Tag Archives: Hasbro

#1697: Sasquatch

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

SASQUATCH

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Huzzah!  Another Build-A-Figure is complete.  And, like last year’s Titus, this one was sort of by accident.  It’s not that I *don’t* like Sasquatch, and I certainly know more about him than I did the cyborg Tony the Tiger, but Deadpool-themed assortment with an Alpha Flight-themed Build-A-Figure doesn’t immediately jump out at me.  However, here we are, so I might as well review this thing.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Sasquatch is the Build-A-Figure for the somewhat predictably named Sasquatch Series of Marvel Legends, which is also the first of 2018’s two Deadpool-centric series.  His connection to Deadpool’s tenuous at best, but they *are* both Canadian, so I guess there’s that.  I’d also point out that this and the next assortment feel more like extensions of the X-Men subline more than anything, and that’s definitely a theme Sasquatch fits right into.  This is Sasquatch’s second time as a Marvel Legend; the last one was back during the Toy Biz days, when it was still cost effective to do such a large figure as a single-packed figure, rather than splitting him up.  This figure stands 8 1/4 inches tall and he has 28 points of articulation.  Despite some claims to the contrary, he’s an all-new sculpt.  Nothing on him is shared with last year’s Man-Thing BaF.  They may share some common ancestry somewhere along the way, but the final products aren’t the same at all.  Sasquatch’s sculpt is definitely bulkier than his last figure, and overall does a pretty great job of capturing a non-artist specific version of the character.  I quite like the calmer facial expression they’ve gone with here; it’s a nice change of pace from what we’ve seen in the past.  One thing I did notice about Sasquatch that I’ve been seeing crop up with more recent BaFs is how easily he pops back apart.  I don’t want quite go back to the days of no disassembly that we had going for a little while there, but my Sasquatch has a tendency to fall apart during fairly routine posing, which is more than a little annoying.  Sasquatch’s paint work is decent, but it runs into a problem we’ve seen before on BaFs like this.  What are meant to be subtle changes in the shading of his fur are made less subtle by the slight variations from piece to piece clashing on the fully assembled product.  It’s not terrible, but you can definitely see some rather jarring jumps on my figure.  With that said, I do prefer this to a shadingless lump of orange.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, like I mentioned it the intro, I really didn’t mean to finish this guy.  I got Deathlok and X-23 back in February, and I kind of thought that was the end of it.  Then I got Cable because I like the animated series, and I thought I might regret missing out on him.  Then I got Domino and Paladin because of coupon deals.  And then, all of the sudden, I had this headless Sasquatch sitting on my desk, and that seemed a little silly, so X-Force Deadpool was purchased and here we are.  This whole assortment is something of a sleeper hit for me.  I expected nothing from it, but I’m honestly pretty happy with it as a whole, and there are some definite pleasant surprises, Sasquatch included.

#1696: Paladin

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

PALADIN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Paladin is a mercenary marksman who always has his eye on the bottom line.”

Ah, Paladin.  Truly the most–he’s really quite the–okay, I don’t have a lot to say about Paladin.  I mean, to be fair, nobody really does.  In the 40 years since his introduction, he’s not actually gotten much of a backstory…or anything, for that matter.  He just sort of exists to fill a mercenary slot when needed.  Like in this Deadpool-themed Marvel Legends assortment.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Paladin is the final figure in the Sasquatch Series of Marvel Legends.  He’s based on a more modern incarnation of the character, from around his time with the Thunderbolts.  Not his most memorable or distinctive look, but there’s a clear rationale behind this design choice, and that rationale is parts re-use.  I’ll get to that momentarily.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  As noted above, Paladin makes use of some parts re-use, though not as much I’d initially thought.  He’s built on the body used by the last Blade figure (which in turn re-used some parts from the ASM2 Electro).  He gets a new head, forearms, hands, and shins, as well as a holster add-on piece which appears to be new, but I could be wrong on that.  The new parts are decent recreations of his comics designs.  The head’s suitably generic, and the padded forearms and shins help to differentiate him from Blade.  The holster is mostly just there to hide that Hasbro still hasn’t re-tooled the Electro legs to remove that little nodule on his left thigh.  Paladin’s paint work is really the main thing that signifies his modern influences.  His palette is swapped from the classic look, which was purple armor on black, rather than black armor on purple.  I find this isn’t quite as striking a design, but I suppose it’s not terrible.  The application is at the very least cleanly handled, so I’ll give him that.  Paladin is packed with a pair of golden pistols (re-used from Zemo) and a knife.  The knife can be nicely slotted into the sheath on his boot, which is cool.  Unfortunately, there’s one holster for two guns, and the guns don’t actually sit that well in the holster.  That’s kind of disappointing.  He also includes another leg to the Build-A-Figure Sasquatch.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Paladin slightly frustrated me.  When I heard they were making him, I was kind of excited, but when the prototype was unveiled with the modern look, I was a bit let down.  The more streamlined modern Paladin design facilitates the re-use more than the classic look would have, I suppose, but I can’t say I’m super into it.  I feel like with the amount of new pieces he got in the end, it wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch to go for an approximation of his classic design.  Because of this, I ended up passing on him the first few times I found him.  I ended up getting a bunch of store credit for Cosmic Comix after helping out on Free Comic Book Day, and they had this guy, so I ended up grabbing him from them.  He’s not a bad figure at all, and certainly works as a generic merc, but I do wish he were a little more distinctive.

