Week of: July 29th, 2002

Saturday, August 3rd

Acklay

Target west in Madison had a case of 6 Acklays on the shelf this morning.

Deluxe Yoda Wave

Ray H. was nice enough to pick up a set of these earlier in the week, so it is time for a review. These look to be the best wave of Deluxe figures yet. C-3PO and the Battle Droid each come apart into 6 parts that are interchangeable with each other. Add to that the crane arm that will be attachable to the forth coming Arena playset and you have a toy with tons of play value. Yoda is nice and comes with a Super Battle Droid. The Super Battle Droid has its arms oriented more like what is seen in the movie. This set also comes with a piece of the Droid Factory assembly line and will attach to the Arena playset. If Hasbro keeps this up, the Deluxe line may become long running and viable instead of being littered with odd junk that nobody really wants.

Wednesday, July 31st

Target East Report

G e-mails reporting that Target east in Madison had the Yoda wave Deluxe figures this morning along with the Figure Accessory sets and the Action Fleet Battlepacks. It sounds like Target is the place to be lately.

Tuesday, July 30th

TRU Exclusive X-Wing

TRU east in Madison had 4 of these ships on the shelf when I stopped by after work today. Talking with a stock person, they had gotten 8 of them today and the west side store was expecting 8 of them today as well. This is easily the best X-Wing produced. It comes with an R2-D2 figure that can fit in the droid slot, can fit a pilot figure, is better in scale with the figures and is even at a decent price point. TRU's price for this is $39.99 (the Power FX X-Wing was nearly $50, if I remember right). The only odd thing about it is its packaging. Although it looks good, the wings are removed making the box seem exceptionally skinny.

Deluxe Yoda & C-3PO

Ray H. reports that he found the latest wave of Deluxe figures at Target west in Madison today. Ray had a pretty good day since, besides the new Deluxe, Target had the Figure Accessory packs, the Action Fleet Battlepacks, and the Action Fleet Ships.

Figure Accessory Packs

On a whim, I made a trip to Janesville. Stopping at Target armed with the DPCI numbers from Rebelscum.com, I found a stock person and asked him to see if they had any of their exclusives in back. He brought out a case of these along with a case of the Action Fleet Battlepacks. The Accessory sets, exclusive to Target, are basically old figures packed with some cool accessories. Included are a Battle Droid (the new red variety), Death Star Trooper, Hoth Rebel Trooper, and Biker Scout (dirty). I wish they had re-molded the Death Star Trooper's legs into a better stance and that they would have shipped the clean Biker Scout in order to make these even more appealing. Target's price is $9.99, they are packed two each to a case, and they are packed in there really tight. I bet this will make them hard to find on mint card. Now the scary part, the case he brought out for me was 418 out of 510 making these, potentially, very hard to find.

Action Fleet Battlepacks

These are also Target exclusives and were found in Janesville. They are made up of pieces from previously released Action Fleet sets. On the bright side, they do come with figures and they are priced at a reasonable $5.99.

Action Fleet Ships

These were seen at both Wal-Mart east in Madison and Target east in Madison. I bought mine at Wal-Mart for $9.96. Included in this wave are the Tie Advanced, Millennium Falcon, and X-Wing Fighter. They are basically re-paints of previously released ships, but lack figures. Not having figures will hurt this line and starting out with re-issues will not help jump-start the line.

Monday, July 29th

Late Update

It is late and I will keep this posting short. Wal-Mart east in Madison along with Target east in Madison had the Action Fleet ships today. The Target in Janesville had the figure accessory packs and the Action Fleet Battle Packs today. Pictures and reviews will be posted tomorrow.