So I finally sat down and recorded my Star Wars shopping haul video from Armageddon Expo Auckland! This year, Armageddon celebrated its 100th event with a special winter edition in my hometown of Auckland. We attended all three days, and even with the occasional rain, we had an awesome time!

We were delighted at the range of booths and Star Wars items to buy this year, and we sure picked up a bit ourselves. I’m always on the look for Star Wars collectibles to pick up at our local conventions, and I found quite a few pieces that I just had to buy.

Check out my haul video below –

First up, Funko Pop! Vinyls – because what Armageddon would be complete without checking out the range of Funko collectibles? We made use of a multi-buy promotion at the Card Merchant booth to grab General Grievous and Boba Fett to fill some gaps in our collection – and I also found the chase Bo-Katan Kryze figure! I have wanted her for ages, I can’t believe I found her!

One of my first booths to visit at Armageddon Expo was Cobalt Heights – a local stockist of Loungefly. I’ve had my eye on this Loungefly x Star Wars wallet for a while, but I wanted to see the pattern placement in person, to make sure that Princess Leia was on the front. Sure enough, I finally found one I liked, so of course I had to get it! I already have the matching tote bag (a wonderful gift from my family), so now I have the set.

In my follow up visit to the Cobalt Heights booth (you know, to see if I missed any Loungefly Star Wars items on my first stop), I remembered I hadn’t looked through their pin section – and found this! A Loungefly x Star Wars 4-piece enamel pin set featuring Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Chewbacca, as seen in A New Hope. I had seen this pin set online a while ago, but it had sold out before I could grab it, so I made sure to get it this time. Aren’t they so cute?

Alongside the Loungefly pin set, I spotted this fan-made Rebel/Imperial logo pin, made by Frantasy Island. It has a wonderful dark grey glittery swirl, and I just love the angled split design.

Next up, Oasis Scents. I’ve been a fan of their geek inspired candles and soaps for ages (I already own several items from their awesome range) so I always make sure to check out their booth early. For this event they had an Ahsoka Tano inspired candle! It smells divine, with a beautiful combination of fig and melon – so of course I had to grab one.

I spotted these beautiful embroidered keyrings in the Artist Alley, from ZubKitty Creates. I saw the Princess Leia design straight away, and then noticed the Ahsoka Tano keychain beside it, so I grabbed both. I think I’ll use these as bag charms – they’re too pretty to use as keychains!

Browsing the wide array of fandom inspired jewelry at the Lola & Alice booth, I found this Princess Leia earring set. I’ve always loved this classic promotional image of Princess Leia onboard her ship the Tantive IV from A New Hope, so it really caught my eye. Princess Leia and jewelry is a combination I can never resist!

The Lola & Alice booth also had a section next to it with a huge array of pins – my family and I spent ages going through all the geek themed sections and picked out a few of our favourite designs. These are the three pins I choose – May The Force Be With You, Millennium Falcon, and Princess Leia Rebel. Perfect to add to a jacket for a little touch of Star Wars flair.

So this next was a completely random find – a licensed Star Wars sewing measuring tape! I spotted this cute little find at a booth that sold geek fabric cushion covers etc, and just loved it. I’ve never seen it before – and it even features Han Solo and Princess Leia! I’m going to keep it as a collectible to display in my little sewing area where I work on my Star Wars costumes.

Check out this cute little gift from my daughter – Star Wars ‘Clan Of Two’ inspired washi tape! She spotted this in the Artist Alley, and saw it featured Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan, so she knew I would love it. She also bought me two Star Wars stickers from a nearby artist booth – Princess Leia and BB-8, lovely little gifts. The perfect final addition to my Princess Leia themed haul this year.

So there you have it, my Star Wars shopping haul from Armageddon Expo Auckland June 2022. I was really delighted at the great range of booths this year, with some really fun finds – I picked up seven Princess Leia items, I think that’s my new record for Armageddon! From Loungefly, to pins, earrings, a candle and more, I had so much fun shopping at this convention, and I can’t wait for the next event.

May the Force be with you!

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To celebrate the animated series Star Wars Rebels, fans have designated today, 5th March, as #RebelsRemembered Day, in honor of the day the last episode aired in 2018. To celebrate #RebelsRemembered I’m taking a look at the Star Wars Rebels content in a game I play daily – Star Wars Card Trader by Topps.

Star Wars Card Trader (SWCT) is an app game where you can collect Star Wars digital cards, with the aim of trying to complete sets by trading with other players. As as long time SWCT player (since the game launched in early 2015), I have collected a fair amount of Star Wars Rebels themed cards. It it would take too long to share all my Rebels cards, so I’ll try to narrow it down to some of my favourites.

An older set, but my of my all-time favourites – I also have the black and white version set too, but the colour ‘swoosh’ backgrounds really make this version fun and bright.

One particular set that always stands out in my collection is the Artist Series by Dave Filoni – they feature Ahsoka Tano and Darth Vader with a striking red and black colour scheme .

And now for some fun random picks from my collection –

There so many great Rebels card sets that I either don’t have time/space to feature here, or I didn’t manage to collect myself. Alas, sometimes the pack odds just don’t work for you. One recent set that I did managed to collect and complete was ‘Inquisitorious’, which predominantly featured the clashes of the Inquisitors against the Rebels. A fantastic but too big to include here as well. And one that I am actively working on completing is the new ‘Fractured’ set featuring Rebels characters – the cards have a neat ‘fracture’ animation to the borders!

SWCT is a game I play daily – it’s free to play and available for both iOS and Android, so definitely check it out if you’re looking for some Star Wars action on your mobile device!

