Wave Two of The Force Awakens 6-inch Black Series is being fickle. I have the wave pre-ordered, but now all the figures, except Captain Phasma are showing up everywhere. I can’t buy them and cancel my pre-order because then I’ll probably never get that chromed Stormy beauty and so I’m destined to wait. Well, at least there have been some exclusives to tide me over. I’ve already looked at the TRU Exclusive Snowtrooper Officer and today I’m checking out Target’s Exclusive Riot Stormtrooper and Poe Dameron 2-Pack.

The figures come in a window box that manages to capture the deco of the single boxed figures. You get monochrome character portraits on the front lower right corner, the red backdrop behind the tray, and the one red side panel, albeit without any numbers for the figures. The packaging is totally collector friendly and gives you a great look at what you’re getting. Let’s start with Poe, since this is the first version of him I have in this scale.

Most of what we’ve been seeing of Poe has been him in his X-Wing pilot suit, but this is regular Resistance Fighter Poe in the Galaxy Far Far Away’s version of a Members Only Jacket, which appear to be very popular in the film because we also saw it on the 6-inch Finn figure. Is it just the same figure with a head swap? Surprisingly, no. In fact, I don’t see any shared parts at all, except maybe the hand sculpts. Poe sports new trousers, boots, and a shirt with a plunging collar. Even the jacket and arm sleeves, which would have been logical recycled parts, are new on Poe. His jacket sculpt is sharper and more defined, and even has a number of different details to make it distinctive. It’s also more of a brown and less of a caramel color. The paint is OK, the red shoulder patch application is a little ham-fisted, but not too bad. He also has some spray on his knees that makes it look like he’s been kneeling in the sands of Jakku. Finn was a damn good figure, but everything about Poe from the neck down is just a bit better.

The portraits, on the other hand, are the other way around. I don’t see a lot of Oscar Isaac in the Dameron head sculpt, whereas I think the Finn figure is a pretty solid likeness for John Boyega. That having been said, my expectations on the 6-inch Black likenesses have been tuned down a lot this year, so I’m not terribly disappointed. The hair sculpt is decent, the paint on the eyes is good, although the paint used for his unshaven face looks a little blue to me.

The articulation here is identical to what we saw on Finn. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels in the thighs. The ankles are hinged and have lateral rockers. The chest and neck both feature a ball joints.

Poe comes with two accessories: HIs flight helmet and a blaster rifle. Like Finn’s gun, Poe’s looks rather large and unwieldly and not very much like a Star Wars weapon, aside from the muzzle tip, which kind of looks like the old Rebel blaster muzzles. The helmet is a decent piece of work, although the paint is a little rough around the edges where the yellow plastic shows through. It kind of just looks like weathering. Let’s move on to the Stormtrooper…

I don’t have a lot to say about this guy, as he is a straight repack of the regular First Order Stormtrooper, including both of his guns, with just a couple pieces of extra gear. Actually, let me qualify that… my Riot Trooper is missing the little ding in the right shoulder armor that both of my regular First Order Troopers have. That’s the only difference that I can see. Now, don’t mistake that as a complaint. I’ve only been able to find two of the 6-inch First Order Stormies, so I’m happy to get another one, especially when its bundled with some extras and a new figure as well.

The two extras are a riot shield and a baton. While I suspect the shield is a bit of Expanded Universe equipment and not actually see in the flick, it looks good and is designed to match the armor. It’s held on the arm by two straps, but unfortunately it doesn’t appear to be designed to come off and the backstrap is seated right in his elbow articulation. I did a little snip-snip with mine and carefully cut one end of the back strap to make it removable. This allow allows him to equip it with the front strap in his hand and it gives him his elbow articulation back. All of the pictures I took for this feature were shot after I clipped it off.

That baton is like a futuristic version of the police issue PR-24 baton with some nice sculpting and painted detail. It looks like it’s meant to have a mechanism in there, so I’m guessing it’s a stun baton.

This two-pack seems to be selling for $39.99 at Target stores. I actually got mine off the website and used some scraps off a couple of Target Giftcards to get it closer to $30. Either way, it’s a pretty sweet deal. I like both figures a lot and I’m especially happy to get yet another First Order Stormtrooper for my little squad. But now I think I’m all out of Exclusives, so I’m back to waiting for my pre-order of Wave Two to roll in. Maybe I’ll pass the time by picking up some more of the 3 3/4″ figures.