Stormtroopers - TVC - Builder Packs

Meh. And we have good reason to be unimpressed with the Hasbro Pulse/Shop Disney shared exclusive Stormtroopers multipack. The barking seals online are clapping profusely about this mostly mediocre set, claiming it’s one of Hasbro’s most fantastic concepts for The Vintage Collection. Well, on paper, it is. However, in execution, it’s a letdown. The multipack army-building concept is not a new invention by Hasbro. Hasbro released the Stormtroopers exclusive for The Vintage Collection almost two decades after releasing similar multiple figure packs in 2002’s Star Wars “Saga” [Phase I] line. The figure sets also arrived in white boxes, albeit a little more generic and smaller in size. For 2021, Hasbro didn’t necessarily go “all out” with the Stormtroopers packaging, but it does have artwork, and they designed the box out of sturdy cardboard. Oh, and each figure has a coffin for you to remove and build your armies. So, there are some definite upgrades here. But the figures included are boring, and unfortunately, they’re discoloring once again after Hasbro supposedly “fixed” this issue. Somehow they reverted to the inferior plastic, and the torsos once again look dingy compared to the rest of the figure.

That said, if you are looking to customize or army build these figures, this boxed set is an excellent way to help you acquire them more quickly and a bit more cheaply. Both Hasbro Pulse and Shop Disney completely sold out of these Stormtroopers set, so we have to ask Hasbro, “what’s the point of doing these sets to army build if you can’t keep them in stock long enough for people to army build”? Also, couldn’t Hasbro have been a little more creative with this multipack? Why not convert this Stormtrooper tooling into the long-awaited Sandtrooper or another yet-to-be-released uniquely colored Stormtrooper. Because inside, we only get one “unique” character here. Hasbro calls it a Stormtrooper like the other three figures, but the action figure has an orange pauldron, making it a Stormtrooper Officer (or Commander). The other three figures are plain white Stormtroopers. Maybe that’s the point. But wouldn’t it have behooved Hasbro to reissue the Imperial Stormtrooper carded AGAIN, or perhaps re-release it on a different card to help keep things exciting and further meet demand for collectors that care about packaging?

The Stormtrooper [Officer] comes with a removable “squad leader” pauldron, a blaster rifle, and an E-11 blaster. The second Stormtrooper comes with both weapons. Then the remaining two Stormtroopers come with E-11 blasters only. We have to question why Hasbro went so cheap with the figure’s accessories here. The tooling is amortized at this point, and they should have thrown collectors some bones here so we could outfit these figures as needed for displays and battles. The paint operations are nicely applied here. But we do see some early signs of deterioration with the Stormtrooper’s tooling. The joints aren’t nearly as fluid and easily movable, and sometimes joints want to pop out of their sockets when you attempt to articulate the figure. This issue isn’t apparent, but you might see some instances here and there. With 30 points of articulation, the Stormtrooper figures in this set achieve an extraordinary amount of poses thanks to their articulation systems. The MSRP on this four-pack is $41.99. By today’s standards, it’s a fair price. But newness and some “outside-of-the-box” thinking will do this subset of figure sets well so that collectors eagerly anticipate the next release. Also, it’s hard to get excited about a set like this when you’re desperately waiting for The Ninety Six to finish up.