Summer hauls!

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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andersonh1
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Summer hauls!

Post by andersonh1 »

We're trying to pack up and find a new house after 15 years in the current one, so most of my books are currently boxed up and in storage, but of course I'm still buying more. I just got two new omnibuses in the mail: Batman: Knightfall volume 2 and the Robin Bronze Age omnibus, collecting all the Robin in college solo backups from the late 60s through the early 80s, I guess up to the point that Dick Grayson assumed the Nightwing identity.
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JediTricks
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Re: Summer hauls!

Post by JediTricks »

YOU DID IIIIIIIT! You started a new hauls thread! :D

Best of luck on the new house, hopefully the market softens up enough that you get a good discount.

The Nightwing thing was so odd in the early '80s, my mom was a Teen Titans reader at the time so I was getting her hand-me-downs, I still remember the splash page with Robin taking on the new mantle, and that silly collared jumper. The series itself was good though so I allowed it.

My summer hauls:

- GI Joe Classified Destro - my first 6" Joe figure from the new line unfortunately is the standard QC flop luck I always get. Very nifty figure, my copy of course has loose joints hither and yon mixed in with the very tight joints, which make posing miserable, seems to only be mine though. Great sculpt, great paint, great added articulation, great accessories. I would have preferred the shoulders clear the latissimus dorsi muscles better so he could put his arms down more, and the boots are hollow inside the sides of the tread which reduces stability a little. But it's a great figure, the shiny silver paint looks fantastic on the dome.

- Marvel Legends Black Widow movie Black Widow - decent headsculpt and body design, the darker color suits her more for my tastes, the removable gauntlets are neat, the escrima out of her backpack are acceptable even though they should telescope and sit deeper in.
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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andersonh1
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Re: Summer hauls!

Post by andersonh1 »

JediTricks wrote: Thu Jul 02, 2020 11:18 am YOU DID IIIIIIIT! You started a new hauls thread! :D

Best of luck on the new house, hopefully the market softens up enough that you get a good discount.
Thanks. Everything here feels like a bidding war where you never know what bid the other guy is making. We've made offers on four houses and lost out to someone else every time. Several times we have quite literally looked at a house one day, and it's already under contract the next, that's how in demand houses are where I live. It gets a little discouraging, but sooner or later we'll get one that we want. Just have to be persistent.
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JediTricks
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Re: Summer hauls!

Post by JediTricks »

Sorry to hear it's so bad, seems to be a lot of areas that are out of control markets like that. With rates so low and people's heads in the clouds, there's a lot of people who are investor buying and a lot who don't recognize that overpaying now will mean being underwater by the end of the year, it's just buy-buy-buy without any checks and balances. It pushes out the real buyers who just want a home, it makes an expensive game out of it, pushing us ever closer to the bubble bursting.

Are you going through an agent? Does it seem like they have a good eye? My folks had to switch agents early on while bidding because their first one just didn't have their finger on the pulse of how things really worked. Luckily my sister works in loans and was able to point them to a much better agent.
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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andersonh1
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Re: Summer hauls!

Post by andersonh1 »

Yes, our real estate agent is a good friend of my wife, so we have confidence she'll look out for us and not just try to push us into something. Our county has been in a growth situation for over 20 years now and it makes me sad to see all the back roads that used to have fields and woods and a house here and there now covered with neighborhoods with houses jammed together. We've been trying to get out a little bit and find a place with a bit more elbow room, which is part of the problem. If you want an acre or two, that sort of place is out there, but the competition is fierce, as we've found out.
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Shockwave
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Re: Spring 2020 Hauls!!

Post by Shockwave »

Managed to get Earthise Target two packs. Pounce and Wingspan and Skywarp and Thundercracker. Pounce and Wingspan are rereleases of the Titans Return figures, just finally in a two pack at mass US retail. If you have those two then you don't need these. If you don't, I highly recommend them, they are well done and probably the cheapest way to get both of them. Skywarp and Thundercracker are good and worth picking up if you need the Seeker trio in your collection. They're probably the best updated G1 Seekers so far.
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Re: Summer hauls!

Post by JediTricks »

Shockwave, I moved your post from Spring to Summer hauls.

