Here’s a throwback:  A figure gallery and review!  A new TVC release seems to be the only thing that will get me out of my Star Wars malaise / post-Knicks delirium.  I don’t know if I can say I was “excited” when this arrived at my door, but I can at least say I was “intrigued.”  It’s an interesting pack because Hasbro only just recently (almost exactly 1 year ago) released the VC Battle Droid [army builder 4 pack].  This set swaps out the “commander” B1, in favor of a new B2 Super Battle Droid.

B1 Battle Droid

First, a look at the Battle Droid.  Here’s a quick take from the review I did of the aforementioned 4-pack:

The B1 Battle Droid has confounded Hasbro engineers as well as collectors since 1999.  Well, maybe not quite that far back.  The 1999 version was quite excellent for the time, considering what was typical for a contemporary action figure.  In fact, with each new Battle Droid release, there was an upgrade (sometimes as a tradeoff) that pleased collectors.

While each new iteration of the Battle Droid seemed to offer something new, Hasbro was never able to achieve anything close to what would be considered a definitive figure.  That’s a bit upsetting, considering the Battle Droid first appeared on screen over 25 years ago.  The figures were either under-articulated, under-engineered, or manufactured out of silly putty. Some were more promising than others, but in the end, they all fell pretty far short of being a true super-articulated Battle Droid.

For last year’s 4-pack, Hasbro opted to completely resculpt the legs from the VC76 figure.  They were pretty successful in this regard, and they brought this forward for this figure.  The knees can flex far past 90 degrees, almost achieving the calf completely folding back on its thigh.  The hips are slightly ball jointed, and while far from allowing the figure to do splits, they allow enough movement to add to posability.  The knees are a swivel/hinge, allowing for something akin to a ball joint, and the ankles are rockers.  This gives the battle droid the most lower-body functionality of any previous release.

While last year’s figure re-used the upper body of VC76, this time, Hasbro went to work and resculpted most of it. The torso is very similar, although it looks like they had to do a little bit of tweaking to accommodate the new parts.  The arms are completely new.  The upper arms and forearms are resculpted, although only barely so.  However, they very slightly thicker, to help reduce the odd look of the previous figure that had a slight upper body and a thick lower body.  They are also designed to improve the range of motion of the shoulders which, like the hips, offer a little bit of range of motion that was not previously possible, but still far short of a typical TVC figure.  The elbows, unlike the knees, are only hinged.  While they don’t have the full range of the knees, they do bend to about 45 degrees, which is more than we can say is typical. 

The big deal here are the new wrists.  The B1 Battle Droid has never had articulated wrists - until now!  Like the elbows and knees, we get a swivel/hinge combo that allows the figure to achieve a two-handed weapon grip.  This posability is a first for the B1 - some versions could pull it off, but only when the figures were pre-posed to do so.  This time, you can do it yourself, like a real adult toy collector!

The head and neck are unchanged, as are the accessories, which include a full backpack, swappable antenna, and blaster.

The changes are welcome.  However, I still don’t feel this figure is finished.  I would have preferred the elbows be the swivel/hinge type like the knees, to assist with further posing opportunities.  The wrists work pretty well, but end up doing that same “you can only flex them one way” kind of thing.  This would be partly remedied if the forearms could rotate at the elbow.  The two-handed weapon grip is reasonably convincing, and it is great to be able to achieve this.  However, the hand grip is a little too open, and the blaster doesn’t fit as snugly as it should.  The previous hands performed a tighter grip, but this was lost in translation to the new hands.

Posing the figure is pretty fun, aside from a little wonkiness.  Amazingly, I was able to get the figure to balance on one foot.  This was extremely hard to do, if not impossible, on previous releases.

Like the earlier version, the 3 B1’s that come with this set are all painted with slightly different weathering.  The paint job is nice, with some silver details breaking up the red.  While the grease/dirt weathering is good, it seems Hasbro ditched the silver paint chipping/scratching that was previously present, so that’s a bummer.  I also would have preferred some kind of torso/waist articulation.  In my samples, the heads were loose, the backpacks easily fell off, and the blasters weren’t gripped tightly.  Oh yeah - a slot in the backpack for the blaster is still missing.  This should have been corrected by now.

