The Confederacy of Independent Systems usually gets the short end of the stick.  The Grand Army of the Republic always seemed to get the most wonderful toys.  I mean that in a Jack Nicholson Joker kind of way.  Like Count Dooku was sitting there one day during the Clone Wars wondering how the GAR was able to get all those wonderful toys.  Well, the CIS had some pretty nifty stuff, too.  While they didn’t really have anything as cool as the AT-TE or the Gunship, they had their moments.

The Hailfire Droid, in fact, took it straight to one of those AT-TE’s during the Battle of Geonosis. It was kind of a weird, but awesome, piece of weaponry.  Like much of the CIS arsenal, the thing was a droid in and of itself, so it didn’t need a pilot or crew.  The Hailfire droid was like a pair of hoola hoops that could roll into battle together and rain all kinds of holy hell on GAR forces. 

This droid vehicle was released by Hasbro as part of the Clone Wars sub line of the blue Saga line, which was crafted to support the Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars Microseries.  Unlike many of the figures, this actually fits straight in with the film toys from Attack of the Clones.

While I wasn’t necessarily pining for a Hailfire Droid from Hasbro, it’s awesome that they made one, and they made one that was awesome.  How about that?  It looks just like the on screen vehicle, although I would guess it’s scaled down a bit.  The wheels roll nicely, both forward and back.  There is an anti-infantry turret on the underside of the droid “head” which swivels left/right and up/down.  The twin missile pods each have capacity for 16 rounds.  The “top” eight on each pod are spring loaded, and can fire a respectable distance.  The “bottom” eight on each don’t have a spring, but they are removable. You can take one out and throw it, just don’t lose an eye like a putz.

A nice addition to your collection, and a much needed boost to the CIS forces.  8/10.  The only thing that could really improve this would be if it was remote controlled…