They can’t have disappeared. No ship that small has a cloaking device! Apparently our good Captain Needa was not briefed on the capabilities of the Shadow Stormtrooper, who utilizes a personal cloaking device to ambush enemies and just joined the Gamestop exclusive Black Series Gaming Greats line! Let’s take a look.
I like the new packaging for the Black Series quite a bit, but I think I’m going to miss the simple elegance of the the current box art. I do like the slight wrinkle the Gaming Greats subline has added to the artwork with a splash of character appropriate color too.
The Shadow Stormtrooper comes with the two blasters we are used to seeing with our Black Series Stormies, the smaller E-11 that fits snugly in the hip holster and a larger DLT 20A that has a bit of a silver drybrush to bring out the details. Both get the job done, though seem slightly more pliable than older versions I’ve had. I do wish he came with a blast effect or something else more interesting.
Sculpting on this guy is what you expect since this is a repaint of a pretty common figure. It does make me wonder if there is anybody collecting these figures that doesn’t own at least one variation of this trooper.
The highlight of this figure is the paint work which is based on a lot of translucent blue parts with a black overspray. The feet, chest, head and shoulder parts appear to be black plastic to me and the blue glow effect is achieved with paint which matches up pretty well with the translucent plastic when it’s lit up. The final effect is pretty neat, especially when you can get some light behind the figure to light up the blue parts. There’s also a nice, shiny silver overspray on the helmet that fades down into the chest.
Overall I like this trooper a bit more than I thought I would. The black/translucent blue paint combo makes this figure more interesting to me than the recent Commander from this line. I still feel like the price is a little high for what we are getting, but I also kind of want to get a second or third one for a squad. It would be nice to get a Galen Marek figure to go with them.
