I’ll admit placing 30th Anniversary Lifeline’s backboard up there was initially a concession to the fact that I just couldn’t display all of his accessories with him, but the idea of that large flat space being used as a roof rack to evacuate an injured Joe has really grown on me. The other side winds up giving you a relatively large flat space. There’s a port over each front seat that the missile launcher can be plugged into so it’s your choice as to which side gets it. I don’t see it as a missile launcher but rather as a heavy cannon of some type. Unlike most springloaded missile launchers, this one remains rather sleek and I like the real world concession of having an armor plate between the operator and the business end of this thing.
#Gi joe phantom brigade driver
The top is enclosed over the driver and passenger, but the two back seats are open to the elements to facilitate one of the two being able to operate the VAMP’s springloaded missile launcher. It’s still clearly armored but it does give the impression that this thing was stripped down a little in order to up its top speed. The canopy of the vehicle is angled back and gives it a very sleek look. I like the idea of vehicles being able to hold the gear of the figures riding in them and between the backpack pegs and the open back end, there’s plenty of storage space here. The other two are empty, but the holes (like the others scattered throughout the vehicle) hold backpack pegs very well. One is used to plug in the heavy machine gun the guy riding shotgun can use to help clear the way. On the hood, there are also three attachment points. The bumper is large and fits with the armored look of the front end of the vehicle. The string attached to the capture claw is appropriately long (unlike the Tomahawk’s lift hook) and the retraction wheel is disguised nicely in the hood. You can fake it by clipping it around the bumper, but considering the great little storage points built into the VAMP, it’s a shame you can’t actually clip it onto the bumper somehow. It’s not a bad play feature, but it does suffer from the lack of a way to store it built in. As a holdover from its Pursuit of Cobra origins, the VAMP has a play feature in the form of a capture claw and winch on the front. The doors and back roof have been removed for speed considerations, but this thing definitely looks a lot bigger and more imposing. While the original VAMP was based around a fast-attack Jeep, the Mark II VAMP seems a bit more like a stripped down Humvee. The Mark II VAMP is quite a bit larger than its older brother.
#Gi joe phantom brigade update
Tangent about the Jungle Assault VAMP aside, the 30th Anniversary VAMP is a great update of the classic Joe vehicle and the Steel Brigade Delta driver is a great wheelman. If you have the choice between giving me a guy I don’t have instead of a repeat, go with the new guy. I would have loved to have seen a jungle guy like Pathfinder get that driver’s slot instead of somebody that I already had, but that’s always been my philosophy with Joes. I’m sure I would have grabbed the Jungle Assault VAMP had I ever seen it, but I’ll admit I was a little disappointed we were getting another Clutch with it. Thankfully, the 30th Anniversary VAMP was a straight up rerelease of the Pursuit of Cobra version that came with a new and more interesting driver. I literally never saw that thing at retail. The Hasbro folks threw us a great bone here because, at least in my neck of the woods, the Pursuit of Cobra Jungle Assault VAMP was basically impossible to find.
This continued throughout the modern line and the 30th Anniversary line stepped to the plate with the VAMP Mark II.
During the 25th Anniversary line, Hasbro realized that large-scale vehicles were a bit out of reach for what was supposed to be a very limited line, but man did they do some great stuff with their smaller vehicles. The first vehicle I have strong memories of was the Tiger Fish and even though it was a boat, which means it’s a little harder to come up with adventures for, I know I played that thing to death because it was so easy to pick up and play with. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the hell out of the Thunderclap I got for Christmas (probably in around 1990), but that only got used for massive adventures because it took a while to get set up. Growing up, the big vehicles were always pretty secondary to me, but I loved the smaller sets. Bear with me, ladies and gentlemen, because another vehicle set is about to get the KansasBrawler review treatment, so this could take a bit.
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