MATCHSTICK

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS (HASBRO)

“Matchstick is a clone pilot in Shadow Squadron who goes on a fatal mission to destroy a Separatist ship. He flies a Y-Wing fighter/bomber to attack the Malevolence, a huge vessel armed with a deadly ion cannon. His Y-Wing is damaged while passing through a large nebula, a mishap that results in dire consequences for the trooper.”

Would you believe it if I told you that for the third week in a row, my dive into Hasbro’s Clone Wars tie-in line was going to be a look at a clone?  I mean, you probably would, right?  There were a lot of clones in that show.  Kind of the point, I guess.  The show had all manner of different clones, many of them with names, even when they might be relatively throw away characters.  But, that gave the toyline something to put on the box, and a great way to keep rotating through molds.  And that’s how you get figures like today’s focus, Matchstick!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Matchstick was released in the second year of Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars line, numbered CW34 in the line-up.  He’s based on the character’s appearance in “Shadow of Malevolence”, his only appearance, where he’s a rather standard Phase I Clone Pilot, albeit with a somewhat unique helmet decoration.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 26 points of articulation.  As with many of the Clones in the line, Matchstick exists through a lot of parts re-use.  He’s using most of the first standard Clone mold, but swaps out for Captain Rex’s head and upper torso, so that he can get a removable helmet.  It’s a good selection of parts, as it always is, and it makes for a nice match for the show, which is also quite fun to mess with.  He gets a new helmet piece, detailing his pilot style helmet.  It works really well, and ends up being one of the more screen accurate helmets we got from the line.  It’s surprising how well it scales, honestly, without much loss in terms of detailing or fit.  His paint work is mostly just basic stuff; he was mostly just a shiny.  That said, he gets some really fun toothy grin graffiti on his helmet, which makes him nice and unique looking.  Matchstick was packed with  a heavy gun missile launcher (like was included with the ARF Trooper) and a standard DC-15 blaster rifle.  He’s just a pilot in the show, but it’s nice to get the extras, and I’m always a fan of the heavy chain gun mold.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I remember Matchstick being released, but I never had the luck of finding one at retail.  Given the sheer number of clones I *did* pick up during the original run at retail, I wasn’t too concerned about it at the time, but I did always kind of want one.  During one of the larger batches of figures traded into All Time while I was working there, this guy came in sans accessories, and was kind of cheap at the time, so that’s when I snagged him, ultimately replacing his accessories along the way.  He’s not one of the more prominent clones or anything, but there weren’t a ton of pilots in the line, and he’s a unique one, so that makes him worthwhile.