Today’s unboxing and review features Sabine Wren’s TIE Fighter from the Micro Galaxy Squadron collection. We are big fans of this range of scaled Star Wars vehicles and would love to add as many as we can to our collection.

I wanted this TIE Fighter variant from the moment I saw it, but my hopes dropped when I saw it was one of the hard to find 5,000 chase variants. You should have seen my face when I spotted this one hanging on the rack at my local toy store – I grabbed it so fast. I still can’t believe we found this one locally, and only paid retail for it, the Force was with us that day!

The assortment number for this pack is SWJ0012-091922-TM.

Check out my full unboxing video –

The packaging for this ‘light armor class’ vehicle is standard for this range – a big clear window bubble on a cardboard backing card. The lower front window insert has the name and number for this specific variant – Sabine Wren’s TIE Fighter #0036. The bubble has a gold foil circle sticker noting that is a rare chase variant – 1 in 5,000.

The backing card has colourful space battle artwork behind the bubble (A-Wing vs TIE Fighters), while the back has a blueprint style image of the vehicle, a few insert shots of moveable parts, and a collectible card that you can cut out if you want to – I will be leaving my backing card intact.

Sabine Wren’s TIE fighter looks great in the packaging, but even better when you get it out. The bright orange and yellow paint scheme just sings, especially in contrast with the classic black and pale grey of the wings. It was such an iconic design from Rebels, I wish it was used more in merchandising – like the fun Republic Gunship paint jobs from both Clone Wars animated series.

This colourful TIE Fighter is so fun, makes me wish I had a full size one to jump in and go racing – especially with that black and white checkerboard print. I have to admit I did fly this one around my living room making TIE Fighter noises…

The paint job is fairly accurate, especially when you consider the scale of this vehicle, and it looks right at home with the style of other painted vehicles in the Micro Galaxy Squadron range. Of course the TIE fighters in Rebels have a slightly different wing size/ratio than the TIE Fighters of the original trilogy films (which is the sculpt used here), but I understand why Jazwares wouldn’t bother with a completely different vehicle sculpt. Not many people would notice or care about the subtle differences, and it looks fine, especially lined up with other TIE Fighter variants from the same range.

Sabine’s custom paint scheme is confined to the inner wing panels, cockpit and arms – the outer wing surfaces are the standard TIE Fighter black and grey as seen in Rebels (which is a slightly different grey to the original trilogy film TIE fighters). The wings can be removed from the main body if you wish – a tight fit, the simple peg-and-hole attachment is nice and secure.

There is a push-button panel on the underside of the cockpit, which raises the inner seat section, so you can more easily get a figure out. A simple push-up mechanism, it doesn’t fire the figure out James Bond ejection seat style or anything.

The back of the cockpit is also fully painted, and the checkboard print continues around the back as well. This vehicle has one of the most complex paint schemes in the Micro Galaxy Squadron range that I have seen in person (so far), and I am really impressed with how tidy it looks, even up close.

At the back there is a hinged section that can be folded down. I’m not sure this adds a lot of useful detail for display as this won’t really be seen once it’s on your shelf, but yeah, it’s there.

Next, onto the included figure. The Sabine Wren figure is quite well done, considering her size. She has quite a detailed paint app, with multiple colours, and is quite reasonably tidy. She is articulated at the shoulders and the hips, allowing you to pose her arms and legs into a sitting pose to put her in the cockpit.

The TIE Fighter cockpit window and top hatch both have sections of transparent plastic to act as windows, but in practice this is hard to see through. If I look really closely, I can just make out a figure through the front, but it’s not very easy to spot. Still, I appreciate the detail here, and much prefer it over opaque sections instead.

Overall, this is a fantastic version of Sabine’s TIE Fighter. I knew it was highly sought after on the secondary market, so realistically my only chance to own one was to find it locally, which I did! We know realistically, with some store exclusives and chase variant scarcity in the mix, it’s going to be hard or very expensive to be completionist with this range (as with so many Star Wars collection lines these days) so it was absolute luck to find this one instore ourselves.

Stay tuned for more review of Micro Galaxy Squadron vehicles coming soon – including a comparison of four different TIE Fighter variants.

May the Force be with you!

The post Micro Galaxy Squadron – Sabine Wren’s TIE Fighter appeared first on Villa Varykino.

Now this is podracing! The latest addition to our Micro Galaxy Squadron collection is the Boonta Eve Battle Pack, which includes two podracer vehicles.

This battle pack is marked as ‘series 1’ but does not have a ‘launch edition’ foil sticker. It is currently available in-store at branches of The Warehouse in New Zealand for a retail price of NZ$45.00 each (approximately US$28.47 at time of writing).

