Back in 2004/2005 I drove to every Dollar General and CVS I could find to buy the single carded Valor vs Venom packs that Hasbro released.  I want to say they were like $2.99 or $3.99 back then and while the sculpts look kind of crappy by today's standards, they were really some of the top end figures back then.  The BAT figures and a couple others, Iron Grenadiers, maybe the Tele-Viper, still kind of hold up today.

If we're looking at $8.99 at Target for Retaliation figures and these things hit the Dollar stores (I'm guessing Dollar General because that's who Hasbro has partnered with before) for $5.99/$6 I'd be more than happy.  If they're more...I'll still get at least Shipwreck and the Green Shirt.  Possibly also get Storm Shadow (used as a generic ninja) and Snake Eyes but will probably pass on the rest.  CC isn't bad but I'd probably only buy the Cobra Trooper if I could army build about 6 or 8 of him.

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After the last reset, my Target had 8 pegs for GI Joe figures.  They were mostly empty, with maybe 1 or 2 Renegades figures like Ripcord and Scarlett, until they got the 1 case of Storm Shadow wave.  That sold and they were down to 3 Scarlett, 2 each Ripcord and Tunnel Rat and a Snake Eyes.  Snake sold and I thought that might generate a restock seeing as how it dropped their figure count below the peg count.

Last night I stopped in and the top 4 pegs had blank tags and were empty and the bottom 4 pegs had all the Joe figs with the $10.99 price tags.  So they reduced the space, didn't restock anything new and are keeping the ridiculous price....a price which was raised AFTER the current figures were put out.  That's like gas station pricing.

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If you guys haven't already seen the news, the first wave of Retaliation figures were found at a Meijer store in Fort Wayne Indiana last night.  Best news; the figures were only $6.97.  If that price carries over to Walmart and Target I'll be extremely happy.  It was troublesome that the current Renegades/30th figures bumped to $10.99 at Target and it still has me a little worried about the Retaliation figures, but this news is a little bit of relief.

Especially how Hasbro actually admitted in 2009 that they thought the RoC figures would have done better at a lower price. 

About half of that first wave will be a pass for me but I'm really interested in the GI Joe Trooper, Cobra Trooper w/ parachute and the Red Ninja.  Zartan is a possibility and while I do want a Rock as Roadblock figure, I don't know if that wave 1 version will be the best choice.

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Mike did me a solid on a couple Prime First Edition Transformers.  Thanks, Mike!

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I was reading over on the Tank where, apparently, ToysRUs.com mislabled a Storm Shadow figure for sale, it was the Renegades version but they listed it as an earlier POC version, and a buch of guys ordered during the BOGOHO sale and got the Renegades version cheap.

I was really surprised when a case of the SS wave showed up at Target a couple of weeks ago.  I have to believe there are more out there in the distribution centers somewhere waiting to go out.  But I don't know why they aren't.  My Walmart has been sitting on 8 empty Joe pegs for well over a month...they got put up when the aisle reset for the Avengers toys.  Where are the figures for them?  My Target just got the 1 case of the SS wave but prior to that had wave 4 maybe 3 times.  It's hard to believe that Target doesn't have more cases of W3 sitting somewhere in the pipeline.

But Hasbro...man, they have some serious problems right now.  With all the issues on GI Joe distribution at retail, the cancelled Transformers figures, the missed releases on the Walmart Clone Wars 2-packs and the Mandalorian Gunship from last year, just to name a few...  They're falling apart over there.  I don't know if it's China manufacturing ******* with them or the teams are losing their ability to get **** done...or if retail has completely bailed on them.  Something is definitely wrong, though.

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Probably should have clarified that it's my boss that does it.  And he's doing it RIGHT NOW!  There should be a webcam feed for this thread and you could all enjoy it with me.

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It's been rough going over at the Joe Club for the last couple of months, but they updated the Convention page yesterday with the first teaser of this year's 3.75" set and it's going to be the October Guard!  Or, some part of the Guard, anyway.

I'm really psyched for this.  It's one of the teams I wanted to see in the modern style so I'm interested to see how the Club pulls it off. 

I'm seriously thinking about ordering a set this year depending on how the figures look and what characters are included.  I'm also interested in seeing the 12" set again because that's going to be another Adventure Team release.

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