Night Trooper

See, this is the Night Troopers we said should have been turned into a mummy. Loyal to Grand Admiral Thrawn and inhumanly persistent, the Night Troopers were once stormtroopers now animated by sinister majik of the Great Mothers to become a macabre fighting force. In 2009, StarWars.com announced an upcoming book from Del Rey, Star Wars' first official horror novel. The cover, featuring a bloody Stormtrooper helmet hanging from a rusty hook, drew a ton of attention, so much so that Del Rey promoted the book from just a paperback release to a hardcover as well. The story was about a ship full of zombies, and was titled Death Troopers... seven years before Rogue One made "Death Troopers" an actual thing! And now here, in the form of this figure, both those things finally collide into one! Yes, despite what the bio says about Night Troopers, we can look at the helmet this guy is wearing and see that he is indeed a Death Trooper: Death Trooper (or "AWR Trooper," if you prefer Disney's marketing-friendly alternate name for them) helmets come down lower in the front and have a bit of a techy "nose," so it's easy to tell them apart from regular Stormtroopers, regardless of color. Of course, this one would be distinct no matter what, because it's split open over the "mouth" area, revealing the decaying, desiccated skin of the zombie who's wearing it. Neat! While there has been a Black Series Death Trooper before, this figure can't reuse any of its molds, because the "thing" of the Night Troopers is that they've been living on the far side of the galaxy for like a decade on an inhospitable planet, and without access to fresh supplies, they've been forced to repair their armor rather than replace it. So the entire surface is covered in cracks, cracks that have been filled in to various levels of accuracy, leaving him spiderwebbed with inset lines. Additionally, strips of cloth are wrapped around the armor, helping to hold it together. Unlike on the Halloween Edition figure, these are entirely sculpted, but the way they're designed to look like they're stretching over physical armor beneath is really nice. The Night Troopers may have begun as Stormtroopers, but they didn't all stick with perfectly white armor - part of what made them so cool in the show was how many of them had pieces of armor that was in different colors now. Since this one began as a Death Trooper, though, he's mostly black, with a silver buckle in the center of his belt. The cloth tying him up is red, and the cracks in his armor are filled in with gold. The corpse face under the helmet is a dried-out brown, even the teeth. Sadly, the helmet is not removable, so what you see of the zombie head now is what you'll see of it forever. And if viewed from the side, you'll notice the chin comes down far enough that it would be visible even if the helmet were fully intact. The figure moves at the head, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, hips, top and bottom of the thighs, knees, shins, and ankles - nothing missing! Apparently Death Troopers are taller than the average Stormtrooper, because the figure is a sizeable 6½". Having swivels at both ends of the upper legs is unnecessary; you can't make up for all the figures without those joints, Hasbro, by giving this one two of them. The only accessory included is an E-11D blaster carbine, which is like a beefier version of the standard Stormtrooper rifle - think of it like a Star Wars version of a combat shotgun. It's solid black, with no decoration, and although there's a tab on one side, there isn't anywhere that it can plug into on the armor. He'll have to hold it forever. Death Troopers were kind of pouintless in Rogue One, but the comics have added to their mystique in cool ways. I still never felt the need to get any of their figures, but turning one into a Night Trooper is great. Again, I wish this is the mold that had been used for this year's Halloween Edition release, but I'm still happy to have this zombie-mummy trooper. -- 12/27/25 Do you care about Death Troopers at all? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.