Star Command XL Series For The Valkyries?

I decided the other day that I would go back to the Marshall's I mentioned in my earlier post and get the two Lightyear ships that I hadn't bought the first time I saw them there. Then, by chance, I saw that two other Lightyear ships were on sale on Amazon for $3.50. That was even cheaper than what I paid at Marshall's, so I ordered them too. Now, here's what my collection of ships looks like.

They're all numbered. XL-something-something. They are numbered for each of Buzz's flights that he made trying to save the folks of his planet. So, I've got XL-01, XL-02, XL-03, XL-07, XL-12, XL-14, and XL-15. They have numbers on them, and you can see the number on several of the ships.

There's something fun about collecting all these different ships. Up until a week or two ago, I had no idea what each of the ships looked like. Now, I'm compelled to try to get them all if possible. 

My book, A Fire at the Center of a Million Universes, which I wrote last year, has been coming to mind. In the story, there are a group of mercenaries called Valkyries that have spaceships they use to fight off the imperial forces. Up until now, I had the Valkyries using Colonial Vipers as their ships, but now I'm thinking it might be fun to change it up to the Star Command XL series.

The various Valkyries could be like gearheads here on earth, fighting with each other over their preferences for various models, customizing their ship with its own paint job, or possibly even tricking them out with the stabilizers or guns or engines from different models, and so forth.

I have to go through and do a second draft soon, and I think it's a change I'll make on that next pass. Maybe by then, I'll have one of each of the various ships, although I'm thinking that will be unlikely. I haven't checked at the regular stores yet, but I haven't seen even a hint of the ships that I'm missing elsewhere. Ross only ever had the XL-01. Marshall's only had the XL-02, XL-12, XL-14. The others I had to get from Amazon, and even Amazon, the world's largest collection of commercial products, don't have most of the ones that I don't have yet.

I refuse to buy them at full-price though. If they're not at least $5 or less, then I won't bother at all. So, It remains to be seen if there's any possibility of getting them all. It won't really matter if I do or not. If I never got another one, I'd still be happy. I'm going to go in and add weathering and dry-brushing to them all so that they match the other ships on Ankletown Station, and we'll see if we can't do some customizing on them as well. That should be a lot of fun when I get around to doing that. 

I'll see if I can't make Dawn's ship...although we never see her get to fly one in the book. Maybe I could make her best friend Naz's ship as well. There's something really satisfying about making a physical representation of something from a story you invented in your mind.