I'd say a lot of the same on my list except best figure of 2012... My list goes like so:
-Best Figure: Death Star trooper... To me, a long overdue army builder, tried twice and failed both times (I can deal with the 2007 one, but he takes work and work sucks). The new one is really exquisite. The skirt flexes so he is totally poseable, he has a working holster, the helmet's great, he's nice and generic unlike so many Rebels anymore, and he's a perfect height. His flaws are he's $10 a pop and shipped one-per-case in only one case this year, and it's a case riddled with TPM figures. I've found a couple lately and it's really great and wish I had about 100 more.
Runner-up could be almost anybody at this point. So many great figures, so little time, so few were able to be found easily. I'm leaning towards some of the Jabba Palace guys though, namely Vintage Nikto. I'd also say Evazan would rank high on my possible list since he was LONG overdue and I think his figure turned out pretty perfect aside from Hasbro sculpting thigh straps to the holsters on the figure's legs. They look worse that way, and the Luke's with the strap sculpted to the holster prove you can do it and make it not inhibit articulation at all. *shrugs* Dunno why they don't go that way all the time, especially on Han.
-Best Vehicle Overall: Speederbike... Like Jeff said, long overdue, but more than that this thing is a work of art from top to bottom and you get extra (albeit fairly useless) stuff. If it has a flaw, it's price. $22 is rough to choke down on something this small. However, you get a figure with articulation updates that make it look like a movie prop on the ship. The vehicle itself is sculpted, at long, long, long last, to-scale. It has the neato floaty stand I'm still taking credit for (
). They made the engine hood open up, again, going the extra mile on something not seen in the movie even but which the adult collector HAS to appreciate. The guy's feet lock into the pedals! Come on people.
Add in a goofy little gun/stand and extra front support... Did you want it? Probably not, but hey, extra stuff = alright by me.
One could add that the handlebars are a tad too rubbery, and that the floaty stand is a tad too high. I've found the handlebars can be reshaped to perfection though, and the floaty stand I'm quite fine with. The way this thing looks with the scout on it, displayed in all its glory, is really something tough to even compare to anything in the modern line other than maybe the last Jabba the Hutt which was pretty well aimed squarely at adult collectors. This thing was made for us and should be appreciated by the collector for what it is. It's up there, forever, with figures like Ephant Mon, as things you'll always appreciate for the sheer effort put into them by whoever designed and sculpted them. I'll take a dozen more, thank you!
-Best Exclusive Figure(s): I'm with Jeff on this again, in nominating the K-Mart 2-Packs. These were a financial and collectible breath of fresh air in 2012. $15 for 2 figures is a steal, even Ewoks, at this point. Add in that K-Mart (if you have it) made them fairly easy to get, and that they went to something else perfectly (even if that other exclusive itself was far from perfect), and you have a pretty great exclusive.
Hasbro also managed to knock out 2 things people really wanted. Access to AT-ST Drivers and the Ewok Hijackers. Plus they went the extra mile on the AT-ST Pilots making them resemble who they were intended to. Well done, all around.
Any real gripe about the sets is the paint aps on the Ewoks were a little lacking, and the AT-ST Pilots are tall. Quite tall. At the price, and then even the sale prices, I'm content. I'll mix/match with the army of scanner techs I have, I think. See if I can do some head swappin' too maybe.
-Best Larger Multi-Pack: I'll go again with Jeff on this and say TRU's Ewok multi-pack trumped everything else. The others were largley lackluster or Clone Wars focused, and I just didn't have a great interest in those. The Nightsister was on my radar but I couldn't even justify full price and got one for $10 clearance, and that was my "OK, I'll buy and open" point on that.
The Ewok multi-pack delivered bang for your buck though, and that's a tough spot when Ewoks are the subject. They're always re-used parts, but all the NEW parts made it well worth it. Plus an Ewoks Movie/Toon character, extra gear galore... It warranted two purchases! When Hasbro makes you happy to buy it twice, you know you got something special.
Sadly the Rebel Pilot set that shipped with it was half-hearted at best, using the overused (and short) Luke Pilot sculpt, that couldn't overcome the nice update to Porkins. Had they given me at least taller pilots, my Rebel army building affinity would have swayed me that direction I think, but as it stands, Ewok Multi-Pack is where I'm heading.
-Best Class I Set: This, for me, was easily the Dropship. The design works for me, and for my criteria for buying this kind of stuff, I have to look at the ship and think that it COULD actually be in Star Wars. Like the MLC-3 of old looking like a simple lightly armored mobile repeating blaster, it's not "overdoing it" for the ship's size. It looks like it's an oversized speederbike simply designed to drop a couple guys off with some heavy guns into a combat zone.
It has a little too much in the way of guns, but they can mostly be removed and that's fine. Leave the front two small ones, and that's all it needs and should have (Speederbikes kind of set the bar here that something that small can't have TOO much firepower and still zip around everywhere).
Finding it was easy for some, and for others (myself included) online satiated demand. I have yet to see this in a store despite being a great ship.
-Best Class II: I'd have to give it to the N1 Starfighter which I never saw obviously, but it's a good design update to a ship that was already perfectly scaled. It's a shame Hasbro **** the bed on that one's distribution, however it doesn't mean it won't see the light of day, and so one can hope. I refused to buy a case just to get it, but it's a definitely good ship with updates that just made sense and worked perfectly.
Sucks that I have an army of pilots and no ship for them now.
Runner-up would go, for me, to the repaint Vulture Droid. Weird choice? It's to-scale, and it's movie-accurate, and that's all that matters to me. There weren't many other good choices this year from that line of ships, unfortunately. Most, I felt, were pretty meh. And none came close to even being in contention with the new Speederbike for best vehicle. The MTT doesn't even get there in my book.
-Best Innovation By Hasbro: Not a lot this year but I noticed Hasbro is sculpting more figures with the larger armor on the shoulder, which hides the shoulder pin. It's a slick way of making figures more appealing and it actually doesn't inhibit articulation much at all. The Clone Wars Anakin really benefited with this improved style of sculpt/articulation I felt, as did several other figures.
There wasn't a lot of "new" to what Hasbro does this year. For the most part, figures were the same level of crisp sculpting and things as they've always been, and if anything paint aps are down now to where the fine sculpts are just not being highlighted well enough to save a dime. But Hasbro did get some nice little changes in there and I thought they looked good.
I'd add runner-up nod (no pun here) to the double-ball-jointed neck on the Scout. It was something I saw some guys gloss over as "unnecessary" as I recall, but I disagree. It gives the slight, but necessary, extra range of motion to the figure's head, that really makes it more like the puppet on the bike. He can lean his head forward in a crouch much better, and he also looks over his shoulder to pop a couple shots off at his pursuers much better now. It's only on one figure, so I didn't want to list it over the shoulder sculpting style, but to me it's the cherry on top of that set's already superb quality.
