Ok - well I had taken the time to post a complaint to the Hasbro website. I first got an e-mail telling me that they would be happy to send the corrected label sheet. Then yesterday in the mail I received a letter stating that the part I was looking for was unavailable and I would not be receiving a new label sheet afterall.

So basically Hasbro purposefully put the WRONG label sheet with these fighters and has NO INTENTION of providing correct ones.

Nice.

By giving the employees at the customer service desk the DPCI number that was how I was able to score my two TIEs this morning.

Took a while to get 'em brought out, but it was worth the 15 minute wait in the end.

It wasn't something I really used to consider, but nowadays, it's becoming more of a thought in my mind.  Why should I bother wasting gas/time to find figures for $6.50 (with tax) at Target, when I can order a case of 12 for $7.50 each (with shipping) from EE.

Sure, it's $12 over retail, but that's only like 4-5 gallons of gas or about 80-100 miles of toy shopping (which is probably about my average in a week).

The only wrinkle to on-line ordering though is you still have to go to the stores to hunt the damn exclusives (exclusives = the bitching target of the day I guess  ).

You know - for a majority of the Saga line, I got my stuff directly from EE. It worked out well enough, especially in non-movie years when the stuff wasn't hitting the pegs as much as it should.

I will probably be going back to EE for my figures when the Saga 2 line comes out.

The one thing that stopped me from buying from EE was the fact that I knew in a movie year (and with the OTC) that the product would be readily available PLUS I would be regularly hitting stores looking for the vehicles and exclusives. (I never buy the vehicles from EE, the mark-up on those is just too much)

With the high number of exclusives in the last five months, I'm mostly hitting stores with the goal of finding exclusives and picking up the mass-market/open-stock items along the way.

Like right now the only open-stock item I need is the Jedi vs. Separatists Battle Pack - everything else I need is an exclusive - Wave 3 Target Cups, Target TIE Fighter, Hoth Assault Battle Pack, and TRU Millenium Falcon.

And again, even in the fall, the number of exclusives will greatly out-weigh the open-stock items:
Open-stock:
Figures #57-68
Rebels vs. Empire Battle Pack
Gray Repaint of Clones Evo set

Exclusive:
Target Night-ops Clone
Target Lava Reflection Anakin & Obi-Wan
Target Plo Koon Jedi Starfighter
Target Clones on Coruscant Battle Pack
SWS Remote Control R2-D2
SWS Wedge Antilles
SWS Stealth Ops Clonetrooper
TRU Holo Emperor
EE Astromech pack 1 & 2
Diamond Bounty Hunter 7 pack
KB-Toys Silver Vader 9 pack
anything else?

(I've already ordered the online shope stuff, but it will actually ship in the months of September - December)

So my point is that in the end, when all is send and done, between now and Saga 2, most of my SW money will be spent on exclusives which is just insane. Eventually I will reach a breaking point and at that point, I don't know what I will do cause for me collecting SW goes hand-in-hand with having a complete 3.75" collection. In my f**ked up mind, you can' t have one w/o the other.

Well - I'm a retard, but I ordered my two just simply 'cause that's what I do.

I think it's time for me to leave work and slam my head against the wall for an hour or so.

*sigh*

Let me just second that. The only difference for ANY of the re-released figures in both of these packs is the LACK of accessories.

Emperor - doesn't include the small lightning snap on accessories that came with the original figure

Stormtrooper - includes the smaller blaster accessory and doesn't also come with the gun-rack and pistol that the figure has been carded with so many times over.

Anakin/Vader - like DP said, doesn't include the spare hand, lightsaber hilt or a second sith lightsaber (either Vader's in an Anakin hand or Count Dooku's) like both variations of the original figure did.

Clone Pilot - again, like DP said, no radar-dish cannon, which to me is no loss since that accessory stinks and since I have seven open Gray/White Pilots and four open Black Jumpsuit Pilots, the last thing I needed was another one of those!

So unless you're a retard like me that has to get 2 of EVERYTHING no matter what, you can definitely pass on a getting a second Imperial Throne Room set - which is what A LOT of people will do, which is why KMart will have a GLUT of the Imperial set and not be able to keep the Jedi Temple Assault set on the shelves.

Pete, any indication on quantity of pieces? 2345 of 25,000 listed on the case for example?

Good question indeed. I'm sorry I didn't take note of it. I tried to take the box with me, but they wouldn't let me take it (odd) so I can't even see if there is anything on the box tonight when I go home.


Sorry.

- Peter

Yeah - the Jedi Temple Assault is a for the most part, a great set. The only thing that kills it is the Clone Pilot. My son looked at it last night and was like: "When was a Clone Pilot raiding the Jedi Temple?" - and I didn't know what to say to him other than: "Well Hasbro thinks there was, I don't know what to tell you."

I really wish they had just included a fourth 501st trooper.

Same thing goes with the Imperial Throne Room set. The Stormtrooper is an odd choice. Instead of having one dignitary in the box and another in the picture on the back - just include BOTH of them and forget the Stormtrooper.

I also would have re-organized the Jedi vs. XXXX sets like this:

Jedi vs. Sith:
Anakin from Yavin 4
Asajj Ventress (she wasn't full sith but close enough)
Qui-Gon Jinn
Obi-Wan Kenobi (TPM)
Darth Maul


Jedi vs. Seperatists:
Obi-Wan Kenobi (Snap-on Clone Armor)
Durge
Mace Windu
Ki-Adi Mundi (or Shaak Ti)
General Grievous

But that's just me.

*sigh*

You're right Matt. The clone set does contain different figures than anything else we've seen so far.

Well crap.

I guess I am going to need to get two of at least the clone set.

Well - if it's any consolation, at our local WalMart stores the day the DVDs have come out, the past two sets were VERY easy to get.

The Clone Set was easier since there were only two, but with OT DVD set was odd 'cause some stores only received two different ones so it meant having to go to two stores to get all three.

Here's hoping the distribution is balanced and if you hit a WalMart at 7AM on November 1st there is a good number of all three (although, if they go heavy on the Clones, that would be smart)