Author Topic: RC Hailfire Droid  (Read 17140 times)

Offline CHEWIE

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #45 on: July 22, 2010, 12:20 AM »
You can say whatever you want to regarding if it's a good idea, it just seems there's more reasons to not go down the whole RC theme at all from my perspective.  

Not trying to be disagreeable, would a RC Sandcrawler really be any worse for the line than a RC Hailfire droid?  Because they couldn't scale it properly?  What if they made the mold somewhat bigger than the vintage mold, had it open up and all that with more room for figures, included some new exclusive figures (kinda like their ploy with the upcoming Slave One set) and the sucker was actually remote control?  I'd probably be interested, but not because it's remote control - I just want a bigger Sandcrawler... this would probably not be all that popular with kids though, unless they had a side open up with a big ass cannon or something and it had some sort of presence in the CW cartoon involved in a battle... which really just gets me wishing they'd get the Sail Barge prominently involved in the CW and make that damn thing.   :-\  

As for other mid sized vehicles that could work with RC treatment?  Perhaps the following:

- Republic Tank
- Swamp Speeder
- AAT Federation Tank

With the Hailfire Droid included, that gives you two vehicles for each Clone Wars faction.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2010, 12:24 AM by CHEWIE »

Offline Jesse James

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #46 on: July 22, 2010, 12:31 AM »
Quote
would a RC Sandcrawler really be any worse for the line than a RC Hailfire droid?

Yes.

I can think of several reasons, ranging from one item being from the current CW3D cartoon to the other being from a 30+ year old film, all the way to one being clearly for kids to have fun with and the other being for adults to set their dusty action figures on and bitch about how much it cost them (and likely wait for clearance rather than beg their mom and dad to put it under the tree for them so they can run down in giant footy pajamas, complete with assflap, X-Mas morning and open it up just like they did 30+ years ago). :)

Making it to-scale has nothing to do with the equation...  not to me anyway.
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Offline CHEWIE

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #47 on: July 22, 2010, 12:45 AM »
On that note, I'm sure countless kids will be losing sleep in December praying they get the RC Hailfire droid for Christmas...  :P

Offline McMetal

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #48 on: July 22, 2010, 09:22 AM »
Love the jibba jabba...good points all around.

I'm not a fan of RC stuff at all, but scaling this to the 3.75" line and throwing in a Clone Trooper makes it a mandatory purchase as per the Completist Rulebook Section 23.  ;D

Still cannot figure out if the Clone Trooper is strictly a re-pack of something previously released. He looks a little different somehow...
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Offline CHEWIE

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #49 on: July 22, 2010, 10:51 AM »
Yeah, I think there's points to be made on both sides.

To me this thing is more of a novelty more than anything else; something different... and not appealing to me.  But, I hope that for those that get it, it works well and is a lot of fun.  And good luck keeping track of those missiles (I believe they fire through the remote control mechanism)...

On a side note, I think Hasbro should include a few extra missiles with all their Hailfire droids.  Those suckers are easy to lose.

Offline iFett

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #50 on: July 23, 2010, 07:29 PM »
Saw this thing tonight for the first time at TRU....$60?  Really?  I don't know what RC stuff sells for these days, but this just seems a tad to expensive IMO.  Seems cool for the kiddos with the firing missles and all, but ya - how is a AT-TE going to hold up when this thing smacks into it?  I dunno.  Might pick it up if I ever see it on clearance, but still 0 interest.
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Offline Jesse James

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #51 on: September 13, 2010, 05:00 AM »
So I picked this up this afternoon at my local Wally...  I figured since I'd nabbed most of Wave 2 Vintage now, and wasn't really expecting anything else on the immediate horizon, why not?

I waited till I got home to open it up...  Some thoughts:

-The RC Mechanism functions really quite flawlessly.  It's a LITTLE sensitive with the steering, but full-tilt speed surprised me.  It motors for something this size, and with what I'm guessing aren't the most powerful motors inside.

It functions like a tank used to, which gives you a significant ammount of control on the turning, which can take a little getting used to.  One wheel works for one joystick on the controller, and another wheel for the other.  It turns by either not moving one wheel, or by pulling the stick opposite on one wheel which will give you the ability to make the Hailfire do a 360 degree spin.

-The missile firing mechanism is neat, and functions on a staggered firing operation.  The missiles fire in 3's out of their launcher (as near as I can tell), and go a decent distance, though not much of a height arc to them, which I was hoping for a little better there.  They give you 4 extra missiles too, assuming you'll wind up losing them (which I can see easily happening).

I will say, I wish the firing button were a little more convenient on the controller, as it's tough to fire and have the vehicle moving forward ala the Geonosis Battle in Attack of the Clones.

