Snowtrooper (The Battle Of Hoth) - SW [S - P3] - Basic (’03 #19)

With the Imperial forces dominating their assault of the Rebel base on Hoth, the battered Rebels flee the ice planet. An Imperial Snowtrooper, a highly-specialized form of trooper created for cold weather missions, sets up an E-Web repeating blaster hoping to destroy Han's Millennium Falcon. But Han destroys the enemy’s blaster and escapes to continue to fight another day.

Snowtroopers are clearly a favorite character of Hasbro’s as they’ve released it multiple times in the line thus far. But it was the Star Wars “Saga” line that brought collectors the first Snowtrooper commander, the leader of the pack so to speak. In what many will be able to call a slightly confusing release, Hasbro packaged the “all-new” character with an E-Web cannon which honestly confuses things more than illuminates them. It was the standard Snowtrooper (as we have seen in The Power Of The Force line) that manned the E-Web cannon. The scenes surrounding this were brisk so it’s quite possible that we missed a Stormtrooper commander in these scenes if there were any, but for the most part we only saw these ranked officials in the AT-AT conversing with General Veers and/or other AT-AT commanders. They weren’t exactly the “ground crew” if you know what we mean. We’re glad Hasbro has an affinity for these Imperial troopers and it’s nice to know they’re always high on Hasbro’s list for updates. Anyway, we get an all-new sculpt of this popular character that may or may not meet your expectations as a basic figure, but you’ll probably love the fact that you get so much plastic inside one bubble for the mere MSRP of $4.99.

That being said, some have quickly noticed that the included E-Web cannon is missing some very important parts. We have to agree with them. The power cable and power box (or battery) are nowhere to be found inside of the package. The E-web cannon itself is a retool of The Power Of The Force Deluxe version, save for a new barrel and minus the missing parts. Even we have to admit that this is a disappointing setback for this figure. As a character that most collectors would likely buy multiples of to army build, if they did by Snowtrooper (Battle Of Hoth) by the handfuls, the more incomplete E-Web cannons you would also collect as well. So, the release is certainly bittersweet from that regard. The E-Web cannon comes with a red missile projectile. It’s cutesy and geared for kids, but it works remarkably well and it’s easy to pin it on any target and fire away. What’s more impressive perhaps is how well the Snowtrooper (The Battle Of Hoth) action figure interacts with it. It is almost like they were made for each other. Still, we can’t help notice the blatant omissions of this and it really affects is screen accuracy and for us, play value. The Snowtroopers in the film wasted a lot of time setting up the cannon’s shop, now they have a lot less detail to worry about here.

The Snowtrooper (The Battle Of Hoth) figure is a decent figure. Hasbro definitely updated its proportions. It’s no longer a towering giant like the POTF2 figure was. Aesthetically we have to say that Hasbro isn’t too far from the marks with this release. A seemingly new type of articulation has been added to his head that allows the figure to throw his head frontwards and backwards, but not horizontally left and right. The rest of him is swivel articulation except for his right foot. This point of articulation is ball-jointed, which, no pun intended, gives him the proper footing adjustments so he can utilize the include E-Web cannon. Snowtrooper (The Battle Of Hoth) also comes with an E-11 blaster and Hasbro has sculpted a functioning holster where it can be stored there when he is busy using bigger artillery. Overall, we believe that the Snowtrooper (The Battle Of Hoth) action figure is a tremendous update to previous versions, but this was the wrong rank to release as a moderately priced action figure. They should have released the commander as a pack-in figure someplace else and given us the generic soldier for the Star Wars “Saga” line. It should fare well regardless. After all, we can never get enough Snowtrooper action figures!