How A Snowtrooper Commander Could Lead To Other Imperial Army Builders

We had been pushing for a new Snowtrooper for a while before it was triumphantly released last month. One of our arguments was the amount of reuse Hasbro could get of the tooling, and I outlined them HERE. I erroneously said it would take a "little" tooling to get from a base Snowtrooper grunt to the Snowtrooper Commander. It will take more than a little to do it accurately, as I recently learned (or re-learned) when Mr. Nomadscout sent me THIS ARTICLE and burst my bubble.

In addition to the inverted shoulder armor, different helmet, and torso modification, Hasbro would also have to tool up new lower arms, lower legs, and belt. The Commander doesn't wear the forearm bracers, and instead wears greebly adorned gauntlet gloves. He also wears "moon boots" and has a hip holster:


In a world where this Aldhani Cassian Andor is forced to exist, it's hard to imagine Hasbro doing enough lifting to make a new Snowtrooper Commander that is 100% accurate, even though the now dated 2013 figure nailed it:


But if I could prey upon Hasbro's desire to maximize tooling reuse, there is a case to make that investment. The forearms, shoulder armor and lower legs could then be ported to a new AT-AT Driver, which is a current O96 figure gap:


The majority of that AT-AT Driver tooling could then be pivoted to make a desperately needed new TIE Fighter Pilot, which shamefully doesn't even have ankles in its current iteration. All that would be needed is a new helmet (inclusive of the chest box), lower arms (no greebly), lower legs, and belt:


So by making the necessary tooling investments to transform VC349 - Imperial Snowtrooper (Hoth Battle Gear) into an accurate Snowtrooper Commander, Hasbro could walk the path to two needed Original Trilogy army builders, without any of them requiring 100% new tooling. It's a win for all of us. Plus, as a commenter pointed out (I believe it was Binary_Son), Shasa Tiel also wears moon boots, so there's a third potential tooling reuse.

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