Death Troopers are elite soldiers for Imperial Intelligence and serve as enforcers and bodyguards for Imperial Director Krennic, the main villain from the upcoming Star Wars film Rogue One. They have featured prominently in the marketing materials for Rogue One, so it seems natural that they would be released in wave one of the Black Series figures for that film. Let’s take a look at The Death Trooper.
One of the first rumors I remember hearing about Rogue One is that it would feature the black armor-clad Shadow Troopers. I was pleased to hear this because I love troop building and already had a few Shadow Troopers in my Black Series collection.
I was briefly disappointed when I found out the black armor-clad troopers in this film were not Shadow Troopers, but rather a whole new design, the Death Trooper. I say briefly disappointed because I quickly grew to love the design with it’s gleaming black armor and eerie green lights.
That’s the first thing I noticed about this figure is that the little green nodules at the front of the mask are not as bright green as some artwork and figures like the Hot Toys Specialist show. The green paint at the googles and helmet nodules is pretty subtle and barely shows up in most of my pictures.
This may or may not be an issue because I’ve seen plenty of set photos where the green is just as subtle in real life as well. I’m thinking they light up, but aren’t always on in the movie. The paint is really simple, being mostly flat and gloss blacks, but the gloss is very nice and very shiny.
The sculpt looks pretty sharp and these guys have a taller and lankier frame than your average Stormtrooper.
I like it for the most part, but the legs seem a little thinner than what I’ve seen and the double knees are a little gangling.
I think the slimmer torso is also intentional so that this figure can be reused as the Death Trooper Specialist by adding some web gear and a pauldron. An interesting thing I noticed is there is a little dookickey along the left ear of the Death Trooper.
That doohickey appears to be another green light in some promo art I’ve seen, but I’ve also seen Death Troopers without it. I wonder if Hasbro will release a Death Trooper sculpt without that piece.
The Death Trooper comes with two accessories: a blaster pistol and a rifle. Both have decent sculpts, slightly soft as you would expect with a mass market toy, but detailed.
I love the pistol because it’s a reuse of the old Stormtrooper pistol design from the Original Trilogy that was only seen in promo pics over the years. It fits into the little loop at the trooper’s side. The blaster rifle is neat, but the shape got a little warped in packaging and I’m having a hard time straightening it out. The usual heat techniques aren’t working for me.
It has a little detail paint and some metallic overspray on the barrel.
The articulation is pretty much Black Series standard, but I noticed the neck doesn’t have that nice ball-jointed movement you get from other troopers in the line. It’s really just up/down and side to side movement. The shoulder armor is soft, so the troopers can raise their arms fine.
The belts are also made from a soft plastic so the belts don’t hinder leg movement. The wrists are swivel/hinges and hinge in and out. I think I would have preferred the right hand to hinge up/down for rifle holding poses.
They don’t have double elbows, which I miss, but the swivel hinges work pretty well here getting slightly better than a 90-degree bend.
Overall, despite all the little nitpicks I have listed, I’m really pleased with this figure. It’s a striking-looking design and the figure moves well for the most part. I grabbed one at midnight on Rogue Friday and liked it so much I decided to build a little squad and over the weekend ang ended up accumulating three more from three different stores.
Those Target PDQ displays made it easy to put together a little squad. I’m looking forward to Director Krennic so I can display him flanked by his guards.
