Micro Galaxy Squadron – Hera Syndulla’s A-Wing
Today’s unboxing and review features Hera Synduall’s A-Wing from the Micro Galaxy Squadron collection. We are big fans of this range of scaled Star Wars vehicles and would love to add as many as we can to our collection.
I was excited when I saw that wave 2 included not one but two vehicles from Rebels – Hera’s A-Wing and Sabine’s TIE Fighter. They are both chase variants, so I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to find them locally. Hera’s A-Wing is a silver chase 1 of 15,000 so I figured I would have similar odds as Moff Gideon’s Outland TIE fighter from wave 1 (also a silver chase) which I found locally – and did actually spot a couple of times across different stores. Time will tell if I spot Hera’s A-Wing more than once – but I wasn’t going to take any chances, and grabbed her when I first saw her.
The assortment number for this pack is SWJ0011-092922-TM
Check out my full unboxing video –
The packaging for this ‘light armor class’ vehicle is standard for this range – a big clear window bubble on a cardboard backing card. The lower front window insert has the name and number for this specific variant – Hera Syndulla’s A-Wing #0035. The bubble has a silver foil circle sticker noting that is a rare chase variant – 1 in 15,000.
The backing card has colourful space battle artwork behind the bubble (Sabine’s TIE Fighter vs TIE Fighters), while the back has a blueprint style image of the vehicle, a few insert shots of moveable parts, and a collectible card that you can cut out if you want to – I will be leaving my backing card intact.
I think it’s quite interesting that the backing card art for this A-Wing features Sabine’s orange Rebels TIE Fighter, while the backing card for Sabine’s TIE Fighter features an A-Wing. Not saying that each vehicle needs to have matching artwork, but it’s a bit quirky having swapped art.
The plastic bubble used for the ‘light armor class’ vehicles is pretty much the same, so there is a lot of extra space around the A-Wing. It is a little on the smaller size for this vehicle category – it’s flatter shape means it doesn’t use up the same depth of the bubble packaging, so from the side it looks a little empty.
Once I took the A-Wing out of the packaging, I could get a much better look at the vehicle. I always feel just a little bit torn between keeping these vehicles carded or boxed, as they do look good – but I really want to see all these ships displayed together. That was one of the biggest drawcards of the Micro Galaxy Line – that all of the vehicles are in scale with each other, which makes for a really cool display. As well as the fact that some of the smaller vehicles like speeder bikes are hidden inside mystery blind boxes, so they have to opened to add to your display.
Most of the colour in this design comes from the use of different coloured plastics. There are red and white painted designs on the top front ‘nose’ section, the back of the engines are also painted red, and also bit of painting on the cockpit hatch window. The paint is tidy and clean – this vehicle doesn’t have a ‘muddy wash’ like other vehicles (Jedi Starfighter, X-Wing etc). The clean finish does work well with the animation style of Rebels.
Overall, a nice tidy vehicle with a bright and colourful paint scheme. I’m sure there are artistic fans out there airbrushing and repainted Micro Galaxy Squadron ships to be more detailed, but I’m quite happy with my collection.
There is pretty much no paint on the underside of the vehicle (just that rear engine red), relying mostly on the different coloured plastic to give it variation. There is a small singular landing gear towards the front that can be pulled out, and it clicks into place nicely to help display the vehicle in a landed position.
Next, onto the included figure. The Hera Sydulla figure is quite well done, considering her size. She has quite a detailed paint app, with multiple colours. My particular figure has a few paint flaws, but considering how small this figure is, I can barely tell without looking up really close – the most obvious spot is her right hand glove, but it shows up more in this larger-than-life photo.
Her twil’lek lekku are sculpted down her back, so they can’t bend or break off. She is articulated at the shoulders and the hips, allowing you to pose her arms and legs into a sitting pose to put her in the cockpit. She fits nicely into the cockpit – I’m quite tempted to keep the cockpit hatch open for display, she looks really good in there.
The cockpit has translucent green plastic, so you can see inside – very useful when displaying a figure inside. The top hatch opens by pulling it up, which on my particular vehicle, was a bit stiff. The small notch to catch to pull it up is on the sides, rather than the top of cockpit hatch, so it’s a little more hidden – this makes a little harder to open, but looks cleaner for display, which I do like. I’m not really going to be opening and closing the cockpit a lot once I put it on my display shelf.
Overall, this is a fun version of Hera’s A-Wing. Perhaps not the most exciting or sought after vehicle, but if this line is going to continue and last through many waves, Jazwares will space out the headline popular ships (like the Millennium Falcon and Slave 1) with some more lesser known designs (like this A-Wing or Asajj Ventress’s Ginivex starfighter). I really appreciate the range featured in the Micro Galaxy Squadron line so far – I’m really impressed with the representation from the prequel era and animated shows so far.
I am so excited to see not one but two Rebels vehicles in the Micro Galaxy Squadron line so far – Hera’s A-Wing and Sabine’s TIE Fighter. As you can see when you display them side by side, despite both being in the light amor class category, the TIE Fighter gives you a little more bang for your buck on your display shelf, but that’s the nature of a line that’s in scale – vehicles will vary a lot in size.
I was a little frustrated when I saw that wave 2 included three chase vehicles featuring female characters (Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren, and Ahsoka Tano), but at least Hera’s A-Wing is the slightly less rare 15,000 edition chase.
We know realistically, with some store exclusives and chase variant scarcity in the mix, it’s going to be hard or very expensive to be completionist with this range (as with so many Star Wars collection lines these days) so I was really happy to find this one instore ourselves. I thought it might be a long shot to find more than one of the wave 2 chase vehicles locally, but the Force was with me! I am so happy to have found all three that I wanted most – Sabine, Hera, and Ahsoka.
Stay tuned for more reviews of Micro Galaxy Squadron vehicles coming soon – you can check out all of our reviews of our MGS collection so far here.
May the Force be with you!
