It is…irksome…that Hasbro had continued to pump out so many clones in TVC 2.0 right up until VC269 debuted.  There are plenty of collectors that are good and tired of clone figures in general, and now we’re all going to have to get ready for another onslaught of variations in order to squeeze the most out of the tooling.  VC269 is barely shipping, and we’ve already got our first troop builder set.  If you’re a regular at Banthaskull, you probably are aware that I have a focused sub-collection for all things 501st.  I held back on purchasing quantities of the VC240 501st Clone Trooper because the new sculpt was on the horizon.  It’s probably a good bet that Hasbro will figure out a way to pump some of those out soon enough.

I didn’t realize how many variants/“upgrades” there were to the basic 212th Clone Trooper throughout the line’s history until I put together the lineup shown in photo #22 in the gallery above.  Interestingly, a 212th Clone was not featured in the entirety of the 2005 ROTS line.  The first one debuted in The Saga Collection in 2006.  Since then, there have been 6 additional repaints/resculpts of the standard 212th.  In addition to the 7 pictured above, there is also an Airborne Trooper, an AT-RT driver, and of course, Commander Cody.  There’s a shot of the complete crew (at the time), when we reviewed TSC026.  For the grunts, we got a pretty terrible TVC 1.0 release, which we gave a 1/10 rating.  we even got the now dreaded VC45 Skinny Clone version, which was released in the weird and ill-fated Legacy Collection Droid Factory line. 

But now with the newly sculpted buck, Hasbro quickly pumped out a 4-pack of 212th Clone Troopers.  We already covered the basics in our VC269 review.  In a nutshell, the figure is excellent, but has a few small warts that stops it from being a 10.  Most controversial, is the helmet, which caused some collectors to feel the figure looked like it is based on animation, which I consider a cardinal sin at this point.  Personally, I didn’t see it that way, but I did feel nonetheless it wasn’t perfectly executed.  Also, the body shape and proportions are a bit odd, but this is probably because the figure is really based on the “real actor in a costume” appearance from Andor, instead of the unnaturally skinny CGI version.  Otherwise, the figure is outstanding. 

As this set takes that base figure and paints it up to be the 212th, I’ll focus on the paint and other specifics to this set.  First of all, one of the figures is meant to be Waxer, who had several appearances in The Clone Wars, and I believe he wore 3 different sets of armor during the show.  Most prominently, he wore Phase I armor during the episode where he grew attached to the young Twi-Lek, Numa.  Later, Waxer dons ARF Trooper armor, during a mission on Geonosis where he rescues Obi-Wan Kenobi.  And finally, we get a great look at Waxer’s Phase II armor during an early briefing scene prior to the Battle of Umbara.  In Numa’s honor, he had her likeness painted on his helmet.  The figure does this faithfully, and also includes Clanker kill marks on his helmet and shoulder pad, along with some of the unique orange patterns that differed from basic grunts in the 212th.  Underneath the helmet, we see a bald clone, with a goatee, which seems accurate to the character. 

The other three clones are identical to each other.  There is no variation in the hairstyles of these clones, and the paint applications are all the same.  Interesting they went this route, as the recently released Phase I Clone Trooper set had 4 different head sculpts.  Included in the set are 4 blasters and 2 rifles.  One thing to note is that these figures are missing the black boot sole outline, which is present on the VC269 figure.

One complaint that many of you will have is the decision by Hasbro to paint the markings on the grunt helmets to be more like the animated version of the 212th than the one seen in ROTS.  I’m 100% opposed to anything resembling animated styling, but this is subtle enough for me to be able to be able to ignore, but I’m sure this will annoy a lot of other collectors. 

Another issue is that it seems the earliest factory samples, which made their way to Europe, lacked the black brow band on the helmet - another aspect that is similar to the animated source.  However, my sample, and many others in the U.S., have the “correct” black brown line painted on.

And then there’s the helmet.  A strange thing happening here.  Perhaps you can tell from the images, but in my sample, Waxer has a significantly smaller helmet.  It makes the figure almost look like it used different tooling. The 3 grunts in my set have the same helmet as VC269.  I’ve read online that some collectors had Waxer with the larger helmet, and the 3 clones with smaller helmets.  And there’s Chris (who you might know from Banthaskull.com) who told me he had a set with Waxer and one grunt small helmet) and 2 grunts (larger helmet).  So clearly your mileage may vary with both the brow line and helmet size.  It’s all pretty strange.

So the last complaint that I see floating around the interwebs is that a lot of folks didn’t like that there is a named trooper included in an Army Builder set.  I’m not hating this, but I will say it gave me pause to buy multiple sets.  Well, that and the $72 price tag to get it shipped from Pulse.  The only time we see Waxer in this armor is during the awesome Umbara ARC, and if Hasbro felt it was important to include Waxer, then as a 501st nut, I hope they release a set with a bunch of named 501st characters that featured all over the series, but specifically during Umbara.  I’d be all over that in a heartbeat.

I’ll give the set the same score as VC269:  9/10.  The wonky helmets are a bit of a downer.  Aside from price (which I usually disregard for scoring) and the inclusion of the named character in the set, it’s quite good, and this 212th is a nice upgrade over previous versions.