Dave's Star Wars Crossovers Rant: Standard Wave 6

     Kit Fisto (head remold, redeco of the Anakin mod to the Delta-7, not
          reviewed)
     Battle Droid (Armored Assault Tank)
     Various reships

     Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/SW/StandardC6

     http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/SW/Standard5 - original Delta-7 mold

CAPSULES

     Battle Droid: Very good vehicle mode, puzzle-former transformation,
typical spindly and unstable robot mode.  Mildly recommended.  $16.97 at
Walmart.

RANTS

     Packaging: Same as Wave C2, this is the last wave in the blue Clone Wars
trade dress.  Wave C6 moves to red.  Cosells are Kit Fisto, Clone Pilot
(V-22), Darth Vader (TIE Advanced) and Captain Rex (AT-TE).

BATTLE DROID
+ Converts from AAT mode to mech mode!
+ Launching projectile!

     Armored Assault Tanks (AATs) hover on the battlefield swith their
cannons aimed at the approaching Republic forces.  The Separatist tanks are
equipped with cannons and missile launchers, but these advanced versions have
an additional weapon: they change into enormous battle droids that can easily
overwhelm opponents!

     Packaging: Three H-connector rubber bands hold it in the blister, and
two more rubber bands hold the back end together.  The missile is held into
the blister by another rubber band.  There's no catalog.

     Vehicle Mode: These are the basic "vacuum cleaner" hovertanks, the
slightly smaller tweaked blue and gray CIS version seen in Clone Wars (as
opposed to the beige ones from Phantom Menace).  According to Wookieepedia,
it's 9.75 meters long.  So, at about 6" (15cm) long, this is about 1:64
scale, give or take.  Since that's about the scale of the figures that used
to come with SWTFs (31-33mm), that works out about right.
     Most of the body shell is medium gray plastic, but some pistons on the
side and the part right under the turret are a slate blue.  I think the
commander's hatch on the turret is gray plastic painted over.  The secondary
guns and the missile (main turret barrel) are very dark gray plastic, and the
antenna on the turret is soft very dark gray plastic.  The trigger button on
the launcher and some robot bits hanging out the back are that very light tan
used on Battle Droids.
     Slate blue paint with a very good match to the plastic, but more matte
than the plastic, is extensively used on the gray parts and on the secondary
guns, plus on the hatch.  A gray Separatist symbol (not quite the same gray
as the plastic, a little darker) is printed on either side of the hoverskirt.
This darker gray is also used on the driver's windows and a stripe on the
blue plastic under the turret.  Very dark gray matching the plastic is used
for details on the pistons on the sides, and for carbon scoring on the
missile tubes at the front of the hoverskirt.  Well, they look like missile
tubes, anyway.  Some green paint on the robot bits is also visible.
     It rolls nicely on four wheels, and the center of mass is only a little
ahead of the rear wheels so it's easy to tip back and pivot freely without
knocking it over or doing a blatant wheelie.  The turret turns 360 degrees,
and the secondary guns can rotate in full vertical circles (allowing for
comic-relief droids to shoot their own vehicle).  The hatch atop the turret
opens up in two pieces, and there's room for a 31mm scale figure to stand.
It's not all that wide, though, so if you want to repurpose a Star Wars
Miniatures Game figure it'll need to be one with a narrow stance.  The
antenna blocks the left side of the hatch from opening all the way.
     Stability is very good, even on re-transformation (i.e. there's no parts
that have to be in Factory Perfect positions to work, like RotF Deluxe
Mudflap).  
     Oh, and it fires a missile.  Just, not very far.  This is a classic case
of representing a long-barrelled blaster with a missile, so it looks odd once
the missile has been fired.  The launcher is glued together rather than
screwed, so I can't just go in and remove the spring.  Of course, the way
it's designed, without the spring it'd just rattle around a lot and fall
out, like the spring-less G1 launchers.

     Transformation: Most of the vehicle bits become a backpack and skirt,
with the robot limbs folded up in a puzzle inside.  Getting to robot mode
isn't too tough, although if you don't use the instructions there's a certain
amount of "surely, there must be more I can do with all this vehicle kibble"
reaction.  There's a piece that's supposed to snap together in the pelvis,
but no amount of fiddling on my part has gotten it to stay in place.  I think
it relies too much on friction between some very small contact areas.  If you
snap the hoverskirt pieces back together, though, it holds the torso solidly
at the expense of some stress to the connections.
     Going back to vehicle mode is where the puzzle aspect comes in, with the
legs intertwined with the arms and taking advantage of numerous joints and
pegs.  The instructions are only slightly helpful here, so you really should
pay close attention to where everything is before transforming this the first
time to robot mode.  To give it some credit, once everything's in place it's
very stable, but figuring it out is a challenge.
     
     Mech Mode: It's your basic spindly Lucasmech with AAT chunks hanging off
it.  And like many SWTFs, there's an ugly telescoping section in the thighs,
although you can keep them unextended without severly affecting the looks of
the mech.  The struts for the secondary guns block off the arms from the
front, although the guns themselves can pop off and ne held in the hands.  Or
you can wedge them into the rectangular slots on the forearms.  Being
arm-mounted makes them feel more Super Battle Droid-ish.
     6.75" (17cm) tall at the head.  If you leave the launcher on as a radio
antenna backpack, it sticks up all the way to 9" (23cm).  The non-AAT pieces
are the pale beige color associated with Battle Droids, with mostly green
accent paint.
     The head, arms and thighs are pale beige plastic.  The lower legs are
slate blue plastic, including the feet.  The torso is made from the driver's
compartment section of the AAT, with the turret forming a backpack.  There's
a lot of kelly green accents on the head and arms, including green "hair".
There's some yellow-green patterns on the face, with red eyes.  A cool gray
paint matching the plastic is used for a couple of accents on the thighs and
forearms.  
     The head turns, but the waist is locked down.  The shoulders are ratchet
hinges out to the sides on struts that are ball-jointed where they meet the
body, but the gun struts block almost all forward and back motion.  There's a
ratcheting swivel just below the shoulder, smooth hinge elbows, and universal
hinge-and-swivel wrists.  The hips use the same sort of jointing as the
shoulders, but are less blocked by kibble, especialy if you lock the skirt
pieces together in the back.  There's a slightly ratcheting swivel above each
smooth hinge knee, and a transformation ball joint below the knee that acts
as another swivel.  The ankles are double hinged for transformation, which
lets you adjust exactly where the feet are.  But the smallish size of the
feet and the topheavy nature of the mech mode mean there's not much other
than parade rest you can do without it toppling.  However, if you swivel the
turret down before locking the skirt together, the missile can act as a third
leg to improve stability.

     Overall: For good (vehicle mode) and ill (mech mode), it's a pretty
normal Star Wars TF design.  However, locking the skirt back together around
the turret in back really helps counter the stability issues, and forearm
mounting of the guns draws attention away from the pathetic droid-claws.

     Dave Van Domelen, had this sitting unopened in his apartment for months
before opening it.