The assortment number for this battle pack is SWJ0093 112522 GC

Watch our full unboxing video below –

This Battle Pack includes two vehicles, that at this time are not available individually – Anakin Skyalker’s Podracer and Sebulba’s Podracer, as seen in The Phantom Menace. Each vehicle also includes a small figure that fits into the cockpit.

Each vehicle comes with a clear plastic stand that attaches to the podracing engines, so they can be displayed in a more correct hovering style, rather than just sitting on the ground. I rather wish that all vehicles in this range came with a clear stand, to have options for display (especially the Jedi Starfighter with hyperdrive ring). The vehicles snap onto the stands nice and securely, but are also removable if you prefer to display the vehicles without them (perhaps in a diorama setup).

The paint applications are colourful and tidy, with minimal weathering applied in appropriate areas. There is some minor articulation in the connectors between the engines and the cockpits, and the energy beam connectors are sculpted nicely.

Sebulba’s podracer –

Anakin’s podracer –

Overall, I think this is a fantastic set and a fine addition to our Micro Galaxy Squadron collection. The figures fit in the vehicles well, and the display stands give a more accurate ‘hovering’ presentation when on display.

Will you be adding this set to your collection? What vehicles do you hope to see in future waves of the Micro Galaxy Squadron line?

May the Force be with you!

The post Micro Galaxy Squadron Boonta Eve Battle Pack appeared first on Villa Varykino.

Introducing – Our Week of Star Wars! A new regular series where we share our Star Wars fun from the past week. Star Wars is a part of our daily lives, and we love to share our Star Wars joy with other fans. Here we share Star Wars events, collectibles, gaming, and anything else that we enjoyed this week.

This week’s episode features new collectibles by Hasbro and Funko, Carrie Fisher’s birthday, SWTOR updates, and of course the latest episode of Andor!

Check out the full video and keep reading for a photo gallery below –

Check out this week’s events –

• Carrie Fisher’s birthday

• Hasbro Black Series Princess Leia lightsaber

• Glitter For Carrie – ROTJ Princess Leia inspired glitter hairstyle

• New Padme’ Amidala inspired outfits in SWTOR

• Micro Galaxy Squadron Razor Crest

• Obi-Wan Kenobi series Droid Factory 4-figure set from Shop Disney

• Star Wars mugs from Kmart NZ

• Micro Galaxy Squadron mystery boxes

• Spoiler chat – Andor episode 7 – SWTOR Tatooine

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Today’s unboxing and review features the Outland TIE Fighter from the Micro Galaxy Squadron collection. We are big fans of this range of scaled Star Wars vehicles and would love to add as many as we can to our collection.

We really enjoy The Mandalorian series, so it was very exciting to see several vehicles from the show included in wave 1 for the Micro Galaxy Squadron line. This particular Outland TIE Fighter comes with a Moff Gideon figure, and is one of the rare chase variant vehicles in wave 1 – the silver sticker notes 1 of 15,000.

The assortment number for this pack is SWJ0017-BC-US

Check out my full unboxing video –

The packaging for this ‘starfighter class’ vehicle is standard for this range – a big clear window bubble on a cardboard backing card. The lower front window insert has the name and number for this specific variant – Outland TIE Fighter #0017. The bubble has a silver foil circle sticker noting that is a rare chase variant – 1 in 15,000. As this vehicle is part of wave 1, there is also a gold foil ‘launch edition’ sticker on the top right hand corner of the backing card.

The backing card has colourful space battle artwork behind the bubble (the Razor Crest vs TIE Fighters), while the back has a blueprint style image of the vehicle, a few insert shots of moveable parts, and a collectible card that you can cut out if you want to – I will be leaving my backing card intact.

The Outland TIE Fighter is from the Disney + series The Mandalorian – as seen in season one. It is pretty much like a regular TIE Fighter, but with one major difference – the wings can fold down to lower the cockpit when landing. We see this used to dramatic effect when Moff Gideon arrives on Nevarro in The Mandalorian chapter 7.

Unlike the regular TIE Fighter vehicle from this wave, this variant includes a small stand to support the vehicle in a landing position. To be honest, I wish that all Micro Galaxy Squadron vehicles came with stands, but at least this one does, so it doesn’t put tension on the wings to display it in this landed position.

While of course we don’t see the Outland TIE Fighter use a stand in The Mandalorian, I appreciate the effort put into making the stand a little more interesting than just a clear plastic piece. There are three small upright struts to support the cockpick that are painted in matching Imperial grey. When in position, they almost look like landing gears (or little legs).

The wings move in and out of this folded position quite well – there are a few stages between folded down and fully straight, that can be felt as little ‘clicks’ when adjusting. They don’t feel loose, and hold the position quite well – but I’m not going to fold-and-straight repeatedly to test out how well they would hold up to frequent positioning or play.

The Outland TIE Fighter comes with a small Moff Gideon figure, complete with cape. As with other figures in this line, he is articulated at the shoulders and hips, so he can posed in a sitting down position to put inside the cockpit.

