Homing Spider Droid - TCW [B] - Vehicles

Separatists use OG-9 homing spider droids for anti-vehicular combat, first deploying them at the Battle of Geonosis. A homing spider droid is powerfully equipped with a dish-shaped laser cannon and a blaster cannon that can weaken shields, destroy armored vehicles, and decimate troops. Like their arachnid namesake, spider droids move swiftly over terrain on stilt-like legs that provide the height needed to target air and ground vehicles.

Man! How annoying is it when a vehicle (or extremely large droid) is from one of the six films (Prequel Trilogy in particular) yet Hasbro decides to include it in The Clone Wars franchise? This is exactly what happened to the poor Homing Spider Droid that should have really been part of The Legacy Collection and not The Clone Wars line. Semantics aside, it is certainly better to get the vehicle in the wrong packaging than not at all, but it still makes us wish that Hasbro would do their best to keep the lines separate and definitely free from sourcing errors. You may not be aware, but the Homing Spider Droid appears in neither The Clone Wars film nor the animated series (to date). So far it can only be found in Episode II, Episode III, Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars and a whole slew of other Expanded Universe sources, excluding Filoni’s The Clone Wars. And since it was a major Separatist enemy (especially at the end of Episode II), we are thrilled to finally have it in our collections because it certainly makes a potent statement in our Geonosis dioramas. Not perfectly in scale, the Homing Spider Droid is sizeable in more ways than one. It towers over the action figures you display it with and it can house a battle droid inside of its cockpit.

The Homing Spider Droid is well-equipped and Hasbro ensured they gave it all of its required bells and whistles to defeat the Republic. It has two large-sized “dish” cannon at the top and bottom of its round body and they have the capability to weaken shields and the capacity to annihilate armored vehicles. A clearly powerful tool for the Separatist Army, the Homing Spider Droid is truly more of a vehicle than a droid as far as we’re concerned. Its design is very misleading. With long spindly legs and a “fat” center, it seems that this vehicle would function sluggishly, but it doesn’t. It’s quite agile. Hasbro did their best to recreate these characteristics of the vehicle but at times we find the legs (and especially the feet on the legs) to be a bit of a nuisance. They don’t have the full range of motion we would have hoped. But at least they can be moved some. It just seems that a lot of mechanics were put into this vehicle yet it just doesn’t function the way you would have expected. Still, the complex design sets this vehicle apart from others even if it can move in all the places you may have wanted.

The droid/vehicle is painted in a standard gray metallic color. In the center of each leg in some orange detail which also looks fantastic. Hasbro definitely put some thought into how this vehicle should look and we think the results are more than passable. Underneath the top dish cannon is a cockpit that can house either a battle droid if you’re looking to harass the Republic or a clone trooper (if you’re trying to do that Return Of The Jedi hijack thing). This vehicle is an excellent scene filler item but it really doesn’t move in enough ways to excite you. But if you’re somebody who just displays your toys then this couldn’t be more perfect for you. We hope for two things as Hasbro continues their Star Wars lines into future years. First, we hope that the mechanics of the vehicles become a little bit more mobile. The cost and time to put in all of these points of movement to then be inhibited by how far they can actually move is a bit frustrating. Second, we hope that Hasbro keeps vehicles not sourced directly to The Clone Wars out of that line look. Doing this clouds the clear break between the television show and the films and in order for the line to remain strong, hardcore movie fans need to see their product in non-TCW packaging. But that’s just our two cents.