MOTUC Army Builder Rant

OK, the Horde Troopers are coming. I recently acquired some Snakemen, (OK not that Recently, but not that long ago...) and I did acquire some Palace Guards MANY moons ago.
Palace Guards are still evergreen items on Matty while the Snakemen are not and the Horde Troopers most likely will not be evergreen items.

The Palace Guards seem to be warming the pegs on Matty. That's why we aren't getting extra Snakemen and very likely will not get extra troopers as Evergreens... Seriously, Horde Troopers is like printing Money... Why is this happening? Logistics are a huge factor. The messed up way that Digital River manages orders. I mean Until recently, Evergreen Items could not be combined with "Early Access". Hell, Early Access items cannot be combined with the Subscriptions either. So that means, extra shipping charges. Then there's the Price increase on already made items that were budgeted when the items cost $20.00 on the site.

Now, here's the thing: Mattel COULD have moved a lot of those extra Palace Guards if they had invested in "Upgrade packs". Each set of Army Builders have some Limitations.

Palace Guards are the most versatile because of the Chest Plates, the 4 heads AND the Mouthguards.

Let's discuss their possible combinations:
4 Heads, 4 plates, Mouthguard... Arm and Leg Armor.

Spector Head: Eagle Chestplate
Mouthguard on
Mouthguard off

Spector Head: Clean Striped Chestplate
Mouthguard on
Mouthguard off

Spector Head: slightly damaged Striped Chestplate
Mouthguard on
Mouthguard off

Spector Head: Heavily damaged Striped Chestplate
Mouthguard on
Mouthguard off

Then we have these combinations to choose from:
Leg Armor On, Arm Armor Off
Leg Armor Off, Arm Armor On
Armor on the left side of the body
Armor on the Right Side of the Body
Fully Armored limbs
No armor on limbs

OK So there's 6 configurations of limb armor, 4 Configurations of Chest Plates, 4 Possible Heads and 2 Mouthguard options per head.
48 combinations per character... About 192 combinations in total. No one is going to get 96 Palace Guards sets to make them all, butafter multiple sets one problem begins to form... Clones. More Disturbing with the Neitlich Head Guard. this is where the "update Pack" would have been great.

2 extra heads: 2 different characters with different skin tones, faces and face plates. Extra Chestplates: a Scratched Eagle Plate, or maybe different plates to represent different divisions. (Like a Chestplate with NO design at all, or a completely new one) Extra weapons are rather obvious. 2 MAA Blasters, two Webstor rifles, 2 MAA Swords, 2 Whiplash Spears.
Something like this would have made people double dip for more Palace Guards.

Snakemen are a lot tougher to sell upgrade packs since their options are limited. Here Mattel Really needed to do repaints of the set to make them a bit more worthwhile. (Like a Red Snake and a Blue Snake pack with the Blue Armor being Brown-ish orange and the Maroon Armor in Yellow... I'd call those snakes Elmo and Grover)
But if an update pack were to be made, I'd suggest a new Belt and Armor to mix and match between Bert and Ernie. and Repainted weapons from the pack.

Horde Troopers: Mattel could have a field day with them here.
1 new 200X-esque Head, 1 Dawg-O-Tor Armor (w-Horde Insignia), new belt to make a more 200X Trooper. 1 New Aqua Trooper head. 1 Gray non-flamed Draego-Man sword, 1 new Trident, and some extra accessories to round up this set as a Horde Trooper Upgrade pack (I'd look at the Smartphone game for inspiration). Obviously this requires more troopers to be available.

OK, the Horde Troopers will sell... That's obvious, but the idea of getting extra weapons and alternate looks can help move more units (if they were available.) The completists would bit, fans who like alternate looks would bite as well.

Obviously, Hasbro is a lot better at their army building thing since their toys are 3 3/4"  and not the 7" that MOTUC toys are. Perhaps breaking the 2 pack army builders into single carded figures could tempt people into getting some extra singles on the side. Like a Horde Trooper Commander (Repainted HT with different weapons) or extra Snakemen. MOC Collectors would eat that up since it would give them a Palace Guard, a Horde Trooper AND a Generic Snakeman in a single card... Something something uniformity...
Then again, it COULD Backfire if there are too many items on sale at the same time. Logistics and all that.

So, long story short: Mattel COULD HAVE exploited the Army Builders and sell us more stuff to complement these sets. Sadly, they did not.