2019 TMB Snow Serpents Ghost Squad
So the newest wave of factory customs for 2019 is here, and it’s Snow Serpents. The V1 Snow Serpent is a classic mold and one of the highest quality sculpts from the vintage line, but finding things to do with it that are very interesting will be a challenge. So far of the early repaints, I’m pretty big into the Ghost Squad, which is a figure based on the Snow Serpent’s appearance in the cartoon.
The figure is primarily a stark white and not the off-white of the vintage figure. This is pretty nice, in the way that the white now matches with more figures that used a standard white color like the 1991 Snow Serpent or the Ice Viper. Other than that, the web-gear is painted a gray color, while the eye holes in the mask are painted black; there’s some blue for the goggles, and silver for the buckles. The paint applications and color scheme in general is pretty basic, but it conveys a Sunbow accurate Snow Serpent while maintaining enough detail to be interesting, so for that I quite like it.
I’ve yet to figure out exactly what I see these as in my collection, but the colors are interesting enough they could work for a fair bit. As they’re cast in a more standard white, they actually look more natural with most of my arctic Cobras than the V1‘s do. I’m not too big on making new sub-divisions within my standard Cobra ranks, but it is interesting that their colors match almost perfectly with the 1998 Cobra Polar Force set, so maybe the Ghost Squad is a small group of elites who worked with Firefly once. Sound good to me.
In terms of quality, the figures are overall pretty great. On mine, they pose well and the joints are acceptably tight. There’s few blemishes in the paint, and no casting irregularities I could find. All three that I bought seem to have trouble holding a snowshoe on one foot, but that’s easily rectified with some acrylic gloss in the foot hole.
For parts, you get the full load out of classic Snow Serpent parts including the folding stock AK47, snowshoes, backpack, mortar, and parachute. I was impressed with the quality of the parachute pack in particular, which so far feels durable and works without issue. To match the colors of the figure, all of the parts come in white, which isn’t too bad. My only problem is that the mortar doesn’t stand out very well like this, but there’s plenty of alternatives for that part alone.
These are much less available then past customs, which has some collectors reasonably frustrated. Each color scheme seems to be produced in smaller numbers and some of them are priced closer to the $20 range, unless you buy early or in lots. I figure a lot of it has to do with just how niche many of these Snow Serpent color schemes come across, so the production numbers were probably lowered with lower expected demand. In most cases I’ve not been able to justify the prices for what’s come out so far. Still, it’s an excellent figure and the quality is good, so when you see a color scheme that catches your fancy, I wouldn’t wait around.
In the cartoon their “eyes” were yellow. I can see not going with that, though. This is long overdue obvious repaint.
Hasbro had this mold available in the early 2000’s, but only the club used it. What a shame.
I’m digging these. But, haven’t seen them for sale from the usual suspects. Assuming I just missed them, though.
I’d love a few of these guys and a few of the blue ones. I’m hoping for a Black Friday sale to make them more attractively priced.
Haha, I just ordered some of these from The Black Major, with the intention of writing a review, that likely would’ve read incredibly similar to this one!
This version is probably the one I liked the most of the current wave of Snow Serpents, as it’s different enough from v1, to be relevant, but also still actually a SNOW Serpent. The fact it matches the Sunbow model so well, helped put it over the top for me.
I’m glad to hear the Parachute Pack worked out, I was worried it would be like the Starduster JUMP Cable.