I’m continuing to chip away at the initial assortment of Force Awakens 3 3/4″ figures. So far I’ve looked at Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma from the Jungle Mission and Rey and a Stormtrooper from the Snow Mission. Let’s move things to the desert today and open up Finn and the First Order Flametrooper.

I’ve already gushed on and on about how much I love these packages, but damn, don’t they look nice? Individual character art right on the card, great colors, a big bubble to show off the figure. It gets me a lot more excited about buying action figures than the bland packaging Hasbro has been using for Star Wars Black and Marvel Universe Infinite. I hope this is a sign of things to come. Let’s start with Finn…

This version of Finn is associated with Jakku and it’s the exact same outfit that we saw used for the 6-inch Black figure. This is a really solid sculpt for the smaller scale and apart from the obvious hit to articulation, I don’t think much is lost from the 6-inch figure. The jacket is sculpted in soft plastic and layered onto the figure like a vest with sculpted texture on the shirt underneath. The illusion of the sculpted arm sleeves actually works better with the simple rotating shoulder hinges. The portrait is excellent with a solid likeness and sharp paint. Once again, the eyes are painted looking up, which is getting to be a weird trend for Hasbro and this character. It’s perhaps worth noting that Finn is ever so slightly pre-posed as he stands naturally with one foot slightly in front of the other.

Finn comes with the same style blaster as the 6-inch figure, which makes me reconsider my prediction that the weapon might not be in the film. It still looks rather large and ungainly to be a carried in the movie, but I’m probably wrong about that. At least this time it’s cast in gray plastic and not in the same color as the jacket. Alright, that’s enough about Finn… moving on to the Flametrooper…

I was really excited to get this guy, mainly because he isn’t available in the 6-inch scale yet. I dig the design of this armor a lot and, to my surprise, the Flametrooper doesn’t share any parts with the regular Stormtrooper. I’ve always loved the idea of specialized Stormtroopers, especially when they involve new armor and not just different colors painted on them. The helmet design is pretty damn sinister looking.

Naturally, the Flametrooper comes with a flamethrower, which consists of a removable backpack that pegs into place and the gun connected with a flexible plastic hose. Not sure why the hand held piece has to look like a friggin assault rifle, but it’s neat nonetheless. I also love the little OII sculpted into the backpack. It’s a nice little nod back to the Imperial Stormtroopers.

The build-a-weapon pieces included with these figures are a little better as standalone pieces than what I’ve seen so far, but they’re still plenty goofy. Finn’s looks like a tracked robot with twin machine gun arms and it can be pegged into his back. The obvious downside here is that they had to put a hole in his back just for this gimmick and I’d rather they didn’t. The Flametroopers’ piece can be used as a big, bulky shield. If you connect them together, you do get what I think is a pretty cool looking little robot. It works fine as it is, but the third figure in this assortment, Constable Zuvio will add blade pieces. Frankly, I haven’t decided whether I’m picking him up yet.

With six of these figures now opened, I find I’m still rather soft on them. The sculpts are not bad for what they are, but I’m not sure I’m feeling motivated to keep collecting them, at least not with the 6-inch Black series out there promising releases of all of these characters. On the other hand, when they’re available at $7.99 a pop, it’s kind of hard for me to resist. I’ve still got two more to open before I make any final decisions, so sometime next week we’ll check out Poe Dameron and the First Order Tie Pilot from the Space Mission!