It's ok, you did more than enough favors for me already with the last shipment...  I'm holding hope he ships enough people sicken of seeing him and scalpers lose faith in Hasbro making this their year to shine.

It's March...  I can hope.

Come September if Scorch is still a bitch to find I'll go into a slight panic on the 2nd one.    I'm just glad I didn't care for it enough to not want to actually army build it a lot.  Had that figure been SA I'd be thudding my head off a wall.

I'd actually like one opened and I'm trying to keep carded exclusives now and then, but man the price...  this thing has to sit, I mean, it's really no better than the lava figs, so I am going to maybe try waiting on this.

It's different, but still those Lava figs sat and sat...  This thing has to.

TRU is funny...

They did the $4.99 sale a while back.  My local stores had literally dozens upon dozens of every Carkoon Wave figure and that sale lasted a week IIRC.  So the sale comes...  Almost immediately, the stores were selling out of their literal wall of Carkoon wave.  Some were getting in Hoth, some Geo, some more Carkoon or a mix of the 3... 

Week ends...  Sale ends...  Pegs have remained stagnant at whatever they had left at that point.  Mostly Hoth and Carkoon remnants with the odd Poggle here and there.

Price goes down to $4.99, TRU sells through product like Indian food goes through the human colon...  Prices go back up to $6.99 and figures stop selling...

Now, if someone with a half an oz. of intellect at the corporate HQ actually sat on his/her fat ass and looked at the facts, obviously dropping price a $1 or more would be a big help...  It's the same at other stores too.  One Target near me has $6.99 figures, and they're sitting...  One has $5.89 figures and they're moving fast with few pegwarmers (a couple, not many)...

I'd comment on Wal-Mart, but I hit 2 tonight, and 3 other ones in the past week or so and there's no peg for figures at any of the 5 I visited.  They have Titanium pegs, pegs for other crap, but no basic figure pegs to speak of.

I hate Wal-Mart with a passion, seriously.  I hate the other two, but Wal-Mart takes the cake by far.

At least K-Mart and Kay-Bee always dick you over and dont' blow smoke up your ass about it.  The other 3 though are just doing it to jerk people around and see how much they can get away with after years of being reasonably acceptable places tod eal with.

Kesselrunking made a good point about "real fans" there I think...  Unless you're an anal carded completist to the utmost degree, these really aren't of interest to anyone I'd assume?  I wouldn't see why anyone would find them interesting anyway, but maybe I just assume too much.

The whole thing is drawing in people WE don't want to compete with, and who really could most likely give two ***** about this hobby.  That's how I view it anyway.  There's not much good I see coming of any of this.  The best thing was that at least it was packaging variants and not figure variants or just figures in general. 

I can handle packaging variants better than that...  I can't even stand a pack-in figure with a vehicle not getting a regular release.  RA-7 Sandcrawler droid anyone?   

On the issue of Gungans, I wouldn't say they're MORE primitive than Ewoks...  I wouldn't even say they're as primitive as Ewoks actually.  Gungans had utilized mechanical transportation that, for underwater, was as advanced as air and landspeeders on the surface really.

They'd also formed modern-ish looking cities...  Or so it seemed, there's not a lot seen of Otoh Gunga.

Also their weapons are energy weapons...  Like the weapons of the Geonosians, they are unique to the species, but nonetheless they are a HIGHLY destructive energy weapon when used against the Battledroids.  I think the bigger issue with the Gungans is they are, really, nothing more than a simple diversion... 

For instance, the Gungans weren't confident in their shields, they knew they'd fail eventually, but they still went into combat.  There was distinct mention of the losses though...  Nass said they'd do what they had to though and all and they did.

The other important thing is remembering that the Federation knew they were there in the swamps...  It was a matter of time at that point before they attacked that area, so the human forces moved in to assault the city while the droid army exited that area and assaulted the Gungans...  Really though, the strategy was pretty much as sound as it gets for all the more they had to send into the battle.

I definitely don't look at the Gungans as archaic though like the Ewoks...  They're just different.  Their shield withstood a bombardment even from some pretty hefty artillery.  It only collapsed later into the battle when something hit the Faamba's back...  It almost makes you wonder if something WITHIN the shield hit it more than the artillery blasts.  The AAT's were sorta right there to move into the battle when the shield did collapse so maybe one of the droids went in with a warhead launcher or some such...  It would seem odd for the AAT's to cease firing just to get the infantry out, then start again when they attacked. 

