Week 25 Roundup

A bigger haul this week and a finished build but it's been hot and busy at work so I haven't done much else.

What have I been buying this week?

• Mega - Hot Wheels - Aston Martin Vulcan
• 2023, #HMY97, 986 pieces, no figures
• Bought from Amazon EU for £61.42 with free shipping
• Arrived all scuffed and scratched but Amazon wouldn't let me order a replacement. However, I am happy to have the set early at a reasonable price.
• I'm collecting all large scale Hot Wheels sets. I'm just missing Twin Mill set which I've preordered from Amazon, and '77 Pontiac Firebird set which currently isn't available in the UK, Europe or US yet (only Canada, Japan and Australia).

• Mega - Pokemon - Forest Pokemon Center
• 2023, #HNT93, 648 pieces, 4 figures
• Bought from Amazon EU for £53.47 with free shipping
• I'm collecting all motion and 'build with motion' Pokemon sets. I'm just missing one large motion set, Motion Charizard, and one small 'build with motion' set, Pichu's Forest Forage, which I have pre-ordered from Amazon. I haven't preordered the Motion Charizard set yet since the preorder price on Amazon is £189.50! I think I will wait for a price nearer £100 before I order this set.

• Mega Bloks - True Heroes - Missile Force
• 2013, #5F60D57 or #2713, 512 pieces, 3 figures
• True Heroes is a Toys R Us exclusive theme which is probably why there are 2 codes, the longer one being a TRU code and the shorter one being a Mega Bloks code
• Bought partially sealed (box opened but bags sealed) from eBay for £4.99 plus shipping
• I'm happy to buy sets like these for parts when the price is right

• Mega Bloks - Skylanders - Swap Force - Legendary Pack
• 2014, #95446, 46 pieces, 3 figures
• Bought new from Amazon DE reseller for €7,71 plus shipping from Germany
• Disappointed with condition of blisterpack but it does still appear to be sealed
• I'm currently rounding out my Skylanders collection

• Mega Bloks - Call of Duty - SDCC Exclusive, Exclusive Ghosts Figure
• 2014, #99707, 21 pieces, 1 figure
• Bought sealed from eBay for £13 plus shipping
• Not mint condition but decent enough for the price. I haven't seen any other UK listings for this since I starting collecting COD sets.
• I'm collecting most COD sets but especially Ghosts related sets

I also bought 3 Mega Bloks Skylanders sets from an eBay seller in China. They were very well packed but 2 of them were damaged and I'm currently trying to return the whole order. I rejected a small partial refund since the damage was too severe and the listing showed items in excellent condition.

What am I building at the moment?

• Mega Bloks - True Heroes (Toys R Us exclusive theme) - Missile Force
• 2013, #5F60D57 or #2713, 512 pieces, 3 figures
• Contents: 1 instructions, 1 stickers, 10 sealed bags, no loose parts
• I completed the build slowly over 2 hours but didn't apply stickers since I will not be leaving it built
• Black (*F) and dark gray (*KM) pieces are easy to mix up. A similar issue exists when building Tesla Truck but in that set, different dark gray (*AYB) pieces are used.
• Figures don't look too sturdy but are nicely printed. However, you can easily put supplied weapons in their hands.
• Step 16 of jet build tries to squeeze 3 black 1x2 round plates into a space that only fits 2.5 1x2's. Not sure if this is a design mistake or a tolerance issue. Rather than excessively stretch parts, I left out 2 black 1x2 round plates from this step and continued with build.
• Overall, this is a good set for black (*F), brown (*DH) dark gray (*KM), silver (*ACX) and sand (*ANW) pieces
• I will keep the instructions, stickers and obviously the pieces but I won't be keeping the box since I have duplicates

I also have a Pokemon Jungle Voyage build ongoing but didn't make any progress this week.

Final Comments

I will try to finish the Pokemon build next week since I have some very nice sets that I would like to build including Floodgate Firefight which I have already opened in anticipation! :)