Defense Of Hoth - SW [SOTDS] - Exclusives

The Rebels defend their base on Hoth with every available weapon in their arsenal. They know they can't defeat the Imperial forces attacking them, but they need to delay them long enough to evacuate the base. Rebel troopers blast the enemy from laser towers that ring the base, and fire anti-vehicle cannons and medium repeating blasters at the snowtroopers and AT-ST walkers.

What does a toy company do to make up for things like "delayed" figures that never come, a refusal to release anything that may slightly resemble a "playset" or a seemingly apathetic drive of getting 30th anniversary themed The Empire Strikes Back stuff out to collectors? The answer to that is simple and easy. Hasbro releases the Defense Of Hoth multipack as a TARGET exclusive. This set is completely mind-blowing and not only to does it pack a ton of product into a box that is smaller than you might expect, it also includes things we have wanted for a long time. Some of these things include a rerelease of a large accessory and a figure that should have come to us all two and a half years ago as a running change in the blue phase of The Legacy Collection. (Trust us. It was well worth the wait. He is everything you expected and more!) The Defense Of Hoth set is beautiful and there are so many goodies and surprises inside, we bet that this will be a product that will not only sell through briskly at retail, but many will buy multiples because these sets are army builder fodder. The Defense Of Hoth set includes an all-new Anti-Vehicle Cannon, a rerelease of 2007's TAC The Battle Of Hoth Ultimate Battle Packs Laser Tower, a "new" version of K-3PO (which may just surprise the pants off of you) and two Rebel Troopers (including the never released running change of 2008's TLC Hoth Rebel Trooper (BD 42) figure). For $39.99, this set is an easy steal for us. And we bet many others will feel similarly. While this set only includes three action figures, they are all super-articulated and one has never been released until now. And the new Anti-Vehicle Cannon is completely amazing. This is very exciting and makes this set worth it all. But what about those surprises?

We'll get to the "new" (read delayed) Rebel Trooper in a moment, but we are thrilled to go on about the new K-3PO figure. Guess what? It's a Build A Droid! Hasbro is utilizing these great figures in the main line again. And we don't think this was brought up when this set was shown at 2010 San Diego Comic Con. So this makes K-3PO a repaint of 2009's TLC U-3PO (Build A Droid) from wave 6 of The Legacy Collection. This is a fantastic sculpt for a protocol droid and we love the option that he comes apart in six pieces. This droid gets pulverized in The Empire Strikes Back and now all of us can make this happen. K-3PO is relatively clean, but looks awesome. And this droid is a great complement to the two Hoth Rebel Troopers. And that brings us to the next awesome surprise! The new Rebel Trooper is just too cool for words. And we wish in hindsight that he was the one released in the basic figure line. He has a much better face sculpt than the 2008 figure and the cap with the scarf attachment could have been executed with better precision. You are already familiar with most of this figure already if you own the 2008 figure, but the head sculpt truly makes this all the more while for us. We would absolutely love to army build this new guy and we do hope that Hasbro can get him into a Saga Legends line (or even the main line) for us at some point. Trust us when we say that you're going to want multiples of him. The original Hoth Rebel Trooper is also different from the 2008 release. He has a more reddish brown hair and facial color and some other differences exist throughout the figure. We would have found it particularly awesome if Hasbro would have given us an all-new portrait on this figure so we could have three 100% unique soldiers at this point. But he's different enough and that's all we really care about because we just want Hasbro to tweak things they rerelease to keep them unique from the originals

The Anti-Vehicle Cannon will make you shutter. Hasbro has taken great care to design this new accessory to be completely in scale and the right height to pose the new Hoth Rebel Troopers next to it and to function with it flawlessly. Either Rebel Trooper is at the right height to "look" through the "periscope" and fire away at the Empire. The cannon comes with a power box that attaches to it via soft tubing and it looks just like it was pulled out of Episode V. The face of the cannon has those rounded section of squares that are color in silver and reflect light beautifully as if they were out in the Hoth winter sun. There are also to side panels that fold down for extra play value and Hasbro has painted them nicely to allow for a believable play function. The Laser Tower may be nothing new, but it is painted differently from the 2007 version. And we are confident that collectors will be buying these sets like hotcakes since so many missed out on those cool 2007 Ultimate Battle Packs. It's just so incredible that the two accessories are in scale with each other and they look phenomenal when you have your action figures interacting with them. So for three awesomely articulated action features as well as two large accessories (where one is new for the first time), this set is a total value. This could have easily been $49.99 (not that we would have been happy with that). Think about it. Two Battle Packs would come to over $50 with tax where 75% of the figures in the set could have been repacks or slight repaints. In this set we get two completely new figures and one repaint, one large and new accessory and one very hard-to-find accessory all for $39.99. We say it's a deal.