Oh, something new on the blog, are we stepping into another realm of cool things? Well… not exactly, because for us, the Joytoy Warhammer brand is already part of our shop for quite some time. Because the brands we offer in store are growing quite fast, we thought it was time to include them in the blog.
Let’s have a chat about what they actually are and why they fit so nice into what we already established on conventions. Is this something about what gaming is? Part of it is yes, but the main focus here is the action figure and why you should not expel them from our great hobby.
Were all kids inside!
For the reason we love the stupid pieces of flexible plastic, we have to go back to our childhood. You know, just after Christmas, when you got some new Gi-Joe figures. If you are as ancient as I am it might be the first series of Star Wars. That feeling of joy when you opened a blister is as good as it gets for me. There is nothing different apart from the age you have now. Either you like it or you don’t and if you like it, you go 100% in. If you don’t like them, you won’t go further than “Hey, we had these as a kid”.
To prove my point, we had Masters of the Universe Battlegrounds from Archon Studio on the stand of a convention. Everyone LOVED it and you have no idea how many Skeletor impressions you could hear. We humies tend to stick to what made us happy in the past and remember it when triggered.
Collecting figures is fun!
As a man, my wife cannot make me more happy than coming home with something weird. Last week it was such a head rocking fortune cat you see at Chinese restaurants. I love them. I have collectors blood flowing in me. If you have too, your reaction to such fortune cats would be the same as mine.
Action figures are exactly the same when it comes to the awesome feeling of adding something to your collection. You get a box, you pull off the sealing. You open the box for the first time and see your glorious addition to the collection appearing. As if this model has been waiting to be adopted by you and is equally happy to meet you. THAT joy is what collecting action figures is about! That is the fun we are talking about.
Big Brands Like JoyToy
The action figures you see at toy stores are certainly worth collecting, but the quality is to be “played with”. This means the toys you get there, are from a quality that is meant to be handled. The collectable toys we are talking about are the ones you actually put in a display, look at it and repose occasionally.
With the digitalization of our markets and the shift for younger people towards computer games, the action figures disappear from the street view. Specialized brands like McFarlane Toys, Hasbro (with their Star Wars Black Label) JoyToy with their own lines and Warhammer products each have their own market share and bring insanely detailed “toys” to the market.
McFarlane toys have been around for quite some time and specializes in toys. Hasbro has a lot of brands and had to make a label for higher end product and JoyToy want to follow in the footsteps of McFarlane. With this, we mean that the Joytoy brand has their own toy lines and on top of that, has Warhammer as a sales line. Even so, they started out with a mecha line called Battle for the Stars and to this date, it’s still an amazing line! But it’s the Warhammer Lineup that is making the company shine bright like a diamond! Yes, that reference is correct.
JoyToy Warhammer
There is no single man on this planet that can withstand the testosterone filled grimdark world of Warhammer. It was only a matter of time before the first action figures came and boy o’ boy are they nice! Big hulking 12 cm man machines in 1/18 scale that spark the imagination of the most manly man there is! McFarlane toys have also tried to make the Warhammer line, but their models are off in size and bulkiness. A space marine is part man, part machine with tank armor. That cannot resemble a normal human being and that is where JoyToy nailed it right on the head!
These JoyToy Warhammer models are not only 99% lore accurate, but the sizes versus the “normal” humans in that world is significant and fit the 1/18 scale. In general, a human sized model is smaller than a genetically engineered marine, so the human is about 10cm. The marine is 11,5 to 12,5 cm tall, and the Terminator armor is 12,5–14 cm tall. Then there are the Primarchs which, depending on which one it is, vary 15 to 20 cm high and the dreadnoughts are about 23–27 cm tall.
A growing fanbase for JoyToy Warhammer
There are quite the amounts of conventions where we show up with action figures. Even the ones that you would not expect like wargaming shows. Here you see that Warhammer still shines and there is room for some great stuff like Joytoy models. Especially when you see that the price for a display model is not that far off from a miniature model. You just can’t play with them on the same space. One needs an 1/18 war zone and that is at least 7 x 7 meters! Does that stop the testosterone breathing collectors there that want something special? Nope!
This means the toy branch is long from dead and even making a reappearance in toy stores thanks to the likes of the Minecraft (Hasbro?) line of models. Better still, the collecting hobby is almost mainstream now and there is no better time to acknowledge your inner kid again, no matter the age.
JoyToy has a unique way of producing
Besides the fact they produce amazing models, the named models like JoyToy Warhammer Ultramarines Terminator Chaplain Vanius, are limited models. This means that when the production run for, say, the above model has ended, they recycle the mold and never come back to that model. If you can buy it, you can. If it’s out of stock, there is a very rare chance it will ever come back in stock.
JoyToy Warhammer in our store
What amazes us however, is that a lot of shops in NL have almost no stock, but all on pre-order. This has mainly to do with the way the market is growing and scalpers found their way towards the collector hobby. Nonetheless, there are almost no shops with stock or a lot of stock. We aim to offer only on stock items without pre-orders, which is a hard guess if the pre-order is actually delivered on promised date.
Spellen winkel CCGwinkel has about 30 JoyToy Warhammer models on stock, varying from the older more wanted models to the newer released this year. Next to that, we aim at beginning the own IP Strife as soon as we place an order with the distributors again and are looking at the Popular Infinity IP to add that later this year. With recent growth in collectors, we aim to find a way to get the Battle for the Stars, the Army Builder and the Dark Source IP’s from JoyToy in store next year if this growth continues.
So, what are you waiting for? Check out the amazing models and always changing product lineup.
See you next week! In the meantime, check out last weeks blog.