Gangs of Commorragh - acquired

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been watching ebay for a copy of Gangs of Commorragh. I figured that I could always buy a copy of the rules for about $30 and buy the figures later from Games Workshop for $120. Most of the non-figure sets were either too expensive (over $100), or did not include the box.

I was finally able to find a few complete sets that weren’t much more than the cost of the ones that were just rules plus the cost of the figures. I bid on a few but they exceeded my limit.

But persistence paid off and I finally won an opened but complete set for about $100 including shipping. That was totally in my price range. It came and seems more than complete. It looks like it has double sets of reference guides, Get Started booklets, assembly guides, and packs of dice.

I can cross another set off my list. Now I have to save up for Blackstone Fortress.

Buying in bits

I’m loving the ability to buy bits of figures. It’s easy and cheap to buy from GC-Minis. But I’ve gotten some models cheaper by buying in bits. It’s more work to keep at it trying to win all the pieces but, with a few sets, I don’t need all the bits for multiple models.

A Deff Dread from GC-Minis is the low price of $41.65 compared to the regular price of $59.50 from GW. My first one in bits cost me $21.53. My second one was $17.87. With another $11.14 in bits and the extra pieces from the other two, I can build a third.

My Stompa cost me $54.03 and my Battlewagon was $25.54 (compared to $52.15 at GC-Minis).

An Ork Truck from GC-Minis would be $27.65 and regularly $39.50 from GW. My first truck was $21.22, my second one was $15.06, and the third only $12.83.

Even if you factor in the exchange rate (GC-Minis are in Canadian and the bits are in US) and the shipping, that’s still some crazy good savings. It means I can buy more stuff sooner.


Then it’s just a matter of putting it together and painting it.

D3 - Life lesson

We’ve told the kids not to take legos out to play in the car – there are so many tiny pieces that are so easy to get lost. Like most of the advice we tell them, they don’t always listen to it.

So it finally happened.

On Monday, he was carrying a Bionicle (Brutaka) from the car to the house in his hat (for some reason) and one of the gold leg covers bounced out and fell behind the stairs to the side door. Shan tried to get it out but couldn’t. When I came home I tried but couldn’t even see it. I was hampered by the fact that none of the drawer full of flashlights currently give off more than a faint yellow glow.
Shan told him it should be a ‘life lesson’ and that he shouldn’t buy a replacement. He naturally thought otherwise.

Checking online, bricklink doesn’t have any Brutaka parts at all. Ebay does have two sets – one at $56 and one at $226 – both currently a bit high to replace one missing piece.
I have a few more ideas to try – the concrete stairs seem to be undercut on the side against the house and it must have bounced under or been knocked under in subsequent rescue attempts. If I still can’t get it, I have a few other options I will try. Otherwise, he has a reminder on his wall to look for it when renovations happen and the stairs are removed.

St John's High School 100th

My alma mater, St John’s High School, is celebrating their 100th anniversary this weekend. I was there from grade 7 through grade 12 and even went back for more courses the year after I graduated. They had celebrated their 75th anniversary while we were in school but this looks like it’s going to be quite the event.

I have a lot of fond memories from those times. I wasn’t one of the popular crowd but was well known. I wasn’t a jock but was on many teams in junior high. I would say I was more in the Geeks than the Freaks – especially in senior high.
I don’t keep in touch with many people that I went to school with. I have a few in fandom but even those I don’t see so often.

I am looking forward to this weekend. Hopefully I’ll run into some familiar faces and find out how people are doing.


Go Tigers!

stompa bits

I’ve been picking a Ork Stompa in bits and pieces. A boxed set from Games Workshop is about $120. From GC-Minis it would be about $85 – much better, but still a bit out of my range.

From Horde of Bits, I’ve managed to collect most of the main pieces and it has only run me about $50. The last batch finally came in – the weapon arms. I’m really looking forward to putting this together. Plus when I have it finished and have the sizes, I can scratchbuild another one.

