Black Series Review | Battle Droid (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace)
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Thomas Storai 
The Trade Federation has deployed its forces and Thomas is on hand to tackle Hasbro’s new The Black Series Battle Droid
Rather than use flesh-and-blood warriors, the Separatists prefer mindlessly loyal soldiers that are easily controlled. The soulless ranks of their armies are dominated by tall, thin B1 battle droids built as mechanical imitations of their Geonosian designers.
After so many years and with so many clones produced, Hasbro is finally releasing a battle droid in the Black Series line!
The figure comes with a blaster that can be attached to the backpack and a set of antenna to put instead of the backpack like droid commanders, which makes me think Hasbro is likely to release repaints of this one but with commander colors, security colors and pilot colors, that would be an easy thing to do and would sell very well!
Hasbro opted for a weathered look with this one, which is pretty cool! It has a solid sculpt well proportioned and seems accurate.
You can pretty much get the droid in “de-activated mode” like in The Phantom Menace, even the antennas from the backpack are retractable and the head has extra articulation for this! Thanks to the amazing range of articulation, the droid can accurately hold his blaster! He has 24 points of articulation, which is spectacular! And like with General Grievous, the droid can stand on its own without a base stand, which is an improvement over IG-88.
When you compare this figure to the S.H. Figuarts version, what you see first is the height difference, in terms of size the Hasbro one is much more accurate. The Hasbro one is weathered while Figuarts stayed with a clean look. The plastic quality is obviously not the same but the Hasbro one looks a lot less fragile! In terms of sculpting, I would say it’s equal. So which one is the best? Honestly, it’s hard to say but I would lean towards Hasbro.
Up Close:
Final Thoughts:
Overall, the B1 Trade Federation Battle Droid is a great figure with an amazing range of articulation! I would definitely recommend adding this one to your collection.
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Collectables Editor at Future Of The Force.
Star Wars and Marvel specialist, anime expert
