005 Action Figure Sat-TOY-day News, 12th December 2015

Issue 05 : Saturday 12th December, 2015

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Issue 05 : Saturday 12th December, 2015

A quieter week, which isn't a bad thing. My travels allowed me to hit some new stores this week that I wouldn't normally get too. The Forbidden Planet Megastore in Birmingham was quite impressive, particularly that expansive downstairs - but nothing caught my eye.

Nostalgia & Comics near the station in Birmingham was another awesome browse, as was Hide and Geek in Worcester. My favourite though was the small but perfectly formed Superdrome in Worcester. Hidden behind the look of a normal kids store, was pockets of collector's heaven including some rarer figures I hadn't seen for a while like the Prometheus Trilobite pack and even a 300 Queen Gorgo. The best thing was seeing a stack of the NECA Alien Eggs, which I happily purchased and have ready to review.

I also received the enormous Black Series Tie Fighter this week, but am not quite ready to publish it’s full review. Photography is posing a problem, but I would hope that this will be resolved this weekend with some creative solutions. On the review front I have a number of Game of Thrones sitting waiting, as well as the NECA eggs, the Tie Fighter and some older Mezco figures - with time off my “real” job over Xmas I predict a bumper crop of reviews.

The sad part of the week was the leaking, online, of a new figure from Star Wars that was considered a major spoiler due to the art on the card. I missed the offending card image when I initially shared it, but quickly took it down once I realised the error and I apologise to our readers who saw the image in their feed. It won't happen again.

As I put together this weeks edition, I soon realised that we are very "Fett" heavy. We have two news stories covering Jango Fett and a third that looks at his son Boba. It got me thinking about who will be the "new Boba Fett" when The Force Awakens next week? Will there be a minimal character that makes such an impact we will still be talking about him and her in another 30 years.

Not long now till we find out...

Jango Fett Realised…

Tamashii Nations have only just shipped their Movie Realization Boba Fett, and yet unveiled their Jango version this week.

Although a repaint of the Boba figure, the more subdued tones of blue and silver on Jango has already got fans of this line excited. Expect preorders to be up soon.

Star Wars 3.75” Leaks Following last week's reveals, Amazon Canada continued listing new Star Wars 3.75” product on its site, with official stock photo’s These images don’t give away any plot reveals, but do show off the Hassk Thug, a new alien, and the Resistance pilot Snap Wexley, who we know is being played by Greg Grunberg of Heroes fame.

A later reveal from this new set of 3.75” cropped up midweek after actually being found and bought in a Walmart store in the US. The image on the card of this figure contained a huge plot spoiler, and as well as going viral across the internet it was also subject to a request from Hasbro for all sites to remove it or face legal action.

Sadly, I did share the image for a few minutes, and as I posted later on Facebook - I am very sorry for anyone who saw the image.

NECA Predators in Progress

Enter the Dragon Dragon Models announced last week that they had been granted a licence to now produce Star Wars product.

For those who do not know Dragon, then they are a Hong Kong based company who produce highly detailed kits and statues from Military vehicles to a lot of product from Marvel.

As well as various kits, they do vignette statue’ s which are sold ready to assemble, or fully painted and finished at a higher premium these are usually at 1/10 scale.

At this point we have no idea what Dragon will bring us under their Star Wars licence, any kits will certainly encroach onto Bandai, while the large figures (for want of a better word) will clash with offerings from Kotobukiya.

One thing is certain, what every they do bring will be impressive - and that was borne out on their social media channels when this picture landed as a tease of what they will be bringing to market.

NECA’s Predator Series 14 figures are about to ship, and already we are seeing a few hints about what we could see after Series 14.

The work in progress shot below appears to show a Clan Leader and will be an interpretation on the original Kenner Clan Leader figure which was released in 1990.

Issue 05 : Saturday 12th December, 2015

God of War NECA revealed the first look at their upcoming Ultimate Kratos 7” figure from God of War 3.

The figure will land in early 2016 and comes with two head options, gauntlets, blades of chaos and a working sword holder/sheath on his back.

Hasbro’s Star Wars 6” Black Series is never far from the headlines at the moment, and this week we were given a hint of more figures from the range that will hit post The Force Awakens.

Written in some kind of code, the listing for a future wave was shared by Jedi Temple Archives and is made up of these The Black Series Episode 7 Shark Trooper The Black Series Episode 7 Blue Seal Communicator The Black Series Episode 7 Seal Droid The Black Series Episode 7 Green Seal Leader

Also revealed this week on their Twitter feed, as the news that the Quarter Scale Alien Big Chap has two inner jaw variants.

We would assume that the Droid may well be the PZ4CO protocol droid that has already hit the 3.75” range as part of wave 2.