Codex - 9 down, 7 to go

I got a lucky bunch of wins on ebay from one seller and now have the current codices for Necrons (3rd Edition), Tau (4th edition), Daemonhunters (3th Edition), plus the Eye of Terror sourcebook as well as older versions of the Imperial Guard (late 3rd edition) and Orks (3rd edition) on their way to me. I still need to get the newer Ork codex as well as the Eldar to be almost caught up. The books themselves were very cheap – the shipping was not.


Update - While out shopping on Saturday for Shan’s birthday I popped into Face-Off and picked up the 4th edition Ork codex. So now I have all the current editions of the codices except for Eldar and Dark Eldar – not counting Black Templars, Blood/Dark Angels, Chaos Demons or Chaos Space Marines, in which I am less interested.

Drop Pod goodness

With the exception of the weapon, I finished assembling the drop pod model. My alignment is every so slightly out. Not enough to cause problems but just enough that all of the doors don’t close perfectly. Even with that small issue, I am very impressed at the level of detail and ingenuity involved in this model. The pieces fit together well and the bits are certainly great for scratchbuilding as evidenced by all the parts on ebay.

I’ve actually been able to pick up another drop pod in bits – although with all the shipping charges it works out to only a slight savings over just buying one from GC-Minis. I’m really looking forward to painting up this model once it warms up enough to prime it.

Wizkids at NECA

It's definately official - NECA has acquired Wizkids. They have updated their website with the new info. They have the Clix lines as well as the pocketmodel lines. We'll see what they do with the rest.

The Hammer of Thor set is officially supposed to come out November 18 with a new Buy-The-Brick figure - Ragnarok Surtur. With the Chariot of Thor being sold already, we figured that they might offer a different incentive. My Chariot came in the mail from ebay this week.

The Goats of Thor

So after a few hopeful months we still haven’t heard of a buyer for Wizkids. There was some talk about a group but it fell through when they looked closer at the financing.
Then there was some talk about Tops releasing the next set – Hammer of Thor – at GenCon. With ComicCon last weekend, Neca was selling the Thor’s Mighty Chariot – which was supposed to be the Buy-the-Brick figure for the set. They are also taking pre-sales at Amazon for Aug 15. This had led to some speculation if Neca has picked up the license or if they just bought out the stock of boxed figures. Since I won’t be at GenCon again this year, I will have to wait and see.

I did win some more figs on ebay and now have the rest of the Arkham Asylum basic figures on their way to me. I even have a few of the Super-Rares coming as well. Still no luck yet on acquiring any of the other big figures I still need.

Want to know more?

My big score of Starship Troopers figures came in Monday and I was able to get it from the Post Office yesterday. I had to pay $13.75 in duty but that was fine. It was nice and big and heavy.



The kids and I were very happy to open it and see the goodies within. I had already picked up the rulebooks but now have a second set as well as RPG books. Figure-wise, I got the starter boxed set, another Power suit box, a Chickenhawk and an Ape Marauder, and boxes of 3 Hoppers, 3 Blaster/Blister bugs, and a Plasma bug. It's a whole lot of miniature goodness waiting for some time to properly clean, assemble, and paint.



I had to set the figs aside for a bit now though. I still have my son’s figures from the Battle for Macragge set at the top of my painting queue. I do have a week off coming up in March though.



Running total 2009 - figures bought 47, figures painted 0

Impulse buys

I don’t do a lot of impulse buys. It’s not often that the first time I’m exposed to something will I actually pick it up. What I will do however, is put things on a ‘list’ of sorts (some literal and some just mental) and pick them up at a later tipping point. For movies, I keep an actual excel spreadsheet of the movies/tv shows I’m hoping to get on dvd and I track the prices pretty regularly based on flyers. I’ve got many lists and sublists tracking which heroclix figures I have and need – one of which tracks the prices they are going for on ebay. I have similar lists (less involved) for HorrorClix, Star Wars Miniature Ship Battles, and Monsterapocalypse. I usually have a few lists on me of which books I need from various series’ we are following. I even have a list of WWI plane models that I have and what state they are in (own, assembled, painted) for use with Canvas Eagles.

