# 49 : Star Wars, Clone Wars - 501st & BARC Speeder
Another repaint of previous figures but this time a welcomed addition.
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Packaging
Like the SW Crab Droid, it's basically the same type of display box but with a different diorama. I'm guessing its Felucia in the background.
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D.S.A.
|Details|
"Clone troopers ride Biker Advanced Recon Commando (BARC) speeder bikes on scouting and escort missions. BARC speeders give the troopers greater range, speed, mobility and firepower than foot patrols. They prove so useful to elite units like the 501st Legion that they are soon made available to the entire clone trooper army."
|Sculpt|
Hasbro decided to make a correction in the sculpt of the helmet to resemble the animated C.W. series. I think they started making this correction with the 212th Clone trooper in Wave 4.
The blue decals on the trooper has also been made to match Captain Rex's colors(about time). I had 2 of the Wal-Mart exclusive 501st trooper issued last year. The color(see pic below) is nice but it just looks so out of place with their captain. The new helmet sculpt is the inclusion of the small gap at the 'chin'. This is supposedly where the breathing apparatus connects for space missions.
|Accessories|
DC-15 Blaster rifle
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Articulation
|Clone Trooper|
No changes to the articulation. It's still the same as previous basic white clone trooper.
|BARC Speeder|
It still has the same retractable landing gear and 'exploding' bike gimmick(trust me, just leave it at that. It's not worth asking)
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Fun Factor
I currently have 3 BARC speeders from the ROTS Treachery on Saleucami battlepacks. So it's really sweet to have it all lined up. Plus I can use Rex for the blue BARC speeder and the other 3 501st for the red speeders.
I didn't have a pic of them on the bikes mainly because of their leg stance. Their articulation(swivel hips) aren't exactly the best to use unless you want to permanently ruin your figures. But there is a solution to this problem(I think). The ARF trooper has a sort of ball-jointed articulation in the hips. So if you could swap these with the 501st, you're good to go.
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Overall
I'm glad I decided to pick up this deluxe figure. The BARC speeder is nothing new but the 501st trooper with correct helmet sculpt and with the matching blue decals to Rex is a worthwhile addition. I just hope Hasbro will decide to reissue the trooper in a single pack.
Score: ****
Related Posts:
Once you've open the packaging there's not a lot of assembly and best of all, no stickers!!
Personally I don't really recall seeing the C.D. in either the C.W. animated series or movie. Maybe I wasn't paying attention enough. I do remember that the first time I saw this droid in the ROTS(a bit smaller) and in the 2003 CW Series(twice the size).
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A sort of crawling type movement. A decent attempt but it WOULD have been better if each legs had movable joints.
They were 6 figures on the shelves and I picked Astro Boy with the black short-shorts and the red boots(damn, a man shouldn't have to say stuff like that). The back of the packaging is a bit too plain for me because there's no info about Astro Boy.
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The vehicle comes with stickers(oh how I hate those) of Cobra logo and whatnot. This was aimed for kids of course. We all know how silly it would be for an actual Cobra vehicle to have have its logo on the hood and driving around Paris(ermm...right?). That would be like Cookie Monster announcing his arrival at a bake sale.
Since I said it 'should', the scale is a bit off me thinks. Just a tad smaller. Then again maybe I'm wrong. Overall the paint looks spot on. It still looks plastic-ish though.
There's a small issue of the door handles not being painted like the one in the box. It's minor but it got on my nerves. I might try to paint it but the handles are so small I might end up with a mess.
Slide back the roof to conceal the missile launcher and take off the iron plow to get a regular Hummer.
and this.
This vehicle is just superb for playing and display.
This question was Tagged by Double H. I did a similar blog post about this 
