This Week In Your Plastic Crack, Action Figures and Toy Collection 26 26

[followtheleader]

On 12/4/2021 at 2:02 PM, Namtak said:

This one was a garage find from my parents when i was 4 so i think its a snow cat gi le and im sure i dont have all accesories but whatever info is welcome!is it worth keeping?will search for more

Correct, the 1985 Snow Cat.  

Worth keeping?  Depends on why.   Monetarily, nah.  If you like it, sure.  

Looks stripped of all extras.  Should be a missile rack on the top, 2 weird ski sets on the sides, and a killer wiper blade on the front.  

It does look like the steering wheel is there so that's a good plus.

Parts Pic is in here: 

https://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/85/snowcat/

Patrick

[followtheleader]

On 12/4/2021 at 2:11 PM, Namtak said:

Weird gi joe jet pretty messed up (know nothing about joes)whay is it called ...dont say junk!

1987 Battle Force vehicle called Vector.  

Not the most loved line for Joes.  

Had a weird orange round module that fits in the back. 

It was also used to create a "super fortress" with other similarly odd parts from other Battle Force vehicles.  

https://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/87/vectorjet/

Patrick

[Namtak]

On 12/4/2021 at 5:05 PM, followtheleader said:

1987 Battle Force vehicle called Vector.  

Not the most loved line for Joes.  

Had a weird orange round module that fits in the back. 

It was also used to create a "super fortress" with other similarly odd parts from other Battle Force vehicles.  

https://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/87/vectorjet/

Patrick

Apprecite it ,thanks

[Namtak]

Found my old view master!might not be much but for me its a keeper

[Namtak]

Found a mean galaxian mini arcade coleco!unfortunately no batterie cover....

[followtheleader]

On 12/4/2021 at 4:01 PM, Namtak said:

Found a mean galaxian mini arcade coleco!unfortunately no batterie cover....

Does it work?  That's tight. 

What year?  Many toys are on the battery cover, but I see some printed info on the bottom. 

Patrick 

[Namtak]

On 12/4/2021 at 6:26 PM, followtheleader said:

Does it work?  That's tight. 

What year?  Many toys are on the battery cover, but I see some printed info on the bottom. 

Patrick 

1979!works!damn that sound is loud for my ears

Edited December 4, 2021 by Namtak

[Namtak]

Funny old godzilla toho 1985(thats what written under foot)

[Namtak]

Here comes new challengers!

[Namtak]

This ends my search tonight!still found half of the technodrone!i know the other pieces lies somewhere in a drawer wich i will search in a few weeks was fun memories

[fantastic_four]

On 12/4/2021 at 11:54 AM, Buzzetta said:

Fascinating how all of a sudden there was space in the budget to add those three figures in the same way that there was space in the budget to add Malakili into the Rancor campaign.

Didn't they do that with the Barge too?  I thought Yak Face was a late addition.

[Buzzetta]

On 12/5/2021 at 10:09 AM, fantastic_four said:

Didn't they do that with the Barge too?  I thought Yak Face was a late addition.

It was late but I "thought" there was a hinting of it with a silhouette of the figure as an Easter egg.  I seem to remember people trying to guess what a mystery figure would be in the forums. 

They needed to reach 5,000 units and they exceeded that.  I think that they wound up selling between 8,000-9,000?

I know the barge was revealed in February at Toy Fair and it went on 'sale' a week after it.  The earliest mention (I can currently find) of Yakface on a POTF Card with Coin card is 3-20-18 and the barge was on preorder until after the first or second week of April.  There was definitely more time remaining on the crowdfund between the reveal of Yakface and the campaign's closure.  

Malakili was introduced sooner than the "Cobra Hack" (as they are calling it) which definitely makes the Cobra Hack more of a move of desperation given it was announced with less than a week to go. 

