Raving Toy Maniac

Oh my god, it's the BLUE SNAKE-EYES!!!

Oh man, I want that.

I want most of these when/if they hit stateside. That Blue Snake Eyes is pretty sweet imo. I'm guessing around movie time to Dollar General for around $5 or $6.

When I worked for Dollar General (worst job I ever had) they always seemed to do their toy resets in June so thats about the timeframe for the movie release. Good news is there is tons of Dollar Generals to check once they do hit, the bad news is I swore never to set foot in one again lol

There is also a repaint assortment for this set as well:
Snake Eyes: the Blue highlighted version - painted various greens for jungle attire
Storm Shadow: the Ninja Force version - I forget the name but he is white w/orange trim, a driver to some ninja force vehicle.
Duke: Greenshirt version with what looks to be ahead sculpt, that would be great for a Cap custom - he comes in a greyish green repaint with black belts and holsters instead of brown.
Cobra Trooper: All black, with silver logo - blue with red mask and that hideous yellow/tan web gear
Cobra Commander: all black with red logo and silver trim sword, sheath and weapons - same as the cobra officer
Shipwreck: basically his look from Valor v Venom wave - repainted in jungle attire as well.

These pics can generally be found on the same joe sites as the pics of the regular assortment.

These were found in both Louisiana and St. Louis last night. None here yet in Central Illinois.

Here's the full rundown on all of the figures available including images of both waves, courtesy of JoeDeClassified.com:

http://joebattlelines.com/2012/04/25/dollar-store-joes-take-the-fan-comm...

We discuss these on the forthcoming JoeDeClassified Spec Ops podcast. I'm more excited about these than almost EVERYTHING in the movie line. (The Joe Colton/Bruce Willis figure is the exception.)

So what store are these hitting and what's the price point? I'm excited for these but if it's Family Dollar and not Dollar General, I'll likely never find any.

Dollar General & they were found in Oklahoma yesterday.

Sweet. I have a feeling they will be found in Kansas before today is out.

Ugh yep going to check some DGs over the weekend here, most of them get their shipments between Wed and Friday. Damn I was hoping to never have to set foot in one ever again.

I was wrong. There were no trace of them at either of the Independence, KS DG stores. Still a few of the Stalker repaints they got several years ago though.

Found a dollar general in clairmont, like 45 minutes outside of LA...tempted to drive out tomorrow for a DG/Frank & son run, working under the assumption that if they're not at one, they'll be at the other.

I'm in NC and I don't think they are everywhere yet. I checked 2 last night and there were no signs of them.

Found them in Virginia.

Hit 7 stores today in the western part of Kansas City (Lawerence, Bonner Springs, Toganoxie, Olathe, Overland Park) and found a set at the LAST store...go figure. Hated being in those stores as it brought back bad memories of working there (again worst job ever) but still nice to be done with this set. Hopefully the repaints will be mainstream as I want to get the Stormshadow Tin Gin Zu (I think that was his name pretty sure the spelling is off) repaint and be done with them!

Kwinn being pictured with these on some site didnt mean anything right? He still doesn't have a definite release at this point?

Hit 1 store yesterday & came up empty handed. I'm going to give two more stores a shot today. Fingers crossed.

Hit eight different stores here in Wichita KS on Friday and only one store had a single set. Still walking out of the store having paid just over $36 for six figures didn't feel too bad. All sorts of rumors are flying around the different Joe sites regarding these figures though. Some are saying only high traffic store will get these and others are saying if they still have a lot of the little Joe mini figures from the first movie then the store won't get these. I just say relax. These figures are just now starting to show up and if it's anything like the last time "dollar stores" got Joes we could be seeing these for some time to come, but that's my own opinion.

Correct.

Found them today in NC. One flimsy cardboard box had one of each figure. The store is not a high volume store imo. They still had the OLD pre-25th Joes on the pegs too.

Be patient.

Hit up 10 Dollar Generals in SW Missouri. I found some picked over at one store and then a full set at another, but the other 8 were bupkis. Found tons of the 2008 Joes.

I was so excited to find 'em that I bumped my Monday review back and posted them instead: It'sAllTrue.Net

Stopped @ 2 more yesterday & nada. I shall stop again next week.

No Kwinn is still in limbo at this point. Frustrating really...

