Star Wars: The Black Series Imperial Range Trooper (Solo: A Star Wars Story)

 

 Making their debut in this years’ Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Imperial Range Trooper appeared in a bunch of promotional material for the movie and looked like the newly revealed unit would feature in the movie.

LOL.

Joining the vaunted ranks of the Death Trooper, thePraetorian Guard, and perhaps most famously Captain Phasma, the Range Trooper takes its place on the list of designs heavily used to promote a Star Wars movie that then ended up being in it for less than a minute. (In fairness to them, the Praetorians are a personal addition to this list, because they actually did have quite a scene in The Last Jedi. I just don’t feel like they earned that position of Major Marketing Tactic. –mr) But, believe it or not, there was another new Stormtrooper to debut in Solo that actually got less screen time, and is apparently getting a figure later this year: the slightly black helmeted Patrol Trooper. But come on, this lack of screen presence doesn’t matter here at the Child Sized Coffin, loving home of Imperial Troopers and army builders, and the Range Trooper has a great and unique appearance, so naturally, this article will be firmly positive in tone.

The Range Trooper has an awesome look, sharing a general helmet with the Tank Drivers from Rogue One but having a wider, gold visor. Why the visor is gold instead of black is unknown, but it harkens to NASA astronauts and the gold plated visors of their space helmets. This trooper is also taller and bulkier than the standard Imperial Stormtrooper, looking like a person wearing a heavy winter coat underneath an armor chest plate. A soft fur collar surrounds the neck, and molded yet soft plastic skirt pieces hang from the waist to the knees. The legs terminate in large and complex boots, which at first I’d thought were prosthetic legs, but are apparently just large, complex boots. They allow Range Troopers to walk on surfaces otherwise unwalkable, via magnets or other fastening tactics.

The Range Trooper also has a new Imperial blaster, longer and with a clip on the inside, as well as a different barrel. I am such a sucker for even a slightly modified blaster at this point in the line, so this piece makes me happier than it honestly should. Everything about this figure screams heavy unit, like a tank character, or exceptionally hazardous environment unit.

 The pre-OT anthology Star Wars films continue to trot out new Stormtroopers, which is beyond excellent, but where were they during the Original Trilogy? Obviously they didn’t exist yet, but in-universe, why would the Empire only deploy Storm- and Sand- and Snowtroopers, when units like this existed and are probably better at certain battlefield scenarios than the Standards? Why would Vader not have brought Range Troopers down to Hoth? Was it Imperial arrogance that led them to believe that just the regular units would be enough for that attack? Then why station Range Troopers as train guards on another planet? Why only have like eight Death Troopers, and have them all hang out with Krennic? I know they are toys, but this kind of thinking really could change things about the way we view the Original Trilogy.

So now I’m one of those guys.

The Range Trooper is limited in posability, due to the plastic skirt pieces and the general bulk of the torso. The ankles allow the foot to point downward, but not really move from side to side because of the boot parts. Arm movement is good, but moving the arms too far away from the torso exposes a scooped out part of the body that doesn’t look very good, and essentially exists to allow the figure to put its arms down relatively flat against its body. But while posing is limited, there is a lot of detail to look at, pretty much everywhere on the body. The boots offer lots of greebles to examine, and things like the plastic skirt have been molded to look like fabric, a terrific detail touch. Both the helmet and the chest and crotch armor have wreathing or scuff marks or blaster scorching, depending on your imagination. These dirty looking Troopers are usually preferable to me than brand new and clean ones, and a large, hulking, tank character like this one probably should be a bit mucked up. Provides character. The fur collar does limit the range the head has in turning. But one gets the impression that this unit isn’t meant to be much more than a “point in one direction and look out” kind of soldier.

 

This is, for now, the second to last of the figures from the Solo wave that I own, and it is by far my favorite. Additional Solo characters are getting toys in the next couple of months, and some of them have me pretty excited. But I doubt any of them are going to overshadow the Range Trooper here. A terrific look, and again, it’s always good to get some different Troopers for the squad. It also seems like this figure was hard to find at retail. This one came from my local comic shop, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one in a regular store. Yet somehow, despite not being found in the wild, it appears that the figure got a pretty lukewarm response from fans. That’s a mistake, as the figure is excellent, but the entire Black Series offering for Solo seemed, like the movie itself, to go largely unappreciated. I would say that you practically owe it to yourself to add this figure to your collection, because it is a really good one. But it also offers some things that the line generally doesn’t have, mainly a large, bulky villain figure.