This week in Star Wars Q&A - Next year - where are the pre-orders? HasLab 375 - is it over?

Read on!

On Monday night, the HasLab Republic Gunship ended with 9,771 backers.  If you look at it now, it's 10,541 with the Coleman Trebor stretch goal unlocked.  Presumably these are late-adds from overseas, non-Pulse markets.  Well, congratulations backers, everybody gets a dino man!  

It was a nail-biter, but the Star Wars The Vintage Collection LAAT/i Gunship barely squeaked out the minimum order quantity in the afternoon and finished at 9,776.  Unless there are more surprise orders to put in there, that means it's the first Star Wars HasLab to fund without meeting a single tier.

The nail-biter continues as Hasbro's Star Wars The Vintage Collection LAAT/i Gunship funding period ends in just over 22 hours.   It's has a pretty good weekend, with a shot of orders Friday morning bumping it up from 4,700 to 5,384.  It just passed another milestone, having passed 6,000 Sunday night.  Right now, it stands at 6,076 and continues slowly ticking up.

Will it fund?

On Friday morning fans were in for a bit of a surprise, as the Republic Gunship jumped up and down, presumably adding non-Hasbro Pulse pre-sales to the grand total.  At press time, it's at 5,384.   It hasn't made the first goal of 8,000 yet, but it's a huge net gain over Thursday, which was just over 4,700.

There has been news.  A sticker sheet has been added to the package, adding some deco options for fleet building.  An "unboxing" video showing off the prototype in a home environment has been added.  

There are about two days and 21-ish hours to go, and it's kind of an unknown how this is going to end up.  It's trending behind other The Vintage Collection items,  slightly ahead of The Black Series Rancor, but behind the funding goal of 8,000. 

And of course, some of us are still waiting for our Cantinas to ship. (Me, I can't wait, I've been digging out all the aliens.) I'll be watching the ticker all weekend, because this is a surprising project that hasn't gone as expected.  (And because the Cantina isn't here yet.)

This one is a bit more of a nail-biter than usual. I know you know, but in case someone didn't, Hasbro's Star Wars The Vintage Collection LAAT/i Gunship is a crowdfund project that ends in about a week. The $449.99 ship currently has 4,122 units old of a floor of 8,000. Will it make it?

Over the weekend, MrStevie18 posted a ton of HasLab Republic Gunship pictures from its showing in Canada. Really! There are a lot! These new angles may show you thinks you missed before, so be sure to give it a look.

You will, of course, need some new figures to go with it.  Lucky for you, Hasbro has done a ton of great Geonosis-adjacent figures that are on the market right now.  I put together a page with some of them so you can check them out and start shopping.   A lot of collectors seemed to tune out between 2008 and 2014, and there were loads of ultra-obscure humans with lightsabers designed specifically to go with a Geonosis Arena collection.

The Star Wars The Vintage Collection LAAT/i Gunship is up for pre-order/funding consideration for about 14 more days. It is currently 3,751 / 8,000 units backed, so if you want one?

Hasbro just announced the Star Wars The Vintage Collection LAAT/i Gunship. Due in the Fall of 2026, this heralds the "Return to Geonosis" where you can probably buy new versions of figures that you may already own - but if not, you'll get a crack at new superior versions.

This ship is $449.99 and needs 8,000 sales to fund. You get rockets, and a display stand. It has an incredible new gimmick - swappable nose art. This is way better than stickers that you can remove and replace (that will break down over time.) However, the figure tally is pretty weak with only 2 Clone Pilots in the box by default. Additional stretch goal figures include Coleman Trebor, Agen Kolar, and Saesee Tiin - all of which have two or more action figure releases in various 3 3/4-inch collections. There are no debuts here - everything exists in another format, many of which were in the more kid-driven eras.

Does that headline make any sense? I hope so. While looking at Thingiverse, I saw a listing for a free file so you can print a Star Wars Ghost - Phantom 1 adapter. When the HasLab project was revealed I asked if there was any way Hasbro could dock the older shuttle from the original cartoon and was told no - apparently, the answer is actually "yes."  It looks like for pennies, we could have had a means to dock the existing ship with our new massive freighters.

