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Stormtrooper

July 16, 2011 | By Errex More

In the time I have been collecting Star Wars figures, there have been a few times where I thought “Now, this is the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen; Surely this is the definitive version they will ever make of this character”.

Thing is, in my case this has happened consistently each and every time a new Stormtrooper mold has been released, and the latest Vintage Collection Stormtrooper (VC41) is no exception.

Granted, it could be argued that this figure is just a stripped down version of the Sandtrooper figure released at the start of this collection, but even though that was one fine looking figure, it just didn’t cause me quite the same reaction I got when I glimpsed the new Stormtrooper hanging from the pegs at my local toy store.

This trooper is basically a kitbash from the TAC Stormtrooper with removable helmet and the Sandtrooper with pegged hinge hips released last year with the Dewback as an exclusive. I hesitate to call it just a kitbash, because the sculpted details appear to be slightly crisper on this one, but it may just be that the new material is better at bringing out the details.

There are a couple of newly tooled pieces that are worth mentioning, like the helmet, which seems to fit better over the head and the belt piece, which this time isn’t glued in place and seems to lack a keyed indentation to prevent it from rotating around the figure’s waist. This isn’t actually a negative, mind you, because it allows for a better range for the hip articulation. And speaking of articulation, the spread for the new Stormtrooper is:

• Ball jointed neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Pegged hinge elbows.

• Swiveling wrists.

• Floating torso.

• Pegged hinge hips.

• Pegged hinge knees.

• Pegged hinge ankles.

In the first few shipment of this figure, there were a few paint application issues with the helmet, but figures from later case revisions had the paint corrected to be more screen-accurate. Basically what you have to watch out for, is for the black lenses to be painted separate from the black line on the forehead.

The paint on the face was also corrected from the way it was on the TAC release, since now the eyes are painted looking straight ahead instead of appearing to be looking up. However, this time around the facial scarring is not painted in a different color, which I always thought was a nice touch on the other figure.

The rest of the paint apps on this figure are neat and simple, consisting mostly on solid black areas for the body glove under the pieces of armor.

One thing I really liked about this figure is that in addition to the removable helmet and the standard blaster carbine, it ships with one of those long blaster rifles, like the one Dengar has. That immediately brought me back to the time I got the Commtech Stromtrooper all those years ago, with the color change blast mark on his chest plate.

Admittedly, there may be still room for improvements, but I couldn’t point out what would make this Stormtrooper figure even better, other than re-coloring it in black or adding regimental markings to this same mold.

Bottom line, this is as close to the absolute, most definitive, perfect Stormtrooper you can get from Hasbro in this scale. I positively love this release and therefore, you should get at least one for your collection.