review Review : 75121 Imperial Death Trooper

[Leewan]

[You can click on the pictures to enlarge them]

I had been planning to do this review for weeks, but the actual release of Rogue One : A Complicated Title A Star Wars Story forced me to stop procrastinating and actually write this review.

General information :

• Set name : Imperial Death Trooper
• Set number : 75121
• Number of parts : 106
• Age range : 8-14
• Price : 24.99€ / 24.99$ / 19,99£
• Release date : September 30th 2016
• Links : brickset / bricklink

Quote

Defend the Empire’s elite with this buildable and highly posable Death Trooper figure. Featuring a blaster rifle with spring-loaded shooter, blaster pistol with holster and imposing decorated armor elements including a pauldron with attachable ammo pouches, this durable Death Trooper is ready for action. 

• Buildable and highly posable Death Trooper figure features a blaster rifle with spring-loaded shooter, blaster pistol with holster and imposing decorated armor elements.
• Load the blaster rifle and fire the spring-loaded shooter.
• Unholster the blaster pistol and get ready for battle.
• Move the limbs into any battle pose.
• Sturdy and durable design for intense action play.
• Recreate amazing battles with this menacing character from the blockbuster movie, Star Wars: Rogue One.
• This figure offers an age-appropriate building experience for ages 8-14.
• Figure stands over 10” (26cm) tall

Packaging :

The box of the Imperial Death Trooper has the same size as most of the "medium"-sized boxes (the other ones are thinner, and some, like Darth Vader and General Grievous' boxes are bigger).

The front shows our Death Trooper on a beach, drinking a cocktail standing in front of flames and impact marks. It's probably (SPOILER ALERT) the planet Scarif.

As usual, there are the Lego, Star Wars, Buildable Figures and Disney logos, as well as the recommended age range, and the set name and number (and that's all, since I have a European box).

The back also shows the Lego, Star Wars, Buildable Figures and Disney logos and the set number, but more importantly gives us some information about the figure's size and its weapons : a missile-launcher blaster rifle, and, apparently, a SE-14 pistol.

The side looks good too (at least one of the sides, since the other one shows mostly safety-related writings nobody reads), since it gives us a nice shot of the character (as well as, guess what, Star Wars and Lego logos). The boxes of the January 2016 wave already had these "character shots" on the side, and it looks like the 2017 sets will have them too.

If you already own a Star Wars Buildable Figure, you won't be surprised to see the helmet of the Death Trooper shown at its actual size. And, again, the Lego, Star Wars and Disney logos.

The content :

Let's open the box, shall we ! Inside, we find Lego, Star Wars and Disney logos, Lego, Star Wars and Disney logos everywhere ! Okay, not really.

There are three bags of parts (plus one separate bag for the helmet), a big CCBS body frame, the building instructions, and a transparent plastic sheet on which the pauldron is printed. I didn't know how Lego would do the pauldron, so I was surprised to see this plastic sheet. Fortunately, it was not damaged.

The building instructions :

The cover of the building instructions is basically the same artwork as the front of the box. There's then a warning page about the spring-loaded missile launcher, and a kid sorting his parts. Then come the actual building instructions, followed bar the parts list, and two pages showing the first three Rogue One Buildable Figures, including K-2SO who... dances ? The booklet ends with the traditional WIN page, this time sponsored by a Clockwork Robot minifig.
The complete building instructions are available here.

The parts :

It's no surprise that you'll find a lot of black parts with the Death Trooper. There are, however, a few new ones :

The helmet, the thigh shell (which he / she (hey, we don't know if our Death Trooper is a man or a woman, or if it's even a human) shares with the two other sets of the 2H2016 wave) and the pauldron are brand new parts.

The torso shell, one of the two shoulderpads (the second is plain) and the 1x3 flat tiles have new printed decorations. Hooray for printing parts ! The round 1x1x1 bush appears in black for the first time.
Here's a more detailed view of some of those parts :

-Thigh shell

Size-wise, it's close to some of the biggest CCBS shells, like the #8 shell, or the 2.0 torso armor. It's however much smoother and curved.

