She-Ra, you are just asking for a laser-zap!
Just when you think Mattel is completely done with He-Man and She-Ra toys right now, they go ahead and produce something that will make everyone happy, a single packaged Horde Trooper figure. With the now debunked Mattycollector, Mattel is offering this inventory on Mattel Shop and the official Mattel eBay store. This Horde Trooper is a Mattel Shop exclusive figure and is likely the last offering by Mattel. As you know, Super 7 has taken over the production and workload to produce more Masters of the Universe Classics action figures and collectibles for Mattel, which will not only make the Classics figures, but they will also be offering ReAction and vintage-style figures as announced during New York Comic-Con 2016. Mattel is completely hands off He-Man and She-Ra at the moment, and the fact that they made this Horde Trooper figure during this time is truly a happy surprise and is also a gift to all of those that supported Mattycollector over the years.
The Horde Trooper is the most requested characters to army build in Masters of the Universe, and Mattel has offered this character into the line twice now to try and satisfy collectors. The first time was a two pack in 2013, which sold out way too quickly and left many with only a few Horde Troopers or none at all. For such an important army building character, it’s taken Mattel four years to offering it again. This is ok with us, as we’re been busy collecting everything else that Mattel has been producing in this line since 2009. We are also hoping for some other surprises such as an articulated Cringer, that Mattel promised but never delivered to fans. That is up to Super 7 at this point, and since they are offering a new Filmation Hordak with an Imp Chest, anything is possible right now.
Thank you to Mattel for providing their Masters Of The Universe Classics Horde Trooper Single Packaged Figure for review. We greatly appreciate it, and hope to see movie product for the new He-Man film coming in 2019.
Availability: May 2017 (Backordered until June 15th on Mattel Shop)
Before reading on, you should know that there is some paint differences between the 2-pack that was released in 2013, and this new release. You can find comparison images below and a detailed description.
The packaging will be familiar to fans as this was used last year for single carded figures, with the exception of the bios no longer being included on the back underneath the figure images. The mailer box also uses the brown cardboard, as opposed to that shiny white mailer box that Mattel had changed to keep costs down. No other changes were made, and we expect this to be the last figure ever produced on this cardback and bubble plastic. 4The missing bio for the Horde Trooper is unfortunate, but we went back and found his bio from our 2013 review of the Horde Trooper 2-pack, so you can read that below:
Bio:
In his factories on Etheria and later Eternia®, Hordak® mass produces countless robotic enforcers. Each is dressed in armor similar to the foot soldiers of his home planet Horde World. Linked to a central computer brain, Horde Troopers™ can be programmed to follow any evil command they are given. With the robotic strength to overpower all enemies of his empire, Hordak’s troopers are more than a match for most enemies. On command from their master, the vicious troopers attack heroic warriors until He-Man® lands a powerful punch – causing them to fall apart!
The Horde Trooper is still fantastic figure, and this new release comes with some new release has some dirt painted around the collar, as well as the upper back, which is different that the “clean” and “battle damaged” versions released in the two pack back in 2013. What is also available for the first-time with this release is a sticker sheet with slash marks, battle damage blast marks, and various other stickers to give him a wear-and-tear look. As he’s a robot that acts like he’s alive, the stickers are a great accessory choice as fans can decide how they want to display the figure. For our own purposes, we choose to leave the stickers off, and to display him the way he came packaged. Depending on what you prefer, there are some great choices for stickers, which can be added on the helmet, torso, back, arms and legs, just as long as there is a flat surface on the figure. This makes some great army builder potential right here, and even if you purchase dozens of new Horde Troopers, there are almost endless ways to display him with the accessories and new sticker options.
The Horde Trooper will be most remembered to fans of the She-Ra animated series, and he made his first action figure debut in the He-man line in 1986. Even back then, the Horde Trooper was a great army builder as you had some of the core members of the Horde, plus all of their vehicles, and even the Horde Slim Pit and The Fright Zone, two playsets that we hope to see Super 7 produce produce in Classics, but first they need to get Snake Mountain out of the way. This of course has not been officially announced, but Brian Flynn of Super 7 did state he was interested in getting to playsets such as Snake Mountain, which would likely be launched through Kickstarter.
The Horde Trooper has the same shade of red, grey, yellow and gold as the 2-pack came with, and from what we can tell only the dirty looking deco is the only difference. The accessories are also painted the same, and he includes a electrostaff, dragon stick, Horde crossbow, a Horde shield, as well as the sticker sheet.
If you recall, the armor is removable, and underneath the chest is all black deco with some red wires just under the dome shade head with a finn on top. The sculpt has all the same details as the previous release, including all the details to the chest armor with the red Horde logo, arms, legs, and the silver deco wiring and devices on the buttocks.
Overall, we love army building the Horde Trooper, and are grateful to Mattel to offer the character once again even when they are no longer producing new figures themselves. The figure is great, and eventually we would love to see that black and red Horde Trooper we saw customizers make years ago.
If you wish to purchase him, Mattel Shop are accepting backorders for $25.00 each until June 15th, 2017, as well as backorders on many other products. So act quickly as there are no guarantees these will be restocked.
Purchase:
