015 Action Figure Sat-TOY-day News, 5th March 2016

Issue 15 : Saturday 5th March, 2016

Issue 15 : Saturday 5th March, 2016

Happy Sat-TOY-Day Everybody, and although it has been another relatively quiet week for news many Action Figure fans have been busy celebrating Action Figure at Work Day 2016.

As we go to press the #AFWD2016 tag had been used over 5000 times over Friday the 4th of March with pictures shared from all over the world of collectors taking an Action Figure to work.

Anyone who follows us on Facebook and Twitter will have seen our build up to the day, and the various pictures I have been sharing. My favourite, although I enjoyed taking them all, is the Spider-man on the Notice board which I have included below for those who aren’t linked in with our social channels.

Kmart have revealed the other half of the Starkiller base diorama. As suspected the other half will be Rey. Rey looks like a re-issue of the wave 1 figure from September, but is now packed with Luke’s lightsaber. Fans will be hoping that the Rey will include the upgrade paint applications that we have been seeing in the recent re-issues.

Kmart have a page up for the exclusive, and a confirmed release date of the 4th May 2016. RRP is $24.99 in the US, so I suspect we will be paying around £30 here on the UK on import.

In other news we finally know what the 2nd part of the Hasbro Black Series Starkiller diorama will be. And over in NECA news we finally have confirmation of a new figure from Alien that we spotted over 3-months ago now.

Reviews have been very Star Wars heavy this week, and I have dropped in my review of FN-2187 from the Black Series as this week's published review.

Checkout the website for further reviews of Episode 7 Chewbacca and Luke & Wampa.

Coming up this week may be a bit of Wakanda goodness, some figures (hopefully) that should NEVER cross the streams and a new NECA product that is quite literally off the grid.

Fans of the Bandai 1/12 Star Wars Action Figure kits may want to check out Amazon UK at present where there are some all time low prices on the Storm Trooper kits Prices do fluctuate on Amazon, but at time of going to print both the Original Trilogy and Force Awakens Storm Troopers were both sitting around the £15-£16 mark with free delivery. These are shipped from Japan, so you may be in for a couple of weeks or more wait.

Interested? Then click via the image (left).

After seeing the promo images of Ant-man last week, we now get a good look at the other “new” figure from SH Figuarts Civil War series.

Black Panther will join Ant-Man, Captain America and Iron-Man in the 1/12 scale collectors range.

It seems that The Entertainer is the place to go to track down the new 3.75” Star Wars figures.

Turning up both online and in stores this week were brand new offerings in both the single carded and two packs.

First up for online order were the latest wave of single figures for £10. This new batch included the Rebels Captain Rex, FN 2187 and Unkar Plutt.

A day or so later and the two packs also went up for order. For £17 you can pick up the Captain Ithano and Quiggold pack. Or the Snap Wexley and black pauldron Snow-trooper.

For those wanting to save on p&p, remember click and collect into a local store is free

Issue 15 : Saturday 5th March, 2016

For those who have been with us for a while, you may remember in Issue 04 that we had come across a behind the scenes image from NECA that seemed to show a brand new Alien figure in the background.

It does seem however that at this stage NECA are unsure how Lambert will fit into a future series. So far the only indication is we will see her get a release in the next 12 months or so.

The colouring and style seemed to indicate it was Lambert in Pressure Suit from the original 1979 movie - but all we got out of Randy Falk at the time was a coy wink on Twitter.

With a head sculpt and likeness right pretty much sewn up, will we see NECA make the most of the Lambert profile (and that of Dallas) and release them in flight suits as well?

Roll on to March 2016 and Randy has now confirmed that Lambert is indeed in development, and the above image was subsequently shared to show her facial sculpt.

One thing is for certain - NECA are adamant that each wave will contain a Xeno, as they are the big sellers so will we see another Big Chap release or will NECA have a more creative solution?

Following on from their initial eight Retro 8 inch figures from the Hateful Eight (that’s a lot of 8’s in one sentence), NECA have now revealed a 9th figure - that of Quentin Tarantino.

Dressed to fit in with the style of the other Hateful Eight characters, Tarantino will also come with Director's Clapper Board, Like the other characters he will be a limited run of 3000 units and is currently being offered to retailers now - so watch out for pre-orders shortly.

We saw a prototype of the Kenner inspired Stalker Predator at New York Toy Fair - he is the one that will likely have a glow in the dark feature.

NECA gave us a closer look at the sculpt this week with these grey prototype images.

The Kenner inspired Predator’s won’t appeal to everyone, but you have got to love a Predator who has make an Alien Xenomorph head into a chest plate for his armour Stalker Predator will be part of Series 16 and will be in stores in the 2nd half of 2016

Issue 15 : Saturday 5th March, 2016

Review : FN-2187, Finn as Stormtrooper (The Force Awakens) Star Wars Black Series (Hasbro) Wave/Series : Figure #17 (Phase 3 Wave 5 / Wave 1 2016) Released : January 2016 Price : ÂŁ22.99 One of the very first images of The Force Awakens was of Finn in his Stormtrooper armour, and it is surprising that it has taken until Wave 5 to get him out there.

