I never thought this vehicle would ever be produced by Hasbro.  It’s big and ugly, and doesn’t really do much on screen except hover, make noise, and deploy troops rather lethargically.  I had hoped someday it might be available, as I wanted one to complete a Naboo battlescape diorama.  As the years passed, Hasbro clearly avoided new vehicles unless they were aggressive.  Well, this vehicle is anything but aggressive.

It’s large, it’s goofy looking, and it doesn’t do much.  It rolls straight on wheels (to simulate hovering), it has two retractable missile launchers and two rotating (but non-firing) cannons. It has two side compartments and two top compartments to hold lots of droids.  The cockpit cover doubles as a gun tower.

It makes lots of noises, with some movie sounds, and some silly Clone Wars Battle Droid dialogue.

The big feature is the motorized droid deployment rack.  It works very well, as designed.  As the rack emerges from the nose of the MTT, appropriate sounds play.  The rack’s roof raises, as the droid platforms (one on each side) slowly lower to the ground.  The platforms must be manually snapped back into place, along with the rack’s roof, and then a button will retract the entire rack back into the nose, with accompanying sounds.

It’s a great feature, but Hasbro cut a lot of corners.  The rack deploys only 2 platforms.  The movie vehicle has several on each side to accommodate a couple of companies of droids.  In the case of the toy, you get two rows of 8.

This leads to the worst part of the package - the pack-in figures.  It comes with 4 droids that have pretty limited articulation.  Head, shoulders, hips.  That’s it.  The backpack is molded to the “figure”, and there is a blaster.  Worse than that, there are 16 battle droids specifically meant to rest in the deployment rack.  They have articulation for the head and the right shoulder.  They can carry a gun in their right hand (the stationary left arm is actually molded in such a way that the hand will not hold a blaster), or they can have the blasters plugged into their backpackless backs.  The feet are molded to a small stand, which has footpegs so it can be pushed onto pegs in the platforms to hold the droids in place.

These deployment droids are about the worst excuses for figures that Hasbro has ever made (barely edging out the 4 more articulated droids in the package for this title).  They are molded in the standing position, so their deployment is not movie-accurate.  For a better diorama, you’ll have to shell out $10 each for an army of basic figure Battle Droids that can be displayed in the tuck position (although ironically, they are unable to store the blasters on their backs, like in the movie).  Also, the droids are not able to be left on the ground by the deployment feature.  If you wanted them to be left outside, you’d have to remove them each individually yourself.  To complicate matters, the droid statues aren’t that easy to load into the rack.  Once you get all 16 in there, you pretty much will want to leave them in there forever.

This feature could have been infinitely better with only minor modifications.  The platforms should have the ability to be dropped, in a similar way that is executed by the center floor platform in the Republic Gunship.  It would also be great if you could easily fit the basic BDs in the tuck position onto these platforms.  Perhaps a few droid statues could have been included that were actually in this tuck position, just for more depth.

As a toy, it’s just terrible.  It rolls, barely has weapons, has lame sound effects, and the best feature could have been so much better.  When displayed and accompanied by a suitable army of basic figure battle droids and Trade Federation tanks and STAPs, this vehicle makes a very impressive display, and I am happy to have it as part of my collection, even if $129.99 was a high price to pay.  But if I were a kid and got this for a gift, I’d kick the nearest adult in the groin, and chuck it into a closet.