Producer: ArtFX (Kotobukiya)
Date Purchased: May 2017                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Price purchased: $70CAD 
Story:  I’ve always been a huge Star Wars fans.  Back in the 80’s when the original films were out, my father would buy me all sorts of the figures.  With the recent releases, I’ve influenced my kids to love the franchise as well.  As they’ve gotten into it, I would by the smaller figures, new releases and lego sets.  Whether it be 3.5inch figures, cheap dolls, lego men, anything, I always wanted to build my own Storm Trooper army (this would be a dream).  Anyways, one day I was killing some time at the Disney store, I cam across these Disney Elite Series, Diecast Strorm Troopers on sale.  They’re 6inch (1/10 scale) made of metal so they were quite heavy.  The retail is about $35CAD a figure which isn’t cheap. They were on clearance for $10 each so I bought all I could find at the store (six of them).  Since these were Storm Troopers from the Rogue One release, they looked like the originals which was cool for me (I wasn’t feeling the Episode 7 First Order Troopers).  The figures weren’t the most detailed and didn’t have much articulation, but out of the package, they looked fantastic.  The weight was also very impressive for these diecast figures.

Funny story was that I told my Dad and asked him to look out for more.  He always helps me when it comes to trying to find deals.  A few days later, he gave me a call and said he found a big batch.  The best news was that they were now $7 each.  Since I had six, I asked him to buy me another 12.  Here’s what he got:

He tried, but these were the First Order Troopers I wasn’t feeling.  They’re still really cool and you can’t lose at that price (unless you’re my wife who doesn’t understand why we keep accumulating this junk.  A few days later I was able to find more of the originals and picked up another four.  So I think I now have 12 First Order Troopers and 10 Storm Troopers.

Well, after building a mini army, I needed to find a Vader (my favorite character of all time).  The Disney diecast one was harder to find and not that impressive.  After doing some digging, I found a similar 1/10 scale one made by ArtFX out of Japan.  It got rave reviews.  Note, it wasn’t diecast, had virtually no articulation, but it looked nice.  Prices ranged quite a bit online with $70 being on the low end.  I was okay to spend it but a bit worried not being able to see one in person – so I passed.  One random day, I was killing some time, waiting for the car to get fixed and I wandered into a small local comic shop I’ve never been to. They had one and it looked great.  The price was fair so I picked it up and here it is!