Review : Wind-Up Fight Droids, Disney Store, 2018 (Solo, A Star Wars Story)

Pros : Cheap & Cheerful. Decent Sculpt and some weathering and battle damage applied

Cons : Scale is debatable

One of the odd releases for Solo, A Star Wars Story came from Disney Store in the guise of this 2-pack Wind-Up Fight Droids. These are the two droids we see slugging it out in the bar where Han first plays Lando at sabacc.

They were released into Disney Stores on May the 4th 2018 and here in the UK have a price tag of £12.95.

Like all the Solo merchandising, the overriding colour scheme for the Robot pack is yellow - with White Star Wars logo and artwork panels from the movie. There is no background information, we don't even get the droid type or their designation.

The back of the box shows the action features of the two droids. If you are collecting mint-in-box then watch out for the Disney Store tags / barcodes that are stuck on the bottom of the box over the legal and copyright text.

Like other figures in window box packaging, the droids slide out in an inner cardboard tray - also yellow. The droids are sandwiched between a front and back clear tray. While this protects them, the front tray doesn't do them justice on store shelves in terms of the finish we get on these two figures.

The first droid is a modified Gonk droid confirmed via the Solo Visual guide as WG-22 or "Slice". He is fitted with a circular saw on one arm and an axe on another. He is a turquoise colouration but there is some good weathering and dirty effects going on. We also get some nice details under his big red visor with brushed silver effects.

Red warning flashes are added as decals on one corner of the droid. Weaponry is cast in silver and the axe is painted, while the saw blade (which actually rotates) remains plain grey. My only niggle is at the feet where one is left plain grey - this is likely to make him look mismatched but it ends up looking like they ran out of paint.

The second droid is designated FD3-MN (as per Topps cards). The Solo Visual Guide does not classify this droid, and until we can all start looking at the Solo movie frame-by-frame my best guess is that this is a converted Adminmech droid. While the Gonk is well publicised in Star Wars, details on this droid type are sketchy.

The overriding colour on this one is an off white, with rubbing and weathering effects around the panels. There is a misshapen guard of some description at the top - not sure if that is warped out of the factory, or it is meant to look like this. Around the body are a variety of neat square and rectangular decals and panels.

Like it's opponent, FD3 is tricked out with weaponry with a club of some kind on one arm and a flailing set of chains on the other. What is nic is that the chains are individual strands. The other arm looks a little clunky, but is still weathered with good paint apps - down tot he yellow circular end piece and silver inner hub.

Each droid is articulated at the arms, with the Gonk also having moveable legs and a moveable visor.

The Gonk operates by winding a key on its back. While FD3 has a pull back motion via wheels on the base. As the Gonk droid moves his feet go back and forward in a walking motion, while the arms raise and lower. FD3 rotates and wheels forwards with the two arms flailing as he moves. Checkout the following video to see them in action.

The operation of the droids is short lived a bit clunky. You will do well to get them to fight for a few seconds, and they are more likely to go wheeling off in a different direction.

So onto scale and we seem to have two camps on this. I sit in the camp that these look like 6" scale to me. Each droid is a touch taller than a Black Series Astromech and comes up to the lower chest of a protocol droid.

I can apply some logic to this theory with the Gonk droid listed on Wookieepedia as 1m or so high which is spot on with the 6" figure scale. FD3-MN looks to be a little bigger than the Gonk in the movie, so may be a little undersized in this set.

The other camp sees them as 3.75" scale but I need to see the movie again to see how tall these two guys are in the Lodge vs the human charaters. I do however find them far too big looking when put alongside a 3.75" figure like the second image above.

The simple answer here is to use them as you see fit. If they work for you in 6" scale then have them in your Black Series collection. If you feel they fit in 3.75" then use them in a Vintage or 5POA collection.

My droids will be going into my Black Series 6" Jabba's palace display for now as background pieces.

For £12.99 you get two pretty decent sculpted droids, which are also nicely painted. The scale is debatable, but choose to use them with whatever size figure you are happy with.

The one real issue is that their main Wind-Up feature doesn't work brilliantly.

I score the Wind-Up Fight Droids set from Disney store a very respectable 4 out of 5.