Star Wars Figure of the Day: Day 1,592: Battle Droid

BATTLE DROID The Red One, Battlefront II
30th Anniversary Collection Previews Exclusive
Item No.: Asst. 87561 No. 87478
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Number: n/a
Includes: BAW E-60R Missile Launcher, display stand, additional figures
Action Feature: Removable limbs
Retail: $39.99
Availability: Late 2007
Appearances: Star Wars: Battlefront II

Bio: Many of the best known battle droids were those used by the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars. By the time of the Battle of Yavin, however, battle droids were extremely rare, most likely due to the Clone Wars, or because the Empire didn't want an army that could be easily built and used against it. (Stolen from Wookieepedia.)

Image: Adam Pawlus' TV tray.

Commentary: There are no shortage of Battle Droid figures based on this mold, and this one is sorta neat. Kinda. For $39.99 he was part of a 7-figure set, which is all well and good until you realize that four of those seven figures were originally sold on basic cards as 2-packs, thus bringing the value of the box down to maybe $29 tops by 2007 standards. It's not much of a deal. The deco is inspired by Battlefront II but also looks quite similar to the ranking droids in The Phantom Menace. It's a perfectly nice figure with 5 points of articulation and removable limbs, but it wasn't quite a deal and as such is probably viewed mostly as a bit of a weak item-- especially compared to the super-cool Clone packs. There's a fair amount if dirt plus some silvery "metallic" bits on his body, so Hasbro didn't skimp on the deco here. They did, however, use the cheapest working mold they had and as such the figure has a little difficulty holding his freaking huge gun without assistance. You might need to bend him back into shape, or you could just leave him in the box-- as toys go, you can get other, cheaper versions of this droid. The gun was introduced in this set, but it was used on the 2007 Rebel Vanguard Trooper as well.

Collector's Notes: The set was released in 30th Anniversary Collection packaging as a Previews/Diamond exclusive (and distributed to comic shops, Big Bad Toy Store, Entertainment Earth, Suncoast, and elsewhere) at first, then a later repackaging in Legacy Collection blue-and-white was exclusive to Toys "R" Us in 2008. The toys are the same, it's an odd instance of a toy getting an almost immediate reissue as another store's exclusive.

--Adam Pawlus

Day 1,592: July 21, 2011