#1695: Cable

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

CABLE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“A powerful mercenary, Cable uses telekinetic abilities and combat expertise to get the job done.”

I started off my last Cable review by making fun of his box-bio’s hefty simplification of the character’s complex backstory.  For this one, I’m willing to cut Hasbro a little slack, since the character was presented in a much more simplified form in Deadpool 2, his appearance in which is one of the primary reasons he got this figure in the first place. Despite his lessened presence in the franchise in recent years, he gotten no less than two separate Marvel Legends releases in two years.  I’ve already looked at the first, and now I’m looking at the second.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cable is figure 3 in the Sasquatch Series of Marvel Legends, joining Deadpool and Domino in the loose DP2 theme of the assortment. He’s based on a more classic look than the last Cable.  It’s a costume that was prominent on a few covers in the ’90s (though less so the actual interiors; that’s just how ’90s comics do), notably the cover to X-Force #1. It was also the look Cable was sporting on his first action figure, and in the X-Men cartoon.  It’s about as quintessential as you get for Cable looks.  The figure stands just over 7 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  Like his predecessor, this Cable figure is built on the Hyperion body, though the actual pieces shared between the two are pretty minimal.  For the most part, this guy uses the Nuke variant of the body (so, he’s got the cargo pants and combat boots), but he gets a new head and arms (which are all distinct from the prior Cable figure, it should be noted), as well as an overlay piece for his shoulderpads/belt/suspenders, and another for his collar.  The head is the star part here, of course, and it manages to capture the spirit of Liefeld’s illustrations without really getting into the drawbacks behind them.  I particularly like how they’ve captured his glowing eye; that’s a nice touch.  The overlay piece is a little loose for my tastes, but it looks nice, and it means that Cable’s finally got shoulderpads!  Yay!  Cable’s paintwork is a good match for the palette that goes with this design, and the application, though sparse, is all clean.  Cable, being all about the guns, naturally includes three of them.  The biggest of them is an original design, and looks exactly like the sort of thing Cable would be brandishing on a cover in the ’90s.  There are also two smaller guns, which, fun fact, are both scaled-down Nerf guns.  The larger of the two is the Doomlands Vagabond, while the smaller is based on the Barrel Break.  They’re both nice gun designs, and they fit the style of the character quite well.  Thanks to our resident Nerf-expert Tim for helping identify the exact models!  I certainly hope this trend of scaling down Nerf guns continues.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had a moderate interest in this figure.  I’m not the world’s biggest Cable fan or anything, but the fact that this is the design from the cartoon really gave me a reason to track him down.  Of course, he’s the most demanded in the set by far, so I missed him several times.  I eventually found him at Cosmic Comix, who got a case in a few weeks ago.  He’s a goofy figure to be sure, but that’s sort of the point.  I love him for what he is, though.

#1694: Domino

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , ,

DOMINO

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Domino creates her own luck with a subconscious ability to predict the success of any given action.”

