Battle Tribes: Barbarian in My Pocket

Hey, anyone up for some itty-bitty barbarians?  Come check out Battle Tribes!

...of course, for this review, there will be no tribes, because this line was so alarmingly fantastic that it sold out in a couple minutes. 

Battle Tribes was conceived by 80's nostalgia and put into production by Spy Monkey Creations, who I have mentioned before (here's the Spy Monkey tag to look back on products I've covered).

In the past, Spy Monkey focused on weapons, then modular weapons, and then finally Weaponeers of Monkaa, which used Glyos joints (much like Skeleton Warriors, Rise of the Beasts and many, many others).   They had a desire to create something that folks like us would have loved as kids - and would still love now - and that desire resulted in Battle Tribes!

...which was so popular that, while I was able to get the full set in my cart, it wasn't quick enough, and I only managed to get ONE.  The Ice Cyclops. 

Now, please, don't go blaming Spy Monkey.  Their previous products didn't sell like this, and most independent toy companies can't afford to sit on unsold product.  They took a guess on how many they would need and it ended up being so far under what was demanded, that it broke the store and sold out like Sonic on a chilidog (which is why I had checked out with all of them, but was refunded for all but one.  Sometimes the store can't keep up when so many people are buying). 

Alright, lets push the background aside and look at the foreground - my one Battle Tribes figure, the Ice Cyclops! 

First off, you'll notice that this is a pretty classic 80's-style barbarian, like He-Man or any of the countless figures styled off of him around that time. 

We even get a nice set of standard barbarian weapons for your every barbaric need!  Smashing, cutting/stabbing, and chopping.  You can even defend yourself from said verbs with the handy shield. 

There are quite a few unique things about this barbarian figure, however.  One of those things is that EVERY figure comes with a full set of heads from other figures, cast in the color of the figure you bought.  So my Ice Cyclops can actually be an ice-anything!

A basic "Conan-esque" head, for your absolutely classic barbarianing.

A head with an animal skin hood, for some berserkering.

An orc head, for some....well, orcing.

A triceratops head, for when you just gotta recreate Earl's boss from the old "Dinosaurs" TV show.

And finally a carnivorous dinosaur head of the t-rexish variety.  I'm sure it's based on some dinosaur, but I can't quite place it. 

Now these heads are all easy to swap out because of the other unique-but-slowly-becoming-almost-all-independent-toys detail: It's Glyos compatible!  That's right - anything using Glyos joints can swap with these little beasts.

It easily pops apart into boots, legs, arms, hands, chest, crotch, and head.  Plus, when you turn him around:

There's also a hole on the back!  So look forward to possible wings or tails or who knows what, in the future.  Or heck, make your own with any number of Glyos compatible items!

The last unique thing about these guys is the scale:

EEEE THEY'RE SO TINY!  Lookit'em!  Lookit how tiny!  Fit 'em in your pocket, take 'em to work, stick 'em under your pillow at night so you can have little battles when mom said you were supposed to be asleep! 

If you're like me, then you can see why these sold out so dang fast.  Tiny, mixable classic 80's barbarians.  What more could you ask for? 

...well, robots and skeletons, but I bet you anything we'll see those at some point. 

So lets further whet your appetite and look at what we can do with these:

The weapons slide in and out of their hands easily without falling out, and the fur armor fits around the torso when you pop it off.  BUT...if you want to use other weapons: ANY Lego weapons work here.

So yeah, if you have Legos or Mega Bloks or freakin' anything in that scale or style then you have a MILLION WEAPONS FOR THEM.  They fit just as well as the weapons that come with them.  Sky's the limit!  Even third-party Lego weapons work!

Now, naturally, the biggest mixing you'll be doing is with Glyos, and whooooo BOY is there a lot of Glyos compatible lines to choose from!  I didn't go nuts here, but there's a few things I did:

And, of course, all the weapons work with Glyos figures as well.

You can imagine how excited I am for Spy Monkey to produce more of these.  They've been updating their facebook page, so you can grab your news there.  So far they are VERY aware of the demand, and the next wave is in the works. 

I'm on the edge of my seat.

I need more. 

I will be there for the next drop, and so should you. 

...just let me at them first.  Because you're nice.  Aren't you nice?  You'd let me go first, right? 

Seriously: BE THERE FOR BATTLE TRIBES!