Tonight I’m going to take two separate 3A toy packs and review them both in one fell swoop. The WWRp Deplume 2 and 3 pack went on sale back in April of 2011 and are just making land fall into the hands of eager collectors and toy aficionado’s across the globe. Of’t delayed and pushed back as other orders slipped by them, they’ve finally arrived. So, was the wait worth it?

PACKAGING

Both packs are almost identical in size. The artwork on the cover of each box appears to be a polaroid scan of  some killer Ashley Wood paintings. It’s a really cool look, but like many fans of his, I’d prefer having his artwork clearly front and center to display along with the goodies inside.  Each box has the official name of it’s respective set which apparently are “F#$% Up Jungle Battle 2pack,Excito Set!”  and “Triste Fight Death Swingers 3Pack, Stiffy Set!“. The top of each box carries a different phrase as well. “Three Ways to Die” and “The Jungles Black Heart“.

I’ll split the review up a little here to keep things clear for those discerning enough to care. We’ll start with the 2 pack, since that’s what I opened first.

2Pack, Excito Set!

WHAT’S INCLUDED

This set comes with some pretty rad stuff. You get Jung De Plume and a Jungler Dropcloth. Jung comes with the standard issue “De Plume” pistol and lots of little bags  around his waist. Jungler get’s the award for most satisfying plethora of stuff as he comes with a mini-gun, two different back packs; standard and mini-gun bullet feed pack, a severed enemy head, machete, shotgun and his trusty holstered side-arm. The cool thing about all of this stuff is that Jung can hold and be posed with any of it also giving you a ton of variety to mess with.. fun stuff!

3Pack, Stiffy Set!

WHAT’S INCLUDED

The 3pack comes with Kuan Ti Plume, Gebi De Plume and a Commando Dropcloth. Both De Plumes come with appropriately color coordinated De Plume gat’s while Commando comes packing his side arm and shotty.

BACKSTORY

First a little history (Skip ahead to the next section if you’re caught up on all the old stuff.. wouldn’t want to bore you like Mrs. Langum did in Middle School) The 1/12 De Plumes have been around for awhile. The 2010 3AA membership exclusive toy was WWRp Nom De Plume.. or Grandaddy Plume as I always call him…(by always I mean never, I’ve never called him that) Since then we’ve had Noir De Plume and Blanc De Plume. Noir was available as a standard Bambaland drop while Blanc was only available in a special 3×3 pack and is pretty difficult to find anymore.. *raises fist to air and shakes with vehement rage. The De Plumes are a marvel of 1/12 articulation. Perfect, in my book. Totally GI Joe for another era of super geeks. So far, I’ve been extremely happy with these little guys.

WWRp Dropcloth on the other hand, is pretty new to the 1/12th party with this years SDCC exclusive Slaughterhouse variant being the only pre existing one. WWR Dropcloths (1/6) are my favorite WWR bots of all and I’m completely thrilled that they’re starting to pop into their height challenged cousins line.

Now, moving on…

THE BREAKDOWN

For this section I’m going to simplify and review both packs together as they share several of the same features. As I said before, the two pack is just loaded with all sorts of goodness. On top of all the extra accessories, these guy’s look really fantastic. From the camo in Jung’s cargo’s to the weathering on his helmet, it’s really top notch. The best looking De Plume and my favorite of the three.

Jungler DC sports some of the best weathering on a 1/12th figure I’ve seen in a long time. I was really impressed by how great he came out top to bottom. He’s my favorite 1/12 Dropcloth so far!  The set feels very cohesive and looks really great posed up together.

The three pack’s a little less exciting to me. No extra’s, no frills.. that’s not a bad thing, we still have 3 cool cats to play with. In my humble opinion, Gebi De Plume is the most blah of the bunch. He has some cool weathering on his helmet, the brown bags are cool, but his overall.. what would you call this.. biege? off-white? eggshell/seafoam? It’s just not doing anything for me. There’s not a lot of details that pop on ol’ Gebi to make him stand out from the pack. It’s not a flaw in the figure per se, just personal taste.

I was most excited for Kuan Ti Plume. He’s one of my top wants of  the 1/6th line with his striking yellow/red color combo that some hate but I personally love. However, as a few have mentioned elsewhere (or elsewhere) I was disappointed to find that his red cloth mask was indeed far too heavily weathered and came out a flat grey blah blotch.  It sorta looks like someone sneezed very close to his face and no one was kind enough to say, “Kaun baby, you got a little something right… there…”  Some brave souls have successfully removed much of the excess weathering with some soap and water, something I plan to do once I get up my nerve. Another thing I noticed on mine is that the eye holes of his mask are off centered with the eye holes of the goggles underneath… giving him an unfocused, walleyed look. Since it’s glued on, there is no play and you can’t adjust it at all. Bummer. He still looks cool to me, I just can’t look too close at him for feeling a little let down.

I think the Commando Dropcloth is the best reason to own this pack. He came out just about perfect. He’s a spot on match to his big brother in almost every way. I do wish he came with a few new things to freshen up the character some, much like Jungler did. I have no real complaint there, it’s just once you’ve tasted the fruit…

Overall, these sets are really cool, the figures themselves pretty awesome in their own right. However, there are a few flaws with the Dropcloths in particular that I’d like to see addressed before the floodgates open and the full line of Droppy’s are released into our loving embrace. The one that I’d say bothers me the most is the extremely limited range of motion at the hips. The 1/6th DC’s can attain a fairly wide stance, which allows for some very dynamic poses. They are hands down the most poseable of all the WWR bot’s and are a blast to play with because of it. I don’t know what got lost in translation here, but despite the ball joint at the hips in these little guys, the range of motion is a joke. The picture below show’s DC’s legs as spread as they can be.  I really, REALLY hope it’s something 3A looks into and fixes for 2012.

The other issue I have with them is probably more nature of the beast than a flaw.. those tiny fragile fingers. At 1/6, the super pose-able fingers are awesome. At 1/12 they’re terrifying. It’s a bit of a chore to get them to hold any of their weapons with any manner of confidence as a stray breeze or bump will more times than not cause their flimsy grip to fail. I’m not really sure what 3A can do about them as they’re true to scale. Still, I might be ok if they decided to cheat a smidge and bump up the size of the hands/fingers a bit to ensure a sturdier piece of kit.

On the De Plume side of things, other than the character specific issues I mentioned earlier, there’s not much to cry about. These guys are wonderfully articulated and a blast to play with. If I was to nitpick I’d want their molded hands to grip their gun a little tighter. It’d also be nice if I could count on the velcro on their packs to hold as they should. On two of my Plume’s, the velcro is blocked by excess weathering or paint. This can usually be remedied by gently brushing it clean.

Other than that, De Plumes = win.

FINAL SUMMARY

WWRp De Plumes are super fun to play with and call me back to the day’s of waging GI Joe wars with my cousins. They’re the best thing I’ve seen out there in 1/12th. The Dropcloths are really cool at first glance with a handful of small, but crippling issues that keep them from being equally as amazing as their bigger 1/6th bro’s. If you could only get one set, I think the two pack is clearly the one to hunt down. The quality of the paints, the details in the clothing,  the amount of accessories included and just the overall cohesive look of it set up together, it’s truly a top notch set! I don’t want to discount the 3pack either. Despite the weirdness going on with Kuan Ti’s mask and my personal feeling on Gebi’s overall blandness, you are still getting two De Plumes. Plus, Commando came out pretty ball’n. I recommend picking up one or both set’s if you haven’t already. Spend some time posing and playing with them.. There’s definitely a lot of fun to be had here.

GALLERY