Often, things will be mulling on my list for a few years before opportunity and price conspire to get me to pick it up. The Cthulhu Live books I picked up last year were a good example. I’d been mulling those over since we had seen them play at Wizard’s Challenge in Regina back in the mid-to-late 90s. Once I finally got one of the books though, I quickly picked up a bunch of the others.

The same thing with the Starship Troopers miniature game. I remember seeing the game in Maxx Collectibles a few years ago and did some searching on the web. I added it to my mental interest list and let it mull there. When I came across the rulebook for half price at Valleycon last year I snapped it up. I have since picked up the rest of the rulebooks on ebay and am now trying to get some of the figures.
Sometimes, when other items have been cleared, items from less crucial lists get moved up to my short list. These are the ones that I am actively looking for and will buy when found within my pricing guidelines.

The same works with the movies, I have over 500 movies on my want list but can’t afford to get them at current rates. Even some of the ones in the $5 bins have to allotted as funds allow. After being on my Christmas and birthday list for the last two years, the Creature of the Black Lagoon Legacy collections and the Kung Fu TV series (season 2 and 3) are now on my short list. The Back to the Future trilogy is waiting for these to clear the short list before being moved up.
Unless I get it for my birthday.

Bye bye buy the brick

For the last few years, Wizkids has been giving a mail-away incentive to those customers who buy their boosters at actual retail stores instead of over the internet. They pack a case into a ‘brick’ or 12 – 10 boosters and include a coupon. If you mail in the coupon with a receipt you can get a special figure mailed out to you.

I’ve missed a few of these while I wasn’t buying boosters but have gotten the last several (Mandarin, Phantom Stranger, Dark Beast). I’ve been chasing down the ones I missed (Dr Fate and Anthony Stark) but am still missing a few (Krypto and Venom).

I didn’t get a brick yet for the new Heroclix set that came out at the beginning of March – Crisis but Wizkids just posted that all 5000 figures have already been redeemed. So the Superman / Batman World’s Finest figure on a bigger base will need to go on my missing list – that I’ll have to try and chase down on ebay when they drop – as they are already going for over $40 a pop.

experienced archangel

Thanks to ebay, I finally got the experienced Archangel I needed to complete my Critical Mass set. I still need CM222 the chrome Silver Surfer from the convention, but it’s not on my main list. It has proven surprising hard to get this figure. Besides not getting it originally, or being able to trade for it prior, it was actually a figure that was part of a trade I made at Maxx when I turned in a bunch of doubles early last year. When I got home, it wasn’t in the one I had traded for – truly though, there was a bit of a mix up in clearing up the figures at the end. When I finally got back to Maxx, they didn’t have one anymore.

When Critical Mass came out, I was still a Judge and got a Warren Worthington LE as a Judge prize. When I finally opened the box, there was the figure, but no base for it.

Pre-Universe, I only need 10 figures to complete four more of the first eight sets and not all of them are what you would think of as hard figures to get. From Infinity Challenge, I still need an E – Prof Xavier, a V – Dr Strange, and a R – Magneto. From Clobberin’ Time, I still need the U - Nick Fury. From the Indy set, I need the U – Hellboy, the U – Angelus, and the REV – Judge Fire. Finally, from Unleashed, I still need the U – Magog. This one has also proven to be quite elusively and consistently out of my price range.

Heroclix update

My Heroclix list has updated greatly over the last year thanks to ebay and our dollar’s surge against the greenback. In April 2007, I needed 815 figures and as of today I only need 562 figures – and that includes three new sets coming out in that time for a total of 180 additional figures. So I have acquired well over 400 figures last year alone.
As the easy pieces become scarce and new sets come out, I hope to be below 300 figures for this time next year as well as have at least one large figure.

