December Hauls!

[Onslaught Six]

My store got a bunch of new cases of crap; and I'm pissed because sometime during that damn night shift, someone bought Arcee! I know this because a Chromia was left, and now it isn't, because I have it. Cancelled my group BBTS order for just Arcee, saved a buck or two in the long run. Thoughts in the thread.

[Shockwave]

Star Wars Black 3 3/4" Wedge and Yoda. Both decent figures, good articulation and detail and good accessories too. Yoda goes especially well with the Dagobah Luke from the same wave, but I passed on that since I already have Bespin Luke and I really don't feel the need to have him in the same outfit just missing the jacket.

[Shockwave]

Star Wars Vintage collection Qui-Gon Jinn. I needed one more Jedi for my Star Wars nativity scene I'm gonna set up and I found this at Walmart. Still can't beleive I went to Walmart, but whatever. Also picked up Swerve and Cosmos and Waspinator. Seeing Waspinator first hand, I decided to go ahead and get him. Reviews in the appropriate thread.

[Onslaught Six]

Jedi nativity scene?! You are a genius, and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

[andersonh1]

Star Wars Vintage collection Qui-Gon Jinn. I needed one more Jedi for my Star Wars nativity scene I'm gonna set up and I found this at Walmart.

You'll have to share pictures.

The baby Jesus keeps ending up on the stable roof on our more traditional Nativity scene. I suspect a couple of daughters of mine keep endangering the little guy.

[Shockwave]

Jedi nativity scene?! You are a genius, and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

Star Wars Vintage collection Qui-Gon Jinn. I needed one more Jedi for my Star Wars nativity scene I'm gonna set up and I found this at Walmart.

You'll have to share pictures.

The baby Jesus keeps ending up on the stable roof on our more traditional Nativity scene. I suspect a couple of daughters of mine keep endangering the little guy.

That and the Star Trek one on the Enterprise, but I already have the figures for that one. I'll definitely post pics. And I keep trying to come up with a parody of "Away in a Manger" that's "Away in an AT-AT". It would probably help if I actually knew the words to "Away in a Manger".

[Shockwave]

Last week a package came in the mail. It was a Pinkie Pie tree ornament. From the girlfriend. I watched a couple episodes on her Netflix account and her reaction was to get me the ornament. I think this one might be a keeper.

[BWprowl]

AoE Power Battlers Grimlock: I still hate AoE, but I still like the Dinobots and I’m still a fan of Grimlock’s design, and Target has the Power Battlers for like eight bucks so I was like “Eh, why not, I’ll check one out”. It’s an amusingly entertaining little toy. Mace-spinning gimmick is fun, his legs are decently posable in robot mode and he has a waist too, his right arm looks ridiculous, just a crumpled-up dinosaur head-and-neck doing its best to inconspicuously look vaguely arm-shaped. Transformation is a breeze, as it’s supposed to be, but T-Rex mode has its own goofy charm points, being his robot head still visible RIGHT THERE on his neck/chest area, and his ‘tail’ being, as my sister-in-law so eloquently put it, “a fist jutting out of his ass holding a Shake-Weight”. Fantastic. Dino mode does have the odd benefit of being capable of some surprisingly T-Rex (from Dinosaur Comics)-esque poses, so that adds to the fun. Overall, worth eight bucks in amusement value. I kinda want to check out the Galvatron now, if I see it.

RID15 Strongarm, Steeljaw, 1-Step Underbite: TRU had these in, surprising me (I knew they were popping up in places, but didn’t expect to see them here so soon). I grabbed the two I was most interested in, plus Underbite since he looked cute. Strongarm is pretty solid, a well-rendered toy of a character who’s already a unique style for the franchise (for some time I’ve been wanting to see more female TFs with traditionally ‘tougher’ altmodes like trucks and tanks, rather than the endless motorcycles they seem to be). I don’t understand what possessed them to give her gun a permanently-shooting effect, so I might lop that off, but it’s the one misstep on an otherwise well-designed figure in this new line. Steeljaw, sadly, doesn’t work nearly as well. I was extremely excited for him (and by extension the other Decepticons in this series) on concept alone, but this toy falls short of all expectations. The arms are a disaster, too thin and flimsy to handle their terribly-implemented elbow joints, folding window panels on them that don’t lock down at all, blocked from raising more than ninety degrees on the shoulders for no reason. The legs are a heap of hyper-extended transformation joints that don’t let him make much use of stuff like his knees in actual posing, and he doesn’t have proper heels at all on these uneven bumper-feet, AND they’re marred by chintziness with paint apps so bad even I notice it (only one toe on each foot is painted what the hell?!). Plus he’s got this ridiculous backpack that’s just a solid chunk of untransformed car hanging out back there, and his weapon is a single sad little thing that he can’t even use decently because of his inept arm articulation. Transformation is at least competent (though the fact that the sides of his chest-window and JUST the sides are fake-kibble weirds me out. You gotta see it to understand the execution, but it’s just very odd), and the vehicle mode is decent, though the weapon looks stupid on top and there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else for it to go. Overall just very frustrated with how poorly this one turned out, especially after I was so excited for it. Hopefully future Decepticons in this series fare better. Underbite, at least, is fun for what he is. His car mode is, well it’s basically nothing, but it’s a cool alien-vehicle ‘transport’ mode, and the 1-Step transformation action to his cute little monster mode works very nicely, and he’s even got a bit of leg posability in that mode, plus his little springy beak-jaw! Cool little toy, and works better at what it’s supposed to be than Steeljaw, at any rate.

Guardians of the Galaxy Blu-Ray: Because fuck yeah this movie.

[Onslaught Six]

Packages! RID Skids and Dark Scream. First I've had of any of these moulds, so it's interesting. Skids is solid and cool, and is one of the few TFs with a legitimate shotgun. It's easy to see how he was intended to be Mirage; it's a shame the only good execution of that was in a Japan-only line that was dumbly expensive. Seeing his stout proportions next to Classics Mirage (who is out right now for...some reason) is strange because of ClaMirage's lanky structure vs. Skids' stoutness. (Oh. I guess he's "Skid-Z." Whatever.) The purple and teal accentuating the white is really spiffy and probably looks better than the more muted Japanese release.

Dark Scream meanwhile is a Predastooge. The TM2s had such a wonderfully weird look to them that SCREAMS "late 90s." They're very much trying to be like Macfarlane level toys with Matrix real-world cyberpunk shit going on. The bright teal and white doesnt play along with this at all, but the entire package still works because of RID's (or Car Robots') tone. Coincidentally, he is the same colours as Brainstorm, so he looks like some weird Maximal Brainstorm.

I somewhat regret grabbing these just because I know how hard it's going to be to find some of the dudes they came packed with. Slapper in particular is harder to find and Gas Skunk is harder to find at a decent price. (Stinkbomb will have to fill in for a while.) Wind Sheer and Skyfire will be even harder to find (I also own a loose Tow-Line.)

Then, while I was out, I felt compelled to go to our Shitty Goodwill in town. I have never had success finding anything of worth--DVDs, toys, old games, even clothes--but something called out to me and I found a G1 Soundwave in relatively nice condition, with his battery cover and everything, for a mere $2! Even if I have the reissue, this dude is a steal.

[138 Scourge]

Wifey got me an early Christmas present because it was on sale and she's cool. So now I have Little Big Planet 3 for the PS4. I fell in love hard with LBP2 on the last system. I love the game's endless customization options and the weird homemade quality of all the characters. Plus these have just the best music. I'm excited to see what they have going on for the new system.