In the ’90s, there was this quiet sort of trend amongst new X-Men characters, where they took the basic power set of a prior character, but added “carries a lot of guns” to them, and there they were.  Domino was amongst that crop of characters, taking the luck-based gimmick of Longshot, and…adding guns.  The luck bit tends to get pushed to the side, but that’s seeming to change, with her new solo series and appearance in Deadpool 2.  She’s also gotten another Marvel Legends release along the way.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Domino is figure 3 in the Sasquatch Series of Marvel Legends.  She’s definitely based on a more recent incarnation of the character, though I’m not really familiar enough with her history to pinpoint exactly which costume this one is wearing.  I’m thinking this is meant to be the costume she wore during her run with Wolverine’s X-Force?  Whatever the case, it’s a fairly decent summation of her various looks over the years, and has the benefit of not looking anywhere near as terrible as some of them.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  Domino shares quite a few pieces with 2016’s Mockingbird figure.  She gets a new head, hands, and a slightly tweaked torso that removes some buttons.  Mockingbird’s sculpt was a pretty good one, and although it’s got some more specific details than others, they don’t stand out so much as to make the re-use to exceedingly obvious.  Also helping in keeping the two unique from each other are the shoulder harness and belt add-on pieces, which fit Domino’s more prepared nature.  It adds up to a solid looking sculpt that the average onlooker probably wouldn’t realize had any re-use.  Her paintwork is appropriately stark and contrast-y.  The mostly black and white thing translates quite well here, and the few bits of silver we get break it up pretty well.  The application is all nice and sharp.  The prior Domino Legends figure got pretty standard guns.  This one goes slightly more unique, but not at the same time.  The two guns included with this figure are the actually scaled down from the pair included with the 12-inch Legends Deadpool figures, and as an added bonus, the smaller of those two guns is actually based on Hasbro’s own Nerf Vortex Diatron (thanks to our in-house Nerf-expert Tim for spotting that one).  In addition to the guns, Domino also includes the right arm of Sasquatch.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Had the TRU that I purchased Deathlok from had a Domino in-stock, I would have likely gotten her instead of X-23.  But they didn’t, so I didn’t.  Given how much I liked the X-23 figure, that was probably for the best.  Nevertheless, it did spark in me a moderate desire to grab a Domino figure.  I ended up taking advantage of a Barnes & Noble coupon I had to get her for a pretty good deal.  Though I’m not overly familiar with her (I say as a man who owns three action figures of the character), I do quite like this figure.  She’s a lot of fun!

*Want a Domino figure of your own?  She’s currently in-stock with our sponsors over at All Time Toys!  Click here to check her out!

#1693: X-Force Deadpool

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

X-FORCE DEADPOOL

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Need someone to do the dirty work? Great news: that’s his favorite kind of work.”

This spring has been jam-packed when it comes to big blockbusters.  Wedged in-between event-film-10-years-in-the-making that was Infinity War and the decidedly-smaller-scale-but-base-breaking Solo, was the somewhat quieter, more laid back Deadpool 2.  I was apparently one of the few people on the planet not terribly thrilled by the first one, so I wasn’t expecting much from the sequel, but I actually rather liked it.  As a Fox-produced film, it’s got no direct merchandise from Hasbro, but it did get an assortment of loosely themed Marvel Legends.  There were two variants of the title character included, and I’ll be looking at one of those today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

X-Force Deadpool is numerically the first figure in the Sasquatch Series of Marvel Legends.  A quite similar figure was released earlier, as an exclusive to HasCon 2017.  While the main figures are similar, they are not identical, and the accessory complements are completely different.  Both figures are based on Deadpool’s more monochromatic look from the pages of Uncanny X-Force, which is coincidentally quite similar to how Wade looks after taking a fair bit of damage in the final act of Deadpool 2.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and has 32 points of articulation. On the outside, the figure’s doesn’t seem all that different from the one released two years ago in the Juggernaut Series, but he’s actually more different than you might think.  They share the same base body (the Bucky Cap), and the same head.  They also share the same shoulder harness and thigh holster.  Beyond that, he gets a new belt, wristbands, and ankle bands.  They succeed in making the figure moderately different, and by extension, more accurate to the original source material than a simple recolor would have been.  Even the paint masking is a bit different, and not just a simple palette swap.  The shaping of the black sections of his costume are actually the inverses of the last figure’s, which is another point in the accuracy column.  Sadly, Deadpool’s accessories have been stepped way back from both the HasCon offering of this costume and the prior standard release.  Still, he does get the swords, the rail gun, and the pistol (both painted in a fun blue color that makes them look vaguely Nerf-ish), and he also comes with the head of Sasquatch.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had no real intent to pick up this figure.  I have the standard colors version from 2016, and I figured that was good enough.  Then I ended up with every other figure from the set, and I saw DP2, and I found myself kind of wanting this figure.  Sadly, by that point he’d sold out pretty much everywhere.  I eventually found him on Amazon for base retail, and here we are.  He’s a surprisingly enjoyable figure, and I’m happy I tracked him down.

