Micro Collection X-Wing and TIE Fighter

The two classic Star Wars ships... X-Wing and TIE Fighter. They've appeared in several iterations in the Kenner line - 3 3/4" scale (in two variations each), diecast, and now, Micro Collection! 

Looks great doesn't it? The great thing about the Micro Collection ships is that they seem less... compromised, and more accurate, than the full-size 3 3/4" scale versions.

I think this is due to practical reasons... the larger scale ships have to be a bit undersized when compared to the figures, just for cost. A larger ship requires more material, a bigger box, and a larger footprint on store shelves. All of those things cost money.

But the smaller scale ships require less of all those things, so there's a bit more flexibility to reflect screen accuracy.

Unfortunately the "action feature" of this ship does require a compromise - that large handle sticking out of the ship's behind.

"Lock S-Foils in attack position!"

And here's that pilot outside his cockpit.

Manipulating that handle at the back releases the elastic cord and activates battle damage. And speaking of battle damage... the ship of course includes battle damage stickers with clear backing. They look good.

Instruction sheet.

Here's the copyright information. Made in Macau, interesting eh?

Now the nemesis of the X-Wing - the TIE Fighter. Another really well-done toy, so accurate to the screen version. Battle damage stickers here too. You often find these ships missing the wing stickers as the glue loosens after 40 years... fortunately this example required little work. I was able to make good photocopies of the detached stickers and stick them back on with white glue.

The battle-damage lever is much better integrated here than it is on the X-Wing. It's the button on the back of the cockpit pod. 

Hatch opens at the top, just like on the 3 3/4" version.

Copyright info on the inside of the hatch.

TIE pilot is a bit harder to find. My ship didn't come with one when I bought it years ago so I had to find a loose one, which can be tough. This one came in a lot with a bunch of other Micro Collection figures. I've seen sellers ask up to $45 for a TIE pilot but I got this one for less than that, and it came with a dozen other random figures to boot.

Pressing the button simulates the battle damage.

Instruction sheet is great to have!

Nice detail on the cockpit right?

Here's the two pilots. They look really good.

Not super-visible in the pic but trust me, the figure bases have copyright info, as well as a unique code that identifies the figure and what set it came with. There's a handy list of the figures and their codes on the Star Wars Collectors Archive, here.

Till next time! 

Book Review - Gus & Duncan's Guide to Star Wars Micro Collection Toys

There's nothing I like more to foster a new collecting obsession than reading about it. So when I started to get into the Star Wars Micro Collection, I read A LOT about it on the Internet, and even found a podcast where it was discussed. The podcast was a fun listen but not too deep - however one thing the podcasters mentioned was Gus and Duncan's Micro Collection book. WHAAAAAAAT???

So no sooner did I hear about, than I went on the web to try and find it. And here it is. I got it from lulu.com, which I highly recommend, especially since it was $25 less on lulu than on Amazon and $20 less than on ebay. Not sure why anyone would get it from those bandits, maybe free shipping on Amazon? But lulu shipping, even to the hinterlands of Canada, was pretty reasonable.

ANYWAY... you're wondering what the book is like. Well it's a high-quality glossy hardcover 148-page book, full of information from Gus and Duncan, photographs of toys, packaging, and prototypes, and is very attractively laid out by friend of the hobby Mattias Rendahl (and that's his very cute little boy on the cover).

The book takes a comprehensive look at each of the released Micro Collection playsets and ships of course. These are the Death Star Compactor and Escape playsets (collected into the Death Star World set), the Hoth Ion Cannon, Shield Generator, Wampa Cave, and Turret Defense (the first three comprising the big Hoth World set), and the Bespin Freeze Chamber, Gantry Walkway, and Control Room (Bespin World), as well as the X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Snowspeeder, and Millennium Falcon vehicles.

The great thing about Gus and Duncan's books is the unproduced stuff they include - and there was plenty of it for the Micro Collection. The Hoth Bacta Chamber nearly made it into production and the prototypes and packaging are amply illustrated in the book. Likewise the Bespin Torture Chamber and Dagobah sets, although they didn't make it quite as far towards production. But we see the figure sculpts and prototypes all the same and that stuff fascinates me.

Anybody who thinks the Micro Collection figures are crude or lack detail needs to check out the four-up sculpts in the book. These are four times the size of the production figures and the detail on them is just incredible.

So if you're a fan of the Micro Collection, or just of Star Wars toys that are a little off the beaten track of 3 3/4" action figures, you'll love this book. Gus and Duncan know what they're talking about, write about the toys with humour and love, and the book showcases some truly remarkable prototypes and "what-might-have-beens" from the Micro Collection range. Highly recommended!

Gus & Duncan's Guide to Star Wars Micro Collection Toys by Gus Lopez and Duncan Jenkins

Completist Publications, 2015

$50 from lulu

Micro Collection Hoth Turret Defense Action Playset

Continuing on the Micro-theme today I'm posting another Hoth item - the Hoth Turret Defense Action Playset. This was the only Hoth playset left out of the Hoth World "big box" - likely for reasons of space and cost, as the Hoth World already collected THREE playsets. But I think the Turret Defense set is probably the coolest Hoth set, except for maybe the Ion Cannon. But let's take a look at the box first.

Here's the back. The HTD box has the distinctive "top flap" shared by many of the Micro Collection boxes. Cool because they give a bit more real estate to showcase the contents, but unfortunately many previous owners stored these boxes with the flap folded down against the back of the box and they're hard to straighten back out.

Anyway this box has some good photography of the other Hoth sets as well as illustrations of some play features, as well as the ubiquitous "Build Your Armies" offer.

