1983 HQ

The 1983 HQ.
A picture taken today:


Below here is in what must be 1996. Except for the WHALE and the HQ, all the other vehicles have been traded and sold away. Interesting in that I did not place the L.A.W. in this picture? But one can see my make-do Stargate All-terrain Cruiser taking the place if the AWE striker. On the couch, though, the HQ has a decent sized foot print.




Just typing the title in makes me feel this thing is old...1983, wow! The above picture is from maybe 1994 or 1995, I think. I used a cardboard poster backer underneath and balanced it on the shelf top.

Of my G.I.Joe collection, this is one of my oldest things, an original item that has been in my possession since as long as I can remember!

Back in the day of true play, I used the WHALE hovercraft as an HQ about as much as the HQ itself. The HQ took up a good amount of space, and set up time, at least it seemed like it. The L.A.W. often became a bit of a base at times, too. Of course, with only about a dozen good guys and bad guys, the weapons trays were utilized; still have the code-names on the side on masking tape labels from around 1988-89 or so.

As the force grew, the HQ became a little more crowded. It's never been on a shelf-set-up long, like most all the vehicles I've had, although, I sort of would have liked to. I think having it set up I wanted to have good access to all the playing points, like, I could put it on a big shelf, but, driving a vehicle in wouldn't work. Turning it around, well, then Cobra wouldn't be able to front assault it.

It's really a floor-playing item. Of course, being the older person I am, leaving it on the floor I'm not comfortable with. Not in the open floor of a house with many people. I'm too afraid of it getting stepped on or tripped over.

Plus it is getting old. The jail cell front wall sections have had broken slider tabs for as long as I can remember, and some tabs are showing wear on other sections. I don't think it's a fragile-delicate piece where it's gotta be packed in bubble wrap, but it won't stand up to "rugged play." at least I don't think so.

This base could use a back wall, too, in my opinion. I think I, like many other fans, have used the Mobile Command Center or a '92/'00 HQ, or something similar, as a back wall. A 360* perimeter of action, essentially.

Nowadays, I have a deep enough figure pool where I can really afford to have the HQ manned by its own team. However, as far as stations of action go, the 1983 HQ was really built as an action outpost. With 2 seats at the computer station, and room for a few Joes to stand in that area, that area fills up quick. The main cannon and upper deck fills up fast, too, and the jail only needs a couple guards at most. I like the generator, too, many sabotage missions attempted...

Past that, it's a real come and go base of action. The vehicles can hunker down in the bays and get repaired while being used to fight back! And if no vehicles, all the rifles can be hanging on the walls. I've only really used these because they were there, just to see the rifles hanging there...only to get knocked down when a vehicle is placed in there.

The file card holder bay was more a storage area for weapons, or for hiding all smuggler-style in the event of emergency invasion-assault. The jail bunks were also used as a medical bay, and r-n-r room; hot-racking indeed.

I have this all packed up right now. I would like to have it out, and I did for a short while on a board, but, it just sat there. I would like to set it up on a HUGE board where I can have access all around it and have room for all the various battle stations to be placed in proximity. Of course I would like to have the Terrordrome in my possession in a similar arrangement someday, too.

Edit, new development! Well, more like I wanted to bust this thing out since it was in a box right next to me. It's been packed up since the past February, essentially. I set it up, and snapped some pictures, which I'm not the happiest with. I was thinking I should make a header with my HQ, as my blog is titled, "Icebreaker's HQ." I then thought I should put in some of my "command staff." I may re-think this whole idea.

Big Leatherneck wall painting

Here is a link to a project I did back in the late '90's, it's a wall-sized painting of Leatherneck. In this series of photo scans it shows about 80% of what I did, and overall I only took the project 90% toward completion, mostly since I moved out of the place for the most part.