Still NOTHING in Central Illinois. I've hit 6 stores in the past few days and ZIPPO!

Found them in South Texas. Only picked up Duke and Shipwreck.

Found a Shipwreck and Duke at one of the 11 stores I visited today(Yes, it's a small area, heavily clustered.)
I guess with gas I came out just ahead of having purchased them online and never leaving the house...

I just traded a Renegades Storm Shadow for an additional Cobra Commander, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes so I could be done with having to find more of these. If I get lucky and come across a few troops, I'll grab them, but the odor of my local DG nauseates me, so I am hoping to avoid having to visit these stores for awhile.

For those who have not yet experienced a DG, imagine an odor that combines mold and mustard. The store itself is set up like an old supermarket, carrying modern items, marketed for discount sales.

99% of the employees I have spoken to have been annoyed by my requests in obtaining the product and have flat out refused to bother scanning the upc, leading me to the 6' section of toy shelf space despite the fact they have just watched me scour every aisle, shelf and riser throughout the store.

Several have actually made it a point to argue with me stating "We don't get those" despite the fact they have older o-ring figures and these are a new release, that they would not have seen yet anyway.

I don't like buying overseas or from scalpers, but this experience is a rarity in that it is worth it to do so.

Sadly, DG is one of the largest retailers in America.

Nice review Noisy, though my opinion is much different than yours. CC is my fav of the wave, followed by SS, SE, the Trooper, Duke and Shipwreck. Shippy is the one I'm least excited about as he never really held a spot in my heart, although the figure does look great.

I wish they would make a Sniper version of the Trooper without the facemask.

In any event, I love this wave, the review was great and it's cool to see what other collectors like/dislike about this classic line.

This Joe DG Fiasco would be like Meijers having an Exclusive Minimate Series because depending on DG for help with my collection with be a total nightmare.

I am trying to help Scotty97 track these down and talking with DG Employees is sheer torture. I have also read reports about people buying just a couple of figures when there was a full set on the pegs. This is one of those times when Joe Fans need to pull together and help each other or atleast stash the leftovers and communicate with each other on who needs who.

Just doing a 360 in the "Toy Dept" I saw Dragonheart Figures and Furbies, so good luck to everyone looking for these.

Scotty, I post as "Steel" on HT forums..if I do actually find extras I will drop you a line.

Just scored a set for myself at the local DG store. They had to have gone out this morning. On this one thing, living in a small town paid off. And the pricing was screwed up so I got them for the $3.50 each that the old ones were priced at. Never thought DG would actually have figures I appreciated again after the JLU stuff long ago.

Trust me Dollar General is even WORSE to work for. I was just a part timer and was expected to do so much for such crappy pay. I got screwed over many times by the idiotic District manager from moving me to a store that I didnt want to go to due to my old one flooding to not letting me transfer back to it when it reopened and even made up a story that if I wanted to transfer to a store closer to where I live I would have to reapply at that store and do another interview and may or maynot get hired. Hell I was already driving 35 mins to work.. I was supposed to be a truck unloader/stocker but would be stuck on 8 hr shifts doing truck AND register and well it never dies off in there so i would always get chewed out for not finishing stocking. They just dont have a clue.

Anyways to keep this On topic....
As for ordering, its a weird system. The manager CAN put in an order but ONLY if the qty is 0. So being told they cant they are indeed being lazy. However they do their on hand counts on Saturday and are supposed to only scan what they dont have in each section so even if they dont have it they will be eventually getting them in. I had a few HW collectors come through that I told the manager to order for them as we didnt have them for awhile and they did. About 2 weeks later we started carrying HWs again. Again its really a weird system. I had seen a time where someone wanted 20 of a special frame and about a week later 20 came in so if you talk with the manager and say you want 6 cases of the Gi Joe figures they CAN order that many but also the werehouse may be out of stock too

That's awesome Brian, thank you!

So far I've only found a partial case at one store out of 6 that I've checked so I managed to score Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, and Cobra Commander. However, that Shipwreck MUST be mine! (Duke will work as an update to that horrid Grunt figure released through TRU years ago.)

Still for the price point I'm a bit sad that these are relegated to the dollar stores as they're superior to most of the Retaliation line in every way.

The hunt continues...

Noisy, where in the stompin' grounds did you find the boys?

Thanks,

K