Star Wars The Black Series Imperial Death Trooper review – Archive Series
The notion of all-black Stormtroopers sounded goofy to me until I actually watched Rogue One and then the Imperial Death Troopers immediately became one of my favorite variants. Their subsequent appearances in other Star Wars media like Rebels and The Mandalorian further rose their stock with me.
Of course, I was on a bit of a Black Series hiatus when the original Rogue One figures hit so I missed them. Fortunately, Hasbro re-released them as part of the Archive Series. Thanks to Ollie’s getting them in stock, I was able to quickly start amassing what I can only assume will be a sizable army of Death Troopers in short order.
Let’s see how these Death Troopers are ready for their moment in the spotlight.
Packaging: The Archive Series retains that throwback feel to the original Black Series presentation. This wave references the 50th anniversary of Lucasfilm.
The gold lettering is a nice touch and I still like the greyscale drawing of the Death Trooper. While short, the bio explains how formidable a soldier the Death Troopers are in battle.
Likeness: Like most troopers in the Empire, there’s some class distinctions. Some Death Troopers have IM-40 three-slot ammunition and tool pouches as well as the officer right shoulder pad. The Black Series version is the basic standard Death Trooper.
Ideally, Hasbro would have included those display options to mix up your display and make for a versatile Death Trooper army. But that’s not entirely shocking either since that’s another possible figure for Hasbro to release down the road.
Death Troopers are essentially wearing Stormtrooper armor with some slight tweaks and enhancements for those proficient enough to actually hit their intended targets.
It starts with the elongated creepy helmet complete with slightly polarized lenses. This is a very cool look and the detail work in the helmet from the “nose” paneling, range finder along the left side to the pulse emitter nozzles.
The armor plating is clean with some solid paneling detailing. On the chest plate, there’s buckles to secure the armor with longer plating underneath the chest section. The kneepad section is different as well with more of an angular setup while the left leg doesn’t have any such protection.
Over to the belt, he’s got a loop to hold the smaller blaster. Death Trooper belts feature larger pouches presumably to keep them fully stocked during battles. And finally, he’s got a thermal detonator to blow up our heroes once they got shot.
MORE:
- Power Rangers Cobra Kai Lightning Collection Daniel Larusso White Crane Ranger review
- G.I. Joe Classified Series figure reviews
- Marvel Legends action figure reviews
- Shazam! Fury of the Gods review
Paint: The sleek all-black armor certainly makes for an imposing look for the Death Troopers. It’s done in a high gloss and matte black so there’s some distinction.
And the grey bodysuit helps to break up the all-black appearance slightly. The silver clasps are neatly done and the polarized helmet lenses look great.
There is some green paint for the pulse emitter nozzles as well.
Scale: Death Troopers seemed to be taller than the average trooper, all the better to make them look more intimidating in battle. They weren’t exactly lining up next to Darth Vader so it’s hard to get a sense of how tall they should be although in The Mandalorian they seemed to be of varying heights.
Articulation: Death Troopers need excellent range of motion for their commando, like strike-force attacks.
The figure is pretty fluid in terms of movement and hitting the reasonably expected poses for these shadowy troopers.
The Death Trooper has:
- neck
- shoulders
- elbow (with swivel)
- wrist
- wrist hinge
- torso
- hips
- thighs
- knees (double jointed)
- ankles
Accessories: The Death Troopers come with two weapons though they’ve been known to utilize other blasters in the field.
First up is the smaller, SE-14r light repeating blaster. Next is the larger E-11D blaster carbine.
One aspect of the Black Series that’s stayed consistent is the spot-on recreations of the blasters and weapons in this scale. Both blasters match up to the source material incredibly well from the buttons, panels and scopes it’s all properly in place.
The E-11D could have used a hit of red paint for the large outer barrel section. There’s a slot ready for it and while it’s hardly a challenging paint app to apply it would have been nice for the team to just handle that from the start. They did include the red on the inner slot. It does have the silver paint at the main barrel, however.
Worth it? Ollie’s now has these guys, which should make for some fun and easy army building — assuming all my fellow collectors don’t feel the same way. At $9.99 these figures are a solid value especially for army builders.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
This guy is pretty fun. I do wish Hasbro included some extra display options to make army building more fun, but this is a very welcome addition to my Imperial troops ranks.
Where to Get It? Failing to track these guys down at Ollie’s, you can resort to other methods such as going online via Amazon.