The Blaster In Question #0056: Vagabond

Posted by Tim Marron in Nerf Reviews and tagged with , , ,

BlasterInQuestion1

VAGABOND

DOOMLANDS 2169

vagabond1I had an idea for a game show the other day.  It would be a similar structure to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire but instead of answering general knowledge and trivia questions, you have to memorize details of a persona that you’re given and then Mads Mikkelson interrogates you about it while being as menacing as possible.  What does this have to do with Nerf?  I have no idea but I could not think of an intro for this blaster to save my life, so here we are.  This week we’ll be taking a look at another entry in the “we can’t legally just call it Borderlands” series, a.k.a. Doomlands 2169,  Specifically, let’s talk about the Vagabond.

THE BLASTER ITSELF

vagabond2The Vagabond was released in 2015 as part of the Border- Doomlands 2169 series of blasters, a full 154 years before when the name suggests.  It uses a 6-round rotating cylinder like the Strongarm or Disruptor, but in the case of the Vagabond, it is pump action instead of slide action.  The shell of the Vagabond is all original, including the cylinder itself which is way longer than it needs to be.  In keeping with the Doomlands look, there is a panel on the right side of the blaster that is clear and allows you to see the internals, which is a nice touch.  With the cylinder being as crazy long as it is, the barrels have openings almost all the way down their length so you can put a dart in the side and push it to the back to seat it ready for firing.  It’s an odd choice and vagabond3makes me wonder why they didn’t just shorten it down and have it load from the front like a normal revolver style blaster, not to mention all the plastic and weight they’d save by getting rid of the enormous front end.  It really seems like Nerf was going for a shotgun here, given the pump action and the sharply angled grip, but without any ability to fire multiple darts at once, it just ends up being a really big revolver in need of a nose job.  The pump grip itself is large and nicely textured so you can get a solid hold of it.  There’s a rail along the top of the blaster for accessories like scopes and whatnot, at least in theory.  The angle of the grip makes aiming down the barrel kind of hard to do comfortably, but it too is well sized and has enough texture to provide the necessary traction.  Performance-wise, the Vagabond gets a resounding “it’s fine.”  It shoots just a little softer than most other blasters on average, probably in part due to the internals being taken directly from the Rebelle Guardian Crossbow.  It’s not a huge difference, and it will probably get overlooked by your younger siblings when you bust into their room, plus there’s that great big front end that’ll most likely leave an impression.  The Vagabond comes packaged with 6 Doomlands colored Elite darts.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION 

I really can’t think of any reason why the front of the Vagabond is that huge.  I guess it’s just a stylistic choice.  I mean, we’ve seen similar enormous extraneous pieces of plastic on other Doomlands blasters like the Negotiator, but I didn’t really care for those either.  As long as it doesn’t affect the blaster’s ability to, you know, blast, I suppose it can stay.  But seriously though, Mads, if you’re reading this, hit me up about that game show.

The Blaster In Question #0055: Proton

Posted by Tim Marron in Nerf Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

BlasterInQuestion1

PROTON

VORTEX

proton1You may have heard that Vortex is back.  Yes, it seems the once-thought dead line of blasters has miraculous come back to life like Jesus, or Dracula.  While my money is squarely on this being a hasty rejiggering of an intended TRU exclusive, the Vortex VTX line seems to be solely in Target’s hands now.  So while the hype train is just slowly starting to pull away from the station, I figured I’d jump on board in order to bring you today’s review of the Proton.  I’m feeling pretty positive about this one.