FN-2187 arrives in Wave 5 (Wave 1 2016) in the Phase 3 red & black packaging. He is number 17 which is boldly printed on the right hand spine. Both the front lower right and the rear of the packaging contain a very nice grey lined illustration of Finn in his armour and across this on the rear of the box is a short paragraph explaining Finn's exit from the ranks of the First Order.

Out of the box, and Finn stands 5 3/4 inches high which is a good match to the height of John Boyega, and consistent with the wave 1 Finn figure. Packed with him are the usual Storm Trooper weapons of the larger blaster and the smaller handgun, which like the other First order troopers slots neatly into a slot on Finn's right thigh.

He also comes with his Storm Trooper helmet, which is decorated with the three blood stripes that he receives during his Jakku mission. The helmet decoration is neat enough, but quite sterile in terms of red paint on bright white.

It doesn't quite capture the grimy look that Finn had on his return to the First Order transport ship. The helmet however is one of the better fitting helmets that the range has seen.

There is very little difference between it and a standard First Order Trooper head. It also slots snugly over Finn's head, maybe a bit too snugly and I would watch out for paint wear on the nose and hair if you swap the helmet on and off regularly. Once on, Finn is only given away by a touch of flesh visible in the chin area from certain angles.

He also comes with his Storm Trooper helmet, which is decorated with the three blood stripes that he receives during his Jakku mission. The helmet decoration is neat enough, but quite sterile in terms of red paint on bright white.

It doesn't quite capture the grimy look that Finn had on his return to the First Order transport ship. The helmet however is one of the better fitting helmets that the range has seen.

There is very little difference between it and a standard First Order Trooper head. It also slots snugly over Finn's head, maybe a bit too snugly and I would watch out for paint wear on the nose and hair if you swap the helmet on and off regularly. Once on, Finn is only given away by a touch of flesh visible in the chin area from certain angles.

Of course the rest of Finn is essentially the same body and sculpt as any First order Trooper. However, it's not that simple as Hasbro' have gone with the nice touch of reducing the torso height to make Finn a little shorter than usual troopers. This is pretty effective, although not necessarily needed considering there is very little in the film to show Finn being considerably shorter - not to the extent it was with the Luke figure from A New Hope which is of course mentioned on screen.

Issue 15 : Saturday 5th March, 2016

Outside of the torso tweak, the armour is identical to all the other First Order Troopers and is cast in gloss white. There is a good definition between the armour and the black under-suit, with my only real complaints on paint application being around the belt area where there is a bit of bleed as these are black plastic painted white. It is good to see that the issue of massively variant white finishes that we saw on the Original Stormtroopers and the Clone Troopers has been rectified and there is no clear difference between a painted piece or a cast piece.

Like the other First Order troopers the torso joint allows for a huge range of movement - bending Finn forward and back and also twisting his upper half to either side. The hip joints allow you just about enough to get Finn sat down, so there is a chance you can get him into your 6 inch scale Tie Fighter if you want to. The knees remain double jointed so can bend really well, and then the ankles are finished off with a rocker joint that means Finn stands pretty well neutrally or in more action orientated stances.

Both guns are painted well with white panels on black plastic, and both can fit into either hand with as mentioned the smaller handgun clipping to the thigh armour for storage.

The head sculpt is pretty much the same as the wave 1 Finn, but the paint application on this one have improved the look no end with neater eye application and a more realistic skin tone which has a hint of gloss to reflect Finn's clammy/sweaty skin.

Articulation is half decent but, like all armoured trooper figures so far in the range, it is restricted by the bulkier parts of the armour. The head swivels and looks up and down with the helmet either in or out of use. The shoulders are ball jointed and can rotate fully around the figure, and they can then extend out to the side of the figure by almost 90 degrees thanks to the shoulder pad being designed to retract into the chest armour.

Elbows are on a single joint, but they do rotate and that allows two handed weapon poses if needed. The wrists are pegged, but can’t really do much other than rotate thanks to the wrist armour.

All in all this is a no risk figure for Hasbro. It was a look that had a key part in the film’s plot and was simply a case of combining two existing figures and applying a bit of extra paint application.

It is also good to see the facial paint decoration is improved and the way the torso has been shortened does show Hasbro trying to go a bit extra for collectors when in all honestly they could have missed that off and not many fans would have complained. I worry over paint wear from the helmet, but had they made the helmet a looser fit they would have lost the look of a realistic helmet. I am also thinking adding a bit of weathering, similar to what we saw with the Sandtroopers, would have perhaps given this figure a bit of a stand out look on collectors shelves.

I scored the original wave 1 Finn a 3 out of 5, and I think this Trooper version deserves at least a +1 to this and gets a strong 4 out of 5 from me.

Check Out the full archive of Star wars black series reviews at mephitsu.com