Star Wars: The Vintage Collection! It was not a big year for reveals. The biggest was a new edition of Boba Fett's Slave I, a long since sold-out formerly Amazon exclusive, now a shared exclusive. The 2020 edition includes a newly-tooled clear display stand and a new paint job that's better than ever, with cool engine lights on the back! It's also a lot more expensive, but not nearly as pricey as the secondary market rates for the original.

Big vehicles! The surprisingly Snowspeeder with Dak Ralter is the highlight of The Black Series 6-inch collection this year - and there's a lot of good stuff. After 2 waves of The Empire Strikes Back reissues and improvements on 40th anniversary cards, a Probot, the baby The Child, and some other odds and ends, a $120 vehicle-with-new-character-figure seemed impossible. Yet, here it is.

Star Wars Mission Fleet! Rising plastic costs have been a strike against good toy vehicles since the 1980s, with Hasbro having to find clever or different ways to make smaller or different ships for your figures. In 2020, the next attempt is Mission Fleet - a series-spanning line with original trilogy, prequel, and TV-based ships. There don't seem to be any Disney-era movie items in here, it's just Lucasfilm-era stuff and The Mandalorian. It's neat.

Is it Man... or The Mandalorian? Neither - The Child has taken over Star Wars! Collectible figures, action figures, a board game, plushes, 2 kinds of electronic doll things, and more are on deck this year as is The Darksaber. Other character announcements were sadly in short supply, but at least it looks like the future of Star Wars is, indeed, the children.

The Bounty Collection (previously/also Baby Bounties) collectible figures will be sold in 2-packs and individually - packaging hunters, take note. If you like variants this is for you.

Hoth Ice Planet Adventure Game! Walmart is reissuing Kenner's old Boba Fett, Yoda, Bespin Luke, Hoth Leia, Hoth Han, and Lando Calrissian figures - and pre-sales of some are already sold out. And many of us older fans already own those figures, which are getting more randomized pre-applied "wear" on the card art. So you might be interested in this board game.

Star Wars Battle Bobblers! Like clockwork, Hasbro has new figure concepts that are expressions of characters you know that you like, but not in the format you buy. The big-eyed Battle Bobblers look not unlike the creations of Jim Davis - Garfield and Orson might see these troopers, droids, and aliens as kin.

Galaxy of Adventures! The surprisingly well-made, nicely articulated, and fairly priced line of 5-inch action figures continues alongside the reality of stores phasing the segment out and there being some question as to where you might find it. Hasbro's post-The Rise of Skywalker game is pretty good, focusing on the top-tier characters of today, the classics, and no real cohesion so the toys can pal around terribly well.

If you go to a good site, they'll no doubt put together great galleries with insightful, useful commentary - but since I was unable to squeeze in most of the areas where the good collector stuff was, we don't have pictures of everything.  I'm working on galleries now of some nifty new toys and we also have a text dump of my tweets from the Hasbro Media Day presentation.

Highlights: Walmart has retro Kenner for The Empire Strikes Back, pretty much a lot of it all leaked early, The Vintage Collection showed 2 figures (one reissue, one resculpt), and while there's a lot of interesting product - in every definition of the word - long-time collectors are unlikely to be feeling that this is Their year, even if it's an diverse batch of stuff. 

While there are a lot of product announcements coming up this weekend, only one piece of news really matters.  

And it's a press release. 

Hasbro confirms:   Hasbro and Disney Extend Strategic Merchandising Relationship for Marvel and Star Wars Franchises.   While no date for its end appears in the press release, it does say "The Star Wars license agreement includes the rights to toys and games based on entertainment like Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian, incorporating fan favorite characters such as The Child from The Mandalorian, affectionately known as Baby Yoda. The agreements are multi-year agreements."

The Pop-O-Matic die - a classic used in Trouble and Aggrivation, to name a few games - is back with the baby.  The baby will own us al.  Can you keep him out of trouble? No.  But it can be a lot of fun to try.  He'll just eat your pets and then pass out after trying to Force-push the dog out of the house.  Hasbro's corporate-approved news mailing says:

In "toys I never thought we'd see" news, here's Star Wars The Mandalorian Darksaber Electronic Lightsaber toy.  It appears in all the very best modern-era television projects and has been owned by several characters - most of which are pretty cool.   Hasbro's copy block says:

Due around Decemberish is this Animatronic Star Wars The Mandalorian The Child Interactive Plush.  Your mom will call it "Baby Yoda Furby."  It wiggles its ears, blinks, and coos - I also to these things but nobody is lavishing any praise on me.  This toy should be about $60 when it hits online and retail stores in Q4, and you should pre-order now if you want one. 

Hasbro says:

Because Hasbro's goal now is to seemingly ensure we get lots of awesome, but incompatible figures spread over several scales let's look at Galaxy of Adventure Ahsoka Tano and a Clone Trooper.  This style of figure is cheap, well-constructed, and fun - but a scattered cast may make it something you don't collect.  (Buy one, they're neat.) Check out the press text and new images.

Oh, you bet it's that time again! Hasbro sent ahead a lot of pictures ahead of their Saturday showcase, starting with Operation: Star Wars The Mandalorian Edition Game.  Here's the Hasbro copy dump with images.

New?  A lot of the late 2019 exclusives were deco changes or accessory changes, and this First Order Elite Snowtrooper (The Black Series 6-Inch)  was a bit of both. Available individually or in a mystery box crate, this clearanced-out Target exclusive took a 2015 First Order Snowtrooper and added a cloak. And some paint.  I wasn't excited about it at full price, but the gift set's hat, pin, and comic made a nice gift set when it was marked down. Read on!