-The vehicle is similar in size to the AOTC styled tank from the Clone Wars line.  This makes it fit in well enough with that one.  It has chunkier wheels and drive mechanisms to house the electronics, bbut it's not as different as I thought it would look, once they're side-by-side.  The paintjob is 100% Clone Wars 3D EU though.

-A cool surprise to me was that the droid's red eye actually lights up.  I hadn't realized this till I fired it up and that allows you to clearly see the tank is on.  I found that neat littl eextra.  I also liked that Hasbro apparantly went the extra mile to hide the vehicle's whip antenna.  I don't know how it exactly picks up signal as I've not taken it apart, nor do I know the range on it, but mine was going a decent distance away in the house without interruption, and there's no visible antenna which is nice.  That took some design effort for it to work.

-Traction is something of a mystery right now as I have only run it on carpeted flooring.  It gripped well though, moved very nicely, even over some thicker carpeting.  Lumped up thin rugs in the kitchen caused it to do a little wheel spinning though, so I'm not sure how it will react to pavement or grass.  I'm guessing pavement and hard packed dirt will both work fine for it though.

-No clue on how the wheels will "wear" over time.  They feel pretty rigid though, so I'm thinking they'll be ok.

-The missle pods aren't poseable at all...  Again this goes to my gripe about them not having a high firing arc, and I wish that was a possibility, but with the RC firing mechanism it's probably just not feasible for the design.

-The pods fir all 18 missiles by the way, which I thought only 6 missiles in each pod fired, so that was a pleasant surprise.

-The tank plowed through some Stormtroopers on my floor that were lined up and waiting to be put into storage, and it's exactly what I always envisioned the "play pattern" to be on this toy...  Just something sort of sizable for the Separatists to crush Clone figures running at them full tilt.  This is basically a toy to be the antithesis to the "big Clone stuff". 

-The Clone pack-in lacks a lot of deco, but so do some other CW3D Clones it seems.  I don't know if this is the first one, but I'm guessing not, as I believe I have a CW3D Clone around here from something I bought that lacks pretty much anything but black bodyglove and visor decoration.  That's all this figure has on it.



That's basically it...  I think the Clone Wars Hailfire is a nicer display piece due to the less "chunky" look to it, but they're more similar than I realized once they're together.  I prefer the movie deco though, myself.  I do, however, love the RC mechanism.  I was thinking Hasbro maybe wouldn't do well with this, as RC can be something tricky for companies to master if they don't make toys likek that often.  This one works well, and the missile mechanism works great.

I think it'll be ultimately fairly easy to pick one up on sale.  This is prime for a discount at Target, though my Targets don't seem to have as many of these as Wal-Mart does, who are more reluctant to drop prices on anything.  Wal-Mart has at least 8 of them on my last stop...  Well, 7 now I guess.  Target only has one last time I was there.

I think for "fun", it's a good toy.  For "collectible", it's not so good.  It's not attrocious, but it's just not as nice as the original Clone Wars sculpt of this vehicle.  For having something to actually use though, and drive around outside or just messing with the kids, it's pretty neat.

Oh, and I don't believe they can be run together.  I'm assuming the frequencies are all the same, so if you bought 2 you'd have to run them one at a time for find a way to change the crystals.  I'm going to take this for a tear outside after work while I've got some good weather.  I'm going to run it on a tank obstacle course I have outside on my property for RC tanking.  This should be an interesting challenge as the controls are a little sensitive on the Hailfire, but I was getting pretty good at firing the missiles reasonably accurately in 5 minutes.  I'm curious to see it perform on hard packed dirt, as well, and also see how it climbs various grades and some mild obstacles and varying sized paths.
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Offline shmashwitdaclub

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #52 on: September 13, 2010, 08:43 AM »
I'm going to take this for a tear outside after work while I've got some good weather.  I'm going to run it on a tank obstacle course I have outside on my property for RC tanking.  This should be an interesting challenge as the controls are a little sensitive on the Hailfire, but I was getting pretty good at firing the missiles reasonably accurately in 5 minutes.  I'm curious to see it perform on hard packed dirt, as well, and also see how it climbs various grades and some mild obstacles and varying sized paths.

I want a video of this   ;D

Offline Jesse James

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #53 on: September 13, 2010, 04:08 PM »
I should probably tape it someday, but I don't have a way to do that, sorry. :)  I was setting up droid obstacle courses with the RC astromechs, sort of the same idea, but inside. 

I'll try and find video of other people's much more elaborate tank set-ups...  RC tanking is a growing hobby, and some guys make (actual) concrete pillboxes, concrete destroyed buildings (concrete is super easy to work with if you have any experience at all with it), and so on.  Some guys even weld their own metal obstacles ala D-Day beaches.  All about the scale of Star Wars stuff. (1:16-1:18-ish).

