Recent Finds/Acquisitions: Vintage/SOTDS

[Raylen]

Oh, I forgot about Starkiller. The flightsuit he's wearing isn't quite the right color. At least to me and I just finished the game. Comes with additional gear to make an alternate costume. Better likeness of Sam Witwer than previous figures. Room for improvement though.

[DarthEddie]

^
Yeah, his outfit isn't a perfect match for the games but overall he's a pretty excellent figure. He doesn't have that zing or pop of Shae Vizla(and I wish Hasbro had put Sith/Force lightning on the cardfront art to resemble the logos for the games) but he's still a very, very solid figure and will be harder to find than a brick of gold. We should count ourselves lucky we already have him and don't have to drive all over creation finding this wave. Even Odd Ball looks a lot better in light of realizing you don't have to go leafing through pegsful of TPM pegwarmers looking for him.

[Raylen]

So right. Glad they finally put him on a single card. I hadn't played the games until this year so the figure sets didn't quite draw me in, though I picked up a few of the troopers, Juno, and Shaak Ti from the game individually. Now I'll finally have a Starkiller as the centerpiece.

[darthmadonna]

My only gripe about Starkiller is that his hair should be black not brown. Also the card art completely sucks! Yes I said it.

[DarthEddie]

Some of the TFU promotional art(tweaked a little so Galen/Starkiller more closely resembled his figure, of course)would have been great on the cardfront, but the way I see it not a lot of people will even be complaining. This figure as well as Shae Vizla will be a bigger pain to find than Amelia Earhart so there won't be too many collectors yanking the thing off of a store peg going: "Wait a sec...he doesn't look exactly like he does in the game. What a ripoff, Hasbro! Boo!" The important thing is that he's a great figure and he's close enough to the game character to count.

[JediMerc]

Got my case from BBTS yesterday afternoon...had a party to go to last night, so still haven't had the chance to open my most anticipated fig of recent memory: Starkiller.

Grabbed an extra Malgus for opening as well!

[Raylen]

I stopped by my nearest Walmart today. Of course nothing but plenty of TPM vintage. Not gonna order more of those till they sell through of course, but yet they were busy stocking a new case of that horrible Han, Chewy, C3PO Battlepack! Yes, the ones with the outdated sculpts. Yes, the ones that were clearanced within weeks of hitting the shelves! Seriously, its like living in a Twilight Zone episode, where the "real world" is actually the internet! Scary.

[DarthEddie]

Picked up an extra Imperial Navy Commander at my friend's shop this morning! It was a bit of a surprise he had even gotten his hands on one, but he was sort of hoping I'd have that kind of reaction after I walked in the door and saw it propped up against the wall behind the front counter. It's the first Malgus Wave 3 figure he's gotten in a good long while.

[darthmac]

My imp navy cmdr's arrived from amazon today... Shrunk wrapped together! The cards are pretty good, mild warping, nothing a star case won't fix, but both bubbles were mildly crushed (really not that bad, but I can't let this go with out a complaint). If they are going to charge premium prices for their figures ($15), then they are going to have to start shipping them as such. Customer service will be hearing from me.

[DarthEddie]

^
To me that shrink-wrapping crap is just unacceptable. I'd complain about it and make sure they hear your opinion. Mashing merchandise just to make it fractionally easier for them to ship isn't really very good business.

[darthmac]

I'm pushing for a partial refund, as there is very little chance they can replace him, and I know there is about 0% chance of finding him in the wild. For $15, I deserve better.

[DarthEddie]

You most certainly do. It's bad enough when a new figure is mashed and crushed in a retail store, but given the high foot traffic in those places and all the people touching and knocking figures onto the floor it's to be expected...but when you're trusting an online seller who's already charging you more than retail to ship it to you in one piece then it's just inexcusable. They have a protective box. It's supposed to protect the figures. The shrink wrapping basically makes the box pointless. I don't get it. Don't they know or care that a whole lot of people who buy these figures keep them in the package? (*sigh*)

[darthmac]

Amazon cs just offered me a 30% discount on my damaged figures (~$4.50 each figure). I'm as happy as I could have hoped for, and am pleased with amazon's effort to resolve this.

[DarthEddie]

Congratulations! Hey, something's better than nothing, right? Good going!

[acklayhunter]

Went on a run yesterday..WM..nothing. No Joe's, 1 battle droid and 1 Voss. Tons of Movie Zero's and just about every discover the force figure. I already have them so I passed.

Got home and was talking with my wife and she sort of let slip one of the things she ordered for my birthday. She said that she had not been charged for one of my presents yet and that it wasn't even going to be in stock until the 15th..according to the web site. I went back to the e-mail I sent her with my wish list..

I believe she ordered me the Vizla/Starkiller/Tarkin case from EE. If so, that leaves me still needing Hoth Luke, Malgus, A pig, a Navy Cmdr, and Ayala Secura before saving my pennies to get the upcoming TOR trooper.