I did find the celebration pic that Hasbro released once the barge was funded btw.  I forgot about this... The team celebrated by ordering sushi. 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Buzzetta

[F For Fake]

I agree with @Buzzettaand @followtheleader that Skystriker and Rancor are getting funded, no matter what. Whether they keep adding stuff to the list, or they extend the window, or they're suddenly saved by a wave of "mysterious last minute backers",  these things are getting made. My concern with the Skystriker is that we're not going to hit any of the other tiers, which is really all I cared about. I wanted those flight crew figures! Oh well. The "Cobra Hack" figures soften the blow a bit. I'll take any new o-rings they want to throw at me, these days.

[F For Fake]

Target continues to kill it with the sales these days. They had a 25% off one item circle offer last week, plus several items already on sale, so after those discounts plus red card discount, I was able to get this Draculus for about $19 out the door! The mash-ups they've been doing have been pretty amusing, and as a Universal Monsters guy, this is my favorite by far. What a terrific reuse of the Mindwipe mold, to make a vampire bat! He even comes with a cape! What a wacky, dumb, wonderful thing this is.

They also had their 10% off gift cards offer this weekend, which is always a good deal. I picked up a couple of mostly got books and movies, but I did also use it plus the current sale price to order the exclusive Road Rage, ended up being about $15 shipped all discounts included. Wasn't a character I really cared about, but for the price, I figured I may as well. he should be here before xmas.

[fantastic_four]

On 12/6/2021 at 9:07 AM, F For Fake said:

They also had their 10% off gift cards offer this weekend, which is always a good deal.

This is the third December in a row they've had that deal, and there's one thing I hate about it--you don't get the RedCard discount for buying the card OR for using the gift card to pay for things.  So if you're used to getting that constant 5% RedCard discount then you don't get it, effectively making the gift card discount only 5%.

Still, 5% is better than 0%.

[F For Fake]

On 12/6/2021 at 9:40 AM, fantastic_four said:

This is the third December in a row they've had that deal, and there's one thing I hate about it--you don't get the RedCard discount for buying the card OR for using the gift card to pay for things.  So if you're used to getting that constant 5% RedCard discount then you don't get it, effectively making the gift card discount only 5%.

Still, 5% is better than 0%.

Yeah, it's not a huge help, just about covers the tax, but hey, anything is better than nothing!

[Brandon Shepherd]

I got an early Christmas present today.

I have been catching up on the Star Wars Storytellers series released from 2017 to 2019. There are seven total and they all interact with each other. Unfortunately I didn’t know about this until 2019. The X-Wing was the second to last one I needed. 

I just need the Millennium Falcon but that one goes for over $300 on eBay. 

[Cat]

The Rancor is NOT funded.

[fantastic_four]

On 12/7/2021 at 7:45 AM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

The Rancor is NOT funded.

It was at 8,535 out of 9,000 minimum at the end.

I think they let it die on purpose.  There is NO doubt they could have easily funded it had they extended the funding period like they did with the Transformers Unicron.  That one ended its initial 45 days at about 5,500 of 8,000 backers, and after the extension of a month or so it ended at 10K+ backers.  So to not extend a project that was 95% funded means they had reasons to not want to do it in the first place.

There's politics afoot in the design team.  The ex-project lead for that team at Hasbro did a better job of promoting the project than the actual team did themselves.  This is him:

https://www.instagram.com/mrstevie18/?hl=en

He left the Star Wars team a few years ago.  He had told multiple people on Instagram that the project wouldn't get extended--which is an odd thing to proclaim given the success Unicron had with an extension--and he was hustling hard on his Instagram to promote a project he wasn't even involved in.  Whatever politics are afoot in Hasbro he probably knew about, but he likely hoped the project would hit the backer minimum anyway so Hasbro would be obliged to fund it.  He's a big toy fan himself and posts videos to his Instagram talking about toys and showing off his collection.

I have two guesses at the politics.  The first is that management or significant portions of the Star Wars team are on the way out the door, probably involuntarily.  The offerings and communication with both fans and retailers has been increasingly poor over the last year or so, quality has in general been going down with notable exceptions (particularly the EXCELLENT Bad Batch figures), pricing is ALL over the place and in general rising following little to no pattern, and delays and understocking have been rampant.  Even this Haslab had a dozen or more mis-steps that I could outline, particularly the timing of it BEFORE the Rancor likely appears in Book of Boba Fett next month which would have significantly increased demand for the project, coupled with running three consecutive Haslabs all in the worst month where everyone has to buy Christmas gifts.

