I find myself at a crossroads of sort, ever since I got my hands on RiD Brave Maximus and all the little accessories from most of his mold mates, authentic or repro I've been over the top of the mountain, and sliding down the steep slope of the other side.
I find other things attracting my attention, and I only have so many hobby dollars I can split up. So I find myself re-evaluating my collection. Unfortunately for my wallet, a lot of what comes out I find appealing. But that has become too expensive to maintain. And now I need to focus my collection on the items I really really like, rather than just everything that I like or looks cool.
Do you limit yourself to Masterpieces, G1 Characters (In my case, what I grew up on)etc etc..
I had already resigned myself to begin exiting the third party bandwagon, it has just exploded and become more and more expensive. iGears Miniwarriors were looking like the last of the 3rd Party for me along with Fans Project Assaulter.
And I find as much as the movie stuff had it's appealing designs, I'm eying up that shelf for liquidation. Which, isn't going to be easy when a large chunk of it is still shelf warming in most locations.
In the end when I look over all my shelves the pieces that I find I like the most, are the G1s, G1 inspired (Classics / Generations / Universe) and Robots in Disguise. Followed closely by Beast Wars / Beast Machines, Transformers Animated and Transformers Prime. With a little dash of Armada / Cybertron and Energon.
And when it comes to the new stuff, even though the Cyberverse stuff coming out is very cool, do I really need 3 different versions of Prime?? Cyberverse, Deluxe and Voyager?? No, not really. Not too mention I was looking forward to the Energon Driller and the 'Hammer. But as cool as the playsets look. I have The Ark from DOTM and it doesn't really fit in anywhere. So I have to look at the fact that here will be cool pieces that come out, but don't really fit into my collection.
I thought about scaling back all the way to Masterpiece alone. But as few as they are, and cheap on a yearly basis. The line doesn't represent much of the series as whole. And likely never will. Even though we are supposed to get like 5 this year.
So as I have read and heard from others over the years. Wait for deals, patience is key. Don't buy assortments of 4 figures just to get 2 you want. Because you will need to sell those other two, and that takes time and you probably will be lucky to get your cost back out.
Only collect the ones you really want. And you don't need to have every version of every character. Just get the best representation to you. And don't be afraid to downsize if it's needed. That cash can go back into the collection, or to some other hobby you've been neglecting. Which is what I plan to do now that there is a budding Warhammer league here. I always liked the modeling aspect of the hobby as well as playing. But I didn't like the idea of doing one, but not the other. And it's been almost 16 years since I was into that.
