by Taylor Smart
Good day mini figure fans! We are now into the second to last week of the year and Christmas is almost upon us! I hope that you are all able to spend time with family and friends during the holiday season and with a bit of luck give/receive a few toy related gifts. Bonus points if mini figures are involved!
This week I am going to be talking about something that you may have seen peg warming at your local stores, Star Wars Command. I haven’t seen these figures talked about much, granted I haven’t exactly gone hunting for a discussion, but I was very excited when they were released and like them quite a bit. I will only be talking about one set today to give you an idea on what to expect as far as quality and scale. The set I am going to discuss is the first set of Star Wars Command that I bought, Endor Attack. Some Star Wars Command figures are available through EE.
THE MEAT
I was particularly excited for this set because it has two things I wanted as mini figures, Ewoks and Scout Troopers. Ewoks are awesome and Scout Troopers are easily the coolest Storm Troopers. They rounded out the set with an exclusive color Luke Skywalker (gold) and Scout Trooper (gun metal grey) in addition to two vehicles, an AT-ST and an X-wing.
The core of this set is formed by four Ewoks and five Scout Troopers (including the exclusive variant). The Ewoks are solid brown and all have the same sculpt which creates an unfortunate lack of variance. The pose is not very dynamic either, just standing there with the butt of the spear in the ground. This lack of variance is pretty one-sided because the Scout Troopers have two different sculpts. One pose is standing and aiming the blaster pistol as if about to shoot, the other is leaning forward with one foot beginning to leave the ground creating a great sense of motion. The four stock troopers are solid white with the exclusive fifth being a metal grey color as mentioned above. Already the Imperials are hands down winning this review.
The vehicles seem to favor the Empire as well, at least in theme. An AT-ST is something that fits in with the rest of the set, there were AT-ST’s on the ground at the battle of Endor. X-wings were up in space dog fighting with TIE fighters. When it comes to sculpts though, the Rebels start to gain some ground. The X-wing has a good amount of detail with lines for windows and individual armor plates. All seams are hidden in creases or where two armor plates join so it looks like a solid piece. The AT-ST has appears to be three separate pieces: left side, right side, and an L-shaped piece that for the trap door and back armor plate. The left and right pieces don’t connect well which creates a seam that runs all around the model, this seam is covered on top by the last piece that has the door and back armor plate molded into it. Other than the mold lines that AT-ST has just as good of detail as the X-wing.
The last figures in this set are the exclusive colored Scout Trooper and Luke Skywalker. This is where the Rebels pass the Imperials. The Scout Trooper shares the same sculpt as two of the other troopers in this set, he is only unique because of his color, solid metal grey. Lukes sculpt is unique to this set and on top of that he has two colors. The figure is gold colored but the lightsaber blade is green, this is a really simple thing that creates a lot of character. His sculpt is pretty good with a flowing hooded poncho similar to what is worn in the movie and a wide legged striding stance that conveys movement.
THE POTATOES
Something I think would help some of these figures would be a little bit of paint. I am a rudimentary painter at best but these modifications should be easy enough for anyone to do. For the Scout Troopers I am thinking some black patches in the armor would go a long way in making these figures less generic. The Ewoks could easily be given a bit of dynamism with different colored hoods. I wish wish wish that they had more than one sculpt, even if two of them just head their spears slanted across their chests they would be so much better! Unfortunately I don’t haven’t been able to paint any of these myself due to a big move coming up, but once I do I will be sure to post some pictures!
I think that the vehicles and exclusive figures can stay as they are, keeping the vehicles solid is not a big deal because they are already very monochromatic, the exclusives loose exclusivity if they are modified. I will say this about the vehicles, the scale is weird. They are not much bigger than the Scout Troopers which is odd visually but great because it allows them to all still be mini figures.
DESSERT
All in all these figures are great, it just comes down to the variance for me. Luckily there is plenty of variance in the line as a whole with quite a few sets to choose from. You can get a lot of characters across the six movies and they even have characters from the newest animated show, Star Wars Rebels. Have you bought any of these figures, let us know what you think!
On December 16th a German Lego catalogue revealed some pictures of next year's Avengers Age of Ultron Lego sets and they look great! Check them out here.
On December 18th Funko announced a new addition to Mystery Minis, Frozen. I must be one of the few people on Earth who doesn’t think that Frozen is the greatest thing since sliced bread (ed. note: you are not the only one, promise), that being said I am still surprised it took Funko this long to get these going. Luckily the Frozen hype is very much alive and I am sure people will be buying these up. There are even a couple of sculpts I am interested in.