We notice, though, that the position of the holes regarding the ball socket is different on these parts : there are three modules between the ball socket and the holes, VS only one module for the other parts.
This part comes in black in each set of the 2016 Rogue One wave, but it will be available in more colors next year.

- The torso shell :

We have here the usual Star Wars torso armor, with a sand blue and silver pattern. However, although it's the third time we see this part in black, it's actually the first time it's used to represent an actual armor, and not a piece of cloth as in Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren. The pattern is rather simple, which could make this part more useful for MOCcing. 

Unlike the currently available minifig version of the character (which you can see here), the armor doesn't have grenades attached near the stomach. It seems that there are two variants of the suits (perhaps depending on the rank of the soldier), one with the grenades and the pauldron, but without the "scope" on the side of the helmet, and another one without the grenades and the pauldron, but with the visor (the minifigs in the Imperial Trooper Battle Pack, for example, don't have the grenades nor the pauldron). This Death Trooper seems to be a blend of these two versions, unless a third one exists. Perhaps the designers of this set had to work with preliminary artwork, or perhaps did they take some freedom from the actual armor to make the set more interesting. 

- The shoulderpad :

One of the two shoulderpad has a simple grey pattern printed on it. If you look closely, you'll see my reflection.

- The helmet :

To put it simply, the helmet of the Death Trooper is magnificent ; some details are printed, and some are molded.

There is some kind of scope on the left side of the helmet. Again, this detail exists on some variants of the armor, but is absent from some other ones.

It might sound surprising, but the helmet is actually made from (at least) three parts, two of which are dark green (one of them in particular is used for the visor). Because of that, the ball socket is dark green, and not black like the rest of the helmet.

There are no sitckers in this Death Trooper ! Subsequently, the three 1x3 flat tiles (which represent here small pockets) are printed. The pattern seems to be faithful to the design seen in the movie.

- The pauldron : 

In the movie, some Death Troopers ("Specialists", if I believe another toymaker) wear a wide pauldron that seems to be made from leather. We're more used to see fabric on Constraction Sets, but Lego chose to use here flexible plastic. At least you can't complain about the lack of opacity of the part. The pauldron is printed on a sheet of transparent plastic, then pre-cut.

The build :

If you have already built a Star Wars Constraction set (I think of sets such as Captain Phasma, but also Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker or Kylo Ren), of if you have seen the building pictures above, the building won't be much of a surprise. The only true originality can be seen in the way of attaching the pauldron (which could be difficult for the younger builders), which we first attach at the left shoulder, then at the neck with two holes. Some could find difficult to finish the building without leaving fingerprints everywhere. That's the problem with black Lego parts !

The complete set :

The Death Trooper is tall, very tall. It's mostly due to his / her (too ?) long legs. As you can see here, removing the friction add-ons of the ankles partially solves the issue. In the future, some new kind of foot with a ballcup with rubber inserts could be useful. The new thigh shell help making the character smoother, but cause two problems : they limit the range of motion of the knee, and leave the inside of the thigh visible (I asked my brother, who's 11, and it's the first thing he noticed).

The arms are also limited at the elbow. Even if it's not the first time it happens, it's a bit of a shame, because they can prevent making poses where the Death Trooper is holding the blaster rifle with two hands properly (added to the fact that the pockets add some thickness to the torso and limit the poses with the blaster even more).

By the way, be careful if you want to make poses where the Trooper holds his blaster with two hands, you could unwillingly activate the mechanism and shoot yourself in the eye (or loose the missile, or scare your pet... yeah, one of those things happened to me).

Getting back to the articulations, the pauldron follows the movement of the arm very well, and doesn't limit the movement of the shoulder at all.

The pistol is designed to be able to be attached on the side of the leg, but the handle is slightly too long. Solve this would either require a new part, or completely remake the pistol (which I haven't been able to do, but I can't say I tried too hard).
There's also a weapon on the left arm, since it's equipped with three small guns, cleverly made with claws for minifig. It's brilliant ! It's a simple, yet very effective solution.

The back of the character is quite simple, with the usual cylinder near the bottom (I've never understood what they were used for), and a wide CCBS shell covering most of the back.

