Target certainly took its sweet time with this one.  It was supposed to be released as part of a trio of figures, including VC230 Koska Reeves and VC229 Migs Mayfeld.  Those two were already delayed, and finally arrived in stores together a few weeks ago.  Axe Woves took a bit longer, but can now be found in the wild.  Together with Koska and VC226 Bo-Katan Kryze, we can now complete the crew!  This is a statement that has been pretty rare for TVC collectors to exclaim, but here we are. 

According to Wookieepedia, Axe Woves is not a member of the Nite Owls, a particularly elite group within the Mandalorian Resistance.  However, he joins Nite Owls Bo-Katan and Koska Reeves on the moon of Trask, where they find (rescue) Din Djarin and Grogu searching for them in turn.  The group rescues Din from a bunch of Quarren jerks twice, and then they join forces to board and seize Imperial Gozanti-class cruiser.  Bo-Katan’s group seeks the weapons on board and information on how to find Moff Gideon and the Darksaber, while Din wants information on where to find a Jedi with whom to safely leave Grogu. Axe proves more than capable during all the fighting.

The figure body is a straight repaint of VC219 Death Watch Mandalorian.. The articulation is superb, and it’s a pleasure to pose the figure.  Besides the coloring, the other major difference is that Axe has a removable helmet which reveals his unique headsculpt.  As has been the case recently, Hasbro nailed the likeness to the actor.  Unfortunately, rather than include a separate, swappable helmeted head, we got the removable helmet.  As might be expected, the helmet is a bit oddly shaped, and doesn’t look nearly as good as the one that came with the Death Watch Mando.  I’m not sure why Hasbro went this route.  Perhaps they saved a few pennies with the hollow helmet rather than the full swappable helmet, but they already had a perfect on to use that came with VC219.  Oh well.

For accessories, Axe comes with the standard Mandalorian blaster, which he can grip nicely, and also fits snugly in the holster.  There’s also a removable jet pack.  As you might have notices from the photos, the sample I used for this gallery has one slightly misshapen exhaust cone on the bottom right of the jet pack.  I haven’t yet received my other Axe figures in the mail, but I assume this was just a factory glitch.

We gave the Death Watch Mandalorian a 10/10, and deservedly so.  While this figure is also great, the one failing is the removable helmet, which really looks awkward, especially when directly compared to the Death Watch base figure.  The fact that this has an awesome headsculpt should give it an advantage over its predecessor, but the misshapen helmet is a real detractor.  Still, it earns an outstanding 9/10.  The best part is being able to complete this crew.  We really need a Titus Welliver (unnamed freighter captain) figure, complete with swappable “suicide shocker” headsculpt.  Sadly, this isn’t 2009, so this will never happen.