Of all the toys I expected to see remade in 2017, Sabre Sword Tiger was not one of them. Hasbro put one out in Transformers as "Fengul," a Titan Master companion to Grotusque. It's the second Battle Beasts
head companion figure we've seen so far, and this was as good of a time
as any to look at its inspiration from thousands of years ago, back in
the 1980s.
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Speaking of beasts, I overpaid for the Stealth Vorin
on eBay a few years ago - shortly thereafter, I was at an industry
party filled with dishes of them for free, like after-dinner mints.
Oops. The line was a few years in the making with a decent amount of
fanfare - there was even a comic series which you had to order a bunch
of to get this figure as a premium. (Selling a lot of #1 matters.) It
was cheaper to buy the toy on eBay than to pony up for the comics, so
it wasn't a total loss. This figure is a redeco of the normal Vorin
(there are two sculpts of the ram) complete with shield and sword.
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How the heck did I miss these? Battle Beasts Ruminant and Spyrnus snuck out a few years after the last/first Battle Beasts Minimates,
a short-lived line that I assume only got another release to keep the
trademark in Diamond's hands and out of Hasbro's. I was genuinely
shocked to see these at Toys R Us, so I bought them on sight - as luck
would have it, they were also on clearance. Upon further investigation
we've sold them at where I work for quite some time but I had no idea.
I assume that's not a good sign when someone who desperately wants to
buy anything with "Battle Beasts" on the box has no idea that they
exist, and since they were never on the front of the pegs at Toys R Us
until May of 2017 I had no idea they were a thing I could buy. They're
good - a whole second series
was shown At Comic-Con in 2013 but didn't make it out. That's part of
what made this even more surprising, but good on Diamond Select Toys for
having the thought of getting something out of its design investment
and releasing them anyway. Even if it was ultimately to what was
clearly a dud of a reception from fans and
would-have-liked-to-have-supported-it fans.
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