Review: Star Wars Black Series Rancor Battalion ARC Trooper Battle Pack featuring Colt, Havoc, and Blitz from The Clone Wars
"I'd like you to meet Commander Colt of the Rancor Battalion."
Rancor Battalion, and in particular its ARC Troopers Colt, Havoc, and Blitz, were first introduced during Season 3 of The Clone Wars, were part of two of the Season 3 episodes, and would go on to make a return in Season 4. While we’ve had plenty of ARC Troopers in the Star Wars Black Series, we’ve not had a multi-pack or any of the Rancor Battalion troopers until it was announced in June 2026 that Hasbro were releasing a Fan Channel Battle Pack containing Colt, Havoc and Blitz in the Black Series. While initially expected in August, it was early September when the set started shipping via Fan Channel retailers in the UK.
The Rancor Battalion Battle Pack is the first-ever 3-pack from The Clone Wars, and it comes in a triple-figure extra-wide black matt box with yellow highlight colour, as attributed to the Clone Wars Galaxy Series Collection. This yellow colouring is used on the front text, including a new ‘call out’ that sits on top of, and springs out of, the yellow trim to title this as an ARC Trooper Battle Pack. There is no direct reference on the front of the box to Rancor Battalion.
The side art panel uses the same yellow tone and is split into three individual images of each of our ARC Troopers included in the set. The issue here is one of colour, and when you illustrate the Rancor ARC Troopers using just grey tone and yellow highlights, it is not overly easy to work out which of the characters is which. The back of the box sorts this out, displaying each illustrated image in a horizontal strip rather than vertically, and labelling each of them under the photo. Beneath this is a large section of text which does reference Rancor Battalion as “joining their clone brothers in defending their home planet of Kamino, from a Separatist attack“. This then repeats in multiple languages.
The three figures sit in a large inner tray that slides out from either side panel. This tray sits in the cardboard backing sleeve, and this also uses the yellow hue theme with a more detailed embedded image than we are used to seeing, showing the Battle of Kamino, complete with Battle Droids advancing on a line of Clone Troopers against the backdrop of the domes and spires of Kamino.
While the set includes three named Clone ARC Troopers, these are all essentially the same figure built onto the ARC Trooper figure base first released in 2021 with Echo. This body has been well used since, including on other ARC Trooper releases like Fives and Jesse, but also on more specialist troops like the Umbara Trooper and the Battlefront II Gaming Greats Infiltrator. This ARC Trooper body is designed and engineered in the same vein as the standard Clone Troopers, with armoured parts cast in white, and these are then connected by black cast joints in a ribbed finish to reflect the Clone’s undersuit. The ARC format includes enhanced wrist armour vs the general ‘shiny’ and a similar enhancement with the shin armour. On top of the base armour, the ARC Trooper also gets an added soft plastic Kama skirt with belt and holsters incorporated, and the twin chest and shoulder armour with ammo pouches. Each ARC Trooper uses a Phase II helmet with an integrated range finder. While there is a sculpted head underneath, this is not painted, and the helmets are all glued in place.
The individuality of each of the three Troopers is in the colouring on top of this base body. We start with Colt, who features red and grey livery, starting with the Phase II helmet with range finder that is decorated with grey to the sides and back of the main face plate and around the breathing components. The range finder has a silver shaft, but then features a red top section. Red also features on the right side of the shoulder pauldrons, the remainder of which remain in their base grey but with a darker blue trim on the ammo pouch slung just under the right hand pauldron.
The updated ARC Trooper wrist armour is painted grey, with a red panel, and this red extends down onto the armoured plate on the back of the hands. The control panel on the left bracer includes painted green and white buttons, the white ones sadly being quite poorly executed in terms of accuracy and coverage. The kama skirt is the most intricate of Colt’s design, with a red and grey chevron effect throughout. This skirt is trimmed with a white belt, and blue straps, pouches and holsters. His armour concludes with lighter grey shin and knee armour with cream inserts. And around the back we have the ARC Trooper integrated backpack - fixed in place and cast in a dark blue with grey panels and greebles.
From Colt we move to the blue armoured Havoc, who is very similar in colouring to the other 501st ARC Troopers. Havoc’s helmet includes a light grey faceplate, with blue markings at the side and around the base of the upper fin. His range finder is also grey/silver in terms of the main shaft, but painted blue at the top. The Pauldron piece here is painted blue on each of the side panels, with the base grey underneath, creating a border. There are also four blue squares painted on the front of the grey chest piece, just to the side of the dark blue ammo pouch.
From here, the blue markings are less prominent than the red on Colt. There is a touch of blue on the gauntlets, with three trimmed lines in different locations on each side and a blue painted panel above the controls on the left. These controls are similarly painted to Colt with green and red, then two final buttons left plain white. Havoc’s skirt is grey with a blue band in the bottom third at each side with rounded corners. Straps and pouches are dark blue, as are the holsters, with the belt piece in white. Havoc has the same grey shin armour with cream inserts, but with the knee pads above fully painted blue. The same dark blue and grey backpack sits at the back of the figure.