Gamestop US looks to have the Han Solo and Tauntaun in stock again at $19.97

The 18” Alien is shipping now, and fans won’t know which variant they have until they open the box. As far as we can see it relates to the protruding jaw piece only and therefore isn’t a significantly different looking piece.

International shipping is $14.99, so ordering one will set you back $34.96, that works out at about £23.

The team at Jedi Temple Archives also shared us a huge gallery this week on advance copies of the Jango Fett and Force Awakens Han Solo.

These figures are expected in wave 5 and 6 in early 2016 (checkout our Coming Soon page HERE).

The Jango looks a little bright in terms of colouring, but that could be the photography.

The Han is being criticised by the colour variation between the jacket and the jacket’s arms. There is also a frustration that the brilliant sculpt that we saw at NYCC is not taken advantage of via the production paint applications.

Star Wars 3 collectors may want to keep an eye out at Sainsburys for this new set of 3.75” Force Awakens figures

Just check with your bank/card issuer for any charges from buying from US. As long as you are ordering one only it is under the custom threshold of £15 ($22).

My last order came in something ridiculous like 72hrs.

Also available is the Biker Scout and Speeder Bike for same price Links are provided in the images top & bottom.

It is worth noting these figures pictured were early samples.

Retailing at £34, the set includes a Storm Trooper, Kylo Ren, Resistance Trooper, Chewbacca and BB8.

So far this is the only way to get Chewie without buying the £100+ Falcon. Also included are green coloured variants of the standard build-a-pieces.

Thanks to Darthfuss on Twitter for this heads up

Imperial Re-inforcements The Entertainment Earth exclusive 4 pack of 6” Imperial Troops has started to land in the UK this week.

A quantity is already listed on Amazon via 3rd party sellers, starting at £99.99.

The pack is also in stock at In Demand Toys for £89.99

The pack is being well received over in the US and where collectors have received the figures in the UK I am hoping we will have the set available shortly to review and to add to our Star Wars Black Series (Phase 3) review archive which you can visit by clicking the Star Wars Black Logo to the right.

Issue 05 : Saturday 12th December, 2015

Smyths : Wave 3 Star Wars Black Series again, and Wave started to show up this week in the UK ahead of the US. All finds were isolated to the Smyths Toy Store chain only, and are priced at £21.99 If you are a MIB collector you will be frustrated by the Smyths labelling, but past experience says that this can be removed relatively easily.

Following the Smyths finds in the UK, I have seen sporadic reports of finds elsewhere in the world - Malaysia being one location.

Ultimate Sarah Connor NECA’s next Ultimate figure, Sarah Connor from Terminator 2, is due to ship imminently.

This week we were treated to a whole gallery of production figure shots of Sarah, all of which can be seen over on the NECA website HERE.

Sarah will come with three head options. The first long haired, the second with hair tied back into a ponytail and the third with hair tied back and with hat and sunglasses.

Sarah will also come tooled up with a rifle, shotgun, handgun and knife as well as a removable tactical vest.

She will sport 25 points of articulation, and will arrive in the standard presentation box with outer flap, and inner clear window to view the figure.

No Disintegration!

Boba Fett became the 12th figure into Disney’s Elite range of Star Wars figures this week, hitting the US stores on Monday, and the UK stores and internet on Tuesday. Boba was limited in the UK to a handful of stores, and our good friend Richard reported that he got the last one at Bluewater (Richard’s picture - left) Sadly, a number of collectors have been frustrated and returned Boba due to the lack of a cape, which seems an odd omission?

Over in the US, and like most of the Elite’s so far, the stock in stores was heavily limited and Boba has also sold out online. The UK online stocks are still available at the time of posting CLICK HERE. That leaves us one more release to go on the 18th December. The speculation is that this will be a Force Awakens version of C-3PO and R2-D2 - as these have been sculpted and included in the D23 mega box.

Bring in the Commando’s We’ve known for a while now that NECA have an Alien 3 series in mind for their highly successful range of 7” scale figures.

It was confirmed just this Friday that Series 8 will be solely devoted to the 3rd film of the Alien trilogy.

The first figure was also revealed to be a Weyland-Yutani Commando, as seen at the climax of the film.

The other 2 figures (assuming a standard series of 3) are as yet unconfirmed, although we are pretty certain Ripley will be one of them.

Wave 3 contains just two new figures, the Tie Fighter Pilot and the Resistance Trooper. Alongside these two are repacks of Rey, Stormtrooper, Finn and Kylo Ren. Collectors will be glad to see more Troopers, and that Rey/BB8 pack had been running out in a lot of places. I hope that Finn is well received next week when the movie launches as he needs some impetus to start moving off the pegs having been warming them since wave 1.