Conclusion :

The Death Trooper is an interesting set... if you stop at the waist. The legs are too long, poorly articulated (compared to the previous sets), and have been seen on many others sets before (new leg shell aside, of course). The helmet is splendid, and the character is very well armed, but in the end, the set seems bland. Its main flaw, I think, is that it belongs to the third wave of Star Wars constraction sets, and thus hardly brings novelty after the twelve sets based on the other movies released previously.

Parts-wise, we don't get a lot of novelty either, although the quality of the new parts and prints makes up for their quantity. However, most of the parts are black, and with a similar inventory, we could prefer Kylo Ren, especially since he has a mechanism (like Jyn Erso and K-2SO, the two other sets of the first Rogue One wave).

Now, here's a shot of my Imperial forces :

[Immo]

I recently bough this set. I generally agree with most of what you said.
However, for one, I don't mind the long legs (some pre-film materials claimed the Empire recruited tall, flexible men for Death Troopers AFAIK). His height is OK, if he's 1.9m, he matches 2.15m height of his line counterpart, the K-250, which, of course, is better of the two, but they kinda compliment each other, especially posed dramatically while in fight:

The Trooper was my first Buildable Figure, so I have no problem with the fact the building process is generic to BF's. Besides, my second BF, K-2SO, was sophisticated build, so it balanced just right. The Death Trooper looks good on the display, though, the posability is still better than that of a regular Star Wars action figures which are uglier, smaller and costed roughly the same (bought both Lego SWBF's for a lowered price)! It's looking tough, menacing and cool. That's what I wanted.

My biggest problem with the Death Trooper BF is the pauldron. I don't mind the ammo pouches banging against the chest plate, but the quality of the vinyl/celluloid-like material used to make it is subpar - after one figure collapse it became damaged on the back side, above the shoulder. Don't know if there is a way to fix it, but it really bums me. I'm certain it'll be tough to get the pauldron second hand, I don't think too many geezers would buy this set for parts and would want to sell the SW-themed gimmicks. Henceforth, I'm tempted to report "broken" part to Lego, but I'm not quite sure if it qualifies.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Immo

[Aethersprite]

I think the problem with the legs isn't that they're too long, but rather that they're too thin. It makes the figure look especially lanky. This isn't a problem with the set design, it's a corollary of the CCBS.

Thanks for the review, by the way! Are you going to review the rest?

[Leewan]

20 hours ago, Immo said:

However, for one, I don't mind the long legs (some pre-film materials claimed the Empire recruited tall, flexible men for Death Troopers AFAIK).

Hmm... yeah, that sounds likely. In the movie, they seemed taller than the other characters, and the Hot Toys product page mentions he's taller than a regular Stormtrooper. So yeah, the set is actually faithful to the movie. However, the legs are still too long compared to the body. Maybe it's actually the body that should be longer, and not the legs that should be shorter ?

 

20 hours ago, Immo said:

The Trooper was my first Buildable Figure, so I have no problem with the fact the building process is generic to BF's.

Ah, sure, I speak as someone who owns other SW Buildable Figures, but if it's the first time you build one, you won't feel the same. This should especially be true for people who haven't built any CCBS set before, because if you're used to Constraction sets, you could almost build him with your eyes closed. 

 

20 hours ago, Immo said:

the quality of the vinyl/celluloid-like material used to make it is subpar - after one figure collapse it became damaged on the back side, above the shoulder.

Really ? I've never heard of that before, and fortunately didn't damage mine. I've just checked on the Customer Service website, and it's available if you choose the broken bricks category (under certain conditions). Maybe yo could try to order one from their website, and if they ask you for a proof, show them a pic the damaged part. 

5 hours ago, Aethersprite said:

Thanks for the review, by the way! Are you going to review the rest?

I can provide a review of K-2SO, but not of Jyn Erso, as I don't have her. The second Rogue One wave has been released in Europe last week, and I'll try to get Baze Malbus by the end of the week (I'm really curious to see how he's built). If I do get him, I'll make a review. I'd also like to get the Shoretrooper, but not right now.