I have now completed Hypertime, Xplosion, Cosmic Justice, and Icons. I’m close on Infinity Challenge (3+0), Clobbering Time (0+1), Indy (0(3)+2), Critical Mass (1+0), and Unleashed (0+1). I’m finishing my Supernova (22+2), Armor Wars (33+6), Avengers (2/8), Justice League (7/8), and Mutations & Monsters (9/9) sets and filling in my Ultimates (47+10), Mutant Mayhem (41+11), Legacy (57+13), Fantastic Forces (60+8), Collateral Damage (63+6), Sinister (46+6), and Origin (68+9).

I still need the Galactus from 2004 and 2007, the Dark Phoenix and Jean Grey Phoenix, the Spectre from 2006, any of the Fin Fan Fooms from 2007 as well as the Starro. There is a 'convention figure' month coming up in February that I will see if can fill some gaps. I already have some more ebay joy enroute.

boxes full of figures

Another box of love from ebay showed up yesterday. I have gotten two boxes with close to 200 cheap Heroclix figures to fill in some of my many gaps in my sets. I've brought a few more sets closer but haven't completed any more yet.
Ebay is presently dangerous. Our dollar topped out recently at $1.10 US and is now back to par. I've won a few items I've tried off and on for over the last few years to buy. Shipping is still a bit but I'm hoping they will survive the trip. With Christmas coming, I'm trying to pace my purchases.

I had to take the Windstar in for repair. They were supposed to have fixed the rusty rocker panel when we bought it but it looks like it had only been painted over. With the rust module and the repair, it shouldn't have visibly rusted through again in just a month. So that's back in getting fixed.

life

We were at my cousin’s wedding out past Gimli on Saturday. It went well and the kids had fun. The wedding was at 1 and the dinner wasn’t until 6:30 so we were going to pop over to Gimli to kill some time betwixt. We found out that they had planned family photos and my mom brought some social food so we ended up going to my uncle’s place in between and then popped into a craft place in Arborg that was having a sale.

The hall in Riverton was lovely and the food was really quite good. There were no bad speeches and they gave out matches and candles. I could see the gleam in my son’s eye as he was almost lighting the little candle from the centerpiece candle.

My daughter was dancing the whole night and I got to expose both kids to the Butterfly – this is a dance when three people link up and dance along slowly and occasionally break into a flurry where the two people on the wings take turns spinning the center person between them. I learned early on as a child to be sure to be on the wing and not in the center.


Sunday, we spent a great deal of time raking up the crabapples and then mowing the lawn. Then we did groceries and I popped over to my folks to see if they needed help moving furniture as they are redoing their kitchen floor but my brother had already finished by the time I got there.
Tonight we’re going to pop out to a few places to look for a newer car.

I got a few small packages from ebay last week – a few more Heroclix figs from some of the older sets. I painted some more fairies and worked on the planes. I drilled the bases to hold the magentic pickups and worked on the smoke and flame trails.

the God of War

I played another round of the Coming of Galactus last night. I was all set to sub in the Terrax figure from the previous set – until I opened my boosters. I got both the Living Laser and Ares. LL is reputedly a beast in this format and, not only is Ares one of the super-rares, Ares is a monster. He’s an army unto himself – but at 275 points (in a 300 point battle) he would have to be.

It was a bit of a number crunch, but I decided to go with the Ares, a pog, and the Inferno card. I easily won the first game. I won the second game through some good maneuvering and lucky rolls. The last game was down to the bitter end. It started with Ares and pog in the Xavier’s mansion ruins against Gargoyle, Giant-Man, and Iron Man. It ended up being Iron Man and Ares slugging it out and I finally defeated him on my last click. I had lost the pog in all three battles – but he had only been there for zone control and as a distraction.

When the numbers came in, there was one other person with threes wins, but I easily won on points due to keeping Ares alive. That means that I will get a bye in the final battle for Galactus and a better shot at actually pulling off a win. It’s good to see that I’m picking this back up pretty quickly. Since the big guy goes for over $200 on ebay, this would be the only way for me to get one. Well, there is always a 1 in 500 chance of pulling a ticket for one in a booster but, even with 20+ people at the final, that’s still about a 1 in 12 chance for me.

