Hoth Assault - SW [SOTDS] - Battle Packs

Darth Vader locates the Rebel Alliance's base on Hoth, an inhospitable planet in the Outer Rim Territories. The Sith Lord feels victory is within his grasp and sends a large assault force to crush the Rebels once and for all. The Imperials target Echo Base's power generator as a huge force of troopers pours onto the snow-covered world. Above the planet, Vader sets up a blockade to stop the Rebels from escaping.

Emergency alert! The Battle Packs line (for realistic product) is not off to a good start. 2010 is the 30th anniversary of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and instead of Hasbro putting together key sequences of the film into their popular format, they are instead relying on some bad in-house concepts which don’t do much for collectors at all. It is perplexing to say the least. Hasbro updates three major vehicles from the film (the Bespin Cloud Car, Luke Skywalker’s Snowspeeder and the Imperial AT-AT) and gave us an incredible first wave of figures (The Vintage Collection wave 1) yet they give us the extremely poor Hoth Assault Battle Packs set and the first and only non-animated set in the first wave. We suspect collectors can reap some benefits from it like army-building the Snowtrooper (and also getting another stab at the E-Web heavy repeating blaster) but the rest of it should leave a lot to be desired. And even though we are getting the E-Web again, it comes without the cable and power box attachment! No! We get another obligatory Darth Vader and one of the two Biker Scout and Speeder Bike combos from the 2008 TLC Hoth Speeder Bike Patrol Battle Packs set. What we don’t understand the most is why Hasbro wouldn’t cobble together a more scene specific and scene accurate set to go alongside this landmark anniversary. Well, by the looks of it, they may think that is exactly what this set does. While there are exceptions, fans of the Original Trilogy want movie accurate products for their collections. We hope Hasbro tries to satiate these requests for future sets. And let’s be honest. Do you actually need another Hoth Biker Scout on Speeder Bike? We think not.

So you’ve heard our rants. Now let’s try to be positive. We will at least try. All the figures in this set are new enough for collectors. All have been repainted and/or have unique battle-damage and/or dirt markings. While these things may not incite you to pick up this set, at least Hasbro changed it up enough for those who are at minimally looking for variances in their action figures. If you own the Hoth Speeder Bike Patrol, then you know what to expect from the Biker Scout and Speeder Bike in this set. The figure isn’t at all retooled and the differences in the paint job shouldn’t be that much of an issue for you. The Snowtrooper is definitely unique from both the 2007 VTSC Imperial Stormtrooper (Hoth Battle Gear) and the 2009 LC Snowtrooper (BD55) figures. For the Hoth Assault release, the paint job lies somewhere in the middle of the 2007 and 2009 figures. He can be positioned at the E-Web heavy repeating blaster very well and it is obviously the best snowtrooper action figure to date. With the upcoming TARGET exclusive “deluxe” Battle Packs coming in Fall 2010, this figure should be a nice enhancement to those sets. Darth Vader is a repaint of the 2005 ROTS Evolutions figure. This time around, his face has been painted in a much lighter color and at the moment we do not know how to react to it. It looks good. Then it doesn’t look so good. You’ll have to be the judge here. His armor has been cast in a shiny plastic that makes his helmet and other parts of his armor appear as if they have just been polished. So we give kudos to Hasbro for finding a way to get rid of the dull look at Vader’s armor and helmet.

If you sum all of the contents in this set, you should be able to calculate a relative bargain here. Two super-articulated figures with large “deluxe” accessories would easily be over $20 for the pair in today’s market. So at $24.99 (and some reports have found these at $19.99), getting three super-articulated figures and two large accessories is quite the bargain. But what good is a bargain if collectors aren’t buying it? Time will tell if this set resonates with collectors or not and maybe kids will be interested in the set too. But we just aren’t sure if collectors will take stock in this Battle Packs set. It suffers badly from “more of the same” and this is something that we as a whole are growing weary of in our collections. Space is limited and scaled back spending is of the essence nowadays. And if we save our dollars for future product, sets like Hoth Assault will sit and clog shelf space. Hopefully it will not suffer a terrible fate at retail. Hopefully it will be purchased to help pad the new and improved Imperial AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) . But we really hope that concepts for “realistic style” Battle Packs take a different direction. And we hope more army-building ones move to the front of the line. Those are always surefire hits. But Hoth Assault certainly isn’t the worst Battle Packs set we have ever received. It just isn’t appropriate to celebrate 30 years of The Empire Strikes Back. We believe upcoming product will overshadow this set, but we feel compelled to make it known that Battle Packs need a refocus to movie-specific scenes. And this set gets high marks for its content, not its execution.