Box end here.

And the top flap and box top, illustrating the diecast figures included in the set, and some "exciting events" from the movie.

Setting up the tableau from the box front here. All six figures are rebels, including Luke astride a tauntaun waving a blaster... something he notably never was seen doing in the movie. Han didn't participate in the defence of Echo Base either but, well, toyetic license is being exercised.

Here's the pic from the box end, not much different except the turrets are rotating and Han has jumped into the trench.

Here's one of the box photos featuring a Rebel commander scanning with his macrobinoculars.

All six figures included in the set are pictured above. As noted, all Rebels... you'd need to buy the Generator or Ion Cannon playset (or redeem the Build Your Armies offer) to get any Snowtroopers for an Opfor.

 

The figures were actually quite well done weren't they! Readers may be aware that another hobby of mine is tabletop miniature wargaming and painting model soldiers for use in the games. I've painted a bunch of Star Wars stuff in that hobby as well and for 1982, these figures are not bad, and came pre-painted to boot. Shame about the chipped paintwork but they were kids' toys after all...

 

I've been trying to collect the instruction sheets with these playsets as well, with reasonable success. The sheets are pretty cool, complete the toy, and in some cases can be quite helpful with assembling the playset. This one was straightforward but the Hoth World/Ion Cannon was a little more tricky.

Even got a used sticker sheet, unfortunately the stickers aren't on the toy... I wonder how that happened?

One unobtrusive repair was required as one of the turrets had lost its "click"... the principle here is the same as the old "baseball card in the bicycle spokes" trick. The inside surface of the turret is "toothed" and engages with the small clear strip of plastic attached to the top of the shaft. On one of the turrets this clear plastic piece was gone - no click. But it was the work of moments to make a replacement from a clear plastic blister pack and attach it as shown above. Very strong click now.

Anyway that's the Hoth Turret Defense Action Playset, and with that we're finished with Hoth for now. Of course we still have the rest of the Death Star, all of the Bespin sets, and the vehicles to go. They'll all be coming up soon! 

Micro Collection Hoth World Action Playsets (Kenner Canada)

Continuing on with the latest hotness - more Micro Collection! I picked this box up at a local shop, Cobra Collectibles. While the box is a bit beaten up, the condition of the contents is absolutely mint, as you'll see. Anyway - here it is - "Hoth World Action Playsets"!

The "Worlds" (Bespin, Death Star, and Hoth) were released along with the rest of the Micro Collection in 1982. They were several playsets in one - this one collected together the Ion Cannon, Wampa Cave, and Generator Attack playsets, plus all the figures included in each one of them.

And of course, as this is a Kenner Canada set, we get French language on the box. 

One of the neat things about the playsets is how they fit together. The bases are designed so that they can slot together in various combinations... on the box ends you can see "Combination A" and "Combination B". You'll see them laid out in the tableaux below too.

The set includes 18 (!) diecast metal figures, plus the plastic Probot. 

"Monde Hoth" here again... together with the ubiquitous "Build Your Armies" offer. Conveniently, the mailaway figures are Hoth Snowtroopers and Rebel Soldiers. Great for Hoth World but not so great for Bespin and Death Star collectors!

Here's the box front tableau featuring all three playsets. Pretty awesome layout right? But let's get a few more detailed shots...

Han on his Tauntaun with a Rebel Soldier in front of the base blast door. The door has a very clever opening and closing mechanism we'll look at in more detail below.

Princess Leia on the bank of computers.

Here's the Wampa Cave in close-up. Chewie distracts the Probot while Han pops up to blow it up. "Didn't hit it that hard, musta had a self-destruct!"

Meanwhile the Wampa contemplates his next meal (or the guy who's about to cut his arm off with a lightsaber...?)

Over to the Generator Attack, Darth Vader oversees the Blizzard Force assault.

The only representation of the Hoth Ion Cannon in the vintage era... so cool.

Here's "Combination A".

Rebel Soldier by the blast doors.

Reverse angle on the Probot battle.

Echo Base had some serious computing power!

Here's "Combination "B".

Another one of the box pictures, reenacted. You can see the control lever for the Ion Cannon at upper right. You can manipulate the lever and the "ball mount" of the cannon moves around. It also has a plastic tab that works against gears in the assembly to make a clicking sound, I suppose that's what an Ion Cannon sounds like (?)

The observation platform is cool and works into an action feature, as we'll see...

Here's another of the box pics. It actually illustrates one of the action features. Press the button at centre right and...

...part of the ice wall pops off!

This is the coolest feature of the Ion Cannon set - the blast doors that open and close. The shaft for the observation platform moves up and down. Platform up - doors close.

Platform down, doors open.

The Wampa Cave has one cool feature- there are reliefs molded into the cave "roof" into which Luke's ankles fit, to hang him upside down.

Of course Luke can get dragged away too!

One of the box pics of Han drilling the Probot.

From another angle!

Generator Attack!

The Generator has an exploding action feature.

Lucasfilm (LFL) callout in the copyright notice. This wording appears on all the big parts of the playset, with different parts numbers of course.

 

The box even came with the original instructions. Bilingual of course.

There's a lot of instructions because there's a lot going on in these playsets!  

So that's Hoth World, three playsets in one. It's an awesome set, full of play value and almost 20 figures - Rebel Soldiers, Snowtroopers, and a bunch of characters too. And there's even more to the Hoth Micro Collection - the Hoth Turret Defense playset didn't make the cut for "Hoth World" and was sold separately. Not surprising because there's a ton in Hoth World already, and price point and space on retail shelves likely wouldn't permit any more content in this box.

Stay tuned for more Micro Collection!