Airborne Trooper - TAC - Basic (30 07)

Obi-Wan Kenobi attacks General Grievous and his droid army on Utapau with the assistance of the Parjai Squad, 2nd Airborne Company, part of the Commander Cody’s 212th Attack Battalion. The clone troopers descend upon the droid armies and decimate them while Obi-Wan dispatches Grievous, ending the Clone Wars.

It’s quite perplexing how we didn’t get too many movie-specific clone troopers in the basic figures line until well into the end of 2005 and beginning of 2006. But some of the best clone troopers didn’t make their arrival into the line until as late as 2007. One of these clone troopers, the Airborne Trooper, was on the lists of many a collector since we saw them in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith and even topped the voting polls prior to its official announcement from Hasbro that the figure was already in production. The wait was long but the final results are extremely satisfying. It’s super-articulated, has tons of carbon scoring and the orange paint used to decorate the figure matches the previous year’s 2006 TSC [Utapau] Clone Trooper (SAGA 026) figure (even if that particular orange isn’t a perfect match to the color in the film). As a display piece, you won’t be happier than with this action figure. The Airborne Trooper has great stature and posture and has so many details to enjoy like the unique artillery rounds on his left shoulder or the satchel that actually holds a real pistol that hangs around his chest. Hasbro packed a lot of punch into this small action figure and we think that despite some of its few flaws that this will be an action figure to stand the test of time. Actually, we’re quite confident of this sentiment.

But if you’re looking to put him in any action stance you desire, you may be left a little dissatisfied. As we have mentioned earlier this figure is super-articulated. But as with any clone trooper, it seems that ball-jointed hips are a requirement for the super-articulation to be meaningful or useful. Hasbro designed a hard plastic kama to go around his waist and as you can suspect, this makes movement limited. The legs have no issues moving forward, but if you’re looking to have him stand back at attention, well, you’re definitely going to run into problems. He is however the perfect height and his head isn’t tiny and the helmet almost has a perfect fit over his head (it just sits ever so slightly too high). He comes with a large blaster rifle that may be scaled too large but looks great all the same. We’re content with how the figure has been constructed, but super duper articulation junkies may be left wanting more. For trivia lovers, the Airborne Trooper technically didn’t make its debut in the 30 (77-07) line. It started out life as a pre-paint in 2006’s TSC Mace Windu’s Attack Battalion TARGET exclusive Battle Packs set. (Oh man, what a fun set that was indeed!) But instead of purple, Hasbro obviously updated the colors to orange and have crafted a faithful representation of this unique clone trooper we have come to adore.

While we love the paint job on this figure, there are a few things we’d like to point out. For the most part, the orange color flashes are expertly applied. But when it comes to his belt, we have found “decent” paint applications of the upside-down orange “Ts” to those that have issues. We’re not entirely sure what happened here but some samples range from almost perfect while others are a complete train wreck. We are thrilled that the Airborne Trooper has a ton of carbon scoring (which can be found on the front mostly but also the back) but we think that the armor could have been yellowed or dirtied a bit more. It looks a little bit weird that his armor is still sparkling clean when there is evidence of battle-damage. But that’s just our take on it. It certainly doesn’t affect or admiration of this action figure. This figure still has the capability to be posed in many configurations and we don’t mean to lessen the quality of the figure by our criticisms, but we think the main issue is that ball-joints really need to be a basic necessity for troop-building action figures. One thing is for sure, the Airborne Trooper is a long overdue and much needed addition to the toy line. It will be interesting to see how many times Hasbro uses this sculpt in the Star Wars action figure line. But when he does see rerelease, it will certainly be warranted and welcomed.