Of course, that's only if VBBN doesn't beat me to it. 

[Immo]

18 hours ago, Leewan said:

I've never heard of that before, and fortunately didn't damage mine. I've just checked on the Customer Service website, and it's available if you choose the broken bricks category (under certain conditions). Maybe yo could try to order one from their website, and if they ask you for a proof, show them a pic the damaged part. 

The fig collapsed and the rough edge of the back plate punctured the pauldron a bit. The damage is not that obvious, but it still bugs my OCD. I looked it up on the Replacement Parts and it says it's not currently available, but they'll notice me. I have to unearth the instruction booklet, though, as they need a 7-digit number.

Oh, by the way, the cylinder on the "posterior" part of the Trooper you've been wondering about is a standard imperial issue Imperial detonator.

[Dosenbrot]

On 20.12.2016 at 2:25 PM, Aethersprite said:

I think the problem with the legs isn't that they're too long, but rather that they're too thin. It makes the figure look especially lanky. This isn't a problem with the set design, it's a corollary of the CCBS.

Actually, I think the legs look too long is because the torso isn't long enough. The torso looks fine on figures with smaller legs (FO Stormtrooper, Jango Fett,...) but here you can clearly see that the proportions are off. 

[VBBN]

On 12/20/2016 at 0:56 PM, Leewan said:

Of course, that's only if VBBN doesn't beat me to it. 

 I will be doing all of the figures soon here, including my own take on the Death Trooper (Though now that you've gone in depth with the text, I can just defer to your review if people want to do some reading!) But I'm going to go with the TFA figures first, I've got a lot of catching up to do

 

Anyway, great review and very informative! Someone else reviewing something? Before me? BLASPHEMY! I agree with a lot of your points here and I share the concern of many that something about his proportions seem a little wonky. I feel as if the torso is too short of the legs, and I do tend the see the legs as a bit to thin and lanky. The pauldron, while an interesting idea, just seems odd to me and I would have liked a more complicated alternative, but it's certainly better than having nothing at all. 

His headsculpt is far and above one of my favorites of the series so far- While I love the other helmet designs, this one takes that extra step in detailing with the multiple pieces and whatnot. I adore that the green is actually a separate piece and not just a print on the black.

[Immo]

On 21.12.2016 at 8:48 PM, VBBN said:

His headsculpt is far and above one of my favorites of the series so far- While I love the other helmet designs, this one takes that extra step in detailing with the multiple pieces and whatnot.

Agreed, but K-2SO (again) beats the Trooper in that aspect. The tiny greebling in the "jaw" area is just uncanny. I feel the frigure is staring at me and evaluating my every move. As the original K-2SO would, I suppose.

[VaderFan2187]

Not a huge CCBS guy, but this is a decent one I guess. My favorites are Vader, Grievous, and K2SO (in that order)

[Leewan]

On 21/12/2016 at 1:11 PM, Immo said:

Oh, by the way, the cylinder on the "posterior" part of the Trooper you've been wondering about is a standard imperial issue Imperial detonator.

Oh, okay, thank you !

On 21/12/2016 at 8:48 PM, VBBN said:

Someone else reviewing something? Before me? BLASPHEMY!

"You're too sloooow, Kopaka."

On 23/12/2016 at 8:22 PM, Immo said:

Agreed, but K-2SO (again) beats the Trooper in that aspect.

True, K-2SO's head is magnificent. There's so much detailing, even at the "neck", it's incredible.

On 28/12/2016 at 11:50 PM, VaderFan2187 said:

Not a huge CCBS guy, but this is a decent one I guess. My favorites are Vader, Grievous, and K2SO (in that order)

Is it because they have a special build, or simply because of their looks ? I have the feeling that people who aren't into constraction tend to prefer those sets, which are built quite differently compared to the usual constraction sets.

 

[VaderFan2187]

9 hours ago, Leewan said:

Is it because they have a special build, or simply because of their looks ? I have the feeling that people who aren't into constraction tend to prefer those sets, which are built quite differently compared to the usual constraction sets.

