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Kit Reviews > StarWars Legion Kit Reviews > Separatist Alliance Kit Reviews > B1 Battle Droid Model Kit Review (AMG)
This review will cover the basic B1 Battle Droid miniatures for Star Wars Legion (not the specialist add-on which I'll review on their own if / when Atomic Mass Games decide to re-release them).
Firstly, the B1 droids are available as a standalone box or as part of the exceptionally good value Separatist Alliance starter set. To remain fair and objective I will base this review on the standalone box as I also want to do a little comparison between the older retired Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) versions and the newer Atomic Mass Games (AMG) version.
Look and feel (5 / 5)
First up, these droid miniatures look absolutely brilliant. The proportions are perfect and the details such as panel lining are spot on when compared to the film and TV characters.
The iconic standard E-5 blasters from the movies are perfectly recreated in this set. In addition, two troopers are also armed with iconic special weapons from the Clone Wars animated series; the E-5C heavy blaster rifle and E-60R rocket launcher. Again, both weapons are faithfully translated from the original designs.
My only very minor issue was with the squad leaders who, beyond a pair of binoculars and rank colour markings, don't stand out from the squad too well. I don't really think this is an issue with the kit itself though as the mass-produced droids are supposed to look the same in terms of lore - it's just that translating them into miniatures as characters comes with that little niggle which people might find annoying during games (not an uncommon issue and certainly not only for this IP!).
If like me you've always wanted to recreate the massed rows of mechanical troopers from the movies, look no further than this boxed set!
Functionality, Cost & Quality (5 /5)
Although the newer version of this kit is undoubtedly more expensive than the previous version, you do get marginally more for this comparative rise in cost.
You now get 15 B1 droids (including 2 special weapon troopers and 1 squad sergeant with binoculars) in this boxed set whereas you received only 9 with the same options in the previous set.
The rise in price doesn't just cover the additional figures, but also a massive production uplift using higher quality, more durable plastic and a complete redesign of the sprues. Uniquely, this kit had a complete overhaul with the advent of the new edition under AMG whereas the majority of other kits, while benefiting from better plastic and packaging were effectively the same design.
While QC is generally excellent for the contents of each box, a couple of things niggle at me - the decision to no longer include assembly instructions in the box, instead making them all available online as a PDF download. While it's not a big issue, it baffles me why they still opted to include a large flier with a QR code in the box pointing to their site which could easily have had instructions instead!
The second niggle is the inclusion of gaming cards in every language. I get that they did it to make shipping logistics easier for non-English speaking countries such as Germany (so they are produced in a single batch rather than for each country individually), but it just feels incredibly wasteful that you throw away the majority of the laminated cardstock that came with your minis. The saving grace here is that the reduced supply chain links probably reduce the carbon footprint of the business far more than the environmental cost of the additional cards.
Even though I feel like this kit isn't massively overpriced compared to the older version, I do feel that it should have been slightly cheaper given the availability of B1 droids in the far more cost effective starter set.
Construction (5 / 5)
Firstly, the redesign of the kit means that the individual droids are so much quicker and easier to assemble than the previous version for a number of reasons!
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| New AMG Sprue |
The other tooling update is the inclusion of sprue stacking locators. The little male plugs and female sockets in the corners mean that the sprues can actually be pressed together into a kind of protective frame around the miniatures and are just immensely satisfying if you're a design nerd like me! In practice it stops them being crushed in their packaging and they can be stacked handily as you work through the build.
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| Old FFG Sprue |
The next main point is the actual miniature design from a build perspective. Aesthetically you would probably struggle to see the difference between the two types once painted unless you knew what to look for. In practice, the build process is radically different.
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| New AMG Sprue - leg construction |
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| Old FFG Sprue - leg construction |
On the original sprues, the legs came with a very small hip joint and semi-circular tab on the pelvis. When dry fitting the parts, they go together ok, but as soon as you apply liquid poly, those tight tolerances melt the tabs into an oval and cause the legs to move about while the glue is setting. Because of the shape, this can also cause air to become trapped behind the peg making the hip tab pop back out a little. You can work around this by allowing the air to escape with a small cut, but this should probably have been incorporated into the design.
The other insanely frustrating thing in the old kit was the decision to make the head in two very small parts which then attach to a tiny neck connection point which can re-split the head at the joint when applying more liquid poly.
I was so glad to see these issues addressed with intelligent design in the new kit and I can't heap enough praise on the designers for these changes.
Kit posing and options (4 / 5)
Having picked holes in the old design, I now want to make a slight u-turn to point out that while extremely frustrating to build, the natural connection points for the head and legs meant that the older kit was far easier to re-position for poses outside of those originally intended by the kit designer.
For most casual model makers this is absolutely no issue at all, but for anyone who wants to add new poses to a squad, you will need a bit more experience in kit-bashing to make minor posing changes. This particularly applies when re-posing additional droids to stand on the hull of an NR-N99 Persuader class Droid Enforcer.
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| Persuader droid tank with extra passengers |
Another small gripe is the fact that you are limited to a few poses within the kit although swapping the arms and heads for a little variation is easy enough. Generally speaking, this will only ever be an issue if you make say... 56 B1 Battle Droids, but who would be silly enough for that right? Right?
My main issue with this kit (which is a common thread for these expansions) is that whilst they do contain 2 special weapons and a squad leader, they don't contain regular blaster rifles for these troopers, so you can't just add 15 regular droids to your force to bulk out squads. Even more annoying is the fact that the game limits your squad to one of each special weapon choice, so one of your clankers is always getting left at home! I feel that this was a bit of a miss which could have been avoided during the redesign.
I also believe that the missing options from the old B1 specialist sprue such as the sniper variant and radiation gun should have been added here for extra appeal as a standalone kit and additional value for money.
All things considered, I think for the average model maker, the new kit is a massive upgrade and only those who specifically want to heavily convert droids with new poses should look to the discontinued versions.
Final Score & Comments (4 / 5)
Even though I've only scored this kit as a four out of five, I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who loves Star Wars Droid miniatures. The only caveat (and the reason it ended up as a 4 / 5) is that if you're going to buy some basic B1's it's a lot more cost effective to get them as part of the Separatist starter set!
