Star Wars: The Black Series Dewback and Sandtrooper

The more and more of them that I collect, the more and more and more and more Black Series vehicles I want. And this size class and price point is terrific for them. Not enormous pieces like the First Order TIE Fighter, but larger than the Speeder Bike, this $60 plateau is turning out some excellent, excellent toys. Even things that seem generally bland like Luke’s Landspeeder end up being fun and engaging and worth the price.

Now that we’re done gushing, let’s talk about the Dewback, and its contribution to the line.

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

 Stand alone films Rogue One and Solo have, if absolutely nothing else, given us a few new Imperial units, such as the Deathtrooper, Shoretrooper, and this Patrol trooper, which is essentially the highway patrol officer of the Empire. Briefly (real briefly) seen pursuing young Han as he races the streets of Corellia, this is, like the other two mentioned newbies, an excellent addition to the Imperial ranks.

Star Wars: The Black Series Imperial Stormtrooper with Blast Effects (Disney Store exclusive)

That’s an alright title, right? The figure is just called “Imperial Stormtrooper,” so my title should be ok, yeah? Sorry, it’s one of those kinds of mornings here at the Coffin, as the five day Thanksgiving Break enters its final day and we begin to steel ourselves for the last ten days of the Fall semester. Over the last few days I’ve been able to get some more stuff photographed, and thought I’d take advantage of the time between laundry to get something looked at quickly.

And believe me, this will not take long.

Star Wars: The Black Series Mimban Stormtrooper (Solo: A Star Wars Story)

 Ha ha! The great Star Wars tradition of making figures of characters who got less than three seconds of screen time strikes again, this time in the form of the ever so briefly depicted Stormtroopers deployed to the muddy surface of Mimban in this springs’ spin off movie, Solo. Even my loving wife couldn’t play along and pretend that she noticed this guy in the movie: when I showed it to her, all she could ask was “who?”

Star Wars: The Black Series Amazon Exclusive First Order Stormtrooper

 There have been a number of exclusive Black Series figures over the last three years, ranging in value from Must Have to Could Have Passed On, but this one may be the most superfluous. The Amazon Exclusive First Order Stormtrooper is basically a $30 accessory package.

Star Wars: The Black Series Inferno Squad Trooper

 

Two years ago the Thanksgiving holiday was spent intensely playing Star Wars Battlefront. This year, Battlefront II has been taking up a significant portion of the break. Seemed like a good time to talk about this Gamestop exlcusive game tie in figure.

Star Wars: MAFEX Stormtrooper

 

Not much is known in these parts about the higher end Star Wars figure lines. Spotted on multiple occasions at C2E2 or among the pages of online retailers, there has been a general curiosity and appreciation for the offerings of lines such as MAFEX, but official forays into them had never happened until very recently.

Star Wars: The Black Series First Order Executioner

  

Force Friday was last Friday, and that means that the official kickoff of new Star Wars merchandise season is upon us. New waves of Black Series figures, new waves of 3.75” figures and vehicles, and all the marvelous The Last Jedi plot details we can glean from them.

Star Wars: The Black Series AT-ACT Driver

It has been a while since I’ve devoted any time to Star Wars figures, and I do have a few of them to address. So, what better for a Saturday morning than to look at the Target exclusive AT-ACT Driver from Rogue One? A repaint of the Scarif Trooper, this figure should make for some fairly easy conversation.

Who could forget that memorable scene in Rogue One where, for less than a second, we got an in-cockpit shot of an AT-ACT, the Imperial All Terrain Armored Cargo Transport, and were treated to our first glorious split second look at its driver? In true Star Wars figure fashion, that split second of screen time lead to a toy.

Star Wars: The Black Series Imperial Snowtrooper and AT-AT Driver

  It’s been a while since we’ve talked Star Wars toys here at the Coffin, but given the recent release of Rogue One on video, it felt like the right time to get back into that spirit. Things have been quiet on the Black Series front, following the pretty cool news from New York Toy Fair that the Original Trilogy characters will be rereleased in vintage styled blister cards. I’m actually pretty excited about that, but that’s more for an abandoned article I was putting together which will no doubt see the light of Internet day at some point in the future. The only other real Black Series news recently has been the Target exclusive AT-ACT driver figure from Rogue One, a repaint of the ScarifTrooper.

