AT-RT (All Terrain Recon Transport) (The Clone Wars) - Maquettes

Here comes the AT-RT (All Terrain Recon Transport). This one-man bipedal walker was often deployed by the Galactic Army for scouting, reconnaissance, patrolling and quick strikes in difficult terrain on desolate planets and distant battlefields alike.

While it’s easy to criticize a licensee on the things that don’t come out so well, collectors are guilty for not praising the awesome products that they do make. Then there are some products that are designed so well that you would be guilty if you didn’t show some form of gratitude. So we want to make it clear right from the start that Gentle Giant Ltd. has produced what may remain one of the greatest all-time accomplishments in The Clone Wars Maquettes line, and maybe in their entire catalogue altogether. Thinking completely outside of the box, they chose to attack a small vehicles in The Clone Wars Maquettes line, which translates into a very big collectible, and produce something that remains in scale with the rest of the characters in the line already released. AT-RT (All Terrain Recon transport), along with its awesome ARF Trooper drover who in this case is meant to be Razor, is definitive, incredible, stunning, and you’re going to love it. With a tiny edition and extremely limited availability, it will remain a highly sought after Maquette for those that adore this line and even tease lovers of The Clone Wars to start up new collections as well. Again, this is a brilliant release and we wish it had more widespread knowledge amongst Star Wars collectors because a lot of people will completely miss out on this fine high-end collectible. It’s a shame when collectibles become more popular after they’re no longer available. It’s tragic in its own way.

AT-RT (All Terrain Recon Transport) is just amazing. That is such an overused word, but it’s really the most poignant one that applies here. AT-RT (All Terrain Recon Transport) comes packaged in nine separate parts (including the base). The hull and the legs are two separate pieces. And permanently attached to the hull is ARF Trooper Razor, but he is missing his arms which are two other parts included here as well. Once you attached the body of the AT-RT to the legs (please be careful), you them take the arms and slide the hands through the handlebars and guide the shoulders pegs into the sockets where a strong magnetic force greets them to permanently stay in place. Don’t try to “click” the handlebars into the hands or you’ll risk breaking the piece. The arms slide effortlessly up the handlebars, so why make more work for yourself? To finish off the vehicle, you’ll need to attach four more pieces: two gear pistons, the rear antenna and the chin gun. All of these pieces attach via magnets (save for the rear antenna) and the hold is very strong and the fit looks incredibly mechanical and realistic. ARF Trooper Razor is really the icing on the cake here. He has been sculpted and painted magnificently and we couldn’t be more pleased with how well he turned out. As seen in The Clone Wars during season 1, this setup will refresh the memories of the many fans of the show and remind them the role Lightning Squad played in the series.

Limited to a mere 200 pieces, that wasn’t the only factor preventing this from reaching the hands of adoring The Clone Wars fans everywhere. It was only available at Gentle Giant Ltd.’s website. It quickly sold out and wait lists reservations never were fulfilled. We have to admit that the only thing we view as an error on Gentle Giant’s part was how this collectible was solicited. While we may plead ignorance to or had missed the fact that we initially thought this was just a smaller scaled Statue in the line and not a Maquette, it didn’t really set in our minds that this was going to be in scale with the rest of the Maquettes. So even we were alarmed to finally discover that it was indeed part of the Maquettes line and not the Statues line. The AT-RT (All Terrain Recon Transport) is very fragile. It would be in your best interest to treat it as an irreplaceable collectible. After all, with that low of an edition size and the inability of that size to meet demand, it probably goes without saying that this piece’s appearance on the aftermarket will remain slim to none. We hope that the cancellation of The Clone Wars television show doesn’t limit Gentle Giant Ltd. to making more great collectibles based on this franchise. The Maquettes line is personally one of our favorites that they do, and we’re partial to so many great characters from The Clone Wars that they could bring us a new Maquette every year and we would never lose interest. AT-RT (All Terrain Recon Transport) is a work of art. Again, it’s one of their best moments to date.