With less than two weeks until 'Force Friday', the time has come to start seriously planning my collecting strategy for the upcoming inundation of
The Force Awakens merchandise. It'd be impossible to pick up everything - and on a limited budget, planning is key.
Unfortunately Hasbro hasn't yet released
any official details about what we can expect to see on shelves from September 4th onwards. But nothing stays secret for long on the internet - and last week, Hasbro's full catalogue of new Star Wars products was leaked online. Takedown notices have been issued to a number of websites hosting the images, so I won't be posting them here. You can, however, check out a link via
Rebelscum.com. After carefully analysing this catalogue, I've now worked out exactly what'll be on my wishlist.
It's clear that there's going to be a
lot on offer when it comes to
The Force Awakens. Hasbro alone will have 3 3/4" figures, 6"
Black Series figures, 12" figures,
Micro Machines vehicles,
Black Series Titanium Series vehicles, and a range of life-size weapons and masks. Add these to the Lego and Hot Wheels lines, and the options are almost overwhelming.
First, the figures: For some time now,
I've been fearful that the 3 3/4" line would move away from the fantastic super-articulation we've all come to love. Unfortunately, it seems that's finally happening with this new line of figures. I could make the move up to the more collector-oriented 6" line, but I'm simply too invested in the smaller scale figures to do this. And, truth-be-told, after seeing images of the first wave of 3 3/4" figures from TFA,
I was pleasantly surprised. I'll still need to be picky however. The figures come in two lines - "Build-a-Weapon" (where three separate figures each contain parts of a constructible weapon) and "Armor-Up" (where each comes with a piece of snap-on armour). Barring one exception, all of the characters in the AU line are also available in the BaW line - so it's an easy choice to focus on the latter. With all of this in mind, my current wishlist for 3 3/4" figures is as follows:
Constable Zuvio and the Resistance Trooper are currently "maybes". I'll really need to get a better idea of their role in the film before biting the bullet on these, and I've got a sneaking position they're likely to become heavily-discounted peg-warmers in the near future.
The real no-brainer is the return of the Micro Machines line. These vehicles are where it all began for me, and formed the focus of my collection until they were discontinued in the early 2000s. I've always been a completist with this line, so I'm after one instance of each previously unreleased vehicle. After a bit of planning to work out the most cost-effective way of doing this, I've settled on the following:
And that's it. These are the items that I'll be after on Force Friday, and in the weeks that follow. For now, I'll be skipping everything else, as keeping up with these two lines will stretch my collection budget far enough!
