besides, the Union is very picky about the unifoms your wear,

AIn't that the truth...  I was Union with a regiment out of Kittanning, PA up here...  This hobby, like all others, is littered with ******** who will do their damndest to ruin your "good time" if they possibly can...  Beware the maroons.

I got out of it because of that...  I moved on to F&I War re-enacting, and while there's a lot of snoots in it too, there's a lot of positive people...  Generally the Indians and Colonials/Militia.  YOu get into the Brit regiments and French regiments though and they're a bunch of jags to you at events.  Particularly the Brits, as I was in a Scottish Light Foot regiment, which basically were like Wild Scots with loose dresscodes...  They adopted Indian atire readily and the Indians respected the Scottish Light Foot regiments a bit more and accepted them almost as another tribe.

It was cool because I had equipment that ranged from an Irish Hilted Broad Sword for an Officer's sword all the way to a Tomahawk as well as two muzzle loading weapons.  When we'd show at the bigger reenactments though, we got lots of hell from the prim and proper British regiments in their fancy expensive uniforms...  We'd have bone buttons on our red jackets, they'd have brass and polished, and they'd argue that we're not "proper" in our uniforms...  Some would even refuse to deal with us actually...  The French were usually a little better, but the guys in British uniforms almost always had a problem with us...  Especially if they had Blackwatch with them.  Ugh.

Still, I had fun with it, and it was a lot better experience for me than the Civil War re-enacting was...  That got to be a chore, especially because I was really young at the time.

Yes, it can be, but from what I've heard of toys, companies like Wal-Mart and the their ilk tend NOT to loss-lead with high-profile licensed toys...  TRU I've heard doesn't do the lossleading gig with much of anything, much less Star Wars, so considering theyr'e comparable prices between stores, I'm back to my original thought that the profit margins on SW product are exagerrated and they're pretty ample for the retailer to profit from.

Like I said though, I've heard the TRU sale they ran not long ago that cleared the pegs at every store in my area was still a huge profitable success for that product line for the company, and it brought figures down to $4.50 or so in my area...  I believe that to be true personally but that's me...  I've had no reason to doubt it.

I've heard that WM's loss-leading plan focuses on toylines they're contracted with manufacturers on, like Motorworks and others, and not products like say Lord of the Rings defunct line, or the current POTC or Star Wars lines generally. 

I gotta admit, Garindan's not bad...  I still am always baffled by swiveling boot articulation but no knees...  I mean, what's the point?  It's the same as ankle articulation but no knees.

Either way though, Garindan has features VOTC/VTSC Han's both should've had, a separate legstrap for the pistol holster.  I love that...    Too bad the Han's don't have it because that's perfect.

I like that they re-used Tessek's gun.  I don't mind pistol re-uses like that and that's a gun we haven't seen again since Tessek I believe.  So that's pretty cool I think...  The lack of knees sucks, but the inclusion of a cloth cape is great to me.  I'm surprised they ran with that.  Not often they use cloth on basic figures afterall. 

And the communicator on the belt?  That's just amazing detail.   Now we have a communicator accessory for a hoped for future Luke Stormtrooper resculpt...  He has to come with that.

It's nice to see that Garindan's arm articulation is on-par with what the basic line's standards should be too.  He's a step up from Momaw who lacks a LOT of articulation.

Oh and the headsculpt is great...  One flaw beyond the knees though is the goggles don't come off.    I'm a little bummed by that because I'd hoped to see a complete Garindan sculpt there...  Be neat to see hte species' looks without the goggles.

Anyway, Garindan may be my favorite in the wave...  It's a figure that REALLY needed a resculpt too, unlike Momaw who I honestly could've lived with what we have, especially given that they didn't improve it beyond the sculpt details.  Sculpts great, articulation's just excuseless though...  It's not a matter of what these characters do, but what kind of toys they should be...  Hasbro's still years behind other companies with this line, so that's what's disappointing me.

Garindan's on my positives list though, I like that one.

I don't believe the prices personally...  In TRU's last sale I heard from a source I personally have no reason to disbelieve, that they still made money despite figures costing only $4 & change...  I think the margins are grossly overestimated by people... 

I have heard the excuse that retail uses toys as loss leaders, but what people who cite that example neglect to mention is that they don't often use licensed products to loss lead their toy department...  Just from experience though, stores rarely do a "sale" on an item unless it's still profitable for them, and like I said TRU's was supposedly still a profitable sale...  I heard K-Mart's recent (decent) sale was profitable too, and they weren't taking a loss...  So I'm not willing to accept that Star Wars is just so close in cost to sale price like that.  If it were I don't believe retail woudl support it like it does for this long.  Movie years perhaps, but not non-movie years.  They'd need something more legitimate than a hunch it'd bring people to their store for them to dedicate any level of space to it, much less the relatively large space they always devote to it  year in and year out.

Hey I Am Sith, welcome aboard JediDefender.com...  Enjoy your time here, look around and get involved.  Ask anything to the staff if you have any questions, we're available.

Enjoy the site, and hope to see you active and around some.

What a coincidence?  The biggest supporter of Dustin gets his ebay auction pimped on the front page.   

haha, now that's funny.  I actually mentioned that to someone too Jay, funny you caught it as well...

Kind of ironic after all that was said in their now locked campaign thread, and then out of the blue an auction link's on the main page for the biggest Rebelscum supporter in it all...  I mean, come on...  It doesn't look any better either that it's Dustin throwing the Ebay Today story up there and I don't think that's something he ever did before.

Hey, it's like a real political campaign though...  You scratch my back, and I scratch yours...    Fun fun fun!

Jared, great photos of the new Momaw Nadon...  The figure's actually really true to the West End Games miniature in its pose and the staff and such...  That's kind of cool in its own right.

That stand he comes with is really cool too...  That's a better accessory than an oversized hand cannon for sure.

That said, I am highly disappointed in the articulation...  6 points total...  For $7?  Come on Hasbro, sheesh...  That sucks.

Great sculpt, an improvement no doubt over either sculpt...  Not a figure I was clamoring for a resculpt on though, so I'm a little disappointed to see Hasbro only improved the looks and didn't make this a better toy...  This year's continuing its trend of underwhelming toys and pretty statues. 

I will say though, it'll be nice displaying this Momaw with his past incarnations.  It's like the VTSC Greedo figure...  i don't feel compelled to retire the others, but instead just slip them in as background Rodians.  The same will go with Momaw here...  The past two sculpts are so different they'll make good background Ithorians while this new Momaw will be the Hammerhead in my bar.

That's a lotta diorama'ing.

My area has a lot of these.  Evne low traffic TRU's have at least 4 sitting around, and the high traffic stores have them stocked down where you can get them, then like another 10 up high and out of the way...  It's crazy.  I think the price is hurting these in particular...  It's not packed in a huge box really, so $40+ stings I think.

I love the paintjob despite my feelings about the toy...  It's really pretty nice, and I'd think kids would want these things if nothing else, but at least in my area these are REALLY easy to find right now.