Well, I just did another huge chop off my collection. And it doesn't feel too bad. Yet. But, I have my new "28-man team" for the Joes sort of lined up for my own play adventures. Even "the enemy" forces took rather distinct cuts on the troop/ army-building side of things, as well as individual Cobras.
All in all, there's a good feeling that comes with having a little bit less. Well, a LOT less in this case. I mean 5 of these Rubbermaid containers were really rather full of just figures not long ago.
Plus, add in another container for file cards. Anytime I had some free time to bust everything out, it was darn rough. I spent more time pulling out figures from the individual bags, making sure to keep an eye out for those small accessories that might slip out of a bag. And then I would pretty much put them all back. It just wasn't very fun. But, it's not all "Joe's" fault, it's a combination of many things, included that reality that is simply call, life. And really, having more empty space has been really nice.
I spent a lot of time over the last couple/ few months really analyzing everything to see if I could pick just a small amount of figures and vehicles that would make things fun again.
After eliminating ALL figures with swivel head articulation, I really found certain aspects with the remaining figures that I really liked. I guess to keep it short, I got what was left down to roughly two 28-man GIJOE teams. Here's just some of what that "analyzing" looked like:
After what must have been dozens of little change ups in my final team makeup, I decided to make those two "28" teams. And with each little change I started to graph out which years figures came from. And from there I would swap figures around, come back another time and swap some more around.
In the results, 1988 was almost always at the top of the list for most chosen.
Followed by 1987, and then very close for third was 1989 and 1991.
I was really surprised that I was often choosing so many 1991 figures, and so few 1990. All-in-all, my analyzing (and some might say waste of time) has led me to pick these guys:
There's only 26 here, yes, but I wanted to leave room to maybe bring in a couple of figures I didn't have previously. And of course, as I start to get this team into action, I'll most likely find there's a figure in there that isn't all I thought it would be.Going forward with me writing random Joe thoughts, you'll most likely find me picking out one of these guys to "showcase." When I do that I'll touch more on why this or that particular figure made the cut, and which figures were close to taking its place.
Of course, all random Joe thoughts will still drop in.