I would like to do another large scale painting like this. I chose Leatherneck as a "poster Joe" when I did that project, a sort of representative of Joes that most anyone viewing could say, "oh, G.I.Joe." For a potential next project like this, though, I wonder who I would pick? I guess any Joe would do. Perhaps Hawk '86?

Either way, the next project like this will likely not be for quite awhile, so plenty of time to mull it over.

Winter operations

This over at Joe Dios got me kind of pumped up for winter operations style Joes.

While I'm not a big fan of the cold weather Joe stuff, or cold weather period, if ever environment specific figures were out there, arctic guys were it. Unlike, say, desert trooper Dusty, a guy like Frostbite just doesn't fit outside an imaginary frozen land covered in snow. At least to me. It's kinda like diver figure: Deep six, Wet suit, etc., they just don't feel right busting through imaginary forest.

Use as you will, though. My Joes have to take on Cobra Snow Serpents ('85 and '91) and Ice Vipers ('87) on some of the most desolate, frozen areas on the planet.

Sub-Zero is the leader of the dedicated squad of the GIJOE arctic team.
The rest of the squad is pretty much every classic "arctic" Joe that I have:
Blizzard
Cold Front
Snow Job
Snow storm
Windchill
Avalanche
Iceberg
Frostbite

It's a good mix, 4 are really more vehicle drivers, too. Snow Storm is the oddest man out, though, being all contained in that hi-tech snow suit that seems all warm compared to everyone else. Guess who's on patrol the most? Avalanche could have been with the BF2000 group, but really, just is more "suited" to the snowy landscape, in my opinion.

I'm still on the fence about White Out, classic or modern style. Interesting in that I'm a person who wants to see more new characters, yet, I'm just feeling any connection to the new(er) characters that have come out. Some of that is a little due to the "new sculpt" style just not being something I like, but, perhaps it's the characterization, too? Big Brawler almost came on too strong, for instance..., the big bad tempered muscle man. However, Sure Fire is a guy I've kind of gotten use out of, the one with the original head that is. White Out was essentially Snow Job, just like Double Blast was pretty much Roadblock (absolutely no Double Blast here). However, with me being very choosy on which modern figures I buy, I have a very unique figure with this White Out. The figure has no semblance to any figure I have, so I can use that, however, the guy just doesn't stand out to me. Almost too flat-a-figure, could be any schmoe dressed for winter in some ways. Any-who, we'll see if that changes in the future....

I had a pretty good spread of Cobra arctic vehicles at one point. The Ice Sabre, ice Snake, a pair of Wolf's, but they all got trimmed.
I had the first Joe Ice Sabre, too, but it ended up lost in a bad trade overseas, but it didn't really hold my interest on the long-term even on the short term of ownership.
I had the GvC Rockslide, too, but the missile launcher kind of killed my interest on it, I just wanted an original PBB; but even that was feeling antique to me. Even my mighty Blockbuster is gone, which I never felt any arctic connection to, although it was one tough vehicle with a neat action launcher!

I did get the Wolf Hound, more on that on a post at Joesightings. So that's my only cold weather transportation.
I was really thinking of army building the Ice Cutter, but with the tracks being stuck on the action-movement gimmick, well, I just gotta say, "no." Not at full price, anyway, and I didn't want to get a bunch of red troopers I wouldn't like, either. My hopes were high....

I guess in the future, I would hope to see some small snowmobile come out for Cobra, not like the Polar Blast that was out a few years back; never did see that at retail anyway. Something a little more Cobra Ferret-like in simplicity, heck, swap-out the wheels for a ski and tread combo on the axles and it's half-way there for me.
I've been a little interested in the Arctic Blast, too. It seems like a battle vehicle, no frills..., big tires and room for guys to gun from. I think the yellow guns are really my only big turn-down, and the fact I've never seen one in person. As I look at it now, doesn't it seem a little back-end heavy, too? Anyone recommend it? I think it would fit my small-vehicle oriented collection for the cold guys.

more S.K.O. at Generals Joes!

