The greatest toyline ever?

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**Kid_Kyoto**

I had a big ecclectic collection of toy soldiers, dinosaurs etc.

But the best of the best were Britans and Matchbox WWII figures I loved those guys.

THe UK always had the best toy soldiers!

**Ratius**

Oooo Scalextric just popped into my head.

Many, many hours setting this up and racing around like loonies.
I think I had this one

**Just Tony**

Long lasting good? Transformers.

Legitimately good even though lost in time? Sectaurs and Starcom.

EDIT: Damn it, how could I forget Starriors?

**Skinnereal**

What were the figures (knights and monsters) with a rub-the-chest sticker? It changed to say which faction they were part of.

**Ratius**

was it battlebeasts? They had fire water earth stickers or something?

these?

http://www.retrorobotreview.com/battle-beasts/

"Musky Ox"

good god

**Just Tony**

No it was "Visionaries".

**Skinnereal**

It was both, I think.
I know we had the Battle Beasts, but I mixed thenm up with Visionaries.
Well done, peeps.

**Gitzbitah**

We had a few awesome transformers and a slew of GI Joes, but the one I remember us enjoying the most were Battle Beasts and Micro Machines Z-Bots line. They were small enough to afford a lot on an allowance, the right size to be compatible, and really varied.

It also helped, in a household of 4 young boys, that compared to GI Joes Battle Beasts and Zbots are practically invincible. Our Joes suffered an awful lot of waist failures, once we discovered they had rubber bands inside and could be stretched...

**Frazzled**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Look, you.

Just like, emerge into the 16th century at least?

Lincoln Logs. Build a house around your sleeping dog!
Dixie cups. Build the Great Wall of China around your sleeping dog!
Hot wheels. Hours of flatheading V8 entertainment. Roll little metal cars at your sleeping dog!
Crayons. Not for Eating! (mostly).
Dad's tools. Hours and hours and hours of enjoyment helping Dad work on cars or the bikes. Ask me about drilling holes into the frame to cut the weight! Fun!

**gorgon**

Micronauts.

Spoiler:

**Easy E**

Cast my vote firmly with G.I. Joe.

I would have epic house spanning battles between G.I. Joe and Lego, Mask, and Star Wars.

The Joes were always the eventual winners.

******************

However, I had a metric ton of fun with my Pound Puppies. I pretty much RPGed with them before I knew what an RPG was!

**oni**

Not to derail things, but does anyone else remember / did they have...

Army Gear

It was like Poly Pocket for boys. The toys were look-a-likes of US Army gear (e.g. M16, M1911, machete, a grenade, etc.). They would open up to be like a military base with small army men.

**timetowaste85**

oni wrote:
Not to derail things, but does anyone else remember / did they have...

Army Gear

It was like Poly Pocket for boys. The toys were look-a-likes of US Army gear (e.g. M16, M1911, machete, a grenade, etc.). They would open up to be like a military base with small army men.

They did X-Men variants, Mad Max (not the Mel Gibson movie, a little kid), and larger scale Star Wars ones too. I had all the X-Men ones.

**A Town Called Malus**

timetowaste85 wrote:
oni wrote:
Not to derail things, but does anyone else remember / did they have...

Army Gear

It was like Poly Pocket for boys. The toys were look-a-likes of US Army gear (e.g. M16, M1911, machete, a grenade, etc.). They would open up to be like a military base with small army men.

They did X-Men variants, Mad Max (not the Mel Gibson movie, a little kid), and larger scale Star Wars ones too. I had all the X-Men ones.

Mighty Max, not Mad Max. We had loads of the Mighty Max sets. They were awesome.

One I remember:

Spoiler:

which would unfold into

Spoiler:

**SeanDrake**

Transformers was easily the best with honorable mentions to battle beasts and Centurions.

**Easy E**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
timetowaste85 wrote:
oni wrote:
Not to derail things, but does anyone else remember / did they have...

Army Gear

It was like Poly Pocket for boys. The toys were look-a-likes of US Army gear (e.g. M16, M1911, machete, a grenade, etc.). They would open up to be like a military base with small army men.

They did X-Men variants, Mad Max (not the Mel Gibson movie, a little kid), and larger scale Star Wars ones too. I had all the X-Men ones.

Mighty Max, not Mad Max. We had loads of the Mighty Max sets. They were awesome.

One I remember:

Spoiler:

which would unfold into

Spoiler:

Mighty Max also had a half decent cartoon show too.

I ran a whole RPG campaign based off the show once.

**Kid_Kyoto**

gorgon wrote:
Micronauts.

Spoiler:

Force Commander and Baron Karza.

I wore mine into dust and then spend $$$s on ebay reassembling them. Money well spent.

**gorgon**

I had (and still have) FC. I never had Karza, though.

My brother and I probably had half the stuff in that pic (and other stuff not pictured, like the Mobile Exploration Lab), including the Battle Cruiser. But it all disappeared from my parents' house. Mom says she never threw it out, but I don't know what else could have happened to it. Maybe it shrunk down into the Microverse?

