Review: Star Wars Black Series 'Troop Building' Rogue One Deathtrooper and Shoretrooper 2-Pack
- Mephitsu
- 3 hours ago
- 7 min read
“Are we blind? Deploy the garrison!”
Hasbro’s initial army builder releases in slimmed-down packaging saw its origins in the Marvel Legends line back in 2020 with the releases of Hydra, A.I.M., and Hellfire ‘troops’ in small, windowless boxes sold at a cheaper RRP to allow collectors to build up squads for their collection. These single releases would then evolve into two packs in 2022 with the Shield Agent set. The concept made the jump to the Star Wars Black Series in 2024 with releases via Hasbro Pulse of Troop Builder sets. From the Original Trilogy, we had a pack of a Stormtrooper and a Rebel Fleet Trooper, and from the Prequel Era, a set featuring a Clone Trooper and a Battle Droid.
In 2025, we were presented with two further sets, including another for The Clone Wars fans with the B2 Super Battle Droid alongside a Phase I Clone Trooper, and the set we will look at here. The Rogue One ‘Army Builder’ pack brought together the Deathtrooper Specialist, who had only ever been released once before in 2016 as part of an exclusive three-pack, and a Shore Trooper. The Shore Trooper, originally released under the name Scarif Stormtrooper, was another exclusive release in 2016 but had seen a more recent iteration thanks to the Trooper’s role in Andor and a 2023 single release, but again exclusive.
The slimmed-down packaging for our two Imperial Troops is much smaller than the standard Black Series boxes in terms of height, in particular. It remains mat black, and while windowless, still follows some of the other Black series principles. While the set is not numbered, the accent colour remains in line with the Galaxy Collection Rogue One releases. This colour is used on the banding that confirms the source material, and on the Trooper’s names. It is also, in a variance to the usual release format, is used on the Black Series logo. The artwork is more akin to the older Phase 2 and Phase 3 packaging, a grey scale illustration and is shown on the front of the box to illustrate the content, partially wrapping the sides. The same artwork repeats on the back, and in actual fact back and front design are almost identical, save the rear piece replacing the Trooper names, Hasbro logo and Warning label with the legal and copyright text.
The box opens from a rear flap and extends out and upward to reveal a plain cardboard interior, and with the two figures in Star Wars Black Series branded tissue paper with the accessories in smaller paper baggies. This format of wrapping wont be new to collectors who went through the short-lived move to windowless packaging.
The Deathtrooper is unchanged from its original 2016 release and is built from glossy black armoured parts with connecting dark grey, almost black joints with a ribbed effect to mimic the Trooper’s combat suit beneath the armour. Unlike the new armoured Troopers, these are assembled with both armour and joint on the same part in a number of places, with the matte finish painted over the gloss black.
The Specialist gear, the bit exclusive to that 2016 three pack, is the combined piece featuring a right shoulder Pauldron, combat webbing, belt and ammunition pouches. This is cast in softer black plastic with visible detail on the various clasps and buckles, but with only three studs picked out in silver on the upper pouch on the left shoulder. A similar soft plastic belt concludes the outfit with more pouches and a strap holster of sorts. This also features a solitary paint app with an oval-shaped belt buckle.
The helmet is also gloss black with green painted visor and silver detailing down the central ‘nose’ area and to the filtration tubes, which also carry a hint of green on the inner section.
There are three guns included in the set, with two of them designed for use with the Deathtrooper. The first of these is a small hand blaster, the SE-14, which is a very plain design and little detailing other than the upper scope, barely, trigger and a couple of visible rivets. It is cast in grey and has no other featured paintwork. The blaster fits into the right hand and can be holstered in the loop holster.
There is then a larger E-11D blaster rifle included, which uses the same dull grey plastic and, like the smaller blaster, is very soft on detail despite the complexity of the actual prop itself. You can see and make out the barrel design, with the end picked out in a touch of silver. There is also a red indicator painted just behind the stock on one side. Again, this is right-hand grip only, with sufficient articulation to bring the left hand over to grip the barrel.
The articulation itself is as it was in 2016, with 16 points of articulation. This includes pinned knees on the legs which are quite extensive in their movement including the ability to sit, kneel or run (with help from a stand). As with a lot of older figures using this articulation, the look can be quite bow-legged. The upper articulation includes torso and neck joints, with the torso quite limited in motion leaning forward in particular. The arms feature a single elbow joint and base shoulder articulation. There is enough for some weapon posing, but not to the extent we see on more modern Troopers.
Moving to the Shore Trooper and this again uses the base 2016 figure and also remains faithful to the colour scheme established for Rogue One on Scarif and not the deeper beige seen in Andor. The Shore Trooper uses less armoured parts, and where these exist, they are cast in a beige finish over a black upper suit which incorporates the joints, neck, and hands. There is a similarly beige coloured belt and small skirt piece with a painted brown ammunition pouch that also features gold fastenings. The legs are a dark brown, textured and creased to mirror cloth before tucking into a pair of beige armoured shin guards. Other than the ammunition pouches, paint work is limited. We do get some weathering on the shins to mirror a mud splash effect, and we also have some rank and unit markings with a red upper bicep with three yellow dots, and a white stripe trimmed in black over the left pauldron. Other areas we might expect to be painted, like the straps on the chest armour, are ignored and left in the base colour.
The helmet, a vague merging of several Trooper helmets and inclusive of the Biker Scout front vent, is cast in beige to match the armour. The visor is gloss black, with mat black on the front vent, some side panels and as a thin trim around the visor piece. This visor also carries a red decal.
Our Shoretrooper is provided with a single weapon, a version of the standard E-11 blaster rifle in a similar, but slightly darker, grey to the Deathtrooper weapons pairing. Details here are crisper and more defined, but the weapon still lacks any paint or even a drybrush to add a metallic feel to the piece. It can sit in the right hand and be posed in single or two hand positions.
The Shoretrooper originates from the same time as the Deathtrooper (2016) and has the same profile of articulation across 16 points. The Shoretrooper does, however, include better proportions and the joints are built more naturally into the body, especially around the legs, to give him a better look overall. The same double joint knees can facilitate kneeling positions, but the skirt piece of the armour does create resistance. The arms can get into a number of firing positions with the weapon, with the neck allowing the helmet to move into an associated position, while the torso joint has much more play and ab-crunch than the Deathtrooper.
The set ticks off a number of boxes for collectors, expanding any Rogue One display as intended, but also allowing the two troopers to migrate to fill out other elements in the Star Wars Universe. The Shore Troopers can be employed with the Andor versions with minimal paint variation between the two, while the Deathtroopers can be reallocated to guard a Rebels-era Thrawn, or as a guard unit for Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian.
For the base RRP of £39.99, the saving is visible in moving these to a smaller and simpler packaging and using existing sculpts when some may desire an update to both these Troopers in line with the more recent Imperial Troops, especially when the Deathtrooper has had a modern update of sorts with the Nighttrooper version from Ahsoka Season 1. However, asking for anything new in these sets is not realistic as they are build on their minimal development cost as much as they are for packaging simplicity and they achieve what they set out to do to allow us an avenue to expand our Armies of Imperial figures at a lower price than tracking down the older figures, particularly the Death Trooper Specialist who was relatively scarce until this re-release.
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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...