ARF TROOPER WAXER & BATTLE DROID

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (HASBRO)

“Clone troopers fight battle droids to destroy a Separatist weapons factory. ARF trooper Waxer scouts ahead to gather information about the enemy. He runs into a squad of battle droids, and stops these robotic warriors before they reveal his position.”

Star Wars: The Clone Wars leaned pretty heavily on its cast of clones, a fitting choice given the title.  In order to actually keep the show interesting, they made a point of giving the clones personalities, in contrast to the fairly mindless squadrons of them we’d seen in the films.  While some of them were just one offs, others were popular enough to get a few appearances under their belts.  My personal favorite pair were Boil and Waxer, a bickering odd couple that first appeared in “Innocents of Ryloth” and would make a handful of other appearances as the show progressed.  Today, I’m looking at my boy Waxer’s second figure from Hasbro’s main toyline, which faced him off against a Battle Droid!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

ARF Trooper Waxer and the Battle Droid were released as part of Hasbro’s Clone Wars line as a Target-exclusive two-pack in 2011, hitting alongside a Special Ops Clone Trooper and Geonosian Drone set.  Both pairs were based on the Season 2 episode “Landing at Point Rain.”

ARF TROOPER WAXER

For “Landing at Point Rain,” a good chunk of the clones got new, camouflaged armor.  In the case of Waxer, he actually traded up to the ARF trooper armor, which means he’s got not only a new paint scheme, but also a snazzy new helmet with a rather Biker Scout-inspired look.  The figure stands just shy of 4 inches tall and he has 26 points of articulation.  Waxer’s just a repaint of the standard ARF Trooper from the main line.  I means he doesn’t get a removable helmet like his last figure (to be fair, he never takes it off in this gear anyway), but it also means he’s using the best Clone body that the line put out.  It’s got all the cool stuff of the usual clone body, but also throws a universal joint on the hips in place of the usual cut joints.  While it’s not a pitch perfect articulation set, it’s certainly a very good one, and means it’s really easy to get some good poses out of him.  The actual sculpt is also quite accurate to the animation models, and the helmet in particular is a real thing of beauty.  Waxer’s paintwork is quite involved, since he has to get the Geonosis-style camo, all throughout, which means he’s got some sort of painted detailing pretty much all over.  He also gets his character-specific markings, which match up with his standard armor, with the exception of one new detail: he’s got a little drawing of Numa, the Twi’lek he helped rescue in “Innocents” on the back of his helmet.  This detail was one of the coolest things added in the show, and It’s really awesome that Hasbro remembered to include it here.  Waxer gets a standard DC-15S blaster, plus a D-6 rotary blaster, a firing missile, and a display stand.

BATTLE DROID

I’ve never been much for the basic Battle Droids, and I felt that one of the best things that Clone Wars did was introduce the likes of the Commando Droids in order to shift the focus a bit.  Because of this, I never got any of the standard Battle Droids.  But, this one was packed with Waxer, so I guess I had to get him.  The figure stands 4 inches tall and he has…okay hang on, I have to amend the first part first part: he’s 4 inches tall.  He doesn’t do much standing, which is my first big issue with the guy.  He simply can’t stand without something to hold him up.  He’s got 8 points of articulation, which is my next thing.  The arms on this guy are great…and that’s about it when it comes to the articulation.  Despite all those obvious joints being there in the design, they aren’t articulated for the most part.  The legs in particular are bad, because they just get the cut joints at the hips, and nothing more.  That certainly doesn’t help with the issues of standing.  Also not helping is the fact that this guy is just warped all over the place.  His legs, his neck, even his forearms are all warped out of their proper shaping, and he came out of the box that way.  At the very least, the sculpt looks like what it’s supposed to, so he’s got that going for him.  The Battle Droid’s coloring is the darker Geonosis shading, which honestly looks a bit better in general.  He’s got yellow markings, which I believe makes him a Commander.  Good for him, I guess.  He’s packed with an E-5 blaster (which he can’t hold correctly) and a display stand (not the one pictured, that’s a Pro-Tech stand).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Last summer, All Time got in a pretty heft Clone Wars collection, which was the source of the Assault on Ryloth pack that I picked up and reviewed at the time.  I also grabbed quite a few others, which included this pair which, like so many other Clone Wars releases, I missed when they were first released.  It wasn’t a hard sell, since it’s Waxer, who’s my favorite clone, wearing the ARF armor, which is my favorite armor.  He’s awesome, and I’m glad to have him.  The Battle Droid’s not great, and I remember part of why I didn’t pick any of them up in the first place.  Hey, at least I got Waxer.

As I touched on above,  I got these guys from my friends at All Time Toys.  While the Clone Wars stuff moved pretty fast, they’ve got other cool toys both old and new, so please check out their website and their eBay Store.