As promised, I’m back today with a look at some more of Hasbro’s 3 3/4-inch Rogue One figures. Yesterday, I tackled the first half of the initial wave with Jyn Erso and K-2SO, and today I’m having a look at the Imperial Stormtrooper and the Imperial Ground Crew.

And look! This time I didn’t forget to take a packaged shot before ripping them open! Once again we get some lovely character art beside the bubbles and the Rogue One Death Trooper branding on the top, right corners of the cards. He is clearly pleased that I have added two new Imperials to my collection. The backs of these cards feature short blurbs about the characters and a multi-lingual soup of text. The annoying mission themed categories of The Force Awakens line are gone as are the Build-A-Weapon parts. Let’s start with the Stormtrooper!

What can I possibly have to say about yet another 3 3/4-inch Stormtrooper? Well, mainly that this is a fantastic little figure. The sculpt is sharp, the paint is clean, the plastic is nice and glossy, and he just looks amazing. And given that he’s just five points of articulation, he can stand with total stability and ram-rod straight, making him perfect for those huge Imperial processions we all fantasize about displaying. I could easily see setting up a display by lining up dozens of these figures and peppering in some of the super-articulated modern Stormies for a little variety. In short, I adore this figure. And I will definitely be on the hunt for some more.

Naturally, the Stormtrooper comes with a standard E-11 blaster, which he can hold in either hand. The only knock I can come up with against this guy is that I wish he had a holster for it like some of the super-articulated 3 3/4-inch Stormies of the past. He also comes with a pretty clever combination of chest pieces to add a little play value.

By popping on this chest piece, you can make him into an officer. Yeah, it makes him a lot bulkier and it doesn’t look all that great, but the addition of pouches to the sculpt helps hide it a little bit. Now, if you press in on the bottom of the plate…

It pops the top of the chest piece off as if he’s been hit. Honestly, I’m never going to display this figure with these parts. They’ll likely never find their way out of the dreaded Tote of Forgotten Accessories, but I still think it’s a clever gimmick and I have a feeling the kids will get some fun out of it. Best of all, it doesn’t detract from the figure. If you don’t like it, you can just cast it aside. Moving on to the Imperial Ground Crew…

The back of the card describes these guys as the people who keep the spaceports and Imperial facilities running. I’m always up for expanding my Imperial forces and I love the idea of getting background support characters like these to fill out hangers or other displays. He has a very classic Imperial look to his outfit, what with the cheery dark charcoal gray on black deco and I can certainly see a couple of these guys strolling through the background on one of the Death Star scenes in A New Hope. Indeed, the helmet is very reminiscent of the Death Star Gunner. This guy features some very sharp paint detail.

The Ground Crewman has a backpack that stores his batons, although they have a habit of falling out.

Speaking of the batons, the character art on the card has him wielding these like weapons, but I’m pretty sure they’re intended to be the directional batons that ground crewman use to direct aircraft. At least that’s the function for them that I’m going to go with in my head, because I think he looks really good waving in Tie Fighters. Some kind of sidearm would have been nice, but instead Hasbro invested a whole lot of plastic into this backpack…

What the hell? I’m totally torn on this thing. On the one hand, for a made-up toy gimmick accessory it looks really cool, even if it isn’t something I’d expect to see in a Star Wars film. The sculpt is beautifully detailed and there’s some excellent paint work. On the other hand, why would these guys have something like this? Oh, wait… it gets better!

Obviously, it’s supposed to be some kind of attack jetpack. The guns and wings are articulated and while it doesn’t reach the Power of the Force 2 levels of absurdity (Seriously, go back and look at Han Solo’s POTF2 Smuggler’s Pack), it just seems really odd to give it to a bunch of ground crew who probably spend their days directing landing craft, stacking cargo containers, and eating space donuts. That having been said…

It does make a pretty nifty drone. I could see certain Imperial Troops carrying these on their backs and deploying them on the battlefield. And maybe in my own private head canon, these Ground Crew could also serve as Drone Troopers who maintain and operate these things as support craft. Yeah, I spend way too much time thinking about this stuff!

Before wrapping up, there are a couple of other things worth mentioning about the Ground Crewman. First off, he’s very short. He’s about half a head shorter than the Stormtrooper. We’ve already seen Jyn wearing a uniform similar if not identical to this one, so it seems like she’s going to bonk one of these guys on the head and steal their clothes. That would explain not only why the figure is so short, but why we’re getting one in the first wave. I seem to recall seeing pictures of a disguised Jyn figure and it was just a head swap. I’m not recounting anything original or groundbreaking here, but I just thought it worth mentioning.

While I thought yesterday’s pair of figures was OK, I definitely like this pair a lot more. That should be pretty evident, since I already have two of the Ground Crew and I’m actively hunting more Stormtroopers. Granted, I’m generally biased toward Imperial figures and it looks like Rogue One will be rich with new Imperial designs for Hasbro to explore through their toys. The diversity of character selection here has already been a lot better than what we got for The Force Awakens, as far as I’m concerned and while the 6-inch Black Series has been solid, I find I’m still addicted to these little 3 3/4-inch guys.

