Review – Fire Fight Triarama

Manufacturer: Triad Toys * Year: 2011

Yesterday I posted a review of the Triad Toys (website, Twitter) Mayan Triarama action figure display (review here). Rather than set the other display that I bought at New York Toy Fair to the side and forget about it I thought I would snap some quick pics and get the Fire Fight Triarama online right away. The quick review is: Buy this if you’ve got any modern 12-inch scale action figures that would look right on a great display of shell casings and skulls. At $50 this is well worth the money if you collect 12-inch scale action figures.

Polystone Diorama

While the Mayan Triarama is a plastic piece that looks like polystone this 9.25-inch square action figure display is a heavy piece that’s as solid and attractive as the better polystone statues on the market. It’s not quite as heavy as the Grave Danger Triarama, but it’s still a hefty piece that has a good feel and a solid “thunk” sound when you set it down on the shelf. Getting this thing home from New York was a bit of a stress point — too heavy to carry so I packed it in my luggage — but in the end I had nothing to worry about because the display’s packaging was up to the job of protecting the display as the airline threw my bag around.

More Shells Than I Want to Count

As you can see in the photos the design is loaded with shell casings — tons of shell casings — and each and every single one is a sculpted detail that looks good. The display is mostly shells and skulls, and overall it’s a clean, attractive sculpting job that makes an awesome display for 12-inch scale action figures. The photos below show two figures on the display; I tried to get that World War Robot* Dropcloth action figure (review here) posed with one foot standing on a skull but he just wouldn’t balance quite right. Too bad, because I bet he would have looked really cool about to crush a human skull.

Paint

Look at the close shot above for an idea of the quality of paint. Where the Mayan Triarama was painted to make it look like a polystone statue this one has a lot more detailed paint work; the skulls and shells both look great and the weathering is excellent.

Closing Thoughts

Triad Toys is bringing us some of the best 12-inch scale action figure displays out there and I’m certainly going to encourage this behavior by buying the ones that fit with my collection and pointing you guys at the new displays as the become available. I wish these guys were also producing displays for other scales — this Fire Fight Triarama scaled for 6-inch or 3.75-inch scale action figures would be an immediate grab for me — but I can appreciate that they’re focused on the 12-inch scale market.

Any other manufacturer out there looking to get into action figure displays needs to take a close look at what Triad Toys is doing with this series because so far the pieces I own are:

• Attractive
  
• Priced Fairly
  
• Durable

And in the end isn’t that what we all want from our toys?

Philip Reed now needs to find the perfect place for this Fire Fight Triarama. It needs to be low enough on the shelves to be seen, but not so low that the cats think it’s a bed.