But, while we’re on the subject of Imperial Troopers and vehicle drivers, let’s talk about these two guys, both rather different figures but not exactly full articles to themselves kind of guys. By now, this blog has spent a ton of time examining various Imperial, First Order and Clone army troopers, so I don’t know what else can really be said about the individual figures. But let’s have some fun and take a look anyway, because we all know how much we’ve missed doing this.

Star Wars: The Black Series Imperial Deathtrooper Specialist, Captain Cassian Andor and Sergeant Jyn Erso

One more set of Rogue One figures before I go see the movie. It is currently 3.24 pm in Chicago, and we’ve got 7.30 tickets. 

This trio of figures is the Target exclusive for the movie, and, just as last years’ Target exclusive pack did, contains a Trooper and some actual characters. Two this time, both of whom in this present moment we still know little to nothing about: Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso, who has always been the main character of the movie, from the very first second of the very first teaser. And again, a slightly modified Trooper, so that the ‘battle in a box’ format is maintained. It should come as no surprise that my interest in the set was the Deathtrooper, but, just as was the case last year, I’m sure that once I’ve seen the movie, the other figures will become more significant to me. 

Star Wars: The Black Series Scarif Trooper Commander, Scarif Stormtrooper and Imperial Hovertank Pilot

 Oh boy! The day has finally arrived! Tonight, we are going to see Rogue One, the first Star Wars spinoff or standalone movie, after over a year of waiting and hype! What better way that to kick off the big day than with a review of some Rogue One figures?

This trio of figures is getting a single review because, aside from some paint, belts and helmets, they are the exact same toy. Two of them are store exclusives, while the one that would have made the most sense to be a store exclusive is the mass retail release.

Star Wars: The Black Series Death Trooper

Here we are again, all of this familiar territory. It is December. The semester is ending. A new Star Wars movie is coming in three short weeks – Rogue One, the first of the standalone, anthology movies – which means that while my students are frantically trying to appeal to me with harrowing tales of why they were slacking for the first fifteen weeks of a sixteen week semester and thus, deserve some mercy, my mind is drifting ahead to a new adventure in a galaxy far, far away. Toys for Rogue One began showing up over a month ago, and I made a preliminary foray into writing about them, but decided to hold off with the rest until December came and the movie was closer at hand. That way, I’d get to spend some time right before the movie releases focusing my hype attention on the new movie. 

Rogue One is set before A New Hope, and so for the first time in forever we have a generally known quantity going in. We know that this will be a story of the Empire vs. the Rebellion, and that means one very important thing: new Stormtroopers.

Star Wars: The Black Series: FN-2187 (Stormtrooper Finn)

 

A quandary: how does one, devoted solely to collecting Imperial-esque figures, incorporate a non-Imperial character into one’s collection without having to explain why there’s a deviation from the purely Imperial inclusions? 

A resolution: one waits for the Stormtrooper version of said character.

Not really screen accurate, but...

After seeing millions of jacket-wearing Finns plugging up store space for months, I found a Stormtrooper Finn, First Order designation FN-2187. I had to buy it, because he’s a Stormtrooper. This had been my justification since I’d first found out about the toy: I can just keep his helmet on, just like troopers Han and Luke. And, he also adds some context to my Poe, obtained thanks to his inclusion in a two pack. 

 

 

Star Wars: The Black Series: First Order Flametrooper

It has been said that the day before the start of C2E2 my wife and I visited our local comic shop. The shop carries a lot of figures, and occasionally they get Black Series stuff. This trip, they had some figures from the newest wave, the Jango Fett wave I’ll call it, and I grabbed two of them. The first one was the Frist Order Flametrooper.