**ZergSmasher**

For me, it could only be Legos.

In particular, the space ones, starting with the Exploriens theme from 1996 or so. Then I collected a few of the UFO and Insectoids ones, and I used to play with them all together. My brother really liked the Western themed ones, and he had quite a few and has since tracked down most if not all of the ones he never had as a kid. We also had a bunch of the Adventurers ones, but not the biggest sets. Of course when Lego started selling Star Wars sets, we jumped on those, and I still collect Star Wars Legos to this day, when I'm not too busy collecting Warhammer stuff.

This is not to say I never played with other toys. I never really had action figures much, but I had some plastic army men that I played with, sometimes fighting little wars with my friends' plastic army men. When I was a teenager, I got an electric slot car racing set, and even got some stuff to expand the track to make some more impressive layouts. I still have my racetrack in my closet, but I haven't touched it in years. Hopefully it stays in decent condition and doesn't deteriorate so that if I have kids they can enjoy it. I still have all my Legos and I occasionally get them out and look at them. Lots of happy memories there.

**AndrewGPaul**

For me, it would be Lego (specifically, the Space - including the first iterations of the Space Police and Blacktron ranges - and Town lines, and Technic). I still have all my old Lego kits, and when I moved into my current house I got all my Lego out my mum's loft and spent a fortune on Bricklink replacing all the bits I'd lost, broken or swallowed over the years. You think 40k characters are expensive? try buying a green or black original-style Lego spaceman!

The best Christmas I remember as a child was when I was nine, and got the Lego Technic Test Car: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=8865-1#T=S&O={"iconly":0}

I spent all afternoon building it in my room, and came down in time for Chrstmas dinner. Excellent!

I also had a selection of Transformers, M.A.S.K. and Star Wars. I never had any of the really big toys from those lines, though; Optimus Prime, whatever the red car from M.A.S.K. was and a couple of exploding Speeder Bikes were my limit. I was jealous of my friends with Boulder Hill, Metroplex, Jetfire or an AT-AT. Oh, and He-Man.

However, coming second to Lego would be Matchbox cars. Foolishly, there was a fad at Primary school for smashing them up with bricks, otherwise I might still have the Ferrari Testarossas, Lamborghini Countaches and the like (and a fair amount of Ford Escorts and Renault 205s, admittedly) rather than the plasticky rubbish Hot Wheels bangs out nowadays.

**greatbigtree**

I remembered Marble Madness today. Basically, you built a track from various tube-like pieces and started marbles at the top and watched them run the track... which I eventually added LEGO stairs to, books, paper tubes, those orange track pieces for hot wheels... chunks of wood.

One snowy day (useful info: we had a side-split house with 4 levels and stairs that went through the middle) my brother and I built a marble run from the farthest corner of my room, down three flights of stairs, to a pail in the basement, near my Dad’s tool bench. Had to tweak it a few times to get all the marbles to stay on track / not get stuck, but the glory of following the marbles through the house was awesome.

Oh, and Construx. Compared to LEGO, you could attach pieces in x,y,z dimensions, which made building “structure” easier. The connectors also had pins (LEGO didn’t, at the time) so you have turning pieces. Add some elastics, some string, and a belt to strap it to my arm, I made an arm extension with claw hand that I could pick stuff up with. It was also solid enough to build play weapons out of. Which was sweet for a young lad interested in Medieval Europe and a burgeoning interest in Fantasy.

**AndrewGPaul**

Ah yes, I remember that. There was also Fischertechnik: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischertechnik

I only ever had a motorised Formula 1 car, that my dad got as a promotional item from Bosch, but I really liked the look of it at the time.

**Bran Dawri**

Definitely Lego. Especially 80's space Lego. The amount of hours I spent on those, and will soon-ish spend with my boy (still have all of mine with descriptions!).

**Just Tony**

Actually, time to change my answer.

Playmobil.

Hear me out. Can you name any other range of toys that covers such a wide variety of eras/fictions that are completely interactive and in scale with each other? My 6 year old daughter actually is more excited about blind bag Playmobil figures than anything else other than the media pushed doll of the month.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Yeah.

Lego.

Checkmate, bunghole

**AegisGrimm**

I have all my old Legos, and am currently collecting current fantasy stuff to introduce my 5 year old into wargaming.

**A Town Called Malus**

Just Tony wrote:
Actually, time to change my answer.

Playmobil.

Hear me out. Can you name any other range of toys that covers such a wide variety of eras/fictions that are completely interactive and in scale with each other? My 6 year old daughter actually is more excited about blind bag Playmobil figures than anything else other than the media pushed doll of the month.

Playmobil is great. Got a big trunk of it at my parents house. Got a gold rush mine, frontier town, US cavalry fort, native american camp, sail warship, pirate island, spooky medieval tower and a huge assortment of different cars, a sea-rescue helicopter and so many different people.

