Nomadscout’s Collection Part IX

For this next installment, you get to see some things that are bigger than the usual things...

Previous parts can be found here if you missed them or are interested in looking again:
PART I: CIS Droids
PART II: CIS Factions and Leadership
PART III: Naboo
PART IV: Coruscant
PART V: Clone Troopers (Phase I)
PART VI: Jedi
PART VII: Clone Troopers (Phase II)
PART VIII: GAR Vehicles

The Galactic Republic Navy was built to protect the Republic, but with the start of the clone wars, it took on a more offensive posture. The only Republic starships that appeared in The Phantom Menace was a Consular-class space cruiser used to transport Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi to their negotiations with the Trade Federation, and a CSS-1 Corellian Star Shuttle, which was used to transport newly elected Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and a Jedi delegation to Theed City following the Battle of Naboo. Neither of these vessels were warships, of course. And largely due to their size and, probably more importantly, their lack of "aggressiveness," Hasbro never made them.

AOTC gave us our first viewing experience of the Republic Navy, when Yoda and the Clone Troopers arrived on Geonosis just in time to save the last survivors of the arena battle. These were modeled after attack transport helicopters such as the UH-1 Iroquois "Huey" (Lucas specifically used footage of Russian Mi-24 Hinds for inspiration), which swooped into battle, deployed (or picked up) infantry, and then quickly took off again. The Low Altitude Assault Transport/infantry (LAAT/i) immediately became a fan favorite as it brought clones to battle for the first time, with Yoda leading the charge and looking like Colonel Kilgore. After AOTC, we saw the gunships again in the Genndy Microseries. Of particular note was the Rancor mouth paint scheme on the gunship that was used by Captain Fordo and the Muunilinst 10. It was then seen briefly in ROTS, before it's ubiquitous participation during the run of The Clone Wars series.

Hasbro gave us not 1, not 2...but 7 variants of the vaunted Gunship. It had a few sculpt/feature upgrades along the way, as well as some varied paint schemes. The first release was from AOTC, followed by the Rancor ship from the Microseries. Then we got one from ROTS, after which Hasbro released 3 different versions from The Clone Wars (including the "Crumb Bomber" and the "Lucky Lekku," both of which appeared in multiple episodes. The 7th (and thus far, final) release was in TVC 1.0, and included 2 terrible figures, but it's still a legendary toy. Many fans have been asking for a re-release or a re-sculpt. It would probably cost 6 thousand dollars, but that's cool.

After the 7 Gunship variants, Hasbro's next favorite ship is the ARC-170 Straighter (Aggressive ReConnaissance-170 starfighter). This was a predecessor to the T65 X-Wing, so there was a link to the OT that helped make it another fan favorite. ARC-170's participated in the Battle of Coruscant at the beginning of ROTS. An ARC-170 shot down Plo Koon after Order 66 was issued. Hasbro gave us 4 variants, including a "Shadow" ARC, or Imperial ARC-170, which sported the Imperial insignia signifying its usage after the establishment of the Empire. I recall finding this particular Toys R Us exclusive (which nobody asked for) for more than $70 on the same shelf as the concurrently available $45 standard version. I was so mad that I bought one. But I complained a lot, let me tell you!

Debuting during The Clone Wars was the Republic Y-Wing Bomber. The Clone Wars era ships were fully clad in plating and armor. Similar to the Millennium Falcon, it turns out that the versions we saw during the OT weren't updated models, but just stripped down from their former glory. Hasbro released a yellow bomber in TLC. Later, I had hoped that Hasbro might re-issue the sculpt in blue 501st colors, to represent the ship Rex and Ahsoka used to make their escape from the crashing Star Destroyer during one of the final scenes of the series.

Smaller starfighters were also available to add to our collections. We have a V-19 Torrent Straighter, originally available in TLC, but then (for some reason) re-released in TVC 1.0. And we have a few versions of the V-Wing Starfighter, including one with Imperial markings. Note that a paint variant exists, but is not part of my collection and therefore not included in the images above. I shall now loose sleep due to this oversight. Also pictured are 2 variants of Hasbro's "off screen" mini-rig creations, which is modeled after the Y-Wing, one of which was sourced to Rebels.

And finally, making its second appearance in this series, is the Republic Attack Shuttle. Last time I had it "transformed" into the ground base, but here it is in it's "natural" form, which can be seen in multiple episodes of The Clone Wars as well as The Bad Batch. It's a decent looking ship, and much less silly than the base version.

Unless I've forgotten something, that pretty much covers what is available from the Republic Navy - aside from the Jedi stuff. That's for another day. Or two. So...show us your collections in the comments below!

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