A whole bunch of clearance-priced REVs Hightails, some metallic paint, and some specially-made logos.

In a classic example of "fighting fire with fire", and faced with the distinct threat of the bizarre new COBRA B.A.T. v.7.1 units, with their multiple points of firepower, the G.I.Joe Team recently got a huge break when they shut down a Cobra munitions factory and discovered a supply of the brand-new COBRA B.A.T. 7.1 units. Rather than destroy them, the Joe Team took them back to headquarters. Mainframe and Hi-Tech spent weeks reprogramming the units (a fair portion of which involved deactivating their self-destruct mechanisms and bypassing a good number of firewalls in their programming) to operate for the G.I.Joe Team instead. They also gave them more agreeable paint jobs than the "Cobra Blue" they had been given. The revised units have stronger armor, although they don't look any different than before, since the Joe Team has only a limited number of these B.A.T.s. There are no plans to mass-produce additional units. They've also been given more sophisticated programming, especially with regard to target recognition. One thing that's never really changed about any B.A.T. series is that they have the nasty tendency of opening fire on almost anything that moves on a battlefield. The Joes don't need that.

From General Hawk's Files: "This isn't like the first 'Joe-B.A.T.' we enlisted, which was essentially a B.A.T. v.3 that had been given greater intelligence programming, and ultimately somehow decided for itself that it didn't want to fight, and surrendered to us. He still works in our machine shop and technology department. We basically found a stash of Cobra's latest B.A.T. and took them for ourselves. These things have no personality to speak of, but for the moment, they're our best weapon against the insane firepower capabilities of their Cobra counterparts. Our original 'Joe-B.A.T.' claims he likes having some of 'his own company' around, although privately he's stated he thinks the design is a little silly."

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Several things led to the development of this B.A.T. First off, there's only ever really been two "army builders" for the G.I.Joe Team - those generally awful "greenshirts" from the six-pack a few years ago, and the Convention exclusive Steel Brigade Commandos, which are excellent, but expensive and hard to come by. Secondly, it seemed to me that with all the B.A.T.s Cobra has had over the years, this was a technology that G.I.Joe would want to acquire, if use to a lesser degree, since the Joes are naturally more individualistic than Cobra. Thirdly, there were these two REVs robots, the "Cobra Blue" Steelrain, which I used for the B.A.T. 7.1, and the identical-but-dark-green Hightail, whose color seemed to fit G.I.Joe quite well (their REVs file cards even make reference to the fact that they consider themselves "brothers", even if they're on opposite sides within the REVs concept). Hightail's dark green color made him perfect for the same sort of "quick and easy" custom that I'd done with the Steelrains, although I deliberately made fewer of him into the Joe-B.A.T. II (and used a different color of metallic trim), reflecting the fact that the Joe Team has a more limited supply of them than Cobra. These figures are also an excellent size, being about 4" in height, just a tiny bit taller than the B.A.T. v.3.