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! 

Micro Collection Death Star Escape Action Playset

I've been bitten by a new collecting bug, and it's the Micro Collection. I can't say that the small stuff hasn't ever been on my radar (a couple years ago I was able to complete my loose run of diecast ships) but it's never been a focus, until now. I've had a mint loose Death Star Escape set in a storage box for over a decade - or two? - I don't remember where I got it, I always thought it was neat, but it never was a focus. But recently for whatever reason I got the bug to develop that part of my collection, so here we go! 

Let's start with the tableau, replicating the box photo. But first let's get into a bit of Micro history. The Micro Collection was released by Kenner in 1982. These were plastic playsets in approximately 1:60 scale - instead of action figures, you got prepainted diecast metal figures included, in a variety of poses. There were several sets available: Hoth Wampa Cave, Hoth Ion Cannon, Hoth Generator Attack (also collected into the Hoth World mega-set), Hoth Turret Defense, Bespin Control Room, Bespin Gantry, Bespin Freeze Chamber (collected into Bespin World), and Death Star Compactor and Death Star Escape (collected into Death Star World). There were ships as well - the X-Wing Fighter, TIE Fighter, Snowspeeder (J.C. Penney exclusive and also sold in Australia) and Millennium Falcon (Sears exclusive and ditto). But we'll get to most of those in future posts.

Like I said earlier, I've had my loose Death Star Escape for donkey's years. But I decided to pick up a box for it recently, as I want to have all of the playsets in boxes. This box is a real beauty too, and it came with all the goodies, as we'll see in a minute. Here are some tableaux from the box photos:

The Micro Collection boxes are just great, very colourful and distinctive with plenty of pictures and a great mailaway offer. It's kinda too bad there aren't more play photos for my tableaux. 

The box came with all the goodies - instructions, ESB catalog, sticker sheet, and even the original bags for the figures - nice! The instructions are particularly good:

Hey I almost forgot - the box even came with the cardboard insert. Really the complete package.

One last thing - here's the copyright info from the bottom of the set.

So we're off on the Micro Collection and it's gonna be a trip. I've got lots to get to and stuff to talk about (I've just ordered Gus and Duncan's Micro Collection book so look out for a review and some tidbits from that) and I can't wait to get at it!