Star Wars Command: The Battle of Hoth

Just before the first snow storm of this winter hit our town, A Geek Daddy Blog received a surprise box of goodies from our friends at Hasbro filled with the company's newest line of toys called Star Wars Command for us to play with and test out.  These Star Wars Command toys are like the little green plastic army men of my youth but instead of pretending to fight in World War II you are transported to the Star Wars Universe to play out  your favorite scenes from the franchise's movies or television episodes.  They have themed toy sets ranging from the brand new animated series Star Wars: Rebels (which is my son's favorite tv show) to Empire Strikes Back (which is my favorite movie).

So as the snow started coming down you know my five year old son and I couldn't resist going out in the backyard and recreating the Battle of Hoth.  My son's rebel troopers put up a valiant fight led by Chewbacca and Han Solo but they just were no match against Dad's powerful legion of AT-ATs and snow troopers.  In the end though a mysterious snow ball from outer space knocked out the approaching Geek Daddy armada allowing the rebels to slip away to battle another day.

My son had a blast playing with these toys and I was whisked back to acting like a kid myself for a few moments while we enjoyed playing Star Wars in the snow.  Then it was time for dinner and a return to the real world; but as we were packing up I took a moment to appreciate this moment of father-son fun and bonding that we often don't get enough time for in the everyday hustle and bustle of life.  Next I realized it probably wasn't the best move to play with white colored toys in the snow...we'll be finding a few of these figures after the snow melts.  Fortunately, a number of the rebels including Han Solo, Chewbacca and R2D2 were made of blue, brown and orange colored plastic and easily stood out in the frozen tundra of our patio.

For being small injected plastic molded figurines these Star Wars Command toys have some nice sculpts and detail to them.  Recommended age for these micro-figure battle sets are for children 4 years old and up.

#CommandtheForce with the Star Wars Command battle packs. They come in a variety of sizes ranging in price from $4.99 for a play set that includes 9 figures to $59.99 for the Star Destroyer set that includes a gigantic vehicle that shoots out energy blast balls to devastate your opponent's army.

While we had a great time playing out the Battle of Hoth together, the toy set that my son really wants to get his hands on is the Star Wars: Rebels - Jedi Duel battle pack.  This includes all his favorite characters from the tv show: Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, Sabine Wren, Zeb Orrelios, and C1-1OP "Chopper" plus bad guy The Inquisitor and a few stormtroopers to boot.  Plus it has two vehicles included the PHANTOM space ship and an AT-DP armored walker.  We've decided to hold this battle pack aside for a little while though because it is just too valuable to use as a reward, or bribe, when the need may arise.  My son doesn't know we have this in hand so he'll be thrilled when we eventually give it to him.

For more information about the Star Wars Command toys visit starwars.hasbro.com

DISCLAIMER:  Hasbro provided A GEEK DADDY Blog with complimentary Star Wars Command toys with an approximate retail value of $50.  These toys were provided with no obligation to provide a positive review regarding them.  The views and opinions in this post are my own.

Command your own Star Wars Army

I remember having some epic backyard battles as a kid where my friends and I gathered all of our little green army men to create gigantic confrontations where we would spend hours yelling "bam bam", "boom" and mimicking other sounds of war while we pretended to be four star generals commanding our forces against the enemy.  All of the boys in my neighborhood had a toy chest full of these plastic figures, plus toy tanks, trucks and artillery and other various military props to go along with them and we'd spend whole afternoons playing "army men".  These were really basic toys but yet they were some of my favorite play things growing up.

Thirty years later the little plastic army men of my youth have been replaced by action figures and video games by today's kids.  So when I was wandering down the toy aisle at the store the other day with my son and saw the new "Star Wars Command" toys on the shelf it brought a smile to my face, and of course I had to pick up a set for my son ... and me ... to play with.  The "Star Wars Command" toys are essentially the green army men of my youth but they aren't green and they are made up of Star Wars characters that you can create armies out of.  We picked up a set for $4.99 that contained 8 "soldiers" and 1 "general" figure.  The soldiers were split between storm troopers and tusken raiders to pit against one another.  The general bonus figure was actually just one of the nicer storm trooper poses that was colored slightly better than the others in the package.

There were several themed sets in the $4.99 range to choose from plus some other more expensive sets that offered more figures plus vehicles to go along with them.  The expanded toy sets ranged in price from $9.99 to $60.  The sets with vehicles have really nice sculpts for the space ships and war machines included in them that really impressed me but were somewhat disappointing because they aren't to scale with the army men figures and are actually smaller than the toy soldiers.  I remember with the toy sets of my youth we had trucks that you could throw your soldiers in the back of and tanks that could roll threw your squad of army men.  That quality of play is lacking with these new Star Wars army men.

Hasbo did a nice job with the individual sculpts for the Star Wars characters in these sets.  The molds for the figures that came with the "Star Wars Command" play set we picked up had very nice detail for a small plastic toy.  A negative though was the assortment of figures included in the set we received.  While you want to have "army builders" which means lots of duplicates of characters and poses to build up an army, the variety was really lacking for a 9 figure assortment.  Of the stormtroopers, 3 of them were in the same pose of looking through binoculars ... I could see maybe 2 in the package but really a 1/3 of your assortment. The binocular troopers were like the radio operators for the green army men of old, you didn't mind having a couple to build up your army but they weren't the fun ones you really played with. Here in this play set you have the vicious and dangerous tusken raiders battling against some guys looking through binoculars. Kind of puts a damper on imaginative play for a kid! The other three stormtroopers were in an exact same pose with a laser rifle.  While the sculpts were both nicely done for these figures couldn't the toy manufacturer have added one more cool action posed storm trooper to the set?!  Plus for the tusken raiders all three of these sand people are in the exact same pose...couldn't they have made one or two more sculpts to make the play set a little more interesting?  Plastic injected molding can't be that expensive of a process to have been cost prohibitive in adding a few more details to make these toys a little bit nicer for people to enjoy. 

If you want to be nostalgic and have your children experience playing army with little plastic soldiers picking up the "Star Wars Command" toys isn't a bad buy based upon the price and will provide an afternoon of fun.  Unfortunately, my son lost interest  after the first day of playing with these figures because he said they were "all the same guy".  He just wasn't interested in playing with a bunch of army men looking through binoculars which made up a bulk of his playset. Based upon the limited characters available through the various play sets and the large number of duplicates of the less interesting sculpts packaged in these sets I don't see us buying more sets to try and create a grand Imperial armada or vast Rebel force.  If Hasbo begins to enhance the product with more variety though we might give it a second glance because the army men themselves weren't bad it was the lack of variety that really put a damper on enjoying them.