Speeder Bike/Scout Trooper & The Child - TBS [P4] - Six Inch Figures (Vehicles)

Scout troopers were lightly armored compared with other Stormtroopers, which allowed them to move more quickly and easily in a range of environments. They were also trained for more independence and adaptability than most Imperial troops. The Empire used scout troopers for a rage of missions, including reconnaissance and infiltration.

Hasbro sure knows how to get out cheap action figures and vehicles based on The Mandalorian by reusing existing tooling. What a shame that they’re not employing the same tactics for The Vintage Collection. The Speeder Bike/Scout Trooper & The Child set gives us mostly stuff we’ve seen before in the line, with a few bits of newness. Based on 2014’s TBS [P2] Speeder Bike With Biker Scout Deluxe set, which was a failed effort back in the day, they’ve repainted it to be specific to the Scout Troopers and Speeder Bikes we see in The Mandalorian. This time, the Speeder Bike is off-white, while the Scout Trooper is dirty as all heck. And the inclusion of The Child in a satchel completes the memorable scene when the Galactic Empire attacks Kuill, kills him, and then kidnaps Grogu and speeds off before being defeated by IG-11. The set is something we should have liked better than we did. But overall, it’s a major disappointment for the 6” line. That Scout Trooper sculpt is terrible. The figure is wobbly, poor balance, and has small hands and a small blaster. And the Speeder Bike still has the vent issue where you can’t raise them all of the way up because they hit the back of the Speeder Bike. The movement is inhibited, unfortunately. If you’re into packaging variations, the Speeder Bike/Scout Trooper & The Child arrives two ways so far: one with the blaster pistol in the boot of the Scout Trooper. The other has a particular spot in the window where it floats separately.

Aside from the same old issue, the Speeder Bike is a well-made vehicle. It comes with only a few features, but you don’t need that much aside from getting the Scout Trooper to sit on it believably. It has a wonderfully fantastic sculpt, and the paint job is remarkably excellent. It has frequent spots of rust/dirt accumulation throughout the Speeder Bike. And you’ll find plenty of areas of battle-damage. Hasbro appropriately colored the Speeder Bike based on its appearance in The Mandalorian. And it has a rigidity that is necessary to balance a 6” action figure, especially one with such softness as the pack-in figure included here. This time, it comes with a new display stand reminiscent of the one that came with the 6” Chopper figure. It provides more balance than the triangular clear ball-socket display stand that came with the original release. The Speeder Bike comes with very few features and articulation, but the rear flaps move up and down, and the lower cannon rotates. If we’re honest, we love the Speeder Bike, but we’re losing patience with Hasbro when it comes to the Scout Trooper tooling. It’s time for them to revisit this character in the 6” line. We had hoped to be wowed by this Amazon exclusive. It has a few good points, but you’ll quickly discover that it doesn’t meet your full expectations. In the package, it looks excellent. You probably won’t care about the set’s shortcomings. There is a lot of good here, but also some bad.

So, what’s so wrong with the Scout Trooper figure included here? Time is not being kind to the tooling. While the deco looks good, the figure’s articulation and construction aren’t holding up any longer. We believe it’s the plastic quality that Hasbro utilized here, preventing the figure from being all it can be here. The Scout Trooper is cast in a pliable plastic, obviously to straddle the Speeder Bike easily, but we’re unsure if Hasbro needed to worry about this bendable material to make things work. But the material significantly used hindered the aesthetics of the character. The Scout Trooper feels shaky and unsure of itself when you pose the figure off of the Speeder Bike. And the balance of the figure isn’t good at all. It’s almost like a baby deer or calf trying to take its first steps, unsure of the terrain when you try to balance it. The Scout Trooper also feels like it’s “stretched out” from sitting on the Speeder Bike. But thankfully, the joints return to their normal shape over time. What outraged us the most was placing the laughably tiny blaster pistol in the figure’s hand. How does no one at Hasbro see how ridiculously small this gun is? The newest addition here is Grogu, The Child in a pouch that the Scout Trooper wears. As you might expect, it’s cute and does a great deal for this exclusive release, but it only comes with a ball-socket head, and it’s not removable. This set has an MSRP of $49.99 and is exclusive to Amazon.