This, Hasbro.  This, retailers.  One thousand times this.  One million times this.  The Scramble on Yavin Battle Pack is the quintessence of world building.  This is the product we crave.  This is the product for which we will take out second, third and fourth mortgages.  Sometimes communicating with Hasbro can feel like a trip to the optometrist’s office, if the optometrist was one of the Jerky Boys.  They rock back and forth between two lenses 500 hundred times asking which one is better.  You clearly answer that lens one is better all 500 times, but when you get your glasses, the prescription is for lens five.  So Hasbro, once again, please scroll to the top of the page to review the images, and them come back. Are you back?  Good. THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSS!!!!!!

This battle back is exceedingly hard to find today.  Notice I didn’t say rare.  It was never rare.  It only gave that impression.  A lot were made, but they were gobbled up as ravenously as Black Friday flatscreen TV doorbuster deals, only with more in-aisle fighting.  But they were terrible nerd slap fights, so no one noticed.  The message was sent via our wallets with the utmost clarity that this is the exact type of world building product that collectors of the 3.75” scale desperately want.  Then we patiently waited for the follow up to this massive success:

The absolute most important take away from this has to be that world building gestures do not have to be grandiose.  A simple cart and an army building backgrounder can be all it takes sometimes.  With the exception of Red Leader, these items could be re-released today to great fanfare.  We gave this set an overall score which is something we typically don’t do. We gave it a 9 out of 10 which is much higher than the average score of the components (7.75).  The extra 1.25 points are for awesomeness. 

Garven Dreis (Red Leader)

This figure is based on 2006’s VTSC Luke Skywalker X-Wing Pilot figure.  The lightsaber peg hole on the belt is the clearest give away.  Sure that base figure is super articulated, but it’s 2006 super articulated and not 2020 super articulated.  It’s a bit like a 1978 VCR and a 1993 VCR.  Sure they both play your tape of the Perils of Gwendoline you recorded off of Cinemax, but one looks clunky doing it, and the other is sleek (and does a much better job of pausing). The joints on the figure are bulbous and obvious, and do not provide a great range of motion.

Aside from the “there, but not great” articulation, the head sculpt looks absolutely nothing like actor Drewe Henley.  The figure has a six-head, and a part bemused, part drunk expression.  It’s almost the basis of a decent Andy Richter custom.  So we start this figure at the base score of seven for a super articulated figure, and have to knock off a full point for the likeness, which is to say no likeness.  This makes it a 6 out of 10 figure.  Given that 1) this figure goes for a fortune on the secondary market, 2) Hasbro has a great new X-Wing pilot sculpt courtesy of the VC158 - X-Wing Luke figure, and 3) Garven Dreis now appears in two movies, Hasbro would be well justified in cranking out a new Red Leader figure.

Rebel Ground Crew

Upon it’s release, fans immediately commented that this figure looked like comedian Ryan Stiles.  Take everything I said about dated super articulation and apply it to this figure as well.  It has all the requisite articulation, but the joints don’t move freely and lack great range of motion.  The blaster also doesn’t interact well with the holster.  It doesn’t fit down into it, and has a tendency to pop out.  The plus side of the figure is the detailing of the sculpt.  It perfectly bunches, folds and rolls the way a jumpsuit would.  I need to remind everyone that just ten years before this figure’s release, it would have been sculpted like it was wearing a neoprene body suit.

Fortunately for this figure, we cast the definitive status and score to the character.  This figure makes for a terrible soldier, but a perfectly passable mechanic.  It’s a 7 out of 10, and Hasbro could safely reissue this figure today.

R5-K6

This astromech is based on 2006’s TSC 032 - R5-D4 mold.  Most fans, myself included, prefer this style of astromech mold, especially over the Build-A-Droid, but it is perhaps a bit on the oversized side.  Hasbro took an already good mold and updated it with the eye-catching high contrast paint scheme of R5-K6.  This figure pops in any display.  It’s still an 8 out of 10 figure today.  As with the Read Leader figure, this goes for a fortune on the secondary market.  It would be considered a kindness to many collectors if Hasbro repacked this figure.

Rebel Ground Crew Transport

The transport is fairly simplistic.  It’s essentially an upscaled Hot Wheels car made out of plastic, but it’s a godsend for any hangar display.  It’s sufficiently detailed and does its job of dressing up your display perfectly.  This is a 10 out of 10 item for its mere existence.  If the mini-rig platform ever returned, this is the ideal type of product.