Freeco Speeder With Clone Trooper - TCW [SOTDS] - Deluxe

A clone trooper rides a Freeco bike on the frozen world of Orto Plutonia. The bike's windscreen shields the driver from wind and snow, and cold weather gear further protects the trooper from the harsh environment. The bike's speed and maneuverability are pushed to their limits when the native Talz launch an attack to defend their homeworld.

Hasbro certainly has been fixated on the Season 1 episode Trespass from The Clone Wars lately. And this of course is all good because it had one of the best plots in the entire series. That was only made better by the inclusion of a snowy planet and awesome Star Wars characters which immediately reminded us of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back. So how could Hasbro go wrong developing action figures and toys for us based on this environment and powerful storyline? Between the basic figure line, Battle Packs and Deluxe figures, we are surely getting our fill of this episode and we are extra thankful to Hasbro for spending so much time and effort making great toys based on it. Most of the key characters and outfits have arrived, although it has taken a little bit of time to get them all out. We concede that the Deluxe line is definitely a little bit trickier for Hasbro because it's difficult to maintain costs with a figure and a vehicle than it is for a figure alone. And to reuse existing sculpts to make them new again is cost efficient, but not necessarily simple for it to make sense all of the time. But Hasbro has managed a couple of times now to bring quality product and awesome play value to this line. It is definitely the sub-line that is the hardest to remain consistent, but we think they reached that goal successfully for the Freeco Speeder With Clone Trooper Deluxe set.

If you have 2009's TCW [S2] Freeco Speeder With Obi-Wan Kenobi Deluxe set, then you know what you’re getting here for the most part. A simple vehicle with very little interaction, the Freeco speeder won’t knock your socks off, but it is nonetheless a great little vehicle with a few features that gives it decent play value. For us however, the vehicle's strength is its sculpt. Not necessarily to scale, it still possesses unprecedented accuracy to the vehicles we saw in the Trespass episode. The canopy slides forward and can seat the included Clone Trooper quite well and the landing gear, although curvy and slightly awkward, works equally as well and keeps this vehicle in a landed position when not in flight. Captain Rex and Obi-Wan Kenobi were really the only characters who utilized these higher end speeders. Technically the combination of "generic" Clone Trooper and Freeco Speeder isn't that accurate, but who cares. Now you have a speeder for Obi-Wan as well as Captain Rex. This Clone Trooper is a smart repaint of 2010’s TCW [S2] Captain Rex (CW50) figure with a very different paint scheme. The great news here is that it accurately reflects the generic troopers in The Clone Wars episode. The figure is extremely well painted and it’s actually a shame that Hasbro didn’t decided to get this figure into the basic figure line for quick army building. There were a large amount of these clones in the episode, so we hope they get him out again and in greater numbers. (Interestingly, they decided to reissue Captain Rex. We only need one of him.)

From the dirty paint job to the accuracy of the blue color flashes, the Clone Trooper is an awesome addition to The Clone Wars line. Granted, it's nothing you haven't seen before but he is a necessary addition to the line and we're thrilled Hasbro developed him so incredibly well. We do however have a favor to ask Hasbro going forward. We really need them to stop calling clones “Clone Troopers”. There are too many of them and we are in desperate need of subtitles for every clone trooper going forward. The diversity among them is mind boggling, so we don't know why they won't give us more information regarding the clones we release. Calling a simple white clone trooper “Clone Trooper” is OK, but it just isn’t the same when it’s one of Captain Rex’s finest on the planet of Orto Plutonia in snow gear. You feel us? It just doesn’t make sense and we need additional designation to keep them separate in our minds. That being said, the Freeco Speeder With Clone Trooper is a must-have for us. It nicely complements 2009's TCW [S2] Freeco Speeder With Obi-Wan Kenobi and all of the figure’s in the 2010 TCW [SOTDS] Battle Of Orto Plutonia Battle Packs set. If we could get more generic Talz warriors and more generic clone troopers into the line to help the main characters out, we would indeed be very happy collectors. For the time being, enjoy stuff like this that Hasbro produces for us. There are some real gems hidden in the Deluxe (Class I) lineup. This is one of them.