Here’s hoping.

Order of Phoenix

We saw the movie last night. It was okay - certainly no Transformers. It hit most of the points from the book (from what I remember) and it was neat seeing all the actors grow but, theatrically, it didn't grip me as the early ones did. The wife liked it a lot, so it might just be me. It was a lot of ground to cover and did seem to hold together but, to me, the final battle wasn't as much of a spectacle as it could have been.
Plus, the death didn't have much of an effect on me - which was how I reacted to the death in the book when it came out. As I normally react when a "major character" in a series, who isn't one of the main characters and has only come in part way through. They do this in TV all the time - A major character dies! Could it be the new character that was just added this season? Usually, it is.

I finally got my big box of heroclix figs from ebay. I picked up a bunch on sale - mostly from Sinister and Supernova. My Sinister list is now 57+12, my Supernova 26+5, and my Origin is 77+12. I haven't picked up any Avengers yet or even the Freakshow set from Horrorclix.
I did pick up the Legion of Super Heroes starter on sale at Comics America (used to be Styx Comics) as well as the Warhammer General's Companion. I'm reading through the rules now in preparation for the Galactus Tourneys, starting on Saturday. I haven't really played Heroclix in about 3 years, so we'll see how I hold up.

The LSH box set had a blank dial figure - Shrinking Violet. These are Heroclix bases without a figure on them. I always thought they were a cool idea. They have done Ant-Man, Yellow Jacket, Atom, Invisible Woman, and now Shrinking Violet. I recently got the Invisible Woman by mail so I'm still current.

David

glass display cabinet

I crossed off another summer chore this weekend. I was able to move the large glass display unit from Michelle's garage to Crystal's garage. I had picked it up many years ago when I still had a mail-order games business with the hopes of using it when we opened up a retail store. With that being repeatedly pushed back, we had looked for someone else who had achieved a storefront who might want it. Now it is over at Crystal's for their fall garage sale. If it goes to a good home, I'll be glad.



I also got some more magnetic pickups at Dollarama - for a dollar. They have smaller heads and have longer sections but fewer of them. We'll see which works better. Or if I can move the head over to the other pickups. I forgot to look for alligator clamps though.



I had two post office tags - which I was able to cash in for two packages from ebay. I got an old Yaquinto album game called Adventurer. They had published a bunch of old boardgames/wargames that had always been on my want list. The only I did have was the Attack of the Mutants small pack. That was great fun - I really need to dig it out again.


The other package had the Iona shoe polisher. It actually works still but what I want it for is to make a PKE detectr from Ghostbusters. I'll either modify it or use it for measurements to make some.



I'm still waiting on a big box of Heroclix figures from early June. When it comes in, I'll update my status list.



David

visual proof

These pictures show what the load looked like. This is the before picture showing the old picnic table in brown and the pool supports in white. You can also see the composter on the right. It's actually quite big. The wood under the table is the old composter we used to have. It was just 4 pieces of plywood nailed together at the corners.

The after shot gives a better shot of how much we took away. Our yard actually goes as far back as the wood fence - the chain link fence separates the side with the pool from the other side of the yard. The blue roll in the upper right corner is the old pool cover. The new pool is round so it doesn't quite reach that far back.

On Friday, I finally got the box of Heroclix that I had bought back in April on ebay. Over 20 figures, bringing my Icons and Indy sets to very close.

At BJ Supertoys, they have the Teen Titans CCG boosters on sale for $0.25 each. Naturally, we have picked up quite a few of them. Between the kids and I, we have a full set. Now we just have to find a starter set to see how it actually plays.

The other exciting thing that happened on the weekend was that the tie rod in the car broke on the way home. Luckily, it held together enough until we were just backing into our driveway. Dad was able to fix it yesterday. With the fix, the rattling sound from the front end is no longer there. We were looking at getting a newer car this summer but this puts a bit more of an incentive to get it done.

David