Overall, this is a nice advancement.  While it seems there is a little more work to do, if this was the last B1 we ever get, I won’t be too upset.  8/10.

B2 Super Battle Droid.

In lieu of a B1 battle droid commander (it would have been nice if one of the 3 B1’s was painted as such - and included binoculars), this time around we get an all new B2 Super Battle Droid.  In 2010, we got what was the best articulated SBD in the line when Hasbro released the TLC [Red] Geonosis 2 pack Obi-Wan Kenobi and Super Battle Droid [2010, 1 of 6] from Target.  While the paint job was weak, it included ball jointed ankles for the first time.  In 2011, Hasbro updated the paint for VC37 Super Battle Droid.  I think it’s one of the best paint applications on any figure ever.  For some reason, it also came with a small blaster.  However, despite these upgrades, Hasbro ditched the ball jointed ankles, took 2 steps back, and gave us zero ankle articulation.  This was a baffling choice, and it was one of those rare occurrences where you could argue that an older figure was better than a newer release.

Fast forward to today, and 15 years later we get an all new sculpt. It’s quite a solid improvement on most levels, although slightly dragging in a few areas of articulation.

Most noticeable is the paint.  Hasbro has done a fantastic job recently with metallic paints.  While not vac-metal, they do have much stronger sheen, which looks great.  The B2 is almost fully coated in this bright silvery paint, with a few highlights of gunmetal to break it up, as well as a flat, dark gray chest and…crotch.

The figure has much improved articulation system.  The shoulders and hips are of the limited ball joint variety, just like the shoulders and hips on the B1 Battle Droid.  They don’t have JLA range, but they do help bring the figure to life.  Interestingly, the VC37 shoulders have a greater range of motion, although the joints are quite bulbous and large.  The previous B2 also had the swivel/hinge elbows, so nothing really new here so far.  In fact, the range of the elbows is now just to 90 degrees, while the earlier figure could flex past that.  But unlike VC37, this figure has articulated wrists.  They only hinge, so it’s a bit limited, but since the figure isn’t typically holding a weapon in its hand (unlike the weird blaster that came with VC37), it’s not too noticeable. 

The knees are swivel/hinge and the feet are rockers.  VC37 had swivel hips, swivel knees, and no ankles (while the Geonosis 2 pack had the aforementioned ball jointed ankles).  The knees are not only a first for the SBD, but they also flex well past 90, which is nice.  So the lower body is a big improvement.

The figure is much sturdier.  The legs on almost every SBD figure I own is warped to some degree.  The plastic used here on the legs seems like it will hold up for the long haul, which is important.  Like the B1 above, this figure can be posed standing on one foot.  It has good balance and posability.  The figure also sports torso articulation.

For accessories, the SBD comes with a dual right wrist blaster. For some reason this is removable, so it’s another small piece to obsess over.  It swaps out with an alternate version that includes a laser blast.  I think I would have preferred the blaster be permanent, and the red blast effect be separate, but whatever.  In addition to this, the figure included a swappable left forearm.  The alternate version is an arm cannon.  It actually looks pretty cool, and not like a silly kid feature.  One downside is that for whatever reason, when you swap in the cannon, the elbow can’t even achieve anything close to 90 degrees.  I don’t believe this arm canon was ever on screen in live-action, but I could be wrong.  I assume it’s from The Clone Wars.

This is a solid improvement over the most recent and best versions of the Super Battle Droid, despite some very slight regression with the upper arm range of motion.  The swappable accessories are nice, the figure is sturdy, and the paint is awesome - except I wish the eyes were painted.  They get lost in the figure.  While the articulation isn’t perfect, it’s probably not likely this is going to be improved. 9/10.

Overall Set.

While the BD’s feel unfinished, they are the best Hasbro has offered.  The SBD is great. As a set, it’s a terrific army builder.  Despite the shortcomings, I don’t know if Hasbro is going to put much more effort into improving either figure. My biggest complaint with the set is that I wish they kept the BD commander, and included electrobinoculars.  While I deemed the previous Battle Droid set as being insufficient and not worthy of army building, I feel this set succeeds where the previous one failed.  It’s not perfect, but it’s quite good.  It’s somewhere between an 8 and 9/10.  Officially, I’ll give it an 8/10, but this may end up being definitive.