Here's an interesting one regarding a new Slave I

Q1) We have seen the new AT-AT, the Cloud Car and Snowspeeder due out this year for TESB 30th anniversary, are we likely to see any other vehicles of any size from TESB late 2010 or 2011, a Slave 1 perhaps?

A1) You will not see any other vehicles from EpV except a redeco of the AT-ST in a Hoth-themed set, out later this Fall.

Interesting, as that's not a direct denial.  That smells like a deflection. (Warning/guarantee: I have no special insider knowledge of a Slave I toy in development for release this year at this time.)  Hasbro has done similar things in the past with their Q&A, there was a deflection similarly worded when it came to the Delta Squad set before its announcement.  Even though the Slave I may not be coming from ESB, there's no reason it couldn't be a cartoon version... which is basically the same as the ESB or AOTC incarnation.  (We'll probably know for sure when the relevant episodes start to air Saturday in the UK.)

So I guess all we need to do now is either wait to be disappointed or wait for someone to leak a JPEG of it.

Is the Black Hole/Stormtrooper really based on a comic though? This sounds like something from the super-old comic strip which ran in newspapers.

...which as luck would have it was colorized and reprinted by Dark Horse Comics.   It's in issue #1 of Classic Star Wars: The Early Adventures.

Re: Plourr/Dllr

Got mine today, it's interesting-- you can just barely make out where the residue is from where the Wal-Mart sticker used to be, just above Dllr.  Plus there are three stickers added to this thing-- product number, "Inappropriate material," and the one covering up the co-sells on the back.  I wonder how long it took them to reconfigure these things after Wal-Mart dumped them...

I don't think it's a retailer "cost" issue so much as it is a Hasbro investment issue.

The "collector assortments" used to be 2-4 new figures per wave and the rest were repacks, sometimes doubling up on the new guys.  Now it's 6-8 new figures per wave with 4-6 repacks.  So their investment to bring that case of Legacy to you is way up, because of articulation and the more new figures they think they have to do because of build-a-droid.

Meanwhile, Saga Legends is 100% existing tooling-- and they haven't even introduced a new OLD figure into the mix in ages.  How many new ones were trotted out since the orange packaging changeover?  3 tops?  (Mynock Han, Mynock Chewie, Pilot Obi-Wan?)  This SKU is gravy for them, but lumpy gravy.  There's money left on the table with a lack of Stormtroopers, probably not enough Darth Vaders, not enough Clone army builders, and so on.  Some Legends figures really do sell, and we're not seeing a bunch of them.  Still-- it's basically free money at this point, just maintaining the tooling and the cost of raw materials/labor/freight.  There's certainly no significant development taking place specifically for this assortment.

And Clone Wars?  Each case is at least half old stuff.  And even though the new figures in 2009/2010 only seem to ship for a single wave, the kid-driven figures don't seem to stop shipping.   As far as dollars in against dollars out, Legacy looks to be the clear loser here despite seemingly moving a really good number of units. (And this is largely armchair quarterbacking.  I can't see Hasbro's balance sheets from here.)  Hasbro can and frequently does cancel products that sell because of unmet expectations from their investors/bosses/Wal-masters/whatever.

I'm curious to see the mechanics of that shoulder joint.  Adam, can you provide pictures?

It might be hard to illustrate, but I'll probably do him up for FOTD next week and see if I can.  It's subtle enough where it might not read easily, but it makes a nice  bit of difference in person.

If I remember correctly this was two years ago. I don't remember the specific case contents but I ordered it three months in advance and then watched EE move the ship date four times before giving up and finally emailing them to cancel my order and have them remove me from their mailing list. That case ended up being peg warmers at walmart that year. This was unfortunate because I bought many things from them over the years. There record of delivering on time became very hit and miss over the years. Why preorder for something that rarely gets delivered on time?  I found I had better luck at the stores. I even put up with the rude lady in their "will call" desk. So I gave up with their poor customer service.

Maybe this has changed but they lost me as a customer.

Well, I'm sorry to hear you had that experience.  I will say that the person in question most likely is no longer at the company, and there are times where (for some reason or another) a case does get pushed back a lot.  (The latest EU case being a fine example.  I believe that started at November '09.)

Pre-orders are up not just to "get it on time" but to "get it."  Items used to pre-sell out a lot more frequently, and some assortments do come and go pretty quickly.  For example, we weren't able to get as much of Legacy Wave 11 as we would have liked, and that seems to be pretty true across the board.  It's a service we offer and for some, it's great-- and for some, not.  I've seen items hit retail first myself from time to time, unfortunately it's all part of the business.  (TRU gets LEGO like a month and change early, for example.)

Anyway, I'm sorry we lost you, but I'm glad to hear you found your figures.  If you try us again and hit a snag, let me know-- providing the best customer service is a big deal to us, and if anyone is ever unhappy with our service, I absolutely want to hear about it.  (Although when it comes to delays, I'm sorry to say, there's not much I can do.)

Thanks for replying!

We got these in... maybe a month ago?  Pretty unremarkable as far as new stuff goes.  Hopefully they'll be good for kids, because I wasn't able to squint and find a good reason to open a set yet.