost Giant and Hydra Soldier armies?

Pretty epic

Have one case worth of each plus one case of the hammer drones plus whatever came in the regular waves

Edited by kaipo
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I haven't gotten this wave yet, but I got my Maria Hills from Luke (preordered when he first threw them up all those months ago), so I've supplemented my S.H.I.E.L.D. ranks already. It'll grow when I get my case from my LCS (though there will only be one more female). Thank the gods for all the White Tigers I had in my parts bin - regular white feet make the transformation into classic agent complete.

IMAG0405-1_zps96f557a5.jpg

Front row: Black Widow, Agent 13, Quake, Maria Hill, Nick Fury (can't wait to replace that head/hair with the Age of Ultron one!), Dum-Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Agent Coulson

Second row: Random female agents, Kymberly Taylor, Jasper Sitwell, Clay Quartermain, Jimmy Woo, random male agent

The rest are just random agents (though, I'm sure I could find names to match some of my headswaps - Kymberly Taylor was a fluke accident, lol - thanks, Prowlar for the 411!), with the Ultimate soldiers being "The Howling Commandos" (in my fan-canon).

another sort of legit agent you can do is the civilian head of sin eater with the dark hair was a shield agent.

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I think the fact that everyone here is impressed by the size of his SHIELD team is proof that not everybody army builds, at least not to this extent.

Exactly. Because they aren't available as cost effect singles, army builder two packs or army builder box sets. thumbsup.gif

How's everybody's Frost Giant and Hydra Soldier armies?

Yeah, I don't think the movie army builders are a good indicator of the potential success of a comic-based army builder dump or boxset. While the 'mates are nice, the Frost Giant and Movie Hydra designs were somewhat lacking. If you want a better indicator of potential success, just look at the aftermarket prices on eBay of movie army builders compared to highly sought after comic army builders. People are regularly paying $15 - $20 per Wave 25 AIM Soldier!

I'm not sure if he's still lurking or not, but Groundhog just sold off a large chunk of his Army Builder collection, and I'm sure he could weigh in on the 'mates that were most sought after. I bought a lot of them from him myself, and can say that none of the Army Builders I bought were from any of the movies. AIM Soldiers, Multiple Man, Hydra Agents, Hand Ninja, Skrull, Kree, Hellfire Club Guards, and Sentinels are always in demand in the secondary market.

Edited by youbastards
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Well, technically, we don't sell on the secondary market. I don't know what percentage the number that make it through to eBay translates to in terms of a full production run. But I think we've shown that we're willing to update classic army builders in the LCS assortments, and it looks like we'll always NEED army builders there, so I don't know why we'd jeopardize those sales. We'll see if the ongoing demand for Hydra agents translates to strong sales of 54 and TRU 18. Maybe it will lead to more AIM!

As it is, if you buy them in lots of 5, most army-builders go for less than $10 each on eBay. The $20-30 army-builder seems like a fluke more than the norm.

Those AIM auctions make no sense, as it seems like AIM agents sell for less when they come with a second or even third figure. Do people even LOOK at other auctions? Do they not realize they can throw the other figure away and still save money?

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I personally would be happy if you keep updating the major army builders (SHIELD, Hydra, AIM, and Sentinels) while including them with the waves. I think you're right, if you start doing army builders separately you're going to run out of army builders (though I'm still waiting on Ultimatum and Sons of the Serpent troopers). SHIELD's a bit unique because there are individual agents with individual personalities, so people are going to be buying more. I'm glad that you guys redid SHIELD agents again so soon, and I hope we get another female agent body shortly.

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Well, technically, we don't sell on the secondary market.

Yeah, sellers like Minimates_Menagerie love that technicality. All I'm saying is why let after market sellers make money that DST could themselves be getting directly? Isn't that why the comic companies publish trades or reprints of older stories, to make money on something they wouldn't otherwise see money for (backissues)? Sure, everything fluctuates in price on eBay, but the point that I'm making is that there is enough proven demand to warrant at least a boxset or dump of Marvel 616 Army Builders. Even if 5 army builders are selling for $50, that's still more than double the retail cost of two 4-pack boxsets at $20 each.

If you don't think an army builder dedicated boxset would sell, then maybe pair them up with some re-do's of requested heroes and villains for the next LCS "Best Of" wave. Gambit/Sentinel, Classic Sterenko Nick Fury/Hydra, Classic Falcon/AIM, Bullseye/Hand Ninja, Captain Marvel (Genis-Vell)/Kree, etc.

I just think the Army Dumps were a creative way to get those types of characters into the hands of collectors, and while the Movie Versions may not have been a huge hit (they seemed to sell pretty well given their relative limited nature), I don't think that success or failure reflects the sales of classic Marvel Comic collectors.

