Dave's Belated Toy Reviews

[Dave]

I finally built a display to house a bunch more toys, so I'm cracking open a lot of dusty boxes and filling the shelves.

I thought I would post some quick commentary on what I'm opening.

- OTC Sandcrawler - Kinda weak in my opinion.  $60 toy from 2004 is biggish, with three figures, but limited play value, and no electronics.  The side door doesn't even reach the ground so your droids can roll in and out.  I never picked up the new Disney version so I'll have to see if that might be worth my while.

- Imperial Combat Assault Tank (Rogue One) - All kinds of awesome, but you already new this.  The detail on this thing is amazing.  The working hatches, the moving treads, the kyber crystal holders - so cool and really a decent value for what I paid for it ($72).  I gotta track down all my Imperials and fill this thing up with a driver, a gunner, etc.

- U-Wing (Rogue One) - I know people griped about this not being to scale and not having room for a small squad in the side/back, but I think this is a pretty cool "toy".  Love the Nerf launcher (I know some people hate this feature, but I would have loved this as a kid and prefer these are toys vs. models).  The wing sweep mechanism is simple and different.  Overall pretty solid especially at a $45 price point (maybe it was more at retail but this is what I paid for it).  Sure it'd be nice if they made it twice as wide so you could have a K2-SO in the cockpit too, and room for a few figures in back, but I'm guessing that would have easily sent the price point to $100-$120.  Overall its very nice.

- 6" Snowspeeder - I was really on the fence about getting this because these vehicles take up so much room, but I did want the Dak Ralter.  I'm glad I got it on sale because I'm really not that impressed with it.  Its nice and all, but still big and not super cool.  I'm more impressed with their smaller vehicles/beasts than this thing.

- Jabba's Palace (TVC) - Overall its really a good value for $50.  Two figures and cool scenery.  It took me forever to figure out that the Han in Carbonite was magnetic and stuck to the wall lever thing.  It coulda used some better directions.

[Dave]

I've been pulling a ton of stuff out of boxes and putting it on shelves.  Its been fun digging through some of the old stuff and seeing things across 25 years of modern collecting all come together.

I've been mostly focused on OT stuff and have so far left PT and Clone Wars stuff boxed up, but have been placing ST, Rogue One, The Mandalorian, etc. where it fits.

A few thoughts:

• Ewoks / Endor - there have been a ton of these little buggers (a lot more than I remembered) with some fun accessories like catapults.  All the different weapons they have are cool too - spears, daggers, bows, axes.  The Movie Heroes battle pack of Ewoks was *amazing* with all the extra hoods, weapons, etc.  The Shield Bunker playset is a solid display piece too.  The only real gap is that it would be nice to have some sort of Ewok Village - it doesn't need to be massive, but having a little something would be nice.
• Dagobah - A quarter of the time was spent on Dagobah in TESB, but there are very few toys and no playset.  It doesn't lend itself well to toys, but I really would like a Yoda's Hut playset / display piece.  It doesn't need to be fancy, but this seems like a big hole in my display.  Really the only thing I have is a moss covered X-Wing.
• Rebel Pilots - there were a lot of these guys made and I love all the unique helmets, etc.  I'd love to see them continue to crank these guys out in battle packs, troop builder sets, or individually carded.
• Jabba's Palace - I've got tons of figures, band members, creatures, etc. that all look cool.  The recent display piece is nice to round it out, but the big glaring need is Jabba's dais / throne.
• Death Star / Star Destroyer - I've got a sweet Rebel Hanger with some fun bits (Hoth tactical screen, troop flight transport, droids, etc.).  The imperial setup has plenty of ships, pilots, and troopers, but there is virtually none of the other fun filler for the Imperials.  I'd love to see a proper Death Star, but if we can't get that it would be great to get some computer banks or other fun filler parts to help make the display look more complete.

[JediJman]

Sounds like you just need to get into vintage stuff Dave.  Ewok Village, Yoda's Hut Playset, and the Death Star or Star Destroyer playsets fill up almost everything on your wish list. 

[Dave]

Sounds like you just need to get into vintage stuff Dave.  Ewok Village, Yoda's Hut Playset, and the Death Star or Star Destroyer playsets fill up almost everything on your wish list.

Yeah, I'm debating what to do with my vintage stuff - if I mix it with my modern stuff by theme, or if I have a separate shelf that is just vintage.  I'm leaning towards having all the vintage be together, but some of these playsets definitely would fit in very well in a modern display.  Especially the Death Star, Ewok Village, and Yoda's Hut.

I'm just surprised with the massive amounts of stuff they've released over the years, especially when Hasbro was really knocking it out of the park that we never got these things.  I've got 9 different Jedi Starfighters, some truly awesome big vehicles (Clone Turbo Tank, etc.), and even some big playsets like the Geonosis arena.

I may have to see if there are some good ebay custom cardboard options for an Ewok Village or Yoda's Hut.

[JediJman]

What are your thoughts on how you group the figures?  I am in the midst of setting up a few shelves of Black Series.  I opted to do one shelf of "Bad guys," one shelf of "good guys," and a shelf of bounty hunters and aliens.  I do like the look of all the Imperials grouped together and tried to create little subgroups like Palpatine and his guards or Krenic and his Death Troopers.  But I'm wondering if grouping by movie/location/scene would look better.  Like Snowtroopers and AT-AT Drivers with Hoth Leia/Luke/Han, etc.  I ran out of space for the bad guys, so will have to redo the villains shelf anyway.  Just too many army builders to fit them all into one.

[Dave]

What are your thoughts on how you group the figures?  I am in the midst of setting up a few shelves of Black Series.  I opted to do one shelf of "Bad guys," one shelf of "good guys," and a shelf of bounty hunters and aliens.  I do like the look of all the Imperials grouped together and tried to create little subgroups like Palpatine and his guards or Krenic and his Death Troopers.  But I'm wondering if grouping by movie/location/scene would look better.  Like Snowtroopers and AT-AT Drivers with Hoth Leia/Luke/Han, etc.  I ran out of space for the bad guys, so will have to redo the villains shelf anyway.  Just too many army builders to fit them all into one.

My 6" Black Series stuff isn't all that creative.  I've got it organized in groups by movie genre - OT, PT, ST, Solo, Rogue One, etc.  I've got some backlit Space Walls to make it look a little nicer, but ultimately very few are posed in any interesting way and are just all lined up together.

Agreed on the Clone Troopers.  I've got them all together in the back of my PT shelf, and there are a lot of them.

I'll have to put up some pictures of the my 3.75" stuff in the near future, but here are my main themes for my big display area:

• Shelf 1 - Imperial Hangar
• Shelf 2 - Cloud City.  Mandalorian.
• Shelf 3 - Rebel Hangar - OT and Rogue One
• Shelf 4 - Tatooine including Jawa droid bazaar.  Jabba's Palace.
• Shelf 5 - Hoth.  Endor.  Dagobah. 
• Shelf 6 - Resistance Hangar.  First Order Hangar. Other ST items.

Smaller side shelves:

• OT Cantina - so cool with all the bar pieces and accessories that were released over the years
• Tartakovsky Clone Wars and other select animated Clone Wars items - e.g. Yoda and Kybuk
• Rebels Cartoon
• Indiana Jones
• Disney Toy Box
• Retro
• Expanded Universe

I really like how this is turning out and will probably build another big display case for vintage, prequel trilogy, and Clone Wars at some point after I get all of my existing themes filled out.  It really does take a ton of time finding, opening, and displaying 25 years of collecting just in these themes. 

[JediJman]

Hmmn...some good thoughts there.  This is how my Villains shelf ended up, but I need to expand or change it.