Clone Troopers & Droids - TCW [SOTDS] - Battle Packs

Clones and droids battle each other during the Clone Wars. Each army – human and mechanical – builds its arsenal of skills and weapons throughout the conflict as new challenges arise. The clone troopers of the elite 327th Star Corps, under Commander Bly, clash with their robotic enemies throughout the entire span of the war. The troopers devise new combat strategies as the Separatists develop more powerful droids.

It's hard to believe that after a full two years of releasing The Clone Wars product that Hasbro is still playing catch-up and releasing toys sourced from The Clone Wars film (as well as characters from the first season). But as the Clone Troopers & Droids Battle Packs set from the third phase of The Clone Wars line look proves, there are still a lot of great ideas from which can be culled from the film. Loosely based on the Battle of Christophsis, this Battle Packs set brings collectors a nice even mix of clones and droids. If you own the 2008 TCW Clone Trooper (212th Attack Battalion) (No. 19) figure, then you already know what to expect from 50% of the figures in this set (even though they are designated as the 327th Star Corps). Hasbro obviously intended this orange/yellow color to look differently than the color used for the 212th Attack Battalion, but we think they appear more similar than different to our eyes. But the rest of the figures in this set are 25% repainted figures and the last 25% is all-new. By the time The Clone Wars is all said and done, we probably won't be able to tolerate looking at another clone trooper or battle droid again, but one thing is for sure and that is that the kids love them. Thankfully there is enough diversity among the clones and it definitely changes things up a bit. This set may not bring any new clone trooper flavor to the table, but it does have some nice surprises for sure.

The reason to get this set is clearly for the Retail Droid. Officially designated as LR-57 combat droids, the Retail Droid has the most unique super-deformed look of any action figure released to date. With an extremely large barrel head and spindly extremities, this is a style we have not even seen in the realistic line to date. This droid is well designed and has subtle but nice decorations on its body. A rather solid looking figure, the Retail Droid will likely be a figure that collectors will want to get multiples at some point so it will be wise for Hasbro to consider a basic figure release of this character (if it fits on the card that is) for ease of army-building. The color looks to be slightly off, but overall the figure is joy to add into our collection. The other surprise in this set is the Super Battle Droid, a figure that is almost out of place with the other figures in the set. This style of the "flying" Super Battle Droid is from the Season 1 episode entitled Jedi Crash. They had a brief but awesome appearance in that episode. This version of the Super Battle Droid has a completely different look from both the 2008 TCW Super Battle Droid (No. 12) and 2009's TCW Heavy Assault Super Battle Droid (CW11). It has a nice alternating light gray and dark gray striped pattern. But perhaps the nicest part of the paint job is the back of the figure which has yellow warning stripes. It looks fantastic. Be sure to make note of this paint job in our photo gallery above.

The two clone troopers included are just extra army-building fodder. We are fans of the 212th Attack Battalion (again, they are designated as 327th Star Corps on the packaging) and we suppose you can never get enough of them into your collections. But at this point in the game, we hope Hasbro utilizes every opportunity to give us completely new clone troopers in the line. The 212th Clone Troopers aren't straight repacks of the 2008 figure. In fact, one of them has a hole in his back to attach a flying jetpack. But they are loaded with articulation and will do any collector a world of good. We think overall all that the Battle Packs line is not off to the greatest start. We should at least be thankful that most of them are all-new concepts with only one pack being a straight repack so far. We hope that the line remains healthy with new additions and not inundate the shelves with rehashed product. But what collectors really want to see are scene specific multipacks that bring us back to a beloved section of the film. Older Battle Packs like Resurgence Of The Jedi, Battle For Endor, Scramble On Yavin, Ambush On The Vulture's Claw and even Jabba's Palace were such wonderful ideas and were unique in their approach. We hope to see similar ones in the very near future. But the Clone Trooper & Droids is a pretty good choice to jumpstart the line again. We'll just have to see where this line goes from here.