Their looks. Vader is awesome, K2SO looks good, and Grievous was made for CCBS

[Aanchir]

This guy's shoulder pauldron is clever, and the thigh shells are a nice new part, but overall he leaves me cold. In general, I do not find myself drawn to generic faceless troopers due to them having generally simple builds, boring color schemes, and not a lot of personality compared to protagonists like Obi-Wan, Rey, Finn, Chirrut, and Baze. And this guy is exemplary of all those issues. Even the First Order Stormtrooper felt a lot more striking due to their white/black contrast, and Phasma had shiny silver armor and a cape with bright red trim, but the Death Trooper doesn't have any of those things going for them.

As a parts pack, this guy has a nice supply of black armor, but most of it is armor that has also appeared in black in other sets, only differentiated here by the printing on the torso and left shoulder. I feel like Director Krennic would have made a much more exciting "bad guy" figure, even though he doesn't do as much fighting in the movie, since he has more personality and a really distinctive outfit. I suppose he wouldn't have had as much play value, though, since the only weapons he wields in the movie are blasters too small to incorporate a shooting function like the one here.

I don't mean to disparage the set designer with any of this, mind you. The autheticity of this figure is not at fault. It's just a character design that doesn't make for a very exciting action figure.

[Leewan]

22 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I feel like Director Krennic would have made a much more exciting "bad guy" figure, even though he doesn't do as much fighting in the movie, since he has more personality and a really distinctive outfit.

Krennic's outfit is very bland, I doubt he would make a much more interesting set than a Death Trooper. Plus, he feels way less menacing than the DTs. I understand your point of view about generic troopers, but I'd pick a Death Trooper over Orson Krennic any day, yet I really liked Krennic's character in the movie.

[Immo]

Constraction Figures NEED red characters. And I'm a fan of fully masked, tough and menacing characters working on the fringe - pirates, smugglers and other criminals.
Thus, I'd love Sidon Ithano and Gauvian Death Gang Enforcer Constraction Figures.
References: Sidon on the left, Gauvian on the right:

Edited January 2, 2017 by Immo

[legostarwars1425]

Cool! I might buy it! like the 1x3 printed tiles.

[Aethersprite]

Seeing Rogue One for a second time, I noticed that the Death Troopers do have pretty lanky legs. Thus while I still feel that the legs on this figure are a little long, its proportions aren't completely inaccurate.

[BubbaFit45531]

I bought the last one on the shelf for $7 after checking Brickseeker many times.

This figure is about one head height taller than Cody due to longer bones and extra friction caps.

Edited June 6, 2017 by BubbaFit45531

[Takanuinuva]

I do wonder why lego chose to make the shoulder pauldron out of flexible plastic rather than mold it as a solid piece that fits over the neck ball. Were they worried it wouldn't be as secure and would hinder the right arm's movement?

[Leewan]

That, and it's way cheaper to print it on a sheet on plastic than create a specific new mold (although they still needed to make a tool that would cut the shape of the pauldron).

[BubbaFit45531]

Is the rifle supposed to flop up and down, or did I miss a step in the instructions?

The legs are definitely too long.

[Leewan]

Well, if it doesn't look like this, then you certainly did something wrong. From what you're saying, it looks like you attached the stock to the round hole of the blaster part, and not to the cross hole, but without some details, we can't know for sure how you've built it exactly. Just in case, disassemble it and rebuild it, make sure it looks like it's supposed to look like after each step, and you should be good.

[BubbaFit45531]

Thanks. That's exactly what my mistake was.

[bobasdad]

My son just built this and he loved it (even though he hasn't seen Rogue One).  The Death Trooper's legs really do seem too long, though (I fixed it by removing the friction cups at the ankles).  Judging by the box art, I thought the new thigh shells made the upper legs look too thin.  They actually look pretty good once built, though.  What bothers me now is that the trooper's upper body (which still uses Hero Factory era shells) looks boxy and square compared to its lower body (which uses the new, smoother shells).  We've gotten new shin, thigh, and shoulder shells for Star Wars constraction.  Is there any chance we will get new, smoother arm shells as well?