Nomadscout’s Collection Part XII

A visual tour of another batch of 1/18 scaled Star Wars-themed knickknacks...

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
PART IX: Republic Navy
PART X: Jedi Starfighters
PART XI: Kashyyyk and Utapau

This one's a little bittersweet. If you've already perused the gallery, you'll notice an alarming quantity of 5POA figures. I normally don't include those in this ongoing feature, but for the source material that was prevalent between 2015 and 2018, 5POA and/or animated made up a significant percentage of the figure offerings. While I loathe to do so, these figures are shown here because, for the most part, they represent characters that were never released in a more acceptably articulated format. So while I hate that they are not super-articulated, I would prefer to include them in my displays because the alternative is to have almost nothing to display.

The photos above show various 5POA releases for Solo, while the few super-articulated figures are front and center. These, thankfully, at least include young Han Solo himself in his main outfit. We also get a nice young Lando, Enfys Nest, a Mimban Stormtrooper, and a Range Trooper. There's also another young Lando, which is actually sourced to Battlefront II, but I believe it also represents the outfit Lando wore at the end of Solo, when he loses his famous hand of sabacc - and The Falcon with it. These are very good figures, although none of them have the most modern hip articulation and rocker ankles, so they're already showing their age a bit.

Aside from this smattering of TVC figures, the majority of the offerings for Solo are 5POA. They're not acceptable, but they're all we have. I spend a lot of energy bashing 5POA, and deservedly so. I have to admit they often look very nice, they just are extremely limited in what you can do with them in a display. As such, I currently have these figures just standing around. Part of it is the lack of articulation, part of it is the lack of context. But we'll make do with what we have here.

From the early part of the film, we have Han and Qi'ra in their outfits when they were "kids" on Corellia. They are chased by Molloch (the figure that notoriously pegwarmed in 6" form) and Rebolt (with his hound), who were henchmen of Lady Proxima. We also have the Patrol Trooper. We did get a couple of cool vehicles from Solothat would be acceptable in your TVC collection, even if they're a bit under-detailed. We've got Han's M68 Landspeeder, although we don't have Moloch's A-A4B Truckspeeder, nor do we have the Imperial Patrol Speeder. Boooo!

For the Mimban scene, we've got the aforementioned TVC Mimban Stormtrooper, but 5POA gave us mud troopers, including Han in his mud trooper uniform. These were highly desired by collectors at the time for TVC, and only later did we get similar troopers for Cassian Andor, Din Djarin, and Bill Burr. I put in a trio of stormtrooper officers (which are billed as being from Mimban on the package), but I realized that we actually do have a pauldroned stormtrooper in TVC sourced to Jedi: Fallen Order. And finally we have 2 pack of muddy buddies Han and Chewy, along with a canon. The All Terrain Defense Turret is a cool vehicle from this scene. For whatever reason, it was fairly scarce, which is too bad because it's one of the more interesting designs from this era of collecting.

Next up we've got the Vendor-1 cardboard playset, which is the closest thing we have to the train from the heist scene. It's not the worst thing in the world, and has some really solid/sturdy cardboard. But the character graphics limit it, and frankly the whole setup leaves a lot to be desired. But again, maybe it's better than nothing. Along with the TVC Range Troopers, we've got Beckett's entire crew - in 5POA form. Beckett himself, Val, Rio, Han in his fur coat, and Chewie. Even Chewbacca failed to get a TVC figure. He basically could have just gotten a new double-bandolier, and we might have been satisfied. (Probably not.)

For the Kessel scene, Hasbro has provided us with a second large, heavy-duty cardboard playset. This one is perhaps less interesting than the Vandor-1 set, which has the cargo train and a security gate accessory. It does have 3 levels, and depicts both the interior and exterior of the mine. We get a nice looking Quay Tolsite, to date the only Pyke species character in 3.75" form. Pykes have now appeared in multiple media sources, most notably The Book of Boba Fett, and most recently Star Wars Outlaws. Tolsite is protected by a Pyke-contracted Kessel guard. We also get a fancy-disguised Qi'ra (minus the red robe) and L3-37, who started the droid uprising in the mine during the crew's attempt to steal raw coaxium.

A few more vehicles can be had from the Solo line. There's Enfys Nest's speeder bike, which nicely done, and can accommodate the TVC Enfys figure, even though it was designed to interact with the 5POA version. Although the Cloud Riders got the short end of the stick, we get Weazel, who was played by Warrick Davis. Weazel actually first appeared in TPM, where an unmasked Davis can be seen sitting in the stands at the Boonta Eve Classic. This is the same character, having gone from criminal to freedom fighter.

And finally we get a pair of larger vehicles. The TIE Fighter is oddly sized, fitting somewhere between the original TIE wings and the later "Big Wing" TIE. The unique feature here is that the cockpit explodes in half, which is pretty neat. It's a sturdy vehicle, unlike the recent sequel versions, which have warpy wings. Rounding out the Solo line is the Kessel Run Millennium Falcon. This Falcon is not sized specifically in scale with any other Falcon in the line. It's clearly intended to be much more of an action feature-laden toy than a collectors' item. Its lights and sounds and pop-off panels are intended to recreate the damage received during Han's famous 12-parsec Kessel Run. Lando's beautiful ship is transformed into the "piece of junk" we all know and love. The vehicle only holds one figure in the cockpit and doesn't have real landing gear. These are just two reasons why you're likely not going to be satisfied with this Falcon, but it's the closest thing we have to the one from this film.

Well, that's it. I feel a little dirty having just written and photographed a piece that largely focuses on 5POA stuff, but it's also intended to highlight the poor showing Solo made in TVC. It seems unlikely we're going to get super-articulated updates to any of these figures. And while the 5POA line did a nice job of giving us some deep backgrounders, like Rebolt and the Kessel Guard, we are definitely lacking some other characters. Most notably, we have no Dryden Vos, nor do we have a Crimson Dawn Darth Maul. We also could have gotten Lady Proxima, more Cloud Riders with their bikes, the sabacc players, etc. And we could have gotten a proper Falcon.

Well, what did you think of Solo as a source for figures and toys? And while the community often calls out for Dryden Vos, are there any others you'd like to see in TVC? Is it worth the cost of the slot?

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