Right here from Generals Joes is some S.K. Omega news, which I am happy to read about. I kept looking at Molten Monkey Int.'s website for more information, but kinda of stopped a little while ago as it didn't ever seem to have anything.
I'd still like to see the Hive base and that helicopter make it through production. I'm not as pumped on the figures, never really have been, mostly since I have more GIJoe figures than I really need as is. Adding another group of figures isn't high on my priority list, nor is more vehicles or base(s).
But, I hope they can get a unique toy line going that succeeds.

It's gotta be hard just getting past the intellectual property lawyers from the big companies.

Toys R Us Express

I was really not impressed with the Toys R Us Express store in Eau Claire. I'm not sure if this is the 1st or 2nd year TRU is going this route, but, I really see no reason to go buy there, or let anyone in the area that I know that the store is even there.

The Target has a much better selection of toys and games just a hop across the street, and the prices are much better. Add in that one could run to Fleet farm or Farm and Fleet for their seasonal Toy Lands for the different stuff that doesn't show up in the usual Target or Walmart stores; and the Toy Land prices were much better.

If you read this series of GIJOE thoughts, you can guess that I was looking for GIJOE stuff. On the cheap, I was actually inspired to look to see where the TRU Express store were going to be locally due to this thread at JBL . At $9.99, I would have cleared the store of the Stingers for sure and probably would have bought more than I really needed.

As it was, only the Ice Dagger, Dragonhawk XH1 , and the RoC Night Raven , were there for vehicles. The prices were set to full-high retail.
There were two HoH Snake eyes guys at a good price, possibly the rest all bought up prior to me getting there.

I hope more will come into the store. I'll check it out later in the month, just to do something, but I'm not impressed with the express, thus far.

Edit: it's about the 20th, so not a lot later from the last time (and first) I was in the store, but as far as 'Joe was concerned, nothing has changed. The only thing that was different was no Hall of Heroes Snake eyes figures to be seen. Unless they are overstocked on Daggers, Dragonhawks, and Ravens (I'm not surprised as Target seemed to be sitting on a pile of them, too, even at $14-something clearance.). I most likely will avoid that mall area for quite a while, too, as even yesterday was quite a zoo.

Departments

I did a small (for fun) project a while back where my end goal was to put figures into departments, or their own groups of like figures. As a team, there are a lot of GIJoe figures. I wanted to see if I could really break down all these specialists into more limited environments, mostly to make it easy to get a bunch of figures set up at once that made sense together. The Arctic team was the easier to pick out. Most of this I posted at JOESIGHTINGS with PICs, so take a look there for the bulk of this little project.


I think I had the most fun with the vehicle teams. At one point in my collection, vehicles outnumbered figures, as such vehicle driver figures became a collecting goal. As I scaled way back on vehicles, I felt empty. There was less vehicles, but more drivers left that needed something to do. So, the MOTOR POOL sort of started to take on its own team aspect for me after I started trying to over-categorize and assign figures.

I guess in the very same vehicle department, I ended up with a sort of artillery team that in some ways could be its own department, but somehow they need to get where they need to go (towed). The Mountain Howitzer helped keep Long Range and Thunder employed, as did the MMS for Fast Draw. Some figures, while back in the day would have gone anywhere and everywhere,...nowadays, they just seem more mission oriented. Like a diver or pilot; a costume that would seem out of place with a bunch of soldiers in BDU's.

The Motor Pool almost gets another "division" between armor and speed. The Scouts are the Awe Striker light assault and recon guys. I would like to add several RAMs along side the AWE's. I've been on the fence as to whether or not to have a VAMP with them, 4WD being nice, but, perhaps too slow?

Either way, the armor catches up pretty fast in the way of the Night Rhino, the Mean Dog, and the Equalizer.

Major Storm takes the command of this vehicle group. Much like HAWK, here's a guy that's out in the field, and being well versed in all ground tactics brings that experience to help this small group overcome huge battles with limited resources.