The 7th Kingdom, the top property in the FANtastic Exclusive series of polls from 2006 and 2007 has been spun out into its own line. The Four Horsemen excluded the property from the FanEx polls for 2008 because it proved so popular, they felt it could sustain its own full line.

The top vote-getter in the poll for 2007 behind the Elephant Swordsman was Queen Alluxandra of the Bloodmane Clan. She was chosen as the first figure to be released in the 7th Kingdom line post-FanEx. The sale of this figure and its variants will follow the style of previous FanEx releases. Each variant will be sold exclusively through a different online retailer, while the main figure will be exclusive to the Four Horsmen’s site StoreHorsemen.com. Additionally a full set of all 11 figures will be sold for US$220 starting Wednesday, July 1st starting at 8PM EST, also at StoreHorsemen.com. Sets will be limited to 125.

I voted for Alluxandra in 2007, so I am pumped for these figures. I will say though, there are way too many cats in this line up. Based on the numbers it looks like the 4H picked enough retailers to do a variant for each unique figure, but when given the choice, nearly all the retailers chose the cat because the Animal Kingdom was so popular, while the poor mutant was apparently not chosen and is exclusive to StoreHorsemen.com. A shame, I think the Mutant is one of the best variants along with Isadorra.

After the jump, you can see more of the Queen and each of her variants.
[Read the rest of this entry…]

The FANtastic Exclusive is an annual event that I promote every year.
Here’s the rundown.
Four Horsemen Studios runs a series of polls that anyone and everyone is allowed to vote in.
The voting determines different aspects of an action figure.
After all the voting has completed, the Four Horsemen create an action figure based on the results of all of the polls.
They then offer this figure as their SDCC Exclusive for the year.
Traditionally several variants have been made as well and are sold as retailer exclusives on specific toy-related websites.

The rounds of voting determine everything from the actual character to its articulation and even the accessories that are included.

In this first round of voting we have a battle royale of 28 character designs from various original Four Horsemen properties. Some new and some old. All amazing! The top 6 left standing at the end of this round move on to the next winner-take-all vote.

Go here to vote!

To bring everyone up to speed, the first factory gave everyone the run around trying to avoid being shut down. Eventually, they were closed their doors and neglected to let 4H in on the situation. Fortunately, with a little intervention from some friends over at NECA, the molds were salvaged and a new factory was hired. That is a very short description of what happened over a very long period of time. The figures were produced at the new factory and pre-production samples looked very very promising. The large shipment of figures was scheduled to be shipped March 20th, 2008. They are hopeful that they will be in with enough time to bring them to NYCC to sell at the booth the Four Horsemen will be sharing with Action Figure Express. Eric Treadaway mentioned that due to some order cancellations that there would be a good opportunity for singles and sets of the whole Anitherian Nine lineup available, though, he was not specific on details.

You can read it all here or look after the jump for the original text. The link also has some pictures the factory sent the 4H of Ramathor in production.

We’ve been following this series of figures for a while now:
Ramathor revealed
Variants Revealed 1
Variants Revealed 2
Variants Revealed 3
Variants Revealed 4
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This is it! The final two variants to Ramathorr, the Elephant swordsman have finally been revealed to complete the Anitherian Nine set.

SSejjhhorr and Ggruxx have stood to oppose Ramathorr and his Anitherian Guard. Hailing from the Mutant kingdom, these two figures feature an all new head sculpt and come with two battle axes and faux fur loin cloths.

The green Ggruxx will be an exclusive to ToyRocket, while the red SSejjhhorr will be an exclusive to Figures.com. Each site selling a variant from the set has set their own price point and production number for the figure. All are sure to be limited in quantity though.

Ggruxx:

 

Crowinghorse from figures.com mentioned on the FANtastic Forums that they had about 550 Ssejjhhorr’s made. That will probably be on the high end of production numbers for any of the exclusives, with the exception of Ramathorr.

Ssejjhhorr:

 

You can check out the rest of the set by following these links:

And for more on the FANtastic Exclusive concept itself you can check out this edition of PowetToys on last year’s set of exclusives:

The variant exclusives for the FANtastic Exclusives continue to be revealed this week. Two new variants were announced as exclusives to online vendors. As last week, each feature a different head that actually change the species of the characters. This series of variants continues to impress with only one more week left to show the final two.

You can see the previous reveals here:
Ramathorr
Part 1
Part 2

Tuesday brought us a welcome surprise in the form of the Gauntlet of Vassk. He features a head modeled after a rhinoceros. The Gauntlet will be an exclusive to Action Figure eXpress. He comes with two battle axes.

Charging into battle against all who oppose the realm of Animynthus comes – ‘ The Gauntlet of Vaskkh!’

  

Today we were pleasantly surprised with the reveal of the Helm of Xaanm. Featuring the head of a boar, the Helm will come with a long handled battle axe and a mini halberd and will be an exclusive to BigBadToyStore.

With a snort and a piercing battle cry that shakes the very foundations of Animynthus, in charges Ramathorr’s master of fighting dirty – ‘ The Helm of Xaanm!’

 

Also of note was the following statement on the FANtastic Exclusive site:

Coming Tuesday: The BIG finale! The final two characters making up the extremely limited Anitherian Nine set will be revealed TOGETHER! Evil finally rears two of its’ extremely ugly heads in the 7 th Kingdom!! The debut of Ggruxx and Ssejjhhor!

Two new variants for the FANtastic Exclusive 2007 have been announced!

Tuesday brought us The Club of Thraugnn, “the crimson combatant sworn to do Ramathorr’s bidding.” The Club will be an exclusive through Fwooshnet.com. He will come with a removeable helmet, long handled battle blade, and a war hammer.

 

Today brought us the Shield of Draumm, the heroic hippopotamus. The head sculpt on this, as described, is not only different from Ramathorr, but is an entirely different animal! The Shield will be an exclusive through Raving Toy Maniac. His hippo-ness will come with a spear/halberd of the type that come with the FE2006 figures, and another war hammer.

 

See here for Part 1, The Hammer of Gholl and the Mace of Broggah!

The FANtastic Exclusive 2006, Xetheus, Champion of Mynothecea, received a resculpted variant painted in six different flavors, each a different exclusive to a different online e-tailer (can you have an offline e-tailer?). For more information on that (with video!) you can check here and for more on the FANtastic Exclusives in general you can read some of these posts.

This year, for the FANtastic Exclusive 2007, we finally have news on the variants for the Elephant Swordsman. Not only that, but he now has a name! Ramathorr: Captain of the Anitherian Guard. Ramathorr will have 8 variants collectively known as The Anitherian Nine (A9). Each revealed on Tuesday and Friday for 4 weeks, starting this week. To keep the front page a little cleaner, I’m going to update once a week (thats two variants per post, for the non-math majors).

So without further ado, here are the first two variants:

The Hammer of Gholl, Ramathorr’s most trusted enforcer.
Previews Exclusive

 

The Mace of Broggah, the dark disciplinarian.
October Toys Toy Break Exclusive

 

The Four Horsemen have posted the fifth round of their FANtastic Exclusive polls to determine this year’s action figure. This round focuses on weapons. The Elephant Swordsman will feature two large swords as seen in his concept art, but this poll will determine a third bladed weapon. You can check out the next round at the FANtastic Exclusive site.

Some of you may remember a little video I made on the 2006 exclusive.