As a big fan of both robots and super-articulation, it’s hard to find a more perfect synthesis of both of those categories than Toy Notch’s Astrobots series. When Apollo and Argus went up for preorder I jumped on them as fast as I could, and have been all aboard for each successive release.
If I could be said to have any quibble about them at all, it’s that they lacked any accessories. Not that they weren’t without a ton of play value on their own, but a weapon per robot would have been nice. Well, Toy Notch has solved that issue with the release of the Tarantula and Wasp Drone set.
This set cleverly manages to be both a fresh duo of super-articulated robots and an accessory set rolled into one.
Packaging is usually just “there” for me, something that gets ripped open and tossed away, but Toy Notch always has such nice, sturdy packaging that I feel it’s appropriate to set aside a brief moment to appreciate it.
They’re purty boxes.
There; now that that’s done, let’s get on to the toys.
The Tarantula and Wasp are overall the same general figure with a few differences in attachments. The “Wasp” name is a little odd, as there’s technically no wings, but then the tarantula doesn’t have the requisite number of legs to be a tarantula, so basically we’re not going for slavish accuracy here. Cool robots, cool names, don’t overthink it.
Both bodies feature a ton of useful articulation in the leg joints. You can tell that those responsible are suckers for a huge amount of articulation—even carrying through to fully articulated fingers on the robots—so there’s no wasted opportunity for mobility anywhere on the drones. The creepy insect quality meshes with the cold robotic natures makes a final product that would look awesome in a science fiction movie. The drones look like they fit perfectly into the same “world” that has been created with Apollo and Argus. It looks like what you’d expect to be crawling along into battle with the previous robots.
Both drones feature four weapons that clip onto each of their four legs the legs. Further, two of them can be removed and attached to a connector piece that plugs into the back of each dronebot, allowing you to mount them as if they were laser guns or missile launchers or whatever. In addition to articulation, I love modularity like that, so this line is punching all of my toy-loving buttons.
Like I said before, the only area I felt was lacking in the Astrobot releases was some form of weaponry. Sure, Argus has a pair of laser cannons mounted to the back of his hand which was cool enough, but I’m talking about big sci-fi looking lasers. Well, all of those weapons that are mounted onto the drones also feature grips that slide down out of the main weapon body, turning the each of the drones’ weapons into weapons that the Astrobots can dual-wield in each hand. They one thing they felt like they were missing is missing no more. The addition of the guns turns some butt-kicking robots into even deadlier machines of war, and ramps up the already high play value.
But it doesn’t stop at just armed drones or guns for the Astrobots; the drones themselves can be fitted to the backs of each of the Astrobots to create either a back-mounted weapons system or a jetpack. Either drone fits to either robot, so it doesn’t matter which is which. The package comes with a second set of battery ports (that I forgot to take a picture of) that can replace the previously included battery ports this time with a plug that secures the drones to their backs. Again, this would make more sense if I had remembered to take a picture, but long story short is that they thought of everything, and once the backpacks are secured to the Astrobots they’re not going anywhere. The articulation allows them to get into completely natural poses while affixed to the back.
So in conclusion, you get super-articulated drones that come with weapons that can either be mounted on the drones themselves or get handed off to the Astrobots, and then the drones can either be used as autonomous psycho-killer robots or mounted to the back of Apollo and Argus as either a jetpack or a weapons system. There’s so much going on here I almost feel like I need another set of them just to have both the jetpack AND a set of separate drones.
I’m looking forward to see what’s coming up next in the Astrobot world. Robots robots robots.
