Hasbro has heard your demands for new Mandalorian figures, and answered with: well, what if the next Stormtrooper figure came with some light artillery?
io9 has your first look at the latest figure to join the ranks of Hasbro’s Star Wars: The Black Series action figure toy line, the yellow-accented Artillery Stormtrooper from The Mandalorian. Specifically, this Stormtrooper appeared in season two’s Chapter 14, “The Tragedy”, in which Moff Gideon’s remnant forces assaulted Din Djarin, Boba Fett, and Fennec Shand on the planet Tython in order to capture poor little Grogu while he hung out trying to Force-link with any Jedi out there in the big wide galaxy that could train him.
Clocking in at around 15cm tall, the Imperial Artillery Stormtrooper will be exclusive to Amazon when it releases early next year. Clad in a special pauldron and marked with yellow paneling, the Artillery Trooper comes with the standard Stormtrooper blaster rifle like most of their other Black Series comrades, but also includes the small mortar launcher used by the troopers in The Mandalorian, as well as a grenade to load into the contraption. The Trooper’s extra backpack also includes a slot to place the grenade for extra storage as well as three more grenades, but… c’mon. It’s an Artillery Stormtrooper. You want to show them off unleashing their arsenal, right?
Now, if only you had a Boba Fett or Fennec Shand figure to go up against this grenade-toting Stormie, you’d be set — but alas, there isn’t one quite yet. Back in June, the company confirmed that figures for “Nomad Boba” (before he got his armour back from Din), Fennec, Mayfield, and Cobb Vanth from the second season of the show were in the works, but no information about just when they’d arrive was confirmed at the time. Hopefully now that we know the Imperials are getting some heavy duty reinforcements with this figure, your Mando action figure won’t have to wait much longer to have some of his newest friends on the shelf, too.
Pre-orders for the Star Wars: The Black Series Imperial Artillery Stormtrooper (retailing at the highly specific price of $36) will go live exclusively through Amazon later today, October 6, at 4:00am AEDT. It’s due to release sometime in autumn 2022, but given the state of international shipping right now, estimating just when the figure will arrive is about accurate as the Artillery Stormtrooper’s attempts to blow Boba and Fennec up were.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S., but will be updated with local Australian dates as soon as we know more.