Finally I've come to the end of my review of Wave 1 of the 6" Star Wars The Black Series line from Hasbro. There ain't a more fitting way of ending the series of figures than to review the most 'scalped' figure among the four, the elusive Sandtrooper! As I've mentioned before, I can't seem to find the Sandtrooper out in the open anywhere here at retail. I'm just glad that I pre-ordered these directly from my regular toy pusher and was able to got these 6" TBS figures for almost 12% off the prices my TRUs are asking for them.
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The packaging's the same as we've seen from the first 3 figures in Wave 1 before. No need to go into details once more I reckon. Even from looking through the window, you can see that this Sandtrooper came with a smorgasbord of weapons! You'd get 4 bulky accessories inclusive of his 'coolant' backpack. Now that's a deal! Every figure in the 6" TBS line should come with equal amount of plastic for accessories.
There's the standard brief bio at the back of the packaging and a memorable quote by one of the Sandtrooper underneath it.
Once you get the figure out of its cell, you'll be amazed to find that this is an absolute beauty of an action figure! I swear that if I look at a picture of this toy and nobody were to tell me of the scale, I'd be thinking that this was a 12" Sideshow offering! It's THAT good folks.
The weathering is just phenomenal on him. I've seen instances where the 'sand/dirt' stains were excessively applied until it didn't look logical at all. This Sandtrooper seems to have a considerable amount of dirt on him with really overdoing it. You're able to remove his shoulder pad/pauldron and I think this is intentional to allow Hasbro to re-use this buck for their upcoming Stormtrooper in Wave 4. A sandtrooper sergeant's pauldron is white, while an enlisted trooper's pauldron is all black. Squad leaders, who led units of seven troopers, wears orange shoulder pauldrons....so inevitably this one's a Squad leader.
The view of the back of his armour is as equally stunning as the front with an equal amount of weathering to it. What's missing however, is his thermal detonators we've seen at the back of the Stormies. That's understandble since he has to carry his backpack most of the time.
Let's take a look at his accesories shall we? The Sandtrooper comes with BlasTech E-11 Blaster Rifle, a BlasTech DLT-19 Heavy Blaster Rifle, BlasTech T-21 Light Repeating Blaster Rifle and the SD-48 survival pack. This survival pack is technically a 'portable aircond unit' for them Sandtroopers to carry in the harsh hot conditions of their destination. It also holds food and medical supplies for the troops.
Here we go...all set and ready to be deployed!
Let's see the Sandtrooper without his pauldron.....
Truthfully, this is how the upcoming Stormtrooper is gonna look like but with dirt!
I'm thinking if Hasbro had provided us extra sets of hands, then this would already be as good as the 12" Sandtrooper/Strormtrooper versions Sideshow Collectibles had produced. How about that?
Ok, next comes the inevitable head swap! I just had to try placing Luke's head on this one though I didn't get the desired effect I was hoping for. Luke's head didn't fit into the different sized neck peg. I just gotta see Luke in the Sandtrooper/Stormtrooper armour.....
....but unfortunately his head looked kinda 'hanging'. Epic fail custom.
Anyway, let's go back to the Sandtrooper. Here he is with the BlasTech T-21 Light Repeating Blaster Rifle.
Here he is with the BlasTech DLT-19 Heavy Blaster Rifle slinging over his shoulder. Nice touch by Hasbro giving us that soft rubber strap.
Seriously, after seeing this Sandtrooper in hand, I can't wait to see what Hasbro has in store for us with their Snowtrooper!!!
Articulation wise, as per the previous Luke and Maul figures, I can't tell you how much I'm loving the top notch articulations on these 6" Star Wars figures. They have ball jointed hips and that's like a major plus in my books!
THE REBEL'S VERDICT: A definite leading contender for the 6" figure of year in my books. This one's already achieved a myth-like status for being on retail shelves for just mere minutes before being snagged by collectors and scalpers alike. I'd only buy one of each of these 6" TBS figures but if I could just buy multiples of any given characters then this would most probably be one of it. The Sandtrooper is definitely by far, the BEST figure from Wave 1 and you'd be crazy not to get him if you've already made your decision to collect the 6" line. I'm pretty excited to wait for Wave 2 real soon and I think most of us have already seen what's coming in Wave 3. Pretty exciting time indeed to become a Star Wars action figure collector! This is The Rebel signing off for the day.....and I can't recommend you this Sandtrooper enough for your collection!
"This IS the droid we're looking for!"
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