The small plastic cape is removable, thankfully, as it affects the ability to pose this figure sitting down – though there isn’t really a useful place to store his cape. If you worry about losing small accessories like I do, I think the best place to store his cape is in the little plastic bubble the figure was packaged in – though I guess you could just stick it inside the cockpit as well?

Now, let’s take a look at the TIE Fighter with the wings straightened out! This is of course how the Outland TIE Fighter appears when in flight – just like a classic TIE Fighter. This variant is in the ship class above the standard TIE Fighter, and so costs just a little bit more – but it does have that addition movement feature and bonus stand, so it makes sense.

The Outland TIE Fighter does end up looking like a regular TIE Fighter when clicked into its upright position, but then that is the proper idea. I don’t think I will display the Outland TIE like this though – if I want more regular looking TIE fighters for my collection, I can pick up a few standard edition vehicles. This is a chase variant and I want it to look like a chase variant alongside my other MGS vehicles.

I’m quite impressed with the execution of this design – the movement feature almost disappears when in flight mode, I was worried it might really stand out or show a gap between the two halves. Nope – the wings are nice and tight

The top cockpit hatch opens nicely, so you can fit a figure inside. Technically the front window allows you to see inside, but it’s very small and a bit dark, so I find it very hard to really make out the detail of a figure placed inside. Still, a lot better than if the window was painted opaque plastic.

It’s a little difficult to demonstrate in a photographs, but there is a simple push button mechanism on the underside of the cockpit, that basically raises the internal section. This helps you get any small figure back out of the cockpit, so you aren’t resorting to tweezers or shaking it upside down. A useful feature.

Overall, this is a fun TIE variant for the Micro Galaxy Squadron line. Wave 1 included three vehicles from The Mandalorian series, including the Mandalorian’s Razor Crest, so you can set up a neat chase scene on your collectible shelf.

We know realistically, with chase variant scarcity in the mix, it’s going to be hard or very expensive to be completionist with this range (as with so many Star Wars collection lines these days) so I was really happy to find this one instore ourselves.

Stay tuned for more reviews of Micro Galaxy Squadron vehicles coming soon – you can check out all of our reviews of our MGS collection so far here.

May the Force be with you!

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Today’s unboxing features the Jazwares Star Wars Micro Galaxy Squadron blind boxes!

When the Micro Galaxy Squadron line was featured at Star Wars Celebration earlier this year, we were so excited. We both love Star Wars starships, and have collected them across various formats and manufacturers. For the older lines, like Action Fleet, Micro Machines, or Titanium Series, the vehicles are all pretty much the same size. For this new range, the ship are all in scale to each other, which hasn’t really been done before!

Then of course, we had no idea if the range would even be available locally – so it was fantastic news to find the Micro Galaxy Squadron range stocked at a number of different retailers here in NZ! Of course we were going to dive in and grab our favourites.

One interesting feature of this line – blind boxes for the smallest ‘scout class’ vehicles. We don’t usually go for blind boxes, but we knew we wanted to collect this line, so in we went, grabbing three blind boxes to start with.

We didn’t get scientific when choosing boxes – just picked three and left it to luck. Each box has a case assortment number on the side, and fans have begun to figure out which vehicles are available in each assortment, but we wanted our first experience to be authentic and just see what we got. Subsequent boxes, we’ll take note of the assortment number as we try to narrow down and fill gaps in our collection.

Well, as luck would have it, the first and second boxes contained the same figure – Darth Maul with his Bloodfin speeder bike, as seen in The Phantom Menace. A very cool figure, and definitely one I was keen to get, I just don’t need two.

Minimal paint job on both the figure and vehicle, but very much expected considering the small scale of this scout class range. This vehicle reminds me of the old school Star Wars Micro Machines range, which I love.

The third box contained the Mandalorian! Glad to get a different figure, and one that I really wanted. Again, simple paint job, but more detailed than the Darth Maul figure, with more varied colours to show Din Djarin’s original mix-matched season one brown armour.

I know that the large Razor Crest vehicle also comes with a Din Djarin figure, but that figure appears to be the silver-toned beskar armour version, whereas this speeder bike version is his early season one brown-toned armour. It looks like the chase variant of the Razer Crest (Arvala-7 version) comes with the same figure as this one, but then if you’re collecting chase variants, you probably don’t care about the doubling up on one small figure.

So all up, I think these are great little vehicles from the Micro Galaxy Squadron line, but the nature of mystery boxes make this unboxing a bit of a mixed bag. When starting a new collection, you hope to get a good variety of items before hitting a duplicate or two when trying to complete the set but oh well. At the end of the day, I had fun opening these blind boxes, I like the figures and vehicles, and I know I’ll be back for more to add to our collection.

May the Force be with you!

Check out my full unboxing video below –

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