Bandai 1/12 Death Trooper

Death troopers were an elite variant of the Galactic Empire's stormtroopers. They served as protective details and bodyguards for important Imperial officers and members of the Tarkin Initiative. They wore black suits of armor and specialized helmets that scrambled verbal communications. Death troopers were trained in unarmed combat, heavy weapons, and sniping. Specializing in commando missions, the troopers were experts at covering their tracks, leaving little evidence of their missions.

A squad of death troopers served under Director Orson Krennic's command, wielded as his personal protection since at least 13 BBY, and were present for the Battle of Scarif at the beginning of the Galactic Civil War. Another squad of death troopers was a part of Grand Admiral Thrawn's forces during his campaign against the early Rebel Alliance and participated in the Battle of Atollon.

Death troopers were known to wield SE-14r light repeating blasters, E-11Ds, sensor equipped long-range blaster rifles similar to the DLT-19 heavy blaster rifle, and C-25 fragmentation grenades.

Death troopers were named after a legendary Advanced Weapons Research project to revive necrotic tissue, which resulted in the creation of uncontrollable Undead Troopers.

Death troopers were elite stormtroopers in the Galactic Empire's military. Stormtrooper candidates who excelled at their training were reassigned to the advanced death trooper camp on Scarif. They were required to exceed traditional stormtrooper standards, including height and weight, and had to meet certain ideological standards. The candidates were also subjected to a battery of physical tests and classified surgical enhancements, making them "beyond human". Additionally, death troopers had to complete more rigorous training than standard stormtroopers, including training in exotic environments. They were mostly assigned to small groups, with each trooper specializing in a specific skill set.

Reviewer's note: The director of Rogue One considered the Death Troopers to be the SEALs of the Imperial Empire. /Spoiler Alert/ Which means that they can actually hit what they aim at unlike most Stormtroopers.

From Wookiepedia. 

This Bandai Kit comes with six sprues of black plastic. The breakdown of the sprues are as follows:

A1: Flat black sprue with the parts for the joints and any flat black parts

A2: Multi color sprue with flat black body/accessory parts, clear green lenses for the eyes and metallic grey equipment parts.

B: Gloss black sprue with all the main body parts

C: Weapons and accessories sprue in a dark metallic grey

SWB3: Bandai's standard figure base

PCP: Bandai's standard figure polycap pieces

Aside from always present mold markings that need some clean up, there is absolutely no flash. The details are up to Bandai's high standards and in line from the scenes from Rogue One so no quibbles about accuracy. The kit comes with two different options and the parts for each. One option is for the standard Death Trooper and the other for the specialist Death Trooper. The main difference is in the specialist helmet which has an extra sensor array (?) and the specialist chest piece which adds more equipment. As per usual, the kit comes with decals and stickers for those who view this as a model kit or an action figure to satisfy both the modeller and the casual fan.

The instruction booklet is typical Bandai as it shows all the detail and where to place the parts but entirely in Japanese. No knowledge of Kanji required as the pictograms provide all the information you need to assemble it. For those who want to paint it... the Death Trooper just requires black (mostly gloss black) and some gunmetal or metallic grey.

I followed the instructions and built all the various body parts as sub assemblies . I like the design of the helmet because all the seams were hidden and reduced the amount of work (no sanding or filling.) I opted to build this particular Death Trooper as a specialist and left off the standard Death Trooper parts.

One thing I did not do was sand/fill the elbow, hip and knee joints because I was lazy, can't see them and lazy. The elbow and knees contained some ribbed detail that I did not want to redo so I left it as is.

The Death Trooper went together extremely quickly and without much fuss. My only regret was sanding down the ankle joints too much and making the feet too loose giving my Death Trooper wonky ankles.

Meanwhile, the weapons required a bit more work. The DLT-19 blaster rifle and SE-14r both required the only seam filling and sanding in the entire kit. I glued the pieces together with Tamiya extra thin glue, let it sit for a couple of weeks to let the glue cure to eliminate phantom seams and then used CA glue to fill the seams. It wasn't easy due to having to sand around the details. If I had some troubles I glued on thin plastic strips over the seam thus dealing with it. I used various small grit sanding pads (1800-3200) to remove most of the scratches and smoothed out the seams.

The only thing I painted with an airbrush were the weapons as I only needed to add a single tiny decal to the already gloss and flat black figure. I sprayed Model Master Acrylic Gunmetal paint on all the weapons then masked off the metal areas and sprayed the handgrips and stocks gloss black (not that you can really see the difference in the photos.)

The SE-14r blaster rifle nozzle I hand painted Vallejo dark aluminum and then weathered a little based on the freeze frame shots from the movie. I also slightly weathered the gunmetal finish. Various small details figure details were hand painted.

I added one or two small decals to the weapons and body. The remainder of the markings (for the weapons) I actually painted.

I opted not to weather the Death Trooper and left him/her as ready for inspection.

The hands and weapons were added to the figure and placed in a suitable action pose on the supplied stand.

The Death Trooper is another very easy to assemble kit that looks good regardless of how much effort you want to put into it. The detail that Bandai puts into each of their figure kits is state of the art and shows you how much effort/thought they put into designing them. To show how much detail Bandai put into the Death Trooper, it is actually slightly taller than the various Stormtroopers in line with the description of the Death Trooper being a taller deadlier Imperial Stormtrooper. I can recommend these kits for Star Wars fans and modelers of all skill levels.

I learned recently that Dizney has allowed Bandai's vehicle model kits to come to North America which is why you suddenly see them readily available at North American Hobby stores. However, I am told that the ban still applies to Bandai's 1/12 figure kits so you will still need to find a model kit smuggler who can do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs or failing that a Japanese/Asian online retailer who will happily sell you one.

Dan Lee

18 May 2017