Build a Figure

"Build a Figure" (or "BAF" for short) is a marketing concept for action figures that refers to the practice of including all the body parts required for assembling a figure (which usually cannot be purchased by itself) with other, individually sold figures, thereby encouraging customers to buy all the figures in a wave or consecutive waves of an assortment in order to get all the parts needed. Normally, each of these individually available figures includes a specifically designated body part for the BAF (i.e. figure A includes the head, figure B the torso, figure C the left leg etc.).

One side effect of this practice is that it encourages customers to buy even the less desirable figures in an assortment if they want a complete BAF (which is usually a very desirable character).

While very common in toylines such as Marvel Legends, this practice is comparably less common in Transformers toylines due to the requirement for regular Transformers figures to, well, transform. Thus, it is either limited to toylines that feature non-transforming figures, or the characters chosen for BAFs are those that do not have an alternate mode.

Build a Figure Transformers

Beast Wars 10th Anniversary

The Beast Wars 10th Anniversary reissue line featured the first ever official toy of Trans-Mutate as the BAF for its first two waves of Deluxe figures.

Wave 1 Waspinator with Trans-Mutate's head Cheetor with Trans-Mutate's upper torso Rhinox with Trans-Mutate's waist and right leg

Wave 2 Dinobot with Trans-Mutate's left arm Rattrap with Trans-Mutate's right arm Predacon Tarantulus [sic] with Trans-Mutate's left leg

Good luck having this figure still being able to stand upright ater all these years.

Cyberverse

The Cyberverse line featured Maccadam as the BAF for the first four waves of Deluxe Class figures. Please note that the package refreshes of those figures sold in the packaging style of the line's final Dinobots Unite subline imprint omitted the BAF parts.

Wave 1 Megatron with Maccadam's upper torso Bumblebee with Maccadam's waist Optimus Prime with Maccadam's left forearm Decepticon Shockwave with Maccadam's left leg

Wave 2 Grimlock with Maccadam's right forearm Autobot Hot Rod with Maccadam's right leg

Wave 3 Arcee with Maccadam's shoulders and weapon

Wave 4 Thunderhowl with Maccadam's head

No fighting in my Old Oil House!

Notes

• A common misconception is that "Build a Figure" means getting a "free" additional figure when buying all the toys that include the body parts. In reality, the extra parts are factored into the budget for the individual toys, so it's not like the manufacturer is just handing out figures for free as a reward for loyal customers.