Some guys make theirs to look like narrow Italian mountain streets, others try for a more open Northern France/Belgium look.  Others add bridges, anti-tank ditches, all kinds of good stuff.  Many of the tanks actually fire too, so there's objectives to be "destroyed" too, along the way.

I'm just more curious how this'll roll on hard packed dirt, and control on a given path.
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Offline CHEWIE

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #54 on: September 14, 2010, 11:52 AM »
Glad you like it Jesse, the eye lighting up sounds cool.

And I agree, this will hit clearance and probably be able to be purchased on the cheap at Target... I'm starting to see a bit of dust on them here. 

Offline Jesse James

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #55 on: September 14, 2010, 11:24 PM »
LIke I said, in my area Target has the least of them out...  One has none, the other I visit routinely has one.  So that may or may not work out.  TRU and WM have the most of them, and the most space dedicated to them...  This may tie slightly to the idea that Target sometimes leans towards collectors while TRU and WM sometimes lean the other direction, I don't know.  I could see TRU discounting theirs though relatively quickly after the holidays.

I took mine out tonight on the old tank course...

It grips a rougher surface better than it does a smoother surface.  The tread on the wheels just isn't deep enough nor pliable enough to really grip the smaller imperfections of a smoother surface like dry hardpacked clay/dirt or a tile floor.

It also rides lower to the ground, and has absolutely no suspension (too bad because the mounts for the wheels to the body would've worked way cooler with functional simple spring shock systems), so it will hang up on obstacles if you don't get enough oomph to just blast over them.  It is surprisingly maneuverable, but you have to be sort of quick with the controls because it's sensitive, and it is a little speedier than I thought it maybe would've been.

I'm kind of curious if the transmissions in each wheel will hold up over time, or rough driving?  Without the suspensions being functional, I could see gears grinding if they're played with hard, like jumped off things.  Even small "jumps" can jar the transmission.  The wheels don't even really give the vehicle a cushion either, so damage there could occur.  Only time will tell.

I'm kind of curious to take one apart, but don't feel like running the risk of having it not go back together easily.  I just took a Turbo Tank apart to customize recently, and it's nothing short of a bear to take apart completely (why on Earth Hasbro would actually GLUE screw hole covers in, rather than leave them so you can pry them off, is beyond me.  That's one of the dumbest things ever IMO, as they plugged in almost permanently, and would've required major prying to remove...  Very dumb to glue them then).
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #56 on: September 15, 2010, 10:04 PM »
Personally I would rather have a Sandcrawler or a large scale Landspeeder over this.
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Offline darth broem 2

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #57 on: September 16, 2010, 11:58 AM »
Well my 5 year old (soon to be 6) is now wanting this.  LOL!  I do like it personally.  I just did not want to shell out $60 for it since I have the other non-remote control version.  That and I shelled out $100 for the big AT-AT.  He's got a good chance of getting this because A) he wants it really bad B) he's got plenty of family members willing to get him a "big unique item" that he'll love and C) AOTC is his favorite Star Wars movie because of the Arena and Jedi/Clones vs. Droids/Seperatist action.  I really don't see tons of these hanging out in the stores though.  Granted I have not really been looking for it.  Anyway, it sounds like it will be in our house at the latest by X-mas.

Offline iFett

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #58 on: September 16, 2010, 01:07 PM »
For you RC lovers...from Mousedroid

QUESTION 2:
Recently the Radio Controlled (RC) Hailfire Droid turned up at retail in Australia, and well I must say, what a fantastic vehicle. Quite possibly the best "toy" I have bought in a while. I must admit that it picks up quite a bit of speed, but the Radio Controlled Firing Missiles are by far it's best feature! It is also really great that you have made it in the 3 3/4" scale so that it will work with your/our existing manual vehicles and Basic Figures. As you have probably noticed, when you move away from your "core" products (3 3/4" Action Figures), interest eventually dwindles off (Titanium and Might Muggs are a couple of examples of this). My question is: Do you have plans or any interest in persuing the RC format in the 3 3/4" scale further? A Republic Tank would be good *wink*

HASBRO RESPONSE:
Thanks for the compliment - we're glad you are thrilled with the Hailfire. As a matter of fact we have been looking at developing additional 3-3/4" RC vehicles, and the Republic Interceptor Tank is on our list of candidates. No telling whether it will "make the cut" though as it's tough to top the feature-laden Hailfire!.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: RC Hailfire Droid
« Reply #59 on: September 16, 2010, 03:11 PM »
Well I guess if the thing has to shot missiles, I guess we will never get a RC Sandcrawler. Unless Hasbro pulls a rocket firing R5-D4 trick on it. Jawas of Death!
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