THE BLASTER ITSELF

proton2Ok, while this is a Vortex blaster, it’s not part of the VTX lineup, so I’m less of a passenger on the hype train and more of that guy with the accordion who just walks from car to car demanding money in exchange for giving you tinnitus.  The Proton was released in 2011 as the smallest (at the time) entry in the newly unveiled Vortex series of blasters.  The big draw for Vortex blasters was their supposed super long ranges thanks to the mini-frisbee type of ammo instead of traditional darts.  The disks use their aerofoil shape to glide through the air which does allow them to travel pretty far, all things considered, but it also means that they lose speed quite quickly.  I’ve talked about this before in my Revonix 360 review and it holds true here and across the line.  The Proton, specifically, is a single shot pistol which is loaded through the rear of the blaster by pulling back the slide, placing a diskproton3 in the tray, and hitting the slide release lever on the side of the blaster.  Honestly, this was the feature that made me buy the Proton in the first place.  Regardless of performance, I just wanted a blaster with a functional slide release lever so I could do dramatic reloads while creeping around the house at 2:00 AM.  The shell of the Proton is all original which you’d kind of expect given how vastly different the internals of this blaster are compared to something like the NiteFinder.  There is at least a standard Nerf rail on the top of the barrel, but there’s not really anything you can put on it without making the blaster really top and front heavy, and that’s no good.  The Proton is meant to be nice and light, right around 1.67×10-27kg.  Not literally light, that’s photon, with an h.  Running the action of the Proton is nice and smooth and unless you did something really wrong, it’s very uncommon to have any kind of jam or malfunction, so that’s a positive.  The ergonomics are decent with all the controls where it makes sense for them to be.  The grip is a little skinny but not so much that it’s really a problem.  As with most Vortex blasters, there are a lot of safety locks inside the Proton, the most important of which prevents the trigger from being pulled when the chamber is empty. proton4 It’s good to know so that, if you’re storing the blaster somewhere for more than a day, it’s probably smart to fire off one round just to de-prime the blaster so you won’t wear out the spring.  If that happens, it’s like it loses its charge, and you’re left with a neutron.  It’s also a good idea to keep it away from stray electrons, because then it just becomes hydrogen, and that  tends to poof away into the air.  As far as using the Proton against younger siblings, I’d recommend it for longer-distance pot shots rather than the whole busting into their room method.  The Proton comes packaged with 3 Vortex disks in the classic Vortex green.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION 

Ah, I see you made it past my science jokes.  Good for you.  All in all, for as lukewarm as I am to the Vortex series as a whole, I actually quite like the Proton.  It’s fairly compact and has that really unique loading mechanism, which is honestly fun to play with just that.  While I don’t usually go for recolors of existing blasters, I must admit, the blue and green VTX color scheme looks pretty sharp, so I might not mind picking up another Proton if they come out with it.  Then I just need some neutrons and I can whip up some helium.

#1677: Wampa & Luke Skywalker (Hoth)

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

WAMPA & LUKE SKYWALKER (HOTH)

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (HASBRO)

“Wampas are powerful furred bipeds that dwell in the snowy wastes of the ice world Hoth. These hulking predators have razor-sharp fangs and claws, yet move with surprising stealth, relying on their white fur for camouflage while hunting prey such as tauntauns.”

As with any good Star Wars line, Solo isn’t afraid to pepper in a few things from prior movies to keep the older fans happy.  A running sub-theme since TFA has been figures based on Empire.  Today’s offering, Luke and the deadly Wampa, continues that trend.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

The Wampa and Luke are part of the first assortment of deluxe sets from the Solo line.  They fulfill the same purpose as Last Jedi‘s Creature Sets (and, in fact, this is just a re-purposed Creature set, and one of the other two in the assortment is a straight re-release of one; only Enfys Nest’s Swoop Bike doesn’t fit that descriptor).

WAMPA

The Wampa’s a rather straightforward monster, really.  It’s just a space-yeti.  A simple adventure story trope with a sci-fi bend, perfectly emblematic of Star Wars at its best.  As a fairly humanoid monster, it’s also an easy choice for toys.  This is the third Wampa we’ve gotten at this scale.  The Wampa stands 5 1/2 inches tall and has 18 points of articulation.  If the articulation were perfectly mirrored as it is on most figures, that count would be 1 higher, but as it stands, this Wampa, like other Wampas, sacrifices a little articulation in the name of spectacle.  A more simple peg/swivel joint makes for a more easily removed right arm, thus allowing you to give the Wampa the “battle damage” inflicted upon him by Luke’s light saber slash.  The figure’s sporting an all-new sculpt; it’s somewhat aesthetically similar to the Black Series release, but this one’s more accurate to the movie design by my eye.  The level of detailing on the sculpt is definitely impressive.  He possesses some of the same issues of joints breaking up the fur that the Black Series Chewbacca had, but at this scale, and with the bulkier nature of his design, it’s less noticeable.  The paintwork on the Wampa is actually a fair bit better than the photos attached to this review might lead you to believe.  In person, the yellowish accenting on the fur is subtler, and not quite as garish.  It could perhaps be a little better, but I don’t hate it, and it’s certainly better than no detail at all.

