With the 2.5" scale items, Hasbro made a promise to do some serious focusing on vehicles, only making the mini-figures to compliment those vehicles. The "Action Sets" can sometimes suffer from this, since the lower price point forces them to kind of re-focus attention on the figures, which is definitely not a highlight of this line. However, they do manage to work in some miniature vehicles in these smaller sets, and even in the smaller scale, they do a pretty decent job.

PACKAGING

I love the presentation as usual with Long Range and the "Frostfire" sled cruising over the winter tundra. It's a dramatic art piece and really helps sell the item inside. Very nicely done, and the great presentation continues on through the Mission Manual:

The Toys

The vehicles are far and away the shining point of the 2.5" line in general, and this set is no exception. Snowmobiles have kind of been a staple in the Joe line for a while, and they keep up their appearences even in this new scale. However, the "Frostfire" is quite a bit different than your standard snowmobile, and really works pretty well, I have to say.

It's got a lot of the basic functionality as a standard snowmobile, with ski's on front and treads mounted in back, but Hasbro takes it a few steps further, really maxing out the design schematic. Twin chain guns mounted at the front, a nicely designed armored shape. It makes for a pretty practical looking mini vehicle, but something with some fun as well.

The oversized rocket launcher is a bit too much for me, I'd rather see a nicely sculpted twin-barrel machine gun or something...I can only see this thing launching and totally back-flipping the Frostfire before it even gets going. Besides that, though, the vehicle itself looks pretty cool, and I like the design.

Where the vehicles in this line are definite highlights, it's the figures that have a tendancy to suffer. This point has never been more evident than with this set. While the vehicle has some cool aspects to it, the figure unfortunately has no real redeeming qualities. The sculpting detail and design isn't bad, really...it's an interesting take on an arctic version of Long Range. Everything else, though, is fairly substandard.

While he's got decent articulation, with swivel shoulders and swivel hips, it doesn't end up really serving a good purpose due to the way his legs are positioned. They have to be somewhat bow-legged to fit on the Frostfire, so doing anything else with the figure is pretty much an impossibility. I also feel compelled to mention that Long Range's arms don't seem very securely attached to his torso. Sitting him on the sled is an exercise in frustration as his arms continuously fall off while just moving them. The sniper rifle is also permenantly attached to his back, so even though he fits on the front seat of the Frostfire (where I'd imagine he's supposed to drive from) the rocket launcher cannot face forward due to the long barrel of the gun jutting up in the way.

All in all, the vehicle is nice, but Long Range just fails on a few different levels. He looks neat when you've got him in the seat, but trying to do anything with him just leaves me grumbling.

The Snow B.A.T. is at least a little bit better in that it doesn't fall apart at the slightest touch. Granted, this B.A.T. isn't useful for much besides skiing, but he looks pretty cool in this position. I really like how they've taken a lot of elements of the Sky B.A.T., but really souped it up a bit to make a more arctic compatible robot trooper. The detailing on the thicker legs is very well done, and I like how the skis and skipoles are sculpted. These items are removable as well, although the Snow B.A.T. doesn't necessarily serve any purpose without them since he's stuck in that permenant crouch.

Not a bad figure, overall, a whole lot neater than Long Range, to be sure.

3 3/4" Compatibility

The Frostfire sled really is too small to work in any sort of 3 3/4" format. The seat's too small, the overall vehicle looks miniscule compared to a standard 3 3/4" figure, and all in all, it just doesn't work.

Overview

For a small Action Set, this particular one works fairly well. The vehicle is well designed and looks cool, but the Long Range figure leaves a lot to be desired. I don't mind the Snow B.A.T. a whole lot, but the same stuff that turns some older collectors off about the 2.5" line are all still pretty present here.

Still the Frostfire compliments the Arctic VAMP quite well and all in all it looks like a great mini vehicle and integrates well with the Sigma 6 universe. This probably gets my highest recommendation of any of the Wave 2 Action Sets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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