We’ll be celebrating #RebelsRemembered all day with more Rebels from our Star Wars hobbies and collections – check out other posts here

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I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic lately, and recently did a big sort through of my childhood Lego – I even rebuilt one of my favourite sets. If there’s something I’ve learnt about Lego, is that playing with it makes you want to buy more of it. So, adding this new Lego Star Wars set to my collection should come as no surprise. Introducing Lego Star Wars set #75283 Armored Assault Tank.

This set represents officially dipping my toe back into collecting Star Wars Lego sets. I originally had a lot of the sets from the prequel era, but sold them all to focus on my action figure collection. Nowadays I tend to let my passions direct my collecting, rather than trying to stick to a specific format, so I’m enjoying collecting a wide range of Star Wars items – whatever sparks joy. So, that means that Lego is back on the shopping list! Will I go back and reacquire the sets I sold? Maybe, maybe not, but for now I’m happy to pick up a set or two that feature some of my favourite characters and vehicles – like this set with Ahsoka!

The Lego Star Wars Armored Assault Tank #75283 includes a AAT vehicle, two mini-figures (Ahsoka Tano and Clone Trooper), and two battle droid figures (total count = 286 Pieces).

• You can buy this LEGO set on Amazon (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/3ucgbgl

I had so much fun building this set! I first got into Lego Star Wars around the release of Attack Of The Clones in 2002, so many of my original sets featured clone troopers and battle droids – I even had the fabulous Republic Gunship! This set felt like the perfect way to get back into Lego Star Wars – prequel era, it includes a clone trooper mini-figure, two battle droids, and as an added bonus, a great Ahsoka Tano mini-figure too!

This set is inspired by season 7 of The Clone Wars, so it features Ahsoka Tano in her blue and silver outfit, with blue lightsabers. That was such an epic season, so I’m glad to see some great Lego sets for it. The instructions were easy to follow, and it didn’t take too long to build. I don’t have a specific spot to display Lego in our collection yet, so this will probably go alongside some of my other Ahsoka Tano collectibles for now.

I’m already eyeing up a few other neat Lego Star Wars sets, they are creating some amazing designs these days!

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Boba Fett has arrived in Disney Magic Kingdoms! The latest game update to the Disney Park app game is themed on season 2 of the popular Disney + series The Mandalorian. As a longtime Disney Magic Kingdoms player and Star Wars fan, I was so excited to see more of my favourite characters added to the game!

The game already has characters and content from The Mandalorian. A prior event featured characters from season 1 – The Mandalorian, The Child, Kuiil, Cara Dune, and Greef Karga. This new expansion includes three prominent characters from season 2 – Ahsoka Tano, Fennec Shand, and of course Boba Fett.

• Check out the update details from the official game website

Rather than a standard style event with a storyline, these characters are available through a ‘Cascading Critters’ event, where you battle three tiers of creatures to earn milestone prizes including Fennec Shand and Boba Fett, while Ahsoka Tano is the ‘premium’ character, available via in-game currency or direct app store purchase. The event runs for 9 days, and requires a fair amount of game time to complete – as it takes time to manage the three tiers of activities, each earning tokens for the tier above, which ultimately lets you unlock Boba Fett as the final grand prize. There are also leaderboards for each tier, where your progress is ranked against other players for the chance to earn additional prizes.

I purchased Ahsoka Tano – as a favourite character of mine, I had to have her in my park. She helps a lot with completing the event on time, and I really didn’t want to miss out on the final prize. I have all of the Star Wars characters and attractions in the game (including the rare Marauder Shuttle attraction), so I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss out on her or Boba Fett for my collection.

The first tier requires a simple tapper – 5 blurrgs appear in the park every two hours, and tapping/collecting 50 of these grants the milestone reward of Fennec Shand. She is an awesome new Star Wars character – she first appeared in season 1 of The Mandalorian, then the animated series The Bad Batch, and will be a central character in the upcoming series The Book Of Boba Fett.

Collecting tokens from the first tier blurrg tapper event, players can work on the second tier – ice spiders. This is where Fennec Shand is really useful, working alongside Kuiil and C-3PO in this phase. Milestone rewards for ‘thawing’ 90 ice spiders for this tier include x2 Star Wars legendary chests, which may contain Star Wars characters, attractions, and concession stands (if you have all the existing sequel trilogy and Mandalorian characters/attractions, then these chests only contain concession stands).

Tokens earnt from tier 2 are then used to fight the 3rd and final tier creature – Reptavians. The milestone reward for wrangling 50 reptavians is Boba Fett himself. This is where Ahsoka Tano is very helpful, used alongside C-3PO and the Mandalorian. These flying creatures are quite large within the game, certainly one of the biggest ‘temporary character and/or tapper’ additions I’ve seen (along with the Heffalump Balloons).

As this event is themed on season 2 of The Mandalorian, Boba Fett wears his outfit from that series – but as this game has a system for different outfits/costumes, I would love to see a classic original trilogy version (ESB/ROTJ etc) or his new outfit for The Book Of Boba Fett.

I was really happy to be able to complete this event with time to spare. Obviously it takes a bit of time and dedication to achieve the final character in Disney Magic Kingdoms events, so now I can take it easier now with my 3 new Star Wars characters unlocked. The token quests to level up these new characters conflict with the event tasks, so for now I am still collecting the three tiers of creatures in the hopes of earning some leaderboard rewards. When the event ends, I’ll get stuck into leveling these characters up!

May the Force be with you!

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