Excalibur MK-VI
by Matchbox, released 1992

Robotech’s B-Squad

The Excalibur, also known as the Tomahawk (or the Archer for you Battletech fans out there), is a little-seen non-transformable mecha in the Robotech franchise.  While it saw very little attention from the Robotech toyline in the mid-80s, it was resurrected when Matchbox continued the Exosquad line.
Within Robotech, the Excalibur is part of a mecha series known as the Destroids.  They’re giant mecha with tremendous firepower, but without the ability to transform like their more famous and more recognizable brethren, the Veritech fighters.  Destroids play a pretty small role in the Robotech animated series, usually making only token appearances that last for a few seconds at a time.  Nevertheless, their fandom grew by leaps and bounds with the release of the Robotech RPG by Palladium books.  Since then, many an anime and mecha fan have wanted to have more than just the flimsy imported Japanese models to play with.

It’s not entirely clear how or why Robotech and Exosquad crossed paths.  As none of the Destroids (or anything involving Robotech) appear in the Exosquad show, there’s no narrative explanation for how the two were supposed to be related, aside from very vague talk in interviews about ‘crossovers’.  Going off of the general premises, the two stories take place in different universes with different timelines and different technologies, so that remains a mystery.  The fans are generally pretty okay with this because the end result was that we got some cool Destroids to play with.
Appearance – 2 out of 5
The Excalibur, like the other Destroids in the collection, is pretty unremarkable.  A total of four colors were used to paint the figure and in places were great detail was required, the paintjob falls a bit short upon inspection.  There isn’t a whole lot of texture to the figure, but there’s enough to do the job.  Where the figure does stand out is that this is a picture-perfect representation of the mecha shown in the show, the RPG, and in the occasional comic book.

Construction – 2 out of 5
The Excalibur is just shy of being cheap.  The plastic isn’t brittle but it’s hardly sturdy, nor is it particularly weighty.  The joints are very simple, while rivets and seams in the plastic are quite obvious if you look.  The joints do not have uniform strength, which is frustrating because that means one arm may stay in position while the other will fall unless held up.

Movement – 3 out of 5
It’s a little tricky to score this figure’s movement.  On the one hand, the joints have pretty simple and they generally have limited ranges of motion.  On the other hand, so did the mecha that the figure represents.  With the exception of the missing knee joints, this toy is capable of no movement that the inspiration itself was not.  And while the lack of knee joints would be a big deal, the inclusion of toe joints pretty much off-sets it.

Extras – 1 out of 5
There is nothing extra to this toy.  Not a thing.  No guns light up, no missiles fire, nothing.  The closest thing to an extra is the missile pods that open to reveal tooth-like missiles that cannot fire or be removed (these opening missile pods are a feature shared with only one other Destroid figure in the line).  This is incredibly disappointing because the Robotech universe is replete with little additions that could be thrown in.  The usual things like missiles and light-up guns aside, there’s always miniature vehicles like planes or tanks that would help establish some scale.  While it might be somewhat sacrilegious to some to suggest crossing over into the realm of Battletech (which “borrowed” many mecha designs from Robotech), an option might have been to have interchangeable weaponry and armaments.

Packaging – 2 out of 5
The packaging for this toy was absolutely nothing remarkable.  The figure was covered with plastic and that’s it.  The backboard of the packaging was not unique to each figure and offered only the most basic of explanation of the story of Robotech, Exosquad, or how they were connected.  The only thing that saved the packaging from being completely uninspired was the color scheme (unique to toy packaging at the time) and the fact that the figure was protected from damage.

Overall – 2 out of 5
It seems a shame to give this toy such a low grade because it is fun to play with.  Part of that may be the Robotech fan in me talking, but part of it is the simple pleasure of having an honest-to-goodness mecha toy released to US audiences.  This isn’t a vehicle for a figure to ride in, it isn’t a sentient robot character, it’s a giant robot toy.  And part of me is overjoyed just to see that kind of presence on the toy shelves.  But at the end of the day, the Excalibur property is simply too rich to deserve such a second-rate figure.  There’s too much that could have been done with this figure that wasn’t and that’s a real shame.