I pre-ordered these toys a while ago, and was very jazzed to see the big old box of battlestar show up on my doorstep. So, I quickly ripped open the box to find some nicely packed items. Each on was packaged on the same card back of a raider flying after a viper. Simple but nice. Now it was time to set these bad boys free....

First the viper gets popped out of its shell. The modeling of it looks nice. They even seem to have gotten the front nose correct where is really slopes down in the front. Basically this looks to be a miniature version of the old MONOGRAM model. Hmm but its gray! Not white...oddly they painted the viper the same color as the Monogram/Revell model instructions tell you...light gray. Which makes the red stripes a bit odd looking, cause the model is clearly "SEEN" as white (or light gray/white) on the show. (At least the miniature is..heck what color are they supposed to be again? haha!).

OK..we can overlook that..but wait...why did the rear engine cap just fall off?..err why is the wing loose? Opps..now the whole half of the middle engine fell off...there goes another engine cap... the thing is falling to bits! Frack! Looks like the folks at Joyride decided to use "near"-glue to put this together. Clearly the glue used here has no staying power, and is and just barely holding some of the parts on. - Since the left engine intake was jammed on my viper at an angle , making it look bad - I just decided to pull all the loose parts off and pull out some "SUPER GLUE". Carefully I glued everything back together and now I am more or less happy again. Well, not completely - was upset the thing fell apart in the 1st place.

On to the Cylon now. A few seconds after freeing him from his case, his left shoulder cup popped off. Now I had to go searching for it, cause it hit the floor. After a few minutes of looking I found it, and shortly thereafter the "SUPER GLUE" came back to the rescue. (We opened a second CYLON warrior and the SAME thing happened with the shoulder)

Whew, he seems to be staying together now and finally we can get a good look at him. While clearly being the best CYLON toy ever produced so far, it's a little out of proportion. His legs seem a bit long and his head is a bit tiny. But, like I said - the best so far.....but not perfect.

Lastly, the RAIDER. We popped that bad boy out and to my amazement nothing fell off. This piece is pretty much solid as is, however a little effort is needed to get the wire that holds it onto the card to come loose - since its looped into the underbelly of the ship. Again the details on this ship are good - another copy of the MONOGRAM/REVELL model. Even down to the incorrect front end , which is ok since most people won't realize that mistake.

So there you have it. These ships are basically the BATTLESTAR version of the STAR WARS action fleet ships. However, priced at 14.99 they are a bit expensive - especially since they need to be "fixed" after opening...well some do...- well mine did.