3B's Toy Hive

I thought all my Christmas shopping was done, but last Sunday my girlfriend
told me we still needed a couple of more items for my daughter. So I drove over to the Toys R Us near my job during my lunch break (approx. 10:30am) and was happy to find the store mostly empty (of shoppers, that is). I picked up a couple of Hello Kitty items for my little one, then took a stroll over to the action figure aisle where I found...


Week of Dec. 21st
1. AJ Lee WWE Basic
2. Sin Cara WWE Elite Collection
3. Brodus Clay WWE Elite Collection
4. The Bat MatchBox Sky Busters
5. Big Show (camo) WWE Elite Collection
6. Steel Core WarBot (FansProject)

... the latest WWE Basic series with AJ! I've seen this wave at this store over the past couple of weeks, but AJ is always missing. Not on that day. There was only one and I grabbed it. They also restocked Elite 18 and I decided to grab Sin Cara (in awesome white & gold attire!) and the "Funkasaurus", Brodus Clay! I wasn't very excited to add BC to my collection, but after seeing the figure in person, it kinda grew on me. He's actually a cool figure, but should have come with elbow pads.

On that visit I also found something I wouldn't have even been looking for if not for Toyriffic's post last week. It's the Bat vehicle from The Dark Knight Rises, but this one is part of the MatchBox "Sky Busters" line and unlike the Hot Wheels version, looks much closer to a 1:50 scale. This will be the one I pose with my HW Batmobiles whenever they go back on display. I don't know what that means for the smaller one, yet.

I've been trolling eBay over the past few weeks for cheap WWE Basic figures I can harvest parts from, mainly elbow and knee pads for the current Elites missing them. Anyway, during a search I found a nicely priced TRU-exclusive Elite Big Show in his camo attire (minus the BAF piece) and decided to pick him up. I don't like the fact Mattel reused the short boots instead of sculpting new lower legs with the tall boots (the same problem exists on the E10 Show I picked up a few weeks back), but the camo singlet looks good and is current. Now, I just need an "angry" BS head to complete his look.

The final addition to this week's Honeypot arrived Friday afternoon from FansProject Core and is the second release in FansProject's WarBot series, Steel Core. I was hesitant to buy him when he was first announced earlier this year, but after seeing all the positive reviews, I jumped on the preorder for the second run and man am I glad I did. This is by far the best WarBot figure and he's not even an homage to any official Transformers character. He's 100% original!

I couldn't wait to get this figure in-hand and I was hoping I would in time for consideration in my "Best of 2012" post coming up this week. I'm very happy to say that he's awesome and will certainly make an appearance in the list.

Speaking of which, I can't promise any reviews this week as the holidays will be coming me busy with familial commitments, but I will be posting my annual list covering the year's best toys (that I collect) along with my expectations for 2013. So be on the look out for those in the next few days

That wraps up the (possibly?) final edition of the Honeypot for the year. From the Blogger stats I see it's moderately popular so thanks for reading and I'll make sure to keep it going in 2013!

Until next time, happy huntin'!