Me and my brothers used to get a little set (a person and their accessories) in our stockings every christmas. Couple of years ago we got it all back out over the living room floor and had a play. I'm the youngest and I'm 27

**Bonegrinder**

MANTA Force, those little guys started my love affair with miniatures. Got to love the small vehicles carried in a case that doubled as a another bigger toy spaceship, and the gruesome models of half dissolved skeletal MANTA men done in by the Stenchoids was pretty intense for a kids toy line. Can't of another set of toys I enjoyed more as a child.

**LunarSol**

Transformers is my go to answer, but mostly because I think Lego goes a little beyond what I consider to be a toy.

**Togusa**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do?

If you’re reading this, you’re on Dakka. Which means, like me, you effing love your toys. And why shouldn’t you?

And this is a thread to find out the toylines fellow Dakkanauts hold in high regard, either in terms of sheer nostalgia, as active and ongoing collectors, and everything in between.

As a child of the 80’s, I am of course spoiled for choice. But in perhaps a surprise, over He-Man, Transformers and Star Wars, my nomination is one I liked overall, but wasn’t particularly into as a Weedy Lirrul Grot,

And it’s GI Joe.

What range. What variety. What representation! And it took a bloody long time to genuinely jump the shark.

Of course, as a Brit, to me it was Action Force until like, 1988. Then it was GI Joe: The Action Force, and finally GI Joe.

It was a constant toy shelf staple throughout pretty much my whole childhood, into my early teens. And it’s had numerous relaunches and that ever since.

But let’s dial this right back to the start of its 3 3/4” line. Scale inspired by Star Wars, but with the cunning addition of actual articulation. A toy engineering investment I will always respect. And at that point, it was pretty grounded. Nothing overly esoteric, despite a splodge of Fantasy here and there.

Over the years, the war between Joe and Cobra escalated, and ever more fantasy edged in. But incrementally so. Right up to ‘ok now that is objectively silly’ in the early/mid 90’s (depending where you can stretch your credulity to as an individual).

And other than aesthetic, relatively little changed. The articulation remained. The scale remained. So someone picking up a 1984 Joe can have it drive a 1994 Joe. That’s....that’s quite something.

Something I genuinely only noticed today? It was also diverse in the modern term. Figures of all colour, cast and creed were released. And relatively few were stereotypes. An African American Joe was just a Joe, with his own unique accessories (snap on, snap off!). Not a hint of execs demanding ‘Hip-Hop Handgun and Rap Battle Cannon’ etc. Just, a figure, which happened to have a dark skin tone is all. Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian. This range was genuinely way ahead of its time, and so far as I’m aware, nobody really cared or remarked upon it. It just had a super broad appeal.

Best bit for me? Which probably explains why I’m in our shared hobby? The vehicles were model kits! You had to put them together yourself! Which meant when I got bored, I could disassemble and reassemble them. Part transformer appeal, part Lego appeal. All fun!

What’s your vote, Dakka?

For me, it would have to be micromachines. As a kid I loved them, had buckets full of them.

I was paid a stipend of about 15$ per week growing up for helping with housework and stuff at home. If my behavior was good and homework was well done, my mother would bump me to 20$ and each week when we went shopping in the big city on Saturday mornings, I took my money with me. Micromachines were a great buy, while my cousins always spent their money on bigger action figures, they might get 1 or 2 toys, but me, I could amass an army of tiny cars, planes, trains, tanks, and buildings and make my 20$ go a lot farther. The amount of joy I got from those little toys was also immense. I would take them outside, my Grandmother had this huge back yard with a sand box and lots of nice trees. I could go and build desert roads, and come up with all kinds of scenarios.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

ZergSmasher wrote:
For me, it could only be Legos.

In particular, the space ones, starting with the Exploriens theme from 1996 or so. Then I collected a few of the UFO and Insectoids ones, and I used to play with them all together. My brother really liked the Western themed ones, and he had quite a few and has since tracked down most if not all of the ones he never had as a kid. We also had a bunch of the Adventurers ones, but not the biggest sets. Of course when Lego started selling Star Wars sets, we jumped on those, and I still collect Star Wars Legos to this day, when I'm not too busy collecting Warhammer stuff.

This is not to say I never played with other toys. I never really had action figures much, but I had some plastic army men that I played with, sometimes fighting little wars with my friends' plastic army men. When I was a teenager, I got an electric slot car racing set, and even got some stuff to expand the track to make some more impressive layouts. I still have my racetrack in my closet, but I haven't touched it in years. Hopefully it stays in decent condition and doesn't deteriorate so that if I have kids they can enjoy it. I still have all my Legos and I occasionally get them out and look at them. Lots of happy memories there.

Exploriens were great.

My all-time favorites were Aquanauts and Ice Planet 2000. God I love those sets so much. The 80s Castle stuff was amazing as well.