Original Review by Chris: 11/3/2014

The Rebel Vanguard Troopers were heavy weapons anti-armor specialists in the Battlefront video game series.  It’s debatable whether or not Battlefront or Knights of the Old Republic is the most popular Star Wars console game.  The Battlefront game is a third person shooter without any significant story mode.  Knights of the Old Republic is a role playing game with an immersive narrative.  So it may seem odd that we’ve received more figures from Battlefront than we have from KotR, until you look at the characters.  KotR features new unique characters whereas Battlefront focuses on the troopers from the Saga meaning most figures are just tweaks of existing movie based figures.  For that reason, the Rebel Vanguard Trooper was a natural candidate for the 30th Anniversary Collection’s repaint wave. 

This figure is the king of repaints as it’s a repaint of a retool.  The basis of this figure is 2006’s The Saga Collection (Endor) Rebel Trooper.  That figure is a retool of 2002’s Star Wars Saga Endor Rebel Trooper adding new legs to the 2002 torso inclusive of the arms.  In 2007, using fiver year old tooling was iffy.  As we look at this figure seven years after its release, that tooling is twelve years old and it absolutely does not stand up.  The problem is those ancient arms.  They feature swivel shoulders with a single upper arm swivel on each arm.  The angle of the arms away from the body and the angle of the elbows are permanently sculpted.  All the “user” can do is rotate the lower arms in and out.  It can just barely hold the included HH-15 Missile Launcher.  Often times the forward hand will pop off the grip as you’re actually relying on the weapon and the figure’s grasp of it to pull the left arm slightly more inward than the articulation allows.  If that grasp loosens at all, the hand pops off the grip.  The included DH-17 Rebel Fleet Trooper Blaster is not accurate to the character as the Vanguard corps used DH-44 “Han Solo” blasters as a sidearm.  The DH-17 does not interact well with the holster at all.  It sits up too high.

As the legs from this figure come from 2006, it was an early adoption of ball jointed knees. As such we see some rather large and clunky joints are used.  They certainly serve their purpose, but they don’t operate as freely or with the range of motion that modern applications of this articulation technology achieve.  In a refreshing surprise for a 2006 based offering, the figure includes ball jointed ankles.  Where this really comes in handy with this character is that it allows the figure to kneel to fire the missile launcher because you can rotate the ankle to help the figure balance.  Even though I earlier griped about the interaction with the HH-15 Missile Launcher, I do have to admit that I am impressed at the degree to which the figure can use this accessory since it wasn’t originally tooled to work with it.  I spent way too much time with a Vanguard Trooper on Endor in Battlefront II hitting a little square on the back of the AT-ST in order to achieve Legendary status with the Demolition medal.  The remote rocket launcher reward is crazy fun.  I won’t say that I was waiting with bated breath for Hasbro to release a Vanguard Trooper, but I don’t mind that it exists.  The arms are the big drawback on the figure, and only warrant a 6 out of 10.

Updated Review by Bret: 1/28/2020

When I first bought this at the time of release, my figure couldn’t dance.  Seriously, he had two left feet.  I mean he literally had two left feet.  A factory error gave my figure this unique gift, and as such, had great difficulty standing properly.  After much frustration, I finally realized the issue, and promptly bought a second one.  Now that guy could dance!  He put the first figure to shame.  That aside, the release is over 12 years old as of this writing, which used re-used parts that were from an even older base figure, and yet it manages to hold up reasonably well today.  It’s not nearly as good as those released in TVC these days, but it does the job well enough that it can still be displayed in your dioramas side-by-side with more modern figures. 

The articulation in the legs is enough that it can allow the figure to perform an important kneeling pose.  The upper body articulation is definitely sub-standard, but the swivels can be engaged in such a way as to convincingly hold the included rocket launcher, which is pretty nifty considering the arms and hands were tooled long before the launcher accessory was included with this repainted figure. 

The removable helmet works well, even though it was designed for a different figure.  However, we are not so lucky with regard to the included blaster.  As Chris pointed out, the blaster is not accurate to the character’s appearance in Battlefront, and also suffers from poor interactivity with the working holster.  But again, the figure can grip this blaster well enough, so it almost makes up for the holster issue.

The Rebel Vanguard Trooper adds some variety to your rag-tag group of Rebel infantry.  You can successfully mix and match the various weapons, vests, coats, backpacks, and helmets on them to give you a bunch of display options.  Again, it’s not the greatest figure ever made, but it works, and I’m glad it exists.