Apparently it is just that easy. 

Via the Star Wars Galactic Hunter Figure of the Day Blog: Hera Syndulla (The Ghost, The Vintage Collection). She shares the head and hands with the basic carded figure from Ahsoka, as well as the blaster, but pretty much everything else is new. You can't actually buy this figure outside of eBay right now, but she's pretty good and can be crammed in the Phantom vehicle from that set, just barely. Read on!

Despite a shortened funding period compared to other HasLab projects, the STAR WARS The Vintage Collection Mos Eisley Cantina received enough buyers to get 14,737 playsets produced with two of three stretch goals. Wuher, Brenna Tonnika, and Senni Tonnika will be joined by Greedo and Nabrun Leids - so 3/5 of the figures are characters you may already have in your collection. Barring a surprise reveal from Hasbro, Arleil Schous the wolf man will not be produced at this time with this set.

And with 12 minutes to go, one last update: Nabrun Leids made it! Color me surprised, that's great news.

Another evening update:  With an 1:07 to go, the Cantina needs to sell 600 units in order to hit the Nabrun Leids goal - not impossible if it keeps going at the current rate and a few more large orders are there.

Evening update: With 1:45 and 952 playsets to go to hit Nabrun Leids, it seems unlikely but not impossible to hit the next stretch goal.  If you're waiting, now is the time - they need to sell about 9 per minute to make it.

Hasbro's Cantina HasLab project just hit the first stretch goal with 11 hours remaining, unless they decide to extend the funding period. (There would be no shame in doing this.) This is the first all-new Greedo in this size in over a decade, but long-haul collectors no doubt have several different incarnations at this point including up to three that were perfectly designed to sit at a table.

With 11 hours to go, it's worth noting that the Cantina seems to not sell much faster than 1 unit per minute. With 660 minutes to go, it is unlikely it will hit another milestone today without massive dealer support, but even then if they sell 5 units per minute it will only get us to Nabrun Leids. Nabrun Leids was previously sold at the end of the POTF2 era and recolored in silver in 2007 as a Walmart exclusive - so at least you've got the ability to buy one. Arleil Schous has never been made as a figure and, presumably, never will be if this doesn't go through today.

Sunday update: 9,684 9,934 10,024 and going up by a couple every time I hit reload.  When I post on social it looks like some people weren't aware this project was happening yet - so you might want to post about it if you have the ability to do so and want those stretch goal figures.  It seems to  be selling at a rate of slightly over one per minute as I write this, which is insufficient to hit all the goals without more orders.

Saturday update: 9,246 and counting. Tell your friends.

They said it could be done - and it was! Hasbro's STAR WARS The Vintage Collection Mos Eisley Cantina hit its first funding milestone early Friday morning, and ends Monday evening. That means if you want Greedo (which you probably have), Nabrun Leids (of which you can get either POTF2 or The Saga Collection versions today), or the all-new Arleil Schous, it needs to sell a bunch more units. Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? Only if you and several thousand others (and/or dealers) were waiting to put in an order. You can click here to order one for the next few days, if you are so inclined.

Mostly I'm just surprised the Tonnika sisters are actually getting figures after fans started asking for them regularly in the late 1990s.   That's a long wait!

Over on eBay, sellers are already using HasLab Cantina as a term to sell the related figures - so if you're looking to fill out the bar with the figures you missed, that might help.

As of right now, the STAR WARS The Vintage Collection Mos Eisley Cantina stands at 7,673 backers. It needs to hit 8,000 to happen, and complete stretch goal werewolf power is at 17,000 units sold.

I don't think it's impossible to hit either goal if people back today or early tomorrow.

If this thing hits its goal today or early on Friday, there's a chance of people spreading the word and the dealers, flippers, fans, and collectors of the world will jump on in a hurry because FOMO becomes real once the playset is guaranteed to be made - and people will want those extra figures for the fence-sitters. Not everybody has $400 or $500 right now, but they might have $800 or $1000 in a year.