Fridays are Bad Batch days for me, so I enjoyed working on this review while I wait for the Midnight drop of the latest episode. I didn’t actually love the Bad Batch episodes of The Clone Wars, but the show won me over right away and immediately added a lot more dimensions to these archetypal characters, so I’m glad I pre-ordered the first two crew members. Let’s take a look at Hunter and Crosshair!
Hunter comes with a removeable pack and helmet, two blasters, and a vibro blade. Crosshair comes with a rifle, a pistol, and a removeable helmet and pack.
Hunter and Crosshair both come with the clone pistol we’ve seen before with characters like Rex and Wolffe, but only Crosshair has a holster for the pistol. That is accurate to the show, in fact I had quite a laugh one episode when Hunter pulled out his pistol because he literally pulled it from thin air behind his back. Hunter’s vibroknife does have a sheath on his forearm that holds the weapon securely.
Hunter’s larger gun reminds me of the DC-17M from the Republic Commando games, which kind of fits because his armor is similar to a Republic Commando.
Crosshair’s sniper rifle is pretty massive and has nice detail, but I think it’s slightly too large for his hands. The trigger has really stretched out his grip hand and the stock is slightly too long for him to comfortably get it up into sniper rifle poses. It can be done, but it’s constantly working its way out of his grip.
Crosshair’s rifle can fit into the slot on his pack and the barrel has a peg that can attach to the side. I’ve noticed in the show, he wears the gun pretty much like this except the barrel isn’t on the side. I figure it must break down further into the pack on the show, but it doesn’t open on the toy.
The packs attach with a t-shaped peg, which is nice so they don’t wobble. I kind of wish they opened for some storage and they are missing a couple paint hits on the back where there are lights on the show packs, but they have nice sharp detail and some battle damage sculpted in.
Hunter and Crosshair are the same figure from the waist down and share the same arms, but the rest are unique parts. I feel like the armor is a good representation of the armor in the show, though I kind of think they should be a bit more bulky in the chest and arms since they are wearing a version of Clone Commando armor and the realistic Clone Commando armor I’ve seed in Battlefront II was bulkier. The helmets do feel slightly overlarge, which is probably to accommodate the removeable helmet feature. I do like that Crosshair is a bit taller since that’s how he appears in the show.
On their own, I like the portraits here quite a bit. I can see Temuera Morrison in Hunter’s portrait for sure, but it is distorted in a way that seems consistent with the show. The head does feel a bit on the small side compared to other clone heads (probably because the long hair has to fit in the helmet). The face printing looks really nice on this figure and I especially like the sharp little skull symbol on his headband.
Crosshair is a bit off-putting and looks nothing like Temuera Morrison, but he’s also the Bad Batch member that looks the least like Jango Fett on the show, so it works. His face actually reminds me a lot of James Marsters who played Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He does have the leanest face of Clone Force 99 on the show, but since his head is slightly larger than normal, the figure’s face looks wider than Hunter’s. That said, I love his deadpan expression and the face printing on the tattoo is subtle and really nice.
Articulation is a bit of a mixed bag. On the plus side, the ball and socket joints in the head, neck, and torso get a really nice range of movement. Unfortunately, the knees are the lamentable swivel/hinge knees and the knee pad is attached to the thigh. Well, since the thigh armor butts up against the crotch armor, you have to turn the thigh to the side to kick the leg forward in a crouch or sitting position. When you do that, that knee pad sits at a wonky angle and looks stupid. In the future, I wish they would either make the hips drop down for the clone armor, skip the swivel/hinge knees, or make the knee pads floating pieces or attach them to the shins.
The ankles are also frighteningly tight. I really had to apply some force to get them to move past their detents and I was afraid they would snap off. Fortunately the arms get more than a 90 degree bend at the elbow.
Painting is okay and I especially like the unit markers and skull tampos along with the face printing. There are a couple details that I don’t think are quite right, for example Hunter should have a lot more black around his neck area than he has and the packs are missing some stripes on the sides and some lights on the back. I like the little bits of chipping weathering they added, but they need a lot more and a wash would have been nice to bring out the sculpted battle damage. That might be a fun quick project to do one of these days.
Overall, these are two pretty cool figures that are fun to play with and pose. The knee issue is a little frustrating and Crosshair’s rifle posing can be a little fiddly, but they are otherwise pretty nice. I can’t wait to complete the squad with Tech, Wrecker, Echo and Omega later this year.
Great looking photos! I kind of criticize the cartoonish aspect of them but it is an animated series so they look great representing the show! I can find these on the shelf so i will buy them!
Have no idea who those are!…… But they sure look super cool!