On the issue of an AT-AT, there was one on Endor actually...  At least one, if not more.  I think it was far away from the rear bunker, closer to the main complex where I think the INITIAL plan of attack by the Rebel Commando team was focused...  I think that's what made this whole mission such a "suicide" mission, whereas it became substantially "easier" with the back entrance they didn't even seem to know about.

The area around the complex, IMO, was probably a wider open space, with massive deforestation.  In shots of the model for the Endor Shield Generator complex there's 3 (or 4) heavy artillery towers like on the Death Star's surface, the generator, etc...  The massive explosion implies it's a fair distance from the back door to the generator complex too of course.  I figure the area around the generator is pretty well leveled and flat, good for an AT-AT to patrol the perimeter or whatnot...   The rear door complex is patrolled by scouts and AT-ST walkers, though the ST Walker still has trouble with the heavy forest really.  In video games it's not terribly difficult but it does lend itself to easier attack on the walkers, which I think makes some sense.

So to me an AT-AT coming into the battle as we see it really isn't going to be effective.  It won't be easily destroyed by log traps though of course, but I think it wouldn't do much damage to anyone either...  It'd be shooting down into tree trunks at targets it couldn't find.  It also could be quite a distance away waiting on an attack that never comes at the main complex... 

I have this theory that the forces at the back door are the weaker element, and the forces at the main complex are still expecting a heavier assault there of some sort.  The forces at the back door are definitely not what I'd consider "an entire LEGION of my best troops" though.  They seem like a hodgepodge mix of Naval troops maybe working the station more than being part of the legion itself, and scouts with some Stormtrooper support and the walkers that maybe HAPPENED to be somewhat nearby for whatever reason.

Just some thoughts on this topic additionally...  Endor's an often debated one I've noticed, always a good topic to discuss.

I think that is part of the reason Fel didn't make the cut...  It's been a while basically.

EU that's more fresh in people's minds is something Hasbro's pondered when posed with the EU debate to make figures.  "Will this character from some long-dead series even be interesting to anyone?"

To me, Fel's a great character...  I liked 90% of the characters from the X-Wing series actually.  I don't think I'd have voted for him but I'd gladly buy a figure of him if offered someday.  Simple enough too really considering it's a TIE Pilot with removable helmet and special paintjob (depending what outfit he has on).

KOTOR is definitely more fresh in MY mind than X-Wing characters though, that's for sure.

I'm not sure I follow you on the issue of Katarn and the others in your last part there Lestat.

The ICMG doesn't have much background that I'm aware of...  He didn't even have a name till recently, so without much history to him, him appearing elsewhere, etc., I don't think that they've bent over backwards to include him or elaborate on him.  Give him a name and some "existance" though I see...  Even mminiscule EU though can suck I've learned.  A character with a simple brief bio can be really dumb and interwoven to the main characters no matter how obscure and irrelevant the character is.  That's a huge gripe of mine.

Scott mentioned on the last page how there'll be the 'Taun Taun Horn" bar too for some place's name...  That's a good example of BAD EU'ing I think.  Hoth is supposed to not even really be a known place afterall.  Stupid...

But anyway not to get sidetracked, I don't necessarilly look at the marriage of Luke/Mara poorly...  I don't feel that those characters have been exploited though really (Jade, Katarn, etc.) that you listed.  If anything, Katarn's part in EU's mostly ceneterd around his game exploits...  He only had 3 books, none were considered great or even long stories, and they too had some focus around his game exploits...  Beyond that it's mostly been Katarn in NJO which I don't think was a very big role.  I'm disappointed if anything with the fact no GOOD EU story outside his games really has been focused on Katarn.  There's a ton of pre-Jedi Knight Katarn to be told, I'd love to get into that and write it myself for LFL.   

Quote from: JesseVader08 on March 20, 2006, 05:55 PM

I think it would be fun too, but I'd do it for all the chicks I would get. 

 

Hah!  This one made my night, thank you.  Have fun Pres...  Remember your cigars for your new intern.