I’ve always loved getting nice Kinder Surprise figures from time to time. That would be in flea markets, second hand shops or even second hand websites.

I’ve been browsing online catalogues of released surprises for a while, looking at the different art styles, sculpts and universes created by Kinder’s talented designers. I’ll very probably make other posts in this “bibelots” series because, of course, I have a lot of nostalgia and love for them.

Imagine my surprise when I randomly found out about a very cool set I’ve never seen before.

Einsatztruppe Mars

Translated to “Task Force Mars”

From my researches, this (very much undocumented) set of three robots was released in 2002, exclusively in Germany.

Fortunately for me, because these are so obscures and not sought after, I managed to get all three of those in a single listing for ~4€ inc. shipping. Only two listings were available, one on eBay and the second one on Vinted.

My seller was a very nice one. All three bots arrived in a well protected package with very clean BPZs (Beipackzettel, German for notice/instruction).

Every egg contains all the pieces required to build one of three bots. If that wasn’t for Robot 1 and 3 sharing their arms and shoulders, each bot has unique pieces. The capsule/egg itself is also part of the build, used as the main body piece.

The Task Force

Note: I have no clue if the following names are official or not (I doubt it), but that’s the only thing I could find online about them!

610 050 Roboter mit Propeller (Robot with a propeller)

Made of 14 pieces (including two half of the egg), this propeller bot is - in my opinion - the most iconic of the three. With its two little orange antennas and big eyes, it would be a perfect mechanical Minion, if that wasn’t made 8 years before the movie released.

610 047 Halbkapselroboter (Semi-capsule robot)

This… Well, half egg robot is my least favourite. Mainly because it’s the single one of the three that does not uses all the parts it came with, leaving behind the top half of the egg. Made of 11 pieces, this astromech-looking bot feels more like a side-kick than a real “task force heroes”.

The legs can be extended to look a bit less like R2.

640 043 Roboter mit großem Rotor (Robot with a large rotor)

Made of 13 pieces, this bot is very similar to the first one, sharing, as I said previously, both its arms and shoulder pieces. I think the backpack is a really nice addition, with the little antenna and transparent yellow piece. Rotor top is also lovely, reminding me of Inspector Gadget’s iconic helicopter hat.

Thoughts

Overall this is a very solid team of little cartoonish robots, ready to explore Mars and live many adventures. I love the clever use of the egg piece itself as part of the design. This is something Kinder’s designer have done multiple times since, and each time this stands out to me.

During my time collecting various Kinder Surprise toys, I’ve always found captivating the “alternative” versions. Most of the time they are the exact same toy, but in a different colour, and not shown as much on the packaging/BPZ. (More on that in a later post!)

Unfortunately for me (or fortunately for my bank account and storage space), none seem to have been made for these, being only available in this very sweet candy blue.

However, I played a bit with my editing software to imagine what alternative colours of those robots would look like.

While not all looking spectacular, I would totally see myself collecting these… :)

With this blogpost I hope to get them known a bit more, for the love of retro-futuristic cute robot designs.