BANDAISpirits Bandai Hobby Star Wars 1/12 Death Trooper "Star Wars"

So far I’ve built 2 Stormtroopers and now this Death Trooper from Bandai’s awesome model kits. These aren’t really models, you’re basically building your own action figure. A highly articulated action figure, and because each piece is its own molded piece, the detail is very good. This specific set you have the option of building a regular Death Trooper or you can build the Specialist Death Trooper, which is what I did as I already had regular Death Troopers in my army. And boy is this thing awesome, the build itself was fun like usual, took about 3 hours (with some breaks here and there) and the end result is exactly what I wanted. Luckily this set has far fewer decals (or water slides if you prefer to use those, but you’ll need Micro Set and Micro Sol to really make those work) than the Stormtrooper build. Most of the stickers/decals are for the weapons.The Death Trooper Specialist is different in that he has the shoulder paldron to denote rank, he also has an attached piece to left side of his helmet, C-25 fragmentation grenades attached to his stomach, and ammo pouches. We also finally get the DLT-19D Blaster Rifle, you also get the E-11D and the SE-14r repeating blaster pistol (which holsters rather nicely via just a piece that hangs off the Death Troopers belt on the right). This guy is in scale with the Hasbro Black Series Death Troopers, he’s a bit taller than the Bandai S.H. Figuarts Death Trooper, but when you put them all together you get a nice range of variety that I think adds to the realism of my army. If you love action figures and want to see how they’re made and learn the inner workings of the joint engineering and things, this is an awesome way to go. If you love building LEGO sets, this is like that but turned up to 11. I love these builds, they’re incredibly fun, they’re not very difficult, more just time consuming. I also like how easy these are to customize, if you know you model painting then you have unlimited options for how weathered you want the troopers in your army, but these don’t need any paint so you can skip that entirely. If you’re a Star Wars fan, a fan of army building, in need of a Death Trooper Specialist, or just want to build something, you can’t do much better than this. And at only around $30 this is a solid choice for army building. This set comes FULLY APPROVED.

This model kit is awesome! If you want a star wars figure that is highly detailed with great articulation and is high quality, Bandai is your friend. I have got a couple of the Bandai model kits before and so far I am very impressed. A word of caution, though, with the Bandai Death Trooper kit, the head is slightly hindered in movement because of the pauldron. You don't have to use the pauldron but just so you know, if you do, it affects the figure a little bit. I had no problems putting this figure together (except for the couple of times that I made dumb mistakes but was able to later correct them). I'm very pleased with this model and have already ordered another one.Also a quick tip for those of you who may be inexperienced like I was, don't remove pieces of a model kit figure (such as popping off the head multiple times) because the joints will quickly become loose. So if you want your model to be in best condition, put it together the way you want and DO NOT take pieces apart (such as putting on or removing the pauldron repeatedly). Otherwise, the joints are nice and sturdy. Also, if you are looking to buy this for a younger child, it is a model and slightly more fragile than a normal action figure. A black series figure would be much better if it is going to be played with and not displayed or if it is likely to be thrown into a toybox. This one is much more likely to break if it is used roughly.

Crisp, sharp molds + options for accessories. Nice Death Trooper model from Bandai.From here on out I am nit-picking at an other-wise very good model. If you don't want the picky side of this review - STOP HERE.I found this model to be very good but I also found it to be not as structurally sound as the Bandai Stormtrooper. I am not a newbie when it comes to model making, I followed the instructions to the letter but found that after final assembly, the trooper felt "loose" and a bit on the flimsy side, especially the knee and ankle joints. This is easily remedied by wrapping the male joints with very thin paper material then inserting it into the female part of the joint - or just use glue, but that kind of defeats the purpose of this being a snap on kit. I didn't have to do this to any of my other Bandai model figures.To keep this as movie accurate as possible, Bandai made this trooper skinnier than the standard Storm Trooper so this makes the model top heavy when you add all the optional items like the shoulder pauldron, shoulder magazine pouch and stomach accessory kit. The provided base is recommended to keep him from accidentally falling over since is feet are rather narrow if you want a more dynamic pose.Posability is very good, however he does get top heavy as mentioned above. This is not a model for kids 10 and under and adult supervision is recommended for if one chooses to build this with a youngling - as I did with my 8 year old son.You get a lean mean Death Trooper machine... but at the cost of weaker joint connections and balance issues.

Build time: 4 - 5 hours (not including painting)Number of parts: medium-highDifficulty: mediumGreat model, very detailed and a lot of fun to assemble. Like all Bandai character model kits, the Death Trooper is fully poseable. I think this one comes with the most accessories out of all of those I've put together. There are numerous pouches which can be arranged on the trooper in different configurations, and stay on better than the Sandtrooper's pouches. It comes with four or five blasters, and many different hand configurations, including something that the other trooper models are sorely lacking - multiple wrist positions so that you can set up a larger variety of aiming poses.The Death Trooper looks great even unpainted.