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Star Wars The Black Series Snowspeeder with Dak - this is a big vehicle, well-scaled to the figures in this line. Dak Ralter is a remold of the recent Luke Snowspeeder figure, new head and waist covering, repainted removable helmet, he fits well in the gunner seat as he awaits certain death at the hands of stray AT-AT fire. The vehicle comes with 2 proton grenades and the magnetic harpoon gun Luke extracts from the cockpit to use against the belly of the Imperial Walker (the gun is one piece, doesn't have a removable string or anything like that), each of which has its own dedicated spot in the snowspeeder cockpit. The vehicle itself is well-detailed with various markings, fine text, cockpit details, and battle wear in paint and sculpt. The cockpit opens, the seatbelts unclip from the shared seatback, the right side panel is removable (in the film, one of the other Rogue Squadron snowspeeders goes into action in the film with this panel uncovered), the upper flaps move on a hinge-and-slide system that's a little bulky, the lower flaps move on a simpler one-click hinge, the rear harpoon gun swivels, the tow cable is on a long string that can be retracted by opening a hatch on the belly and manually pulling the string back in, and 3 landing gear can be found by opening 2 panels a piece. And it's a heavy piece, whooshing takes two hands. It's pretty neat, I'm not in love with the tow cable design but if I really hate it I could likely just untie the string and remove it, but overall it's quite cool and I'd like to track down a clear flight stand that can support its weight.


Star Wars Black Series Shadow Stormtrooper - from The Force Unleashed, this Gamestop exclusive was on a BOGO50 so I got one. The deco uses sparkly black plastic and paint, translucent blue plastic and paint highlights, and silver paint to simulate the character's stealth mechanics, and it looks really good doing it despite being on the 7-year-old and soon-to-be-replaced Stormtrooper body. With E-11 blaster rifle and DLT-19 heavy blaster rifle.


Star Wars Black Series Stormtrooper Commander - from The Force Unleashed, this Gamestop exclusive was the other half of my BOGO50 and I wish I had just gotten 2 Shadow Stormtroopers instead. There's nothing wrong with the Stormtrooper Commander, I just had forgotten that I don't like this rather un-Star Warsy deco design for the character, a white trooper with a lot of blue angular accents (that remind me of Clone Wars armor paint schemes) and a little wear paint, but nothing else of note.


Marvel Legends WWII Captain America & Peggy Carter - I haven't opened this yet, it's in quarantine until later today, but it looks like a nice set and I got it for over half off.


Bosch Compact Mixer - after delaying a month, my preorder finally arrived. The Bosch Compact Mixer is a lot of mixer in a very small package, it works with the Bosch universal system of external attachments (slicer, blender, juicer, food processor, etc.), although it's not a popular mixer so nobody makes mixing attachments like a blade paddle. It comes with a whipping whisk, a stirring whisk, and a dough hook which ends up doing most of the labor. So far with it I've made brownies, a pizza dough, chocolate chip walnut cookies, and cheese crackers - all of them entirely whole wheat because my gal can't eat white flours - it mixed all of them quite well. Despite having a plastic bowl (they sell a metal bowl separately for $60, I may get it for mixing hot things), it's been nothing but robust and easy to work with and clean, even if the damned bowl is too tall for my dishwasher upper rack by half an inch.


Geez, I just realized my last new Transformer was March 9th, Siege Thundercracker who I got on sale. Step up your game, Hasbro, and I don't mean with a million Walmart exclusives. Earthrise wave 2 and 3 have nothing I want aside from Rung, that's a bad sign, and worse is that I regret getting Hoist from wave 1.
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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Sparky Prime
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Re: Summer hauls!

Post by Sparky Prime »

Power Rangers Lighting Collection Zeo Gold Ranger

The last time I got a Power Rangers toy was probably way back with Power Rangers in Space. I never really cared for the look of the Bandai figures, I felt they made the Rangers look too buff. Hasbro's are a lot better IMO, making them more lean and some detail to look like their suits aren't so skin tight like Bandai's. The Zeo Gold Ranger was always one of my absolute favorite Rangers. The show really hyped the mystery of the character by having several red herrings for his identity... and then revealed it to be someone altogether new. I mean, it was fine, but even as a kid, it felt like they had something planned and changed their mind last minute. Speaking of... there were rumors they may have crossed over the story from VR Troopers, given Brad Hawkins voiced the Gold Ranger. Supposedly, when they eventually revealed his identity, Hawkins may have reprised his role as Ryan Steele in Power Rangers (as a point of trivia, he was also almost the MMPR White Ranger, while Jason David Frank was nearly the main character of Cybertron, which was a pilot episode for what would be reworked into VR Troopers). Anyway, the Gold Ranger would eventually be revealed to actually be Trey of Triforia (portrayed by identical triplets Tom, Tim, and Ted DiFillippo for three aspects of the unified Trey). The toy comes with a Trey head, which I don't think is the best representation of the actor(s) but . I kinda wish the single release came with two of the Golden Staff, one open, one closed, like the Jason 2-pack did. The part that slides down the staff is unpainted, being all silver when the middle should be gold. The level of detail on it is really great through. The Ranger himself also looks great, although I kinda wish the gold parts looked a little more metallic. The gloves and boots in-particular is more of a flat yellowish color. I'm kinda thinking of customizing it to paint the missing gold on the Staff and give him a better metallic gold look. But despite the few shortcomings, I still think this is a very nice figure.