And so we come to Blitz and the deep yellow tones. Blitz’s helmet is almost the same as Havoc’s with a grey faceplate, but over this is a stripe of deep yellow that runs from the breathing vents, over the visor and up over the dome of the helmet. Blitz’s range finder is also colour coded in yellow. Only the right Pauldron is coloured across the three panels in yellow, with two yellow stripes angling down the chest plate then out to the sides. Blitz’s right gauntlet is grey, with yellow on the hand armour plate. The left gauntlet is white, then trimmed in yellow, and then paint detail added to the controls and launcher. This time, those four buttons are crisp and tidy, running from green to red, then two white.
Blitz has a white Kama skirt and white belt, with the cross straps, pouches, and holsters in dark blue. Over the white of the skirt is a black diamond pattern which is arguably the most striking and distinctive of the three. The shins are again grey, but this time without the cream inserts. Over the top of these and down the centre, and extending up over the white knee panels, is a line of deep yellow, and as this gets towards the feet it branches off into a chevron design.
The set comes with six blasters, all identical and allowing each of our Rancor Battalion ARC Troopers to be armed with a pair of DC-17 blaster pistols. These pistols are from the existing line and have been used multiple times across both ARC Trooper releases and several Clone Commanders. Their size does not permit any real detail other than the top line shape and having been cast in black plastic, they are left unpainted.
These can be fitted into any of our Troopers’ holsters, sitting relatively snugly and securely. They then fit perfectly well into the right hands of our ARCs, where a trigger finger slips into place and the weapon sits in a firitng position. Despite having a corresponding left hand in the line - as seen most recently on Commander Doom - Hasbro has not included this with the Rancor Battalion and retained the existing ARC Trooper left hand that does not feature a trigger finger. That means your twin blaster pistol-wielding Troopers can only hold one blaster accurately, and the other, while sitting in the hand, is angled up and away because the trigger pushes against the four sculpted fingers rather than being able to lock into place using a separate trigger finger.
Articulation is 19 points in total, all of which are pinless, 20 in total if you count the rangefinder, which can pivot down over the visor. The legs include stable ankle rockers, knee joints, thigh swivels, and an upper hip. The knees feature knee armour that is fixed to the upper thigh. This means the knees look particularly strange if bent and is another minor disappointment, considering the newer Black Series Clones have solved this issue with a floating version that could most likely have been swapped in here. That being said, the skirt piece, although a flexible plastic, does restrict most leg positions.
The torso ball joint gives a good amount of upper body movement, leaning in and out of poses as well as rotating. The twin joint on the neck provides good head movement too, although the helmet does clash with the pauldrons as it turns, forcing it to point more upward. The arms contain sufficient range in butterfly shoulders and elbows for weapons posing, with mismatched pivots in the wrist, with one pivoting horizontally to the position of the hand, and the other vertically.
At a retail price of £86.99 on Hasbro Pulse, this set works out at a quite considerable £28.99 per figure (it is cheaper if you do shop around). And despite the £30 price, all of the base figures are identical apart from the paint, and built on a buck that is now some 5 years old and carries with it at least two substantial flaws in terms of the left-hand trigger and the knee armour that have been fixed elsewhere, but not included in this set despite the high ticket price. I do accept the paintwork is detailed, more so than a lot of Clone characters, but still on par with some other 501st ARC Troopers that still sat at the base RRP for a single release, albeit often exclusive to a retailer.
If you are a Clone Wars fan and/or love Clone variations, this is a set made for you. It is bright and visual, and the decor on all three Troops is crisp and accurate to the episodes - albeit realised in a live-action style to align with the rest of the Black Series releases. The accessories are as we see them on screen during the Battle of Kamino, and there is suitable pinless articulation with which to wield them. The final question of the release is if we will ever be able to complete Rancor Battalion’s ARC Trooper complement, as we are still missing Hammer. He is of course, very similar in style to Colt, so I can see why decisions were made to go with what we got in terms of Red, Blue, and Yellow; but I do wonder if there is a single release to come that finishes off the foursome as we see them on Kamino.
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About Me : As a child of the 70's and 80's I grew up in a golden age for action figures and in my youth bought and sold myself through collections of Star Wars, G.I. Joe (Action Force) and M.A.S.K. while also dabbling in He-Man, Transformers and Ghostbusters. Roll forward and I am now reliving that Youth with the action figures of today and am a collector and fan of the larger 6-8 inch figures from my favourite movie and TV licences - including the ones mentioned above, but also the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Who and the Aliens. I launched The Mephitsu Archives in 2015 with a view of creating a UK focused site or these figures where fans can pick up the latest action figure news, read reviews and get information on where to buy their figures and what is currently on store shelves. I hope I am delivering that to you guys...
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