New Classified figures arrived at my doorstep this weekend, and I’m pushing them to the head of the line. I feel terrible about this because so many of these figures have been waiting their turn for a long while. I’ve had a half-finished review of the Cobra STINGER brewing since last month, and the HasLab Dragonfly with its figures is sneering angrily at me from the other room. But, I have to go with what works and what I can budget into the time I have and so I’m rolling out Destro’s Battle Android Troopers!
I’ve mentioned a ton of times how happy I am to have Classified back in window boxes, especially since the character art on those closed boxes was so hit or miss. Plus I was always paranoid that I was tossing accessories with those tissue bags. Here you get to see the gorgeous figure and accessories before you even clip that tape. We’ve had four models of the Classified BATs so far with the regular and crimson flavors being my favorites and the Arctic BAT being a big disappointment, and forget about Python Patrol because I’m not going down that rabbit hole. So how are Destro’s personal BATs going to turn out? Let’s take a look!
Well, doesn’t this guy look gorgeous! From the neck down, the IG Bat is basically a repaint of the first model, taking the two best parts of the Arctic BAT while ignoring all the extra crap they added to him. The humanoid killing machine retains the black fatigues of the OG model, while changing the exposed arms to gold and peppering the rest of the deco with red and more gold. The result is so striking and fresh, that I had to do a close side-by-side comparison to confirm nothing had been changed in the sculpt. We finally get a proper clear chest cover, which is cool. The black ones grew on me quite a bit, but I do still like to see the circuitry displayed like on the original RAH models. The gun belt and holster are now red with a gold buckle and the backpack is recycled with a little red paint added to some of the hoses on the side. Finally, you get a nice crisp Iron Grenadiers patch printed on his left shoulder.
The head is borrowed from the Arctic BAT, which is one of the few things I liked about that figure and I’m happy to see it return. The gold and black deco looks great here, as does the shiny red cyclopean eye. You do get the option to go with a standard BAT head with the face plate painted red, and while it does look good, I’ll be sticking with the cyclops head. You also get an optional damaged chest plate, but I don’t think the damage shows up all that well with the clear plastic. I would much rather they had included a translucent red tinted cover as an option.
The other best thing about the Arctic BAT shows up here and that’s the chainsaw arm attachment. Naturally this piece gets the black and gold paint upgrade. And while the Arctic BAT was stingy and just came with the one weapon attachment, the IG BAT also comes with the full assortment from the original.
And that includes the flamethrower, claw, and drill-laser thing. As with the original, there’s room to store three of the four attachments on his backpack and I think the chainsaw looks fantastic hanging from the side. If you read my Arctic BAT review, you may remember that his chainsaw would not stay put when hung from the side of the pack, but this one does just fine.
And finally, you get the same pistol that came with the previous versions in a… you guessed it! Black and gold deco. It’s kind of funny that these guys even need a sidearm with all their weapon attachments, but I’m not going to turn my nose up at an extra gun.
By the time the Iron Grenadiers arrived on the scene in 1988, I was well out of buying toys and I wouldn’t be back into it for another 12 years. As a result, this is my first time owning any figures of Destro’s private faction and I’m glad to be experiencing it through Classified. Because I was disappointed with the Arctic BAT, I only preordered two of these guys, but I’m happy to say he turned out fantastic and I would love some more. Unfortunately, my life is all about packing things to move these days, so I may hold off on that urge for the time being. Plus, I’m really trying to get my army building compulsion under wraps. But that didn’t stop me from buying three of the Iron Grenadier soldiers, and I’ll be having a look at those here in the very near future!