LUKE SKYWALKER (HOTH)

Luke in his cold-weather gear is kind of a natural companion piece for the Wampa, since they spend their scenes on Hoth together.  Luke’s Hoth gear is a popular variant, from the vintage line onward.  It’s actually been released as recently as the Star Wars: Saga Legends Mission Packs, but despite that, this figure is an all-new one.  He stands 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation, if you count the moving scarf on his head.  The sculpt is pretty solid.  He’s based on his appearance post-Wampa attack, which seems sensible. That means no goggles and with some facial scarring.  It does a nice job of capturing the design, with some cool detailing on the quilting and such on the outfit.  The facial likeness is a good match for Hamill as seen in the movie, and the scarring even appears to have been sculpted, rather than being just painted on.  The pose is pretty nice as well, being a fairly basic standing pose that also looks nice dangling upside down from the ceiling.  The paint on this figure is pretty decent.  It’s fairly basic, and kind of subdued, but it matches the movie well.  Luke is packed with his lightsaber and his blaster pistol (which is technically inaccurate for the post-Wampa attack look, but the empty holster would be sort of silly).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been looking forward to this set ever since it was shown off during the initial Last Jedi showings.  The old Hoth Luke was a favorite of mine, and I’ve never had a Wampa figure.  Despite not being a “new” offering, it was near the top of my list of wants.  It’s one of the last items I found, as it would appear it’s the shortpack of the case, at least initially.  I really like this set.  The Wampa is one of the best small-scale Star Wars figures that Hasbro’s put out recently, and Luke’s nothing to slouch at either.

#1676: Enfys Nest’s Swoop Bike (w/ Enfys Nest)

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

ENFYS NEST’S SWOOP BIKE (w/ ENFYS NEST)

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (HASBRO)

“The Cloud-Rider gang led by Enfys Nest terrorizes the skies atop their mean-looking swoop bikes.  Little more than engines with seats, swoops are hard to control but capable of incredible speed.”

Alright, Solo is officially out today!  …I haven’t actually had a chance to see it yet, and probably won’t be able to until after the weekend, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep right on reviewing the toys!  I’ve taken a look at some of the “heroes” (a loose term, given it’s a heist film) from the movie, but how about looking at one of the film’s villains, the mysterious Enfys Nest, leader of the Cloud-Rider gang (a gang who, fun fact, originated in a comic from 1977; pretty nifty, right?).  Next to nothing is known about Nest, including gender, so this will certainly be an interesting review.

