VC78 - Battle Droid

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Reference

Wookieepedia article on the B1 battle droid

Major Variants
*None Reported

Notes
* Life sized Darth Maul give away sticker on card

Roundtable Reviews!
Pfffffffffffffffffffffff.  Where to begin?  The battle droid mold was just updated recently in the 2009 and 2010 Geonosis Arena sets. Since then, it’s been in frequent rotation in the Saga Legends line as a two-pack no less. So there should be some compelling reason to go back to the well so soon.  The new mold got smaller.  I’m not sure if that is more or less screen accurate, but it feels like the previous mold was a tad too large.  So perhaps this is for the better.  The eyes are now sculpted into the head and not just a tampo application like the previous version.  This is a welcome addition. Unfortunately, one of my favorite features of the old mold is now gone.  The blaster rifle no longer plugs into the backpack. This is as big a disappointment as the missing holster on the Rebel Fleet Trooper.  Like its predecessor, this mold neatly folds up for MTT transportation, but with no where to store the blaster in transport.  Hmmm, I wonder if the occasionally rumored MTT has anything to do with the sudden need for a smaller scaled battle droid.

This battle droid still can’t achieve a two handed grip on the blaster.  Now THAT would have been a hugely compelling reason to upgrade this figure so soon, and would have finally urged me to call “army build!” on a battle droid figure.  So far no mold has compelled me to get more than a few. That pattern holds.  I don’t hold Hasbro accountable for this particular limitation of the figure.  It’s LFL’s fault.  The character’s limbs are simply too thin to achieve the necessary points of articulation.  Additionally, I swear the on screen two handed blaster grip in the movie is a CGI cheat.  The wrist or forearm on the character seems to rotate despite no articulation point to achieve this. Back to the articulation on the actual figure, the previous mold was able to achieve better abduction at both the hips and shoulders.  Despite what I sense is inferior scaling, I like the old mold better in many ways.  Given that an Episode 1 battle droid will be released in the more economically priced Movie Heroes line this figure becomes almost a total head scratcher.  Overall, I give this figure a 6 out of 10.

6/10 Bantha Skulls