We are celebrating Star Wars Day 2021 on May the 4th with our Affiliate Partner Zavvi, and their extensive stock of Star Wars products. Zavvi has provided us with one of their stocked Star Wars Black Series products, the Remnant Stormtrooper, for us to review to mark the day and we are very grateful for that and encourage our readers to have a look over at the Zavvi offering for Star Wars Black Series.
The Remnant Stormtrooper is an exclusive, circulated via the Fan Channel here in the UK. It remains part of the overall Galaxy Collection for the Mandalorian and is numbered #9 in the series. The side artwork of the packaging lines up with The Mandalorian figures on either side for a larger montage image,
"The Empire is in disarray. The once pristine and uniform ranks of Stormtroopers that fought for the Empire now resemble a ragtag army of mercenaries for lawless gangsters".
The Remnant Stormtrooper uses the new 2020 Stormtrooper sculpt which itself is based on the newer Stormtrooper armour props as used in Rogue One and The Mandalorian. This provides good proportions for the Trooper with better articulation, cleaner lines between armour and body and an updated helmet. The helmet is actually glued over a sculpted - but the unpainted head - underneath and this can lead to some warping issues. There was nothing wrong with my Remnant Trooper and this is the 4th figure I've had with this new body without experiencing any issues with the head.
The Remnant Trooper is of course portrayed as weathered and dirty and this is applied as paint apps over the white base armour. The first application is a sandy weathering tone that is subtly applied over all the armoured panels. The second application is in grey paint and this is a little more heavy-handed and designed to look like scratches and battle damage. These look fine on the helmet but are more smeared on the shoulders, wrist and for some reason round the back of the right thigh. This may have been one of those cases where less would have been more.
Our Trooper comes with one accessory, an E-11 Blaster Rifle. This is a new piece for the new Stormtrooper mold. It is cast in black plastic and also based on the Rogue One props. This means it has a larger stock piece on the body of the blaster and a smaller second scope to the side of the barrel. While they are black on the screen, there is some detail that would have been enhanced with a brush of silver or similar.
It fits into either hand, with both hands designed with a trigger finger that then slots into the trigger. The other hand can be used to cup the barrel. With the holster removed on the new figure, there are no options for holstering the blaster.
My one build on the figure is that the Remnant Stormtrooper is based on the dishevelled look from The Mandalorian seen in Season 1 - these Troopers were less uniform than the regular Imperial Troops and therefore carried variant weapons rather than the uniform E-11 blasters. It would not have taken much to include a variant blaster such as the smaller Death Trooper hand blaster that is seen in The Mandalorian in the scenes with The Client.
The main selling point of this new Imperial Stormtrooper is its vastly improved set of articulation, with a total of 19 points of articulation across the body.
While the elbows are downgraded to a single joint, they are designed so that they still bend well past 90 degrees while being easier on the eye than the double joints. The arms are fully mobile thanks to the addition of the shoulder butterfly joints as well as a joint in the shoulder pauldron which allows it to move independently but in tandem with the arm as its raised and posed. These can look a little odd in some poses, but you can work with and round them to get the pose you need.
The legs are great, with the Stormtrooper having the ability to kneel, sit or stand in a number of poses. All the joints are secure and tight with no looseness present. The only issue I could find was that the chest armour - being a separate piece - can ride up and then opens up a gap in the torso with some poses.
The Remnant Stormtrooper should ideally have been the first Imperial release in The Mandalorian, allowing the clean and new Imperial Stormtrooper to sit as a Rogue One release as originally planned. The Remnant Trooper is more aligned to The Mandalorian Season 1 scenes with the Client, and therefore it would also have been great to include the variant weaponry we see the Remnant Troopers utilise.
The execution of the figure is fine, and I like the yellowed weathering and some of the scratch marks, although reigning it back a little would perhaps have looked better. The articulation is spot on and a big improvement on the original 2014 Trooper and you can get this new figure into much better poses.
If this has whet your appetite to start a Black Series Collection, to add to the one you already have, or to build your own legion of Stormtroopers.... You can check out Zavvi's full range of Star Wars Collectibles, including the Star Wars Black Series, via this affiliate link.
* This product was provided free by Zavvi for review
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About Me : As a child of the 70's and 80's I grew up in a golden age for action figures and in my youth bought and sold myself through collections of Star Wars, G.I. Joe (Action Force) and M.A.S.K. while also dabbling in He-Man, Transformers and Ghostbusters. Roll forward and I am now reliving that Youth with the action figures of today and am a collector and fan of the larger 6-8 inch figures from my favourite movie and TV licences - including the ones mentioned above, but also the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Who and the Aliens. I launched The Mephitsu Archives in 2015 with a view of creating a UK focused site or these figures where fans can pick up the latest action figure news, read reviews and get information on where to buy their figures and what is currently on store shelves. I hope I am delivering that to you guys...
action figures, reviews, review, articulation, star wars, black series, may the 4th, hasbro, stormtrooper, the mandalorian
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