THE VEHICLE ITSELF

Though Enfys Nest is very much the title-part of this set, the actual main focus is Enfys’s swoop bike.  Now, this is actually not the first swoop bike I’ve looked at on this site.  The first came from the Shadows of the Empire line in ’96, and it’s been a little while since then.  That one was definitely more on the conservative side as well, which can’t so much be said about this one.  The bike measures 9 inches in length, and is 3 3/4 inches tall and it’s highest point.  There aren’t any moving pieces on the bike, but as a hover bike, that’s not a huge shock.  The all-new sculpt on this bike is pretty impressive.  There’s quite a bit of detail work, especially on the main body.  I was impressed by how small and intricate a lot of the work was, and the fins and such don’t feel too heavy or clunky.  There’s a nice flow to this vehicle.  My only concern is one of construction; it’s a very frail design, and in some spots, especially the front half, it can feel like it’s going to fold in half if you look at it funny.  I’ve had no issues with it as of yet, though.  The paint work on the bike is pretty decent stuff, and it’s certainly a step up from the last swoop I looked at.  While it’s not exactly real-world level detailing, there’s some definite effort that’s been placed into making it look pretty convincing, and it’s not as bland as some vehicles can be.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Obviously Enfys Nest’s Swoop Bike is going to include an Enfys Nest figure, right?  It’d be a little odd if it didn’t, right?  I mean, that’s what I think.  Anyway, Enfys here is so far exclusive to this particular pack.  The figure stands 3 3/4 inches tall measuring to the top of the head (it’s a more even 4 if you count the horns), and it has 7 points of articulation.  Like Qi’ra, Enfys has wrist articulation, presumably to make piloting the bike a bit more manageable.  Enfys is another new sculpt.  I was surprised by how slight of frame he/she is, but after double checking against some shots from the movie, this is actually pretty accurate.  Overall, I like the sculpt, but it’s ever so slightly hindered by being designed to go in the bike. The limbs are all angled out a bit, and the feet are somewhat pigeon-toed.  Just standing around, Enfys looks a little bit awkward.  On the plus side, the armor and such has been translated quite well.  Enfys has a unique look, and that’s been captured here.  The mixed medium on the cape with the sculpted shoulders is an interesting way of handling it, and probably the most sensible, since the figure is meant to be able to sit, and I can’t really see a plastic cape accommodating that.  Enfys’ paintwork is decent enough, though this is certainly a figure that would benefit from a little bit more work in the accenting department; that armor really should be a bit grimier than it ends up here.  Still, it’s far from bad.  Enfys is packed with a staff, which is pretty sensible, since the character is seen carrying it in pretty much all of the promotional stuff we’ve seen.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This set was procured at the same time as the Range Trooper, during my third round of Solo purchases.  It was one of the items I was most looking forward to, since I rather like Enfys’s design.  The bike is fine for what it is (I’ve got a lot of speeder bikes, so one more isn’t really going to blow my mind or anything), and the figure’s certainly passable.  I can’t say this is my favorite of the items I’ve gotten for the movie (that would probably be Han’s Land Speeder), but for the price and the scale, I’m happy with it.

#1675: Range Trooper

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , ,

RANGE TROOPER

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (HASBRO)

“The Imperial expansion requires the settlement of vital operations on remote outpost worlds. These frontier Stormtroopers form a backbone of stubborn defense against would-be thieves and pirates.”

Ah, Hasbro and Stormtrooper variants.  They go together like…well, like a successful toy company and a successful franchise’s totally reasonable way to keep producing new toys of with hardcore fans are almost guaranteed to buy multiples.  One of the classic pairs, really.  Though I am perhaps not as committed to building an army as some fans are, I will admit to being drawn in by just about every new trooper that Hasbro puts out, today’s focus, the Range Trooper, included.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Range Trooper is part of the first series of basic Solo figures.  He’s one of two trooper based army builders in the set, and so far he’s been the easier of the two to find at retail.  This new trooper design is meant for more extreme environments, and from the looks of this figure, he specializes in cold areas.  Why do we get the Range Trooper instead of just seeing the Snowtrooper again?  Well, the best answer in-universe is that this movie’s set more than a decade before the Snowtroopers appear in Empire, and it’s probably fair to assume the Imperials have changed up their gear at least a little bit.  The best answer out-of-universe is that this way they can sell more toys.  Works for me.  Anyway, the figure stands just shy of 4 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  The Range Trooper’s sporting an all-new sculpt, which seems unlikely to see any re-use going forward.  It’s pretty well crafted, depicting him a reasonably bulked up from the additional padding, and handling the actual details of his clothes and armor quite nicely.  He’s definitely on-par with Qi’ra in that regard.  I like that there are some common design elements from other films, with the chestplate being quite similar to the Snowtrooper piece, and the helmet having a few similarities to the Shoretrooper helmets we saw in Rogue One.  It definitely lends some credence to them being an earlier iteration of the Snowtrooper, and also helps solidify that the Shoretrooper helmets were an older environment-based design that was just slowly worked out.  He’s also got those big honking boots, which we learned from the trailers are some sort of magnetic/gravity boots.  They’re a neat design.  The paintwork on this guy is pretty solid work as well.  It’s a lot of off-white, of course, but there’s some pretty decent accent work on the boots.  I just wish it extended to the fur collar, but alas, he’ll just have to be a little cleaner looking than I wanted.  The Range Trooper is packed with a blaster.  At first glance, I thought it was just the standard E-11, but it’s actually slightly tweaked to have a longer barrel and a further forwards scope.  I guess that helps with the range?  That would make sense.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like Lando, this guy proved a little more difficult to acquire, at least at first.  I was fortunate enough to find him the following weekend, at a Target near my brother’s college.  I wasn’t 100% sure about this design when I first saw it, but I find myself really liking it in figure form.  Perhaps I’ll have to track down the Black Series figure at some point down the line.