The second wave of 3 3/4-inch Rogue One figures are starting to trickle onto the pegs in these parts, so I thought it long past time that I take a look at the first wave. In fact, I’ll be looking at a lot of Star Wars figures over the next few weeks, so I can get caught up before the movie hits. Also, this week is going to be crazy busy for me, so rather than look at all four figures today, I’m going to tackle two today and two tomorrow. Yes, keep in mind that I’m only looking at the Rogue One figures in this wave. I passed on the Kylo Ren and I’ll check out the two Rebels figures later on down the road. So, let’s get this rebellion going with Jyn Erso and K-2S0!

OH, BUGGER! I was sure I had a shot of the packages before I opened them, but nope. So, here’s the best I could do. It’s a shame, because this is my first time showcasing the single carded Rogue One packaging. Anyway, you get the idea. It’s very similar in structure to The Force Awakens packages, but it’s now branded for Rogue One with the image of the Death Trooper in the upper right hand corner. Like the TFA cards, there’s some amazing character art on these packages, making me a little sad to be tearing them open. Also worth noting, the Build-A-Weapon gimmick has been replaced with individual weapons and gear for the figures.

First up, we have Jyn Erso. The 6-inch Black Series figure I looked at was based on her appearance on the planet, Jedha. Here she’s bundled up for Eadu, which seems to be a snow planet. This certainly isn’t the flashiest figure, but there’s some cool stuff going on here. She’s wearing a drab poncho with a sculpted hood down the back and some little bits of equipment sculpted across her chest and on her left hip. Her pants have some sculpted rumples and she has a pair of brown boots. I dig the little torn hole in the back of it, that’s a nice touch. I want to say that I get a little Princess Leia in Endor poncho vibe off of this figure, but then I don’t want to be one of those people for whom everything new in Star Wars has to be a call back to the original films. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it wasn’t.

Articulation is the standard 5-points, although the neck is ball jointed, rather than a simple swivel. Her feet seem to be slightly pre-posed so one is supposed to be a little in front of the other, but even taking that into account, I find it really difficult to get her to stay upright without a figure stand. Also, since her poncho extends past her hips, it gets in the way if you put her in a sitting position. I don’t have any Rogue One vehicles, but my guess is she’ll be difficult to seat into a vehicle because of this.

The head features a sculpted helmet with goggles. The sculpt is very, veeeery soft and I’d be hesitant to even refer to it as a likeness to the actress. We’re in very vintage territory here, even down to the way the eyes are painted. In short, the portrait here is nothing special, but I suppose it’s passable enough for this scale. On the other hand, this close up does showcase some of the nice silver paintwork on her sculpted gear.

Jyn features a sculpted holster to hold her little pistol and she can wield the pistol in either hand.

She also has a gas mask that comes on the figure, but is obviously removable. The tank tabs in near her left hip and the you can pop off her head to get the mask on and off the neck. I found it a little tricky to get it onto her face, but once there it looks pretty good. It’s a cool accessory and it reminds me a bit of the breathers in the mail away accessory pack Kenner had back in the day for The Empire Strikes Back.

Jyn’s giant gimmick accessory is a huge missile launcher. As ridiculously big as it is, I kind of dig that it has an eye piece that is positioned in front of her face when she is holding it. Of course, since the poor girl can barely stand up on her own, putting this in her hand doesn’t help. If she actually fired it, I could imagine the kickback throwing her back several feet into a wall. Moving on to K-2S0…

I had a few pre-conceptions about how this figure would turn out and all of them were bad. Most of all, I expected flimsy, warped, gummy limbs and I’m pleased to say that isn’t the case at all. His spindly arms and legs are actually straight and fairly strong, and he actually stands better than Jyn does. And speaking of standing, K-2SO is a damn big figure for this scale, appropriately towering over Jyn. The articulation is a little bit different than the standard 5POA. The shoulders still rotate, but the hips are ball jointed and the head is positioned on two ball joints.

The sculpt here is excellent. Hasbro managed to pack all sorts of details, particularly in the mid section of the droid. I also like how they left the knee and elbow joints empty slots. The paint is passable. The Imperial emblems on the shoulders look good and there’s some nice silver dry brushing. The orange around the arm sockets, however looks pretty rough.

K-2S0’s only accessory is his gimmick piece and that’s a zipline with a claw on the end. Much to my surprise, I actually don’t hate this thing, although I think it would have worked better as a backpack. I may try giving it to one of my 6-inch Black Series figures. It may scale better with them.

All in all, this is a decent pair of figures. There’s nothing terribly exciting here for me, but I like them well enough. I know, that’s not a resounding endorsement, but I tend to have more fun just playing around with these then I do shooting them for reviews. While I know the 5-POA business is still rubbing a lot of collectors the wrong way, I can honestly say, it’s grown on me and I get a little jolt of nostalgia whenever I open a new one, even if that sentiment isn’t always reflected here. I think this is a big reason why, if you’re going to go back to vintage articulation, you really need those vehicles to help enhance the figures. But maybe that’s just me.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back to look at the second half of this wave: The Stormtrooper and the Imperial Ground Crew.