Clone Trooper (Fifth Fleet Security) - TSC - Basic (SAGA 059)

Just like its wave mate the Clone Trooper (442nd Siege Battalion) figure, very little has been written about the Fifth Fleet Security battalion also. Hasbro decided to crank out an astoundingly additional 22 figures before they canceled The Saga Collection. For those of you who remember, the line was to end with Gragra (SAGA 052), but Hasbro surprised us all at the 2006 San Diego Comic Con and revealed three new waves (including a Walmart exclusive last wave) to keep the popular line going for a little while longer as they prepared to tie up loose ends for the commemorative 30 (77-07) basic figure line that would begin March of the following year. One of the winners to get selected for these infamous Repack & Repaint waves was the Clone Trooper (Fifth Fleet Security) figure. It isn’t as impressive as the Clone Trooper (442nd Siege Battalion) figure, but it still is a stunning update to the awful Deluxe figure from the 2005 Revenge Of The Sith line. The figure isn’t perfect, but it’s still good and we think it will enhance your collection in a very positive way, just like it did for us. You know another clone trooper is never a bad thing anyway, so we don’t see the need to really sell this to you.

Clone Trooper Fifth Fleet Security also appeared in The Art of Revenge Of The Sith book in the same image as the Clone Trooper (442nd Siege Battalion) character as well as many others. The Fifth Fleet Security clone has a stunning paint job on the front but is clean and white on the back. This is essentially true for the Clone Trooper (442nd Siege Battalion) figure as well, but some of the “dirt” or “carbon scoring” made it to the back oh his shoulders. This isn’t the case for the Fifth Fleet Security figure, so it looks a little odd like Hasbro forgot about the back of this figure. If you can move past this, there is one more issue to hurdle. The belt, like all of the clones that use this sculpt before him, is upside down. Thankfully, Hasbro got the deco correctly painted on the figure, but would be upside down if the belt were able to be corrected. It’s amazing how much of a longstanding problem this belt has been in the basic figure line. The figure is inundated with blue hash marks all over its armor and this is accented with nice amounts of brown smudges. The figure truly looks incredible. It's amazing how cool simple deco can make a figure look.

The Clone Trooper (Fifth Fleet Security) figure will absolutely be the “rarer” of the two phase II clones in the Repack & Repaint waves. It didn’t ship in nearly as many cases (it wasn’t carried forward) and was a bit of a chore to army-build at retail. Another phenomenon that we experienced picking this figure off of the shelves is that the paint job on the helmet (the visor and all of the corresponding black lines on it) was remarkably inferior to that which was seen of the Clone Trooper (442nd Siege Battalion) figure. We of course would have no way of proving this, but it was very difficult for us to locate the Clone Trooper Fifth Fleet Security figure with a crisp and clean visor. Anyway, we thought that was bizarre. Perhaps two different master molds were being used for each figure and one side of the factory painted one while the other side painted the other. If you have multiples of both clones we challenge you to compare and analyze the differences. We bet you’ll admit that the Clone Trooper (442nd Siege Battalion) figure is the better painted figure (as far as the helmet is concerned). We’re very thankful that Hasbro has incorporated cool “easy to produce” waves like this into the basic figure line. They’re better than repacks and some end up becoming favorites over the “new” figures.