The Force Awakens toy line has been a boon for troop builders, with several variations of Stormtroopers, a couple of TIE Pilots, and even a good-guy Resistance Trooper released in several scales and styles. Today we’ll take a look at the 6-inch Black Series version of one of the more unique troops in the film, The First Order Flametrooper!
Weapons specialists are nothing new in the Star Wars universe, even the original Stormtrooper from A New Hope had a more heavily armed and equipped variant that patrolled Tatooine. Flamethrowers are also used in the Clone Wars cartoon, but there is something novel to me about the standard black and white armored troops brandishing such a horrific weapon as the flamethrower.
Accessories
The Flametrooper comes with a removable pack and a flamethrower. The pack has a flexible hose that plugs securely into the handle of the flamethrower. The pack is a pretty stiff piece of plastic and hods detail well. The pack also has a tiny peg and hole that plug into corresponding peg and hole in the back of the trooper, and it’s arranged so that you can only plug it in one way.
The flamethrower itself is cast in a slightly softer plastic that also holds the gun detail well, but the barrel can be bent and distorted where it is thinnest.
The softer plastic does help a little because the stock can be bent slightly to fit better in a firing pose.
Sculpt
The sculpt looks sharp and accurate, especially with all the detail on the flamethrower and the little lines on the helmet. For some reason they decided to make the standard shoulder pads part of the shoulder rather than a separate piece like on the regular First Order Stormtrooper.
I think it makes for a less realistic look. The Flametrooper’s armor does have a more barrel-chested feel and makes him seem a little stockier than the other troopers, and that’s film accurate, but it reminds me of Dengar.
Articulation
Articulation is pretty much Black Series standard and has:
- Ball-and-socket head and mid-torso
- Swivel/Hinge neck, shoulders, elbows, hips, wrists and ankles
- Double-hinged knees
- Swivel thighs
This trooper also has better range of motion in his elbow bend than the regular First Order trooper, getting just about a 90-degree bend. The mid-torso actually gets some good side to side and crunch movement, but one of my troopers has a stuck joint with only swivel movement.
Paint
The paint is pretty simple with black details on gloss white plastic. They seem to be well done with little slop on the Flametroopers I grabbed. There are a couple detail lines missing from the thigh armor, which look a little to thin for me to do myself, so that’s a little disappointing.
Overall
While the Flametroopers are barely a blip in the actual film, I cannot resist a good troop variant. It’s a good figure. He’s currently packed two-per-case in wave 5, so even at stores that got picked over pretty well, I saw this guy left over. I think I really only need two, maybe four tops.
