I’m going to be honest.  This character is one of the things that makes me worry a little bit about The Last Jedi.  The concept of a barbaric executioner being needed in an advanced space traveling civilization doesn’t quite wash.  Furthermore, it makes me worry that this will be a writer’s convenience so that one of the heroes can be placed in an elaborate and easily escapable death sequence, a la James Bond, just for the manufactured tension.  There had better be a good reason for the spectacle of a public execution complete with an executioner in his finest military dress.  It had better be a character that the First Order wants to make an example of.  There is only one character who would warrant such treatment, and that is, of course, the traitor, Finn (they should make his last name Rau to really confuse Nomadscout).  So for as careful as Disney has been about the toys spoiling the plot to this point, your good pals at Bantha Skull might have cracked a key nut. 

Below the neck, the figure itself appears to be identical to the regular Black Series First Order Stormtrooper that was released in 2015 to coincide with The Force Awakens.  The head is all new and appears to be markedly better than the first release.  The squattiness of the previous helmet is gone and a more movie realistic one is delivered. While this is a big step forward, the Stormtrooper Executioner takes a step backward in terms of accessories.  As this is the same mold, the plug in thigh holster is present, but the figure is packed with neither the blaster rifle nor blaster pistol that it is meant to accommodate.  The Hot Toys Executioner Trooper comes with one.  I can’t imagine that including the pistol would have affected the bottom line enough to even notice.  We have to be talking fractions of a penny per unit.  So this feels like an omission at some level and not a conscious exclusion. It’s disappointing.

The articulation is what you’d expect for a modern super articulated trooper.  Again the “rocker” ankles are lacking, but everything else is a premium point of articulation.  The ball jointed wrists, which are included in the predecessor, are a Godsend for the Executioner so that he can naturally interact with this unnecessarily complicated energy ax LFL decided to arm the character with.  The enthusiasm from that bit of flawlessly working articulation is mitigated by the pouches on the belt which prevent ball jointed hips from moving completely freely.  This figure giveth and this figure taketh away.  Wherever the deco is common with the previous First Order Stormtrooper, is is much cleaner and bolder on this release.  Also a lot of the small indents in the armor have been adorned with black accents.  This is reminiscent of the “ab dots” on the OT Stormtrooper which may or may not be painted black with each release.  Obviously there is new deco on this figure as well with the black shoulder pauldrons which feature the First Order symbol, and the thick black “over the top racing stripe” on the helmet. 

This is the first figure from this final wave of Walmart exclusive Black Series 3.75” line that has failed to wow me (at the time of this writing, Jedi Master Luke and the Elite Praetorian Guard have been reviewed).  This is probably due to the fact that most of the figure is a few years old.  The difficulty engaging the hip articulation as well as the lack of a secondary accessory cause me to give this a lower, but still very respectable, 8 out of 10.