Are There Any Army Builders That Remain Underserved?

There were four army builders that I thought were "no brainers" if Hasbro made definitive versions, and Hasbro has now tackled them all. They are:

• Stormtrooper (OT)
• Snowtrooper (OT)
• 501st Clone Trooper (Phase II)
• Clone Trooper (Phase I)

They have all sold well based on what we can observe, but I don't know if there are any "sure things" left from the army builder ranks. Don't get me wrong. I don't think any true army builders will ever be problematic sellers, but it's a little bit like those NFL elimination pools where you can only pick a team to win once during the season. We've already used the Eagles, Chiefs, Bills, and Commanders (that's right, I jumped them ahead of the Lions) in the first four weeks. Now it gets a little more difficult. We have to decide if the Rams can beat the Tampa in Tampa for a 1 PM ET game, or if the Bengals can beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh. See? Doesn't get so easy now, does it?

The remaining army builder options all come with counterarguments. It's hard to know which ones are home runs, and which ones are doubles. For the purposes of this exercise, I'm gong to use a subjective measuring stick. I'm going cite how many I would buy. You can throw in your two cents in the comments. To set the baseline, here's how many of the other army builders I bought:

Stormtroooper: 50+ (I've lost count)
Snowtrooper: 39 (including the wave case)
501st Clone Trooper (Phase II): 18 (including the wave case)
Clone Trooper (Phase I): 12 and counting (including the wave case)

Now we have to get to the other candidates. For clarification, I'm only considering characters that wear helmets. Troopers with exposed faces don't lend themselves to army building in my opinion. If you buy dozens of them, you end up with an unintentional clone army. It may be somewhat controversial, but you won't find the Endor Rebel below. I also didn't include the Sandtrooper because I think we can assume it's coming from that German con poster.

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The pros are obvious. It's an OT army builder in the classic white and black armor. Those seem to always do well. There are a few things on the downside. It's suffered from a case of Hasbro incrementalism. Rather than investing in all new tooling, which would have been highly justified at several points, Hasbro has been tweaking the flawed 2006 VTSC figure, a practice which I personally find highly frustrating in general. Most decades old tooling should be melted down at this point. The most recent half step was 2023's Speeder Bike pack-in. It adds rocker ankles and a better helmet, but it's miles away fromū definitive. It still has the weird, ancient ball jointed hip implementation, horribly sculpted hands, and lacks hinged wrists, which are critical to interact well with the Speeder Bike. Still, some may utter the dreaded "good enough" when it comes to an upgrade.

The other con is that previous releases have pegwarmed. But guess what else pegwarmed in the past: the Snowtrooper. I scooped up so many of the VTSC Snowtrooper on clearance at Walmart. For that reason, I'm not personally worried.

How many I would buy: 20+

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The 2007 TAC 08-04 Kashyyyk Trooper is laughably undersized. It almost feels like a M.A.S.K. figure. It definitely needs an upgrade, and if you own a Turbo Tank or an AT-AP, you need lots of them. The problem is, how many active collectors own a Turbo Tank or an AT-TP today. The former in particular is prohibitively expensive on the secondary market. Also, the Battle of Kashyyyk borders on a "blink and you’llbvtmiss it" scene. That's hyperbolic of course, but I actually find if frustrating how quickly the action cuts away from that scene.

How many I would buy: 16+

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In a toy friendly move, Lucas placed colorful organizational markings on almost all of the Phase II Clone Troopers (and you can't convince me that it wasn't all of them). This allowed toy makers to repaint the same mold over and over. The flip side is that, unlike the OT army builders, there's no single trooper on which to go "all in". This is perhaps one of the reasons that the 501st Clone Trooper hasn't joined the ranks of the Snowtrooper in the "pre sold out" status on Entertainment Earth (the others being that it's been released in different forms twice recently). It will sell out though, and easily.

The only other standard Phase II Clone unit that goes toe to toe with the 501st in terms of army building potential, is the 212th. To me, the Battle of Utapau is the big action piece for ROTS, and Hasbro hasn't made the 212th on the new mold easily available. It only came via the Phase II Clone Trooper (212th) 4-pack, but that included the unique Waxer figure. It made it difficult to build up the ranks. Hasbro needs to provide an accessible option for the 212th Clone Trooper on the new mold.

How many I would buy: 16+

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I love the Galactic Marine. I think it's been in my March Madness Top 25 every year. The 2007 TAC 30-02 Galactic Marine is woefully outdated by today's standards. But is it a true army builder? I feel like it's more of a squad builder. We never see a large deployment of them on screen. We only glimpse a handful of them on the bridge on Mygeeto as they ambush Ki-Adi-Mundi.

How many I would buy: 10+

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I'm sure I missed some. I purposely didn't include the various Battle Droids. I'm not sure the Super is "army" worthy, and the B1 has an upcoming 4-pack release that will eat up too much of the market to discuss an upgrade at this point. What else is out there? The Geonosian?

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