Edit: I went ahead and painted the gold elements of the figure today. I got to say, I think it's a huge improvement.
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andersonh1
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Re: Summer hauls!

Post by andersonh1 »

Got the Knightfall volume 3 omnibus to complete the set. This book contains the KnightsEnd, Prodigal and Troika storylines and the Nightwing Alfred's Return and Vengeance of Bane II one-shots. It's a mostly great collection that leaves out one key issue in the form of Robin #0, the Zero Hour tie-in that sets up Dick Grayson's near-disastrous encounter with Two-Face that is so often referred to during the first half of Prodigal. Otherwise I think they got just about every relevant issue and then some (there's an issue of Catwoman included that really didn't need to be). KnightsEnd is about Bruce Wayne returning as Batman and removing Jean-Paul Valley from the role, Prodigal sees Dick Grayson take over as Batman for a 12 issue storyline as Bruce thinks through how he wants to proceed, and then Bruce is back with a new costume to round out the book. I will have to detail some thoughts on the books and the storyline as a whole over in the retro comics thread at some point. Otherwise I'll just say that it's very nice to have a collected edition of this long, sprawling storyline that crossed over into eight or nine different books. I have many of them, but it's a pain to dig through the floppies to read them in order. Now it's much easier.
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Re: Summer hauls!

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Hot Wheels Knight Rider KITT Super Pursuit Mode - a premium 1/64th(ish) Hot Wheels car representing KITT in season 4's shark-jumping Super Pursuit Mode, popping out all manner of spoilers and vents for extra speed that somehow looked no quicker than regular. Mattel got nearly everything right for such a little car, the strangest choice being the very light smoke color on the window insert includes the T-tops, which on this mode are either opaque or nearly opaque as they include the pop-up air brake (all 3 air brakes, including this one, are sculpted, but of course don't move since this is a Hot Wheels tiny little car). The only real drawback for me are u

Hot Wheels Thundercats Thunder Tank - another premium 1/64th-ish, this one has moving arms on the tank, and a simple tricycle wheel layout. Hefty, but simple.

GI Joe Classified 6" Snake Eyes (regular) - well-articulated although the line's signature "some joints loose, other joints way too tight" problem continues. The body incorporates rubbery goods for the upper torso to add even more expression movement for the neck joint. Body has movable belts at each bicep for non-functional pouches, across the chest, at the waist, and around each thigh; the bandolier belt has a hole to mount the backpack through into the back, but doing this lifts the belt off the chest a bit, so it's best to offset the belt slightly. Weapons are a bit too sci-fi silly for my tastes but not horrible, although why the guns have huge holes in the sides I don't get. The right thigh belt has a pistol holster with a ring to hold the included removable suppressor, the molding keeps the pistol sitting slightly high. The left thigh belt has a sheath for the knife, unfortunately I got one of the bum figures with the sheath half filled in, and mine has a molding error with a hole on the inside. The backpack has a mounting hole for the scabbard or machine gun which has a peg on one side, however no storage for both, so the only way for Snake Eyes to be all geared up is to have the scabbard mounted to the hole in the machine gun, or the machine gun mounted to the pistol as it sits partway out of the holster; why they didn't just put a second hole on the other side of the backpack I'll never understand. Overall, a pretty great figure, but QC issues and a few questionable design choices hold it back.

Transformers Generations Selects Exhaust - the one I got has the main faction sigil painted offcenter, so I'm waiting to hear back from Hasbro Pulse on a replacement. Honestly, I'm not that impressed with this figure in general, there's not as much race car detailing in vehicle mode as the pics suggested, they weren't inaccurate but it's not as substantial in person.
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See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
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