Star Wars: The Black Series: First Order Snowtrooper

 One of my C2E2 grabs was the First Order Snowtrooper. There were a number of vendors at the show that had a wide assortment of Black Series figures, but only one that I saw who had this guy. I’m not entirely sure what wave this comes in, but I’ve yet to see one at local retail. That worries me quite a bit: I know that I’m behind in getting some write ups posted, and I’ve got some stuff that’s pretty much brand new, and also a few things that aren’t as new, but I’d never seen in a store before, and some of them are things that came out waves or years ago in their respective toylines. I’m not sure what has kept some of these things from getting on to store shelves, and it does make me worry when new waves of figures are supposed to be out at retail but all you find are the previous waves’ shelfwarmers, still hanging there. Long ago I found the Leader class Skywarp, right after he’d been released, in a store; now I’m so tired of seeing that Skywarp at every Target that I have to remind my Skywarp that I’m not mad at him, just the other ones. Overall I’ve had little trouble getting the Black Series figures that I really want even on the secondary market, but I’d much rather be able to find them at retail, the easy and fun way.

Some nice detail here to draw your eye a bit.

Anyway, I don’t know what wave this figure comes in, and the pegs at most stores now carry an assortment of the first, second, and First Order TIE Pilot wave, whichever one that was.

I’ve written on the Toys R Us exclusive Snowtrooper Commander already, so in terms of the base figure here, I’m not sure what else to say. The First Order Snowtrooper is the Commander figure minus shoulder pad, and

Star Wars: The Black Series: Sandtrooper Commander

 I find myself having difficulty keeping track of the passage of time. Outside of major events, almost everything in my post-2010 life just seems to have happened ‘in the past,’ not because of some effort to diminish the passage of time, but because of a legitimate inability to remember things in a chronological context. While I will never forget the date of my wedding, I do not remember the year I graduated from grad school; I don’t know how long I’ve been teaching college; and while I remember the years of the Blackhawks Stanley Cup wins, and I remember the teams that won between them and the order they won in, I do not remember the years: this amounts to me being able to say that the Hawks won in 2010, and the Bruins won the year after, but I don’t remember the year the Bruins won in. Truly preposterous. 

Something else I can’t remember in terms of the year, but certainly in terms of its magnitude, is when I bought my first Black Series figure, at the urging of my wife. I’ve told that story before. I bring it up because in however many subsequent years there have been, I have purchased many, many Black Series figures, as I warned my wife would happen if I started down that road.

Star Wars: The Black Series: Captain Phasma

Taking a break from the long run of Transformers toys, let’s get back to some Star Wars toys for at least one entry. Let’s also look at Captain Phasma here for about two minutes; that way, we will have seen this picture of her for longer than she appeared in The Force Awakens, despite being the most heavily advertised of the new characters. All that advertising, and this guy ends up being the breakout fan favorite.

TR-8R

Yes, Phasma has appeared on everything to promote the recent movie; everything it seems, except the movie itself. While we knew nothing about the mysterious but promised to be awesome First Order officer in shiny armor, we now know about the same. But, it’s a trilogy, so there is no need to get all enraged. Certainly more information will become available over the course of the next two movies.

Star Wars: The Black Series Entertainment Earth Exclusive Troopers

The second of the exclusive box sets, the Entertainment Earth set comes in a far less nice package. I know, I know. I’m not really a guy that makes a big deal out of packaging, but consider the following points: the Black Series boxes are really

nice for mass retail packaging. Secondly, with the book box the Amazon exclusive set came in, there could be nothing but disappointment with this regular, four wide arrangement. Again, this is really only a turn off in light of the Amazon set, but after this initial bummer, this set of figures is just fine.

The set consists of four figures, straight up repaints this time, three of which have some kind of Expanded Universe connection. The four figures are Lt. Oxixo, who was apparently shot down during the Battle of Yavin; a Crimson Stormtrooper, available here for the first time ever as a figure zomg!; R2-Q5, an astromech who contains the Emperor’s personal secret information and was part of a plot to turn all the Death Star II droids against their masters; and a Sandtrooper Sergeant. All of the figures are very nicely done.

Star Wars: The Black Series First Order Snowtrooper Commander

Following in the grand Imperial tradition of noting rank via shoulder pads, the First Order Snowtrooper Commander sports the orange. A Toys R Us exclusive, this is a slight variation of the eventual First Order Snowtrooper figure.