SPECIAL REVIEW:  Platoon Systems Action Figure Stands

Bantha Skull was provided the following Platoon Systems Action Figure Stands samples at no cost for the purpose of review.

See a need. Fill a need.
-Bigweld, Robots

Action figure stands have been a part of 3.75" Star Wars since literally its inception. The Kenner Early Bird Kit came with a cardboard stand with plastic foot pegs. Shortly thereafter, Kenner offered the mail-away Action Display Stand. They knew that even in the vintage era, fans would want to display their figures, and those figures would need help staying upright. Figure stands have been part off the hobby since, but the problem is that while action figure technology has advanced, the stands have largely stayed locked in the 1970's. In the vintage era, the foot holes were always deep and located at the heel. In the intervening years, those peg holes have moved locations all over the foot depending on the sculpt, and the depth has ranged from normal to a few millimeters.

The same old stands stopped working for new figures to the point that I stopped using them in my collection. That's about to change. An exciting new company has decided to solve these problems. They are called Platoon Systems Action Figure Stands and you can access their store by CLICKING HERE. What's even better is that it's being run by one of us. The owner, Anthony, runs the Imperial Communique YouTube channel and socials. Anthony is a prodigious army builder, and you will see that reflected in some of the offerings. He also does incredible stop motion reviews such as the one for VC186 - Boba Fett HERE.

To solve many of the issues with classic stands, all of Platoon Systems' modern offerings come with two different options for peg orientation. The first designates the location of the peg relative to the figure's peg hole location. They are either heel / toes or mid-foot. The former's pegs fall closer to the edge of the stand, and the latter falls dead center, as you'd imagine. These are two-peg stands. The second configuration designates the width between the pegs. "Attention" provides for a narrow stance, and "At Ease" provides a wide stance. Many of the photos below will designate which options are being used because it's important based on the figure, and the desired appearance. There will be a lot of photos following, so this will be a "long" article in terms of the amount of scrolling. I think it's necessary to walk through all of the products, but don't worry "TL;DR" crowd. The words to picture ratio is about to get much better.

For the purpose of this review, I grabbed some of the figures that I've had difficulty fitting to stands in the past. I've also prioritized the 3.75" modern product because that is the focus of this site, but the vintage and 6" product is covered towards the end. Let's jump into it.

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I immediately knew the figure I was going to test these stands against was the VC231 - Stormtrooper release. Due to the shallow peg holes at the heel, marrying that figure to a stand has been problematic. Platoon Systems worked like a dream:


With traditional stands, VC231 hovers above the stand because the peg hole is so shallow. With Platoon Systems, it's virtually flush:


But how securely do the shorter pegs hold the figure? Very:


I love these standard stands. They're sleek and low profile. I will definitely be getting some more.

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As the name suggests these stands connect to one another to form a larger, contiguous base. They connect side-to-side or front-to-back, so the final shape of the configuration is not directionally restricted. To test this product, I grabbed two figures that help demonstrate the peg configurations. VC94 - Imperial Navy Commander has narrow stance and very shallow peg holes right at the extreme tip of the toes. TAC 30-12 - Death Star Trooper has as wide stance with peg holes right at mid-foot. By utilizing the appropriate interlocking stands, they can be displayed side by side:


When looked at in profile, they form a perfectly straight straight formation element despite the different peg hole locations:


Another of my problematic figures has been VC39 - Luke Skywalker (Death Star Escape). Mine tips over constantly, but the shallow peg holes have been difficult to fit to a stand. I actually tried clipping the peg of one of the old Hasbro Toy Shop stands, but that didn't work. I'm so happy this problem is solved, and I can use the interlocking stands to cleanly display it with its VC316 - Princess Leia Organa counterpart:


Finally, showing the omnidirectional option for the interlocking stands:

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Here's another innovation that takes a true fan to imagine. If you're an army builder, chances are you want to display some of your troopers in military formation, but a bunch of individual stands makes is difficult to arrange the figures standing tightly to one another as they would in such formations. Squad plates solve that, and they come in 9 and 10 figure configurations. 10-figures is perfect for a squad of the same soldiers:





9-figure is perfect for a squad helmed by a squad leader:


The squad plates also come with mid-foot pet option:






One huge benefit with squad plates (and the next product we're going to look at) comes if you need to move the figures in your display (who hasn't been there?). Instead of having to move a bunch of individual figures, you can move your squads en masse.

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Can you sense we're keep building up and up? Platoon bases will accept two squad plates, to tie together an even bigger army:




Finally, and to bring it all home, two Platoon Bases can connect for the ultimate army display:

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As mentioned above, Platoon Systems has options for your non-TVC items too. I should have employed stands for my vintage Kenner figures long ago because I bump my Kenner shelf every time I set up for a live stream. Obviously with vintage, you don't need all the peg configurations. They are single peg stands oriented for the heel of the figure:

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And if you collect over-sized figures, Platoon Systems has you covered. I collect Classified Series, and "tippage" has been a problem. What's amazing is that I can't get the Hasbro stands with the "Vintage" Classified figures to work, but Platoon Systems worked with a little elbow grease. I'm employing the "Attention" stands for the female figures, and "At Ease" for the male figures:



And of course, Black Series is my only option for the bunny:

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Bantha Skull turns down more non-Hasbro promotional product and sponsorships than we accept. We don't ever want to look like we're lending our name to products or companies that we don't necessarily support. But I was comfortable accepting these products from a mega TVC fan like Anthony. When a true fan makes a product, they're trying to please themselves first and hope the market will follow. This usually results in a quality product, and that's the case here. I have no problem giving the Bantha Skull seal of approval to Platoon Systems. I set up every single one of those displays on my kitchen table, and then transported them down to my photo studio in my basement. Through all the jostling, not a single figure fell off their stand.

CLICK HERE to visit the Platoon Systems online store

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