The Set

Following the Cinema Scene format that debuted during the POTF2 line, Hasbro upped the ante during the Saga line with packs of 4 figures and a large accessory.  Generally, these sets repacked some popular figures, occasionally with some small variations.  “The Battle of Hoth” includes a unique (but horrendously bad) Leia figure.  However, the usual draw for the collector was the large accessory.  In this case, it’s the Tauntaun - which was packaged as an error, and then later corrected.*. The set also includes 4 handy clear plastic figure stands.  It was a pretty nice value for $20.

Luke Skylwalker

Luke Skywalker is probably the least interesting figure in the set.  It’s essentially a straight repack of the figure that was released in POTF2 with his Tauntaun.  It was a decent figure for its time, especially with the hinged knees that allowed it to sit pretty naturally on the Tauntaun.  Remember when the Kenner figures would just be inserted, straight-legged) into a hatch in the saddle?  What a bunch of nonsense.  We were idiots back then.  The figure is obsolete, but does have some marginal merit.  3/10.

Princess Leia

This is a candidate for one of the worst figures ever.  Hasbro took the head and jacket from the POTF2 Hoth Leia, and added it to the body of the POTJ Bespin Escape Leia.  The result is just a Frankenstein-ish mess of nonsensical nonsense.  Leia was never on screen in this outfit with this hairstyle and coat.  I have no idea what Hasbro was thinking at the time.  As a “completist” collector at the time, I needed to own this figure.  But it’s terrible in almost every way imaginable.  It doesn’t even deserve the status of “obsolete.”  It was dead on arrival.  1/10.

Chewbacca

Take the SAGA Chewbacca and add on a few white specks.  What do you get?  Hoth Chewbacca, obviously.  Hasbro has loved to give us this version of Chewie.  I believe we have four to date.  This was the second one, but it’s obsolete, as there are two versions that are based on the VOTC mold.  Interestingly, the first figure released was in the POTF2 Flashback line, and it may be that was Hasbro’s best effort.  Yeah, the figure is severely dated, but they managed to give Ol’ Chewie the windblown hair look, and some nice patchy snow/ice collected in his fur.  Newer figures have the hair way to neat, and the snow effects are various levels of powder.  Today, I’d prefer Hasbro took the TLC (Blue) BD3 sandstorm figure from the deleted scene, but gave him a healthy left shin, add some snow clumps similar to the POTF2 figure, and you’ve got yourself an outstanding Hoth Chewbacca.  This one gets a 4/10.

R3-A2

Always great when Hasbro delivers a new astromech character, they included a deep backgrounder from Hoth.  R3-A2 was a cool inclusion in this set.  It’s a repaint from a pre-existing mold which was okay for the time, but fans loved the clear dome.  The character received a welcome upgrade with a TLC (red) build-a-droid, so this figure, while nostalgic, is pretty obsolete.  It could serve as a background astromech in any scene, or you could read through the details of the Hoth droids on Angelfire, and decide that it’s possibly not even R3-A2.  Good luck with that.

Tauntaun 

Hasbro has released and re-released several versions of the tauntaun.  First there were the POTF2 beasts that were identified as either Luke’s (broken horn) or Han’s (no broken horn).  Those had an action feature where you pushed a button on the saddle and the legs moved.  This set took that Tauntaun as a base, removed the action feature, and added a split belly along with repainted guts from the 2002 Saga Acklay beast.  Interestingly, Hasbro first released an error, which had the left horn broken.  Since it was actually Han’s Tauntaun that had the belly split, Hasbro later corrected this and fixed the horn.  Of course, the set still included Luke and called it “Luke’s Skywalker’s Tauntaun”, but whatever.  Let’s not get carried away, you wackos.

It’s a good toy, and works in a diorama for the appropriate scene.  Yes, the TVC tauntauns, both the individually packaged one that belonged to Luke, as well as the one that came in the Search for Skywalker set,  are much better sculpts.  However, this remains the only tauntaun that includes the split belly.  It’s a 6/10.

*Note that the packaged gallery has images showing the corrected Tauntaun (no broken horn), while the loose gallery shows the error Tauntaun (with broken horn).