I first caught wind of this thanks to SNAKE EYES from the HissTank forums, though unfortunately wasn’t in a spot that I could do an update until now. Gyre-Viper from the afforementioned HissTank.com has uncovered some images of upcoming figures. Unfortunately (in my book) the figures consist of three repeat characters, and a troop builder that is tough to make out. Arctic Storm Shadow and City Strike Duke are especially underwhelming. The list is as follows:
- Storm Shadow (Arctic Threat) – Looks to be an amalgamation of Storm Shadow and Paris Pursuit Snake Eyes, which is an interesting combination, but it’s not nearly as cool as the individual figures that make it up. Plus the camouflage that is supposed to be an homage to the ’87 version of Stormy looks kinda splotchy and out of place.
- Duke (City Strike) – Pretty much a repaint of Reactive Armor Duke, perhaps with some other legs, but he comes with all rehashed accessories and a somewhat uninspiring paint scheme.
- Ripcord (Jungle Assault) – This figure looks pretty freaking incredible. Love the boonie hat, love the gear, and the paint apps are pretty nice, too. I’d rather get a desert version of Rip over this, but it still looks like an awesome figure from this grainy photo.
- Desert-Viper – Honestly can’t really tell. Lots of shadow, some heavy gear and a scarf. Has potential, but I’m not big on the environmental guys. Time will tell on that one.
If this is a run of single packs, I’m kinda bummed out. It seems things took a bit of a step back, at least with two of these figures. I know, I won’t jump to conclusions, but this selection doesn’t win me over. I know Hasbro traditionally tends to mix in a pretty repaint heavy wave in the later months, so maybe this is it, it was just looking like such drastic improvements between Wave 1 and Wave 3, that this seems to go in the opposite direction.
We’ll see. Images are mirrored below.
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The Desert Viper looks like less of an environment specific figure, and more of a “Holy crap, that’s a lot of damn blades” figure.
And personally, I like this Duke, and may wait on it rather than going for standard Reactive Armour Duke, if only because I prefer the look of the legs on this one because of the added colour. The sword will end up with some other figure.
It’s interesting that the bottom of the carding is color coded based on the environment. Blue – Arctic, Gray – city, Brown – desert and Green – Jungle
Yeah, that Ripcord fig looks pretty cool. Desert Viper may have potential, will have to see better pix. The others are, like you said, boring.
the new paint on the reactive armour duke really gives the fig alot of life now. the added color makes him look more crisp and detailed. ripcord looks like he shares the same goofy legs as the transformers revenge of the fallen human alliance Robert Epps figure that comes with sideswipe.
Meh on everything but that Desert Viper. I’m become an unabashed ROC Viper fan…
The Ripcord fig looks nice! Geez… I might have to pick up the Desert Duke after all.
You know I hope they go back and release some figures based on the prequel book descriptions. That’s what it seems they are doing with the Ripcord.
I really like that Strom Shadow. They’re all pretty nice for rehashes I won’t mind getting most of them.