Ambush On The Vulture’s Claw - TCW [B] - Battle Packs

R2-D2 is lost during a space battle, and Anakin is determined to find him. The Jedi spots a Trandoshan scavenger ship near the debris field, but the ship's shady operator, Gha Nachkt, denies finding an R2 unit. Anakin and his Padawan Ahsoka encounter plenty of deception and danger as they search the salvage vessel for Artoo.

The Ambush On The Vulture’s Claw Battle Packs set from Hasbro is exactly what the paradigm should be for all future ones. It gives both the kid and collector something to salivate over while providing great value for the dollar and even better play value since the characters have been culled from a very exciting scene in The Clone Wars television series. It includes an altogether new figure, a repaint, and two reworked figures with new soft-goods. This provides enough "newness" and variety to all who buy it and makes the set a very worthwhile purchase. When Hasbro dishes out repackaged figures without tweaking something on them, it feels like we are getting burned a little bit. But when we get something like this Battle Packs set, it makes everything right in the universe. We have seen a lot of "repackaged" figures in previous lines, but Hasbro (with few exceptions) seems to have reinvented their approach to new Battle Packs (thankfully) for the most part with the launch of The Clone Wars and The Legacy Collection toy lines. Small vehicles and larger accessories are all relatively new additions to the standard four or five pack of basic figures that makes up the whole set. But if we’re only getting four figures, then we should be getting something new inside to warrant its purchase. We sincerely hope that the Ambush On The Vulture's Claw Battle Packs set will be the template or guide from which all future sets will imitate and follow.

Let's start off talking about the new figure in this set! Gha Nachkt is a pudgy Trandoshan with a severe jaw under-bite. Appearing much more like an overweight Saurin than someone who is related to the athletic Bossk, Gha Nachkt's corpulent frame matches his extremely greedy behavioral patterns. He has extraordinarily long arms and long fingernails and he is a bit short for a Transdoshan obviously. But he has that reptilian and seedy presence to him that made Bossk a huge hit to Star Wars fans. Regardless, he is magnificently sculpted and we wish we could have attained him as part of the basic figure line. There are so many details to appreciate with this figure. Take for example the "familiar" arm patches on his shoulders which are very reminiscent of the designs that Bossk had on his uniform. The other figures are awesome too in this set. Ahsoka Tano and Anakin Skywalker are definitely simple repacks but they come with well-tailored soft-goods. Although the soft-goods do not really match what was seen in the TV series, they nonetheless look fantastic on the figures and the ponchos serve their purpose well. (They look a little too Episode I/Qui-Gon Jinn for our liking because in the TV episode they were solid without any stripes. Ahsoka and Anakin also come outfitted with their respective lightsabers. The accessories are light as they should be here. The IG-86 Assassin Droid is worthy of taking note too because the droid has been repainted from its original 2008 TCW IG-86 Assassin Droid (No. 18) single carded appearance we received previously. Looking much darker and with less scratching detail than the basic figures, IG-86 is a great way to build your army while adding differentiability and uniqueness. You may also be interested that it comes with a third color for guns and this time it is black. So we have gotten this droid with gray, blue and now black guns. It seems that Hasbro cannot make up their mind. As a cohesive set, the characters complement each other wonderfully and we dare say that there are enough new products in here to totally make this purchase worth every penny.

Battle Packs are arguably one of the best mediums and assortments Hasbro has created to get us out multiple figures at once. As long as they keep the price tag in check and the ideas interesting, this will undoubtedly be one of the most successful sub-lines we will ever receive. And we hope that Hasbro focuses the sets based on a scene found anywhere in the various Star Wars universe. Recreating scenes from Star Wars is one of the most important things to collectors (and even kids) so we hope that Hasbro makes it a priority to follow in this fashion. Since their official inception in 2005 during the Revenge Of The Sith line (Hasbro released many four figure multipacks before them), Battle Packs have been a mainstay in the collection and both Hasbro and collectors see the beautiful fruit they produce (for the most part - there have been some bombs) and they really provide a nice angle to collecting. Their popularity continually grows and this will guarantee a strong performance of the line. The Clone Wars is a very rich source from which Hasbro can continue to cull these great Battle Packs, so we expect to continue receiving some pretty intriguing ones based on the television series as time moves forward. And if Hasbro can maintain including at least one new sculpt (or a significant repaint as an acceptable substitute) in them we are fairly confident that they will maintain both kid and collector support in a potentially endless line. Rumor has it that this wave of Battle Packs may not be shipping for as long as we would wish. The line look went to an official change during the summer od 2009 from blue to red and since Ambush On The Vulture's Claw is shipping with Geonosis Assault (and are both in blue packaging) we don't expect to see them as plentiful as previous ones. Now is the time to act!