Sculpt—5/5
If you think this is just a rehashed Clone Wars super articulated clone trooper or an improved Quick-draw clone trooper then you'd be wrong. This guy sports some new sculpting that improves upon both of those figures. The arms appear to be all new with sharper edges and better defined bicep and elbow armor. The shoulder pads are also more rounded at the edges which is accurate to the real thing. The back armor also has some nice improvements to the control box-type thing with very well defined lines and buttons. There's also a slot just above the control box for the antenna accessory to slide into. It's not too noticeable, so leaving the antenna out doesn't totally ruin the look of the armor. The separately molded belt is the last thing to get a complete overhaul. This one looks loads better with, you guessed it, more definition in the edges and lines. The canister at the back of the belt is also slightly larger this time around which also allows for some added details. Several boxes on the belt also have clearly defined buttons that weren't present on older figures. Unfortunately, the belt on my figure is upside-down and there's no easy way to fix it. There are reports of figures with the belt right side up though, so if you can choose, be sure yours has a belt the right way up. One last improvement is peg-holes in the feet. Unfortunately, they're not full peg-holes which is puzzling since the AT-TE Tank Gunner has full peg-holes and his feet are smaller than this clone's!

The helmet looks pretty much just like the one on clone #6, the only difference is that this helmet sits much higher on the neck joint. Unfortunately, this makes the neck look a bit too long for my tastes, and it makes it very easy to see the ball-joint underneath. My other gripe is that I wish they could have tweaked the thigh armor so it would be easier to bend this guy's legs at the hips. As it is, it's pretty easy to mar the edge of the right thigh armor if you attempt a sitting or kneeling pose.

Articulation--4.5/5
Clone trooper #41 sports 14 points of articulation: ball-jointed neck, ball-jointed shoulders, ball-jointed elbows, wrists, ball-jointed waist, standard hips, ball-jointed knees, and ball-jointed ankles. This is pretty much the same articulation as the original super articulated clone trooper, which by all means is not a bad thing. The difference is that now, thanks to the AT-TE Tank Gunner, we know that ball-jointed hips are possible on a clone trooper figure. Not only would it have made this figure even more posable, it would have also fixed the problem of the hip armor restricting the hip articulation. Ball-jointed hips are what would make this figure truly super articulated, so it's a bit disappointing that Hasbro did not try to improve upon the original SA clone trooper.

Features--NA/5
For some reason this is a collection 1 figure which usually means it has some kind of action feature. I guess if Hasbro thinks super articulation is an action feature, that can only be good!

Accessories--3/5
You get the basic clone trooper blaster rifle and a removable antenna thing. The antenna is an okay piece, but antenna is way out of scale. I would have rather gotten a normal clone without the antenna, but on the other hand, a little variation in our troops is nice. Plus, it is removable so I guess I shouldn't be complaining. The blaster rifle is slightly different from any of the ones we've gotten so far. This one has the improved detail of the Clone Pilot's blaster, but it's slightly smaller and the details aren't as sharp. I'm a bit disappointed in the accessories area for this figure. I don't think the articulation justifies including less accessories, since clone #6 has practically the same amount of articulation but comes with both long and short blaster rifles and two shoulder pads. They could have at least thrown in the long blaster rifle in with this figure and I would've been happy.

Paint--4.5/5
I'm very pleased that they decided to go in a slightly different direction and add battle damage to this figure. I'm also very glad that it's not just some airbrushed spots here and there. No, this battle damage is a bit more realistic and resembles dirt scrapes. The scrapes are well defined and I think they do a good job of adding a realistic tone to the figure. Everything else on this figure looks good; things that should be black are black, though I wish they could have painted the neck joint black as it would have helped hide it better. A nice touch is the gloss black paint for the helmet visor.

Packaging--4/5
I'm really digging the ROTS packaging. I love the color palettes that Lucasfilm's marketing department chose, and I think that the orange Star Wars logo is a nice change of pace from the silver and gold iterations of the past. The shape of the cards also takes a dramatic step away from the rectangular cards we've gotten in the past. A large Vader helmet looms at the top of the card, looking down at the raging lava below. In the dome of Vader's helmet you can see an image of Obi-Wan and Anakin dueling it out and crossing lightsabers. The bubble covers most of the card and goes right up to the bottom edges of the card. The sides of the bubble are taped to the back of the card which makes it slightly hard to get the figure out of the package in a hurry, but MOC'ers will have nothing to worry about. After opening a couple of figures, I was beginning to miss the old packages that I could just tear into without having to worry about sticky tape. There's also a nice layered effect with the use of two cardboard inserts within the bubble featuring the Star Wars logo and a photo of the character. The cardbacks are likewise well designed with perhaps the best cardback layout design I've seen in years. There a nice photo of the character from the movie, a short description of the character, a photo of the actual toy, and nice cross-sell imagery to get you excited for the other toys in the line. Considering how much less space there is on these cards makes the design all the more successful.

Overall--4.5/5
This is of course, a must buy figure if you like clones in any way. It has the best sculpting for a clone trooper and great articulation. I am disappointed that Hasbro did not try to raise the bar with this figure and included ball-jointed hips, but it is still a great figure that is very useful for building up your clone army and is a great base figure for creating custom clones.

--Photos and review by Garett Yoshimura
garett@carrotnetwork.com