Shopping across the border in the USA

We were in the states for Valleycon and to do some shopping. I had a few specific items I was looking for and was mostly denied in many of them. While my shopping trip to the states was a bust in what I was looking for, it did pay off in unexpected ways.

I was hoping to pick up some of the Heroclix Giant Size X-Men big figures from Toys R Us but they didn't have any.

I was also hoping Target or some other places might still have some Tron light cycles for the Tron game I made but was unable to find any anywhere I looked. I was able to pick up a Jarvis figure to go with all the others I had picked up at Dollarama.

I also wanted to get some more socks from Scheels but they didn't have any of the multi-packs. I was able to pick up another four pairs but it was a far cry from the dozen I was hoping to get.

I did pick up the Tetris card game - which looks interesting and has rules for solo play.

One of the dealers at ValleyCon was Paradox and they were blowing out their stock of Arcane Legions. They had the starter for $10, the army boxes for $4 and the boosters for $2. After much consideration, I fiured I'd give it a try. I picked up the starter, an infantry and cavalry army pack for the Romans, Egyptians, and Han armies, and one Roman booster and two Han boosters. This was almost all they had left.
If this wasn't cheap enough, when I was unable to convince any friend of the value of this and decided to buy it myself, it was a further 20% off. This meant that I got the starter, 6 army boxes, and 3 boosters for $32. I figured that I could always use the figures for Bushido and Valley of the Pharoahs at the least but the game seems solid enough. It will be a big hit to my painting versus buying total but the value was too good to pass up.

I also picked up the Warhammer 40,000 Apocalypse rulebook - which was still covered by the 20% off.

Dreadfleet is the newest Big Box release from Gamesworkshop. While it has a lot going for it, I wasn't going to pre-order it or rush out to get it. That said, if this had been a rerelease of Man O' War, I would have snapped it up. I had the original Space Hulk when it came out and snapped up the new set when it came out.
I had missed the boat when Man O' War first came out but was able to get the rules for them later. I haven't played it nearly enough to chase down all the figures on ebay. We did upsize it for one of the Wincons - I made a Dwarf fleet and JP made a Bretonnian fleet. But, since he didn't use the magic rules when he ran it, the Dwarves crushed the Bretonnians.

Dreadfleet is its own game. The beautifully detailed ships are larger than the Man O' War scale. The plastic islands look nice in the pictures. It is certainly a tempting set - but not enough to tip me into a buyer - not at the price it is listed at (over $100). However, with the lack of other purchases, I decided to get the Dreadfleet. With the 20% off that would cost $85 but when I went back, they had raised the price from $115 to $150. I couldn't justify it at that price. We went by the store itself which was also was giving the 20% off for convention members. They had it listed there at $115 but said it was excluded from the sale. The wife was okay with it though so we still picked it up.

All-in-all a worthwhile trip, even though I didn't get what I was looking for, I did get some cool stuff.