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Power Team Elite


TM2 Dinobot

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It's Christmas season again, and that only means one thing: fruitcakes hard enough to chip your teeth on. No? How about new toys? I don't know about you, but I love discount stores. They're like thrift store, except you don't have to worry about kids having barfed on your stuff before you play with it. And every year retail chain Big Lots goes balls out with their toy section. And I love it. One of my favorites is the Big Lots brand Power Team Elite. I discovered them a few years back, but they only stock them over the Christmas season. I told MiniJeff that I'd keep an eye out for him when they came back ins stock. Surprise!

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PTE is a generic military man line that could be called a GI Joe knockoff. And while their plastic quality and paint apps are far sub-par, I will give them this; they're improving. The first few waves had 11 PoA. These latest ones seem to have improved, with ball jointed neck, sounders and hips, hinged elbows, knees and ankles (!) and swivel biceps, waist, thighs and wrists (!) I know at least the wrists and ankles are knew, and it's a much welcome improvement.

But anyone can have GI Joe KOs. Why would you buy something as expensive but less quality. One word. Accessories. PTE has a crap ton of accessories. Just look at all these sets and th goodies they come with!

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The set I will be focusing on today is the Campsite set. It comes with 1 generic soldier man, 1 rifle, a camp fire, bed roll, cooking sticks, pot, kettle and windbreak. Past sets have included watch towers, shattered walls, barbed wire, barrels, mines, sand bags, more broken walls, tanks, planes, secret HQs, jets, boats and a horse. Yes, a 3 3/4" scale horse.

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The camp set is very nice. The fire is acceptably painted even if the wood and dirt are the same colors. The pot and kettle even manage to have some nice weathering on them. The generic soldier man is generic soldier painted, though I do have to give them props for painting the chin strap very nicely. A lazier person would have just used flesh tone, but mine has 2 different colors, one for the strap and one for the chin pad.

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The bedroll in just a rolled up piece of foam. I'm not even going to open it, as it'll just unroll on me. I would have actually preferred a molded bed roll, but I suppose if you wanted him to actually sleep on it this is fine. Just not my cup of tea.

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The windbreak is actually amazing. It reminds me of those old Lego wind board sails, with the pegs going through the holes. The wooden stakes have this really cool snapping system going on almost exactly like the Transformers C-clip system. I love it. The fires stakes have that going on too.

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So how do these things hold up? Really really well. You need to pick your poison, but it depends on what you want to do with them. The accessories are worth the price of admission alone. But choose your accessories wisely. Some sets come with more soldiers than parts, and the parts they do come with are tools. Which is cool, but I personally would rather have the diorama equipment. PTE is absolutely perfect for a GI Joe fan, it any other 3 3/4" collector. Do they fit 2" Minimates? Yes. Again, some better than others. I'm sure the horse wouldn't work well. But the equipment is always a welcome addition. Not bad for $5

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Up next, is I can find it, the Watch Tower.

I was thinking of submitting that to Michael Crawford. LMK what y'all think.

Edited by TM2 Dinobot
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Any fans of 3 3/4" Marvel or DC figures ever use these "bargain" figures (using a pleasant euphemism here) for true army builders?

You could use a bunch of these guys as SHIELD soldiers (there was a SHIELD figure wearing desert army fatigues with one of the Cap waves).

Any thoughts? Has anyone done it and taken pictures?

Edited by Molybdenum Man
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