As for continuing Army Builders in the standard LCS wave, I'm all for that, as long as we don't start getting re-do's every time there is a comic-based wave. Heavy SHIELD in 51 and Hydra Elite in 54 are already 2 back to back re-do's (character re-do's, even if they are different from the original release). Hopefully the next reveal of a comic-themed wave will introduce a previously unreleased Army Builder.

Edited by youbastards
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Well, technically, we don't sell on the secondary market.

Yeah, sellers like Minimates_Menagerie love that technicality. All I'm saying is why let after market sellers make money that DST could themselves be getting directly? Isn't that why the comic companies publish trades or reprints of older stories, to make money on something they wouldn't otherwise see money for (backissues)? Sure, everything fluctuates in price on eBay, but the point that I'm making is that there is enough proven demand to warrant at least a boxset or dump of Marvel 616 Army Builders. Even if 5 army builders are selling for $50, that's still more than double the retail cost of two 4-pack boxsets at $20 each.

If you don't think an army builder dedicated boxset would sell, then maybe pair them up with some re-do's of requested heroes and villains for the next LCS "Best Of" wave. Gambit/Sentinel, Classic Sterenko Nick Fury/Hydra, Classic Falcon/AIM, Bullseye/Hand Ninja, Captain Marvel (Genis-Vell)/Kree, etc.

I just think the Army Dumps were a creative way to get those types of characters into the hands of collectors, and while the Movie Versions may not have been a huge hit (they seemed to sell pretty well given their relative limited nature), I don't think that success or failure reflects the sales of classic Marvel Comic collectors.

My point was that "proven demand" is some people paying a high price for them on eBay, and others paying less than twice retail, which is really nothing for a $5 item -- it barely pays for the trouble of listing it. And we're talking about old Minimates in some of these cases - my God, I'd HOPE these things are going for at least retail price. If you could wait a year or two and get every Minimate for half price, why collect new toys?

The movie dumps may not reflect the success of comic dumps exactly, but I think it's a good starting point. Keep in mind, an army-builder dump is something I have already pitched, and one that I'm pretty sure they had discussed before I even got here. The numbers are clearly the only thing keeping them from moving forward, and it's not like we can make a unilateral decision on this. We work closely with Diamond Comics, who talks to 3,000 retailers and tells us what they think will work or not work.

That said, we do have some new (non-Marvel) dumps planned. We'll see how those dumps do, and maybe we can bring the dump back to the Marvel U. Who knows, maybe Marvel will announce some huge crossover where AIM fights HYDRA fights the Hand fights Sentinels fights the Purifiers fights the Vault Guardsmen fights Jaime Madrox fights the Phalanx. Stranger things have happened.

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It always bugs me when companies quote "numbers" as a way of shooting down ideas as though they are equal. I don't think anyone here is as passionate about movie Frost Giants or movie Hydra designs as they are about classic comic designs. Neither the Hydra soldiers or the Frost Giants were that big of a deal in the movies. They didn't demand amassing huge armies of them. And thematically speaking, they work with relatively few minimates as it is. Classic comic designs work well with almost 40 waves of comic version Marvel minimates on the other hand.

Most of us just don't mix comic & movie mates together in our displays. There are exceptions, and there are those few movie mates that work well enough with the comic mates. But personally, I'm not buying more than the one case I did buy of each, since they would outnumber the other movie mates, and I really just didn't care for either their designs or the throwaway nature they had in the story.

That said, I also don't think that *every* classic comic Marvel army builder needs a dump case. Nobody cried that the Kronen Rock Men didn't get a dump case. I love the Hellfire Club soldiers but I didn't need a full case of them. But as YB and others have pointed out, there are certain mainstays that DO deserve dump cases. Sorry if you want to keep them in the 2-packs to keep up their sales, but I know I'd buy even more army builders if I didn't have to keep getting redundant characters with them. You're doing great with them, don't get me wrong, but I'd have spent so much more on Shield, AIM, Hydra, etc than I already have. I only need so many Fury's and Rogers.

Honestly, the best thing possible to do for dump cases is have more than one faction in them. Make it at least two sides in every dump case. Shield vs AIM, Shield vs Hydra, Skrulls Vs Kree, Sentinels vs Reavers. Take the Lego approach, where each box is a complete battle experience. Sure people will buy individuals, but buying a whole case gives you at least two opposing armies.

One theme per dump case might be a bit much, but multiple factions is where it's at! Since Shield has already had the most attention, you can even do a case of 3 Shield, 3 Hydra, 3 AIM and 1 commander or rare for each army.

I want a TON of AIM beekeepers, but I'm not going to buy a ton of full sets to get them, and the individual 2-pack sellers like Luke are going to sell out of those quickly. A dump case would get far more preorders.

And Zach, when you mention you ARE bringing back dump cases for other properties? You made me incredibly happy!!! My hope is for Aliens as YB mentioned, and I'd love to see Walking Dead get one too!

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