New Zealand is now half-way through the most recent country-wide COVID-19 Delta-variant lockdown (Auckland will be in lockdown at this level for another week… other regions will downgrade to level 3 earlier). We’ve been passing the time organising a few collectible displays, but also stock-taking all the food in the house, including baking ingredients. There are enough of the basics to whip up some shortbread, which is exactly what our daughter got busy doing in the kitchen, making use of Star Wars cookie cutters to do so. The results are great!

We hope everyone else is managing to stay safe and cope with the restrictions.

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I’m slowly but surely working towards unlocking the unique event characters in Star Wars Galaxy Of Heroes. As a free-to-play player, I usually can’t get my squads ready in time for the first time launch of legendary-style events, but I work as hard as I can to get geared up for the second round.

This week, the C-3PO event returned, and I was keen to get him this time!

The C-3PO event requires a well-geared ewok team, and I have been working on mine as much as I could, but my Old Republic characters have been taking a lot of my focus. Now that I have Darth Malak, it was time to start concentrating on my ewok team in preparation for C-3PO.

After unlocking Padme’ Amidala a few weeks ago, I was eager to unlock C-3PO the next time his event returned – they have great Galactic Republic synergy, and of course I really want to build a good Padme’-lead squad.

I had been working on gearing up my ewok team, and even had a few zetas saved up just in case – which I used, but it totally paid off! Touched up my mod arrangements, and set off to see how many levels of the event I could beat.

It worked! I easily beat the fifth level, which was enough to unlock C-3PO. I quite like the events that let you unlock the character at five stars, rather that having to beat the full seven levels to unlock. It gives me time to work on mods and gearing until I can get them to seven stars – especially with the ‘new’ gear that characters like Darth Malak and Darth Revan need that take a while to farm.

It’s always exciting unlocking a new character, and even more so for the harder-to-earn toons like C-3PO. SWGOH is one daily habit I can’t break – I’m a Star Wars collector, and that passion extends to digital collecting too.

Look at all those abilities! I really need to start testing him out and learning the best strategies for his unique support/non-attack abilities. And mods, and gear – I do genuinely enjoy the process and strategy.

After beating the fifth level, I was curious to see how much harder the next level . To my surprise, with a little bit of strategy, I beat it with my full ewok squad still standing to win with three stars – on my first try!

I knew I would be pushing my luck, but I gave the seventh level battle a try. Sure enough, my ewoks are not ready to survive that, so I’ll continue to work on their gear. I don’t mind, I genuinely want to have a well-geared ewok squad for guild events and Grand Arena.

I finally have C-3PO alongside my trusty R2-D2 in SWGOH – I can’t wait to gear him up and start trying out new group synergies! I started farming Hermit Yoda the instant he came out, so I know I really enjoy the purely supportive/non-attack characters – C-3PO will be fun!

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This collection of three vintage-style Star Wars character plates were a gift. The melamine plates each feature artwork of a Star Wars character, with a neat ‘old timey’ style. The art is part of a series titled ‘Victorian Wars’, by Terry Fan – you can see the full series here. Our set of plates includes Chewbacca with a monocle, Yoda with a top hat, and C-3PO in a suit.

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My first of the original series Marvel comics happened to be issue number 18 (September 1978). I purchased them weekly thereafter and subsequently went back and got hold of the earlier issues, to now have the full run of 107 issues. I love the cover art of issue 18 (Carmine Infantino & Bob Wiacek), and the fact that it was about the Empire Striking, well before the The Empire Strikes Back movie began its marketing campaign. Internal art was by Carmine Infantino, who was a mainstay of the early Marvel Star Wars comics, filling the pages with action, urgency, and dramatic angles.

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