My second guess at the politics behind letting the project die unfortunately is my best one--Hasbro knows they're not continuing the Star Wars license much longer.  Supposedly Disney significantly upped their price last year, and that's in the face of the brand as a whole on the decline aside from Mandalorian coupled with the licensing fee already being the highest in the business before the price hike.  Hasbro considered dumping the license last year, and this year it's possible they're planning to do it.  They may even already know they're losing it if there's another significant bidder out there.  The reason this is my guess is because if the reason is personnel being replaced that doesn't explain why they've consistently done more poorly in 2021 than 2019 and 2020.  Losing the license hanging over the team all year is a better explanation for their poor performance than some people needing firing, because that could have been done 6+ months ago.

I hope the outcome of this is just re-structuring the team, but I fear the end result will be losing the license.    I'd rather Hasbro keeps it and just fixes the problems since they've done such a superb job with Marvel Legends, GI Joe, and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, but the high licensing fees for Star Wars have already caused quality to slip, so the risk of them dumping or losing the license is palpable.  

Edited December 7, 2021 by fantastic_four

[F For Fake]

On 12/7/2021 at 8:08 AM, fantastic_four said:

It was at 8,535 out of 9,000 minimum at the end.

I think they let it die on purpose.  There is NO doubt they could have easily funded it had they extended the funding period like they did with the Transformers Unicron.  That one ended its initial 45 days at about 5,500 of 8,000 backers, and after the extension of a month or so it ended at 10K+ backers.  So to not extend a project that was 95% funded means they had reasons to not want to do it in the first place.

There's politics afoot in the design team.  The ex-project lead for that team at Hasbro did a better job of promoting the project than the actual team did themselves.  This is him:

https://www.instagram.com/mrstevie18/?hl=en

He left the Star Wars team a few years ago.  He had told multiple people on Instagram that the project wouldn't get extended--which is an odd thing to proclaim given the success Unicron had with an extension--and he was hustling hard on his Instagram to promote a project he wasn't even involved in.  Whatever politics are afoot in Hasbro he probably knew about, but he likely hoped the project would hit the backer minimum anyway so Hasbro would be obliged to fund it.  He's a big toy fan himself and posts videos to his Instagram talking about toys and showing off his collection.

I have two guesses at the politics.  The first is that management or significant portions of the Star Wars team are on the way out the door, probably involuntarily.  The offerings and communication with both fans and retailers has been increasingly poor over the last year or so, quality has in general been going down with notable exceptions (particularly the EXCELLENT Bad Batch figures), pricing is ALL over the place and in general rising following little to no pattern, and delays and understocking have been rampant.  Even this Haslab had a dozen or more mis-steps that I could outline, particularly the timing of it BEFORE the Rancor likely appears in Book of Boba Fett next month which would have significantly increased demand for the project, coupled with running three consecutive Haslabs all in the worst month where everyone has to buy Christmas gifts.

My second guess at the politics behind letting the project die unfortunately is my best one--Hasbro knows they're not continuing the Star Wars license much longer.  Supposedly Disney upped their price last year, and that's in the face of the brand as a whole on the decline aside from Mandalorian.  Hasbro considered dumping the license last year, and this year it's possible they're planning to do it.  They may even already know they're losing it if there's another significant bidder out there.  The reason this is my guess is because if the reason is personnel being replaced that doesn't explain why they've consistently done more poorly in 2021 than 2019 and 2020.  Losing the license hanging over the team all year is a better explanation for their poor performance than some people needing firing, because that could have been done 6+ months ago.

That's all very interesting. I don't collect SW, so I wasn't aware of all of that drama. I do agree 100% that dumping all of these haslabs in December, AND at the same time, was a mistake. Perhaps a calculated one? 15 hours to go on the Sky Striker, and it's still a couple thousand short, plus change. If they really let the Rancor die and it was that close, the Sky Striker may be in danger after all. Won't hurt my feelings if it doesn't get funded, I only backed it due to FOMO.