>>10564646Scouts were a slightly different thing. True, a lot of modern (Thrilling 30/ Combiner Wars on) Legends were basically scrawnier scout classes, but Scouts were just Cybertron's name for "energon class"(UT size class names were basically tied to gimmicks, the only reason we still call the 20-30 price point "voyager" is because Cybertron was an exploration themed series), and Energon/Scout class were just the UT's version of BW/BM/ MW/RiD Basics.They're all about the same size, barring some extra budget here and there. As for Legends, prior to thrilling 30, it was the really tiny sizeclass, smaller than 3P Legends, but bigger than the WST/Dr. Wu stuff. For the 2013 Thrilling 30 line, it got repurposed. As far as the 3P scene, there had been some tiny scale stuff( notably, Heero Toys Maker's WST KOs and eventually, original molds) figures, but they were usually a novelty and never completed a line.
What kickstarted 3P Legends, besides just increasing prices, is probably the one-two punch of both Hasbro and Maketoys making a Metroplex in 2013-14 or so. That made people want a ton of tiny bots for their Metroplex. Hasbro intended their new Legends scale(Starscream here as an example) as being able to stand in for scale based play, but naturally they were limited by (the then recently, severely cut) budget. Iron Factory really started rolling around 2015/16, and around 2018/19 you had MS and New age begin doing more directly G1 Legends, which had been done sporadically before.
