How many VOTC Stormtroopers are in your army?

[Jesse James]

In my area Obi-Wan backed up too, however that wave shipped REAL heavy too...  That was teh wave that was shipping into September/October around here, so stores were getting deluged with Obi's, AT-RT Pilots, and SA Clones right at the build up to the holidays... 

By the time November was here they were dwindling...  By the time Black Friday was here the Clones were all but gone and Obi-Wan you'd see 2 or 3 but never a ton... 

That was my neck of the woods anyway.  I didn't see clearance of a single basic figure this past year.  Not one.  Not even Neimoidians who were en masse at Target and just up and vanished, much less the RT Pilots and Obi-Wans who were gone before Christmas even came.

Steady sales of tons of figures like that, that's great.

Now you could find, right up till Christmas, the kicking Obi-Wan...  I think people spoke with their wallets what they liked better.

[Clone Commander]

Woooo!
I got my hands on a VOTC Stormtrooper!
It is awesome, I totally enjoy this figure.
Does anybody know if the holster is supposed to actually work?

[Darth_Anton]

The holster works, kind of. You can wiggle the blaster in, it's designed to hold it. However, it's a bad design IMO and not really usefull.

[Clone Commander]

Oh well, still a great design.

[Jesse James]

Yeah Hasbro busted the holster up pretty much.  Ironically, the Veers figure's holster is pretty much what you'd want... P roblem there is that they cheated with it, and it is hollow on the opposite side and the skirt covers it perfectly...  Can't do that on the Stormie.

Hasbro COULD do a better holster on Stormies...  I'm alright with the VOTC one but it's not really a holster like we'd all want.

[Clone Commander]

Well its a perfect stormie other-wise, I dont really see why we have to nit-pick it because really if hasbro did make it bigger it would look like a black card board box hooked onto a belt.

[Jesse James]

I disagree that they couldn't have done the holster better.  It's within their ability to do thin flexible plastic, so thin flexible plastic in a holster shape isn't impossible...  Given the tiny holsters I've seen in other toylines (BBI's Elite Force, etc.), I think Hasbro was just trying to cut back on some effort really more than anything...  or they felt they weren't capable of doing it better, or that this was a compromise for people who'd rather not display it holstered or anything.  I dunno.

The figure's fine though I agree.  I use the holsters on mine...  They're there, and I'm either growing more tolerant in my old age or I just didn't care enough.  It holds a blaster, just not well, so I use it when displaying my Stormtroopers.

In all honesty though, there weren't Stormies seen with holsters throughout the trilogy so I'm ok with VOTC's without holsters if Hasbro were to put the figure back out on the market.   I'd live with that quite nicely.

[Clone Commander]

Really? 
I thought a few stormies had holsters, wierd. 

[Darth_Anton]

Really? 
I thought a few stormies had holsters, wierd. 

They did. Jesse was saying that it wasn't consistant though. Sometimes they had the holster, sometimes they didn't.

[Jesse James]

Yeah...  In ANH they had them throughout for the most part...  It's pretty much an ANH thing.

In Empire I don't recall seeing Stormtroopers with holsters off-hand...  Not regular Stormtroopers anyway.  The ones on Hoth had a holster on the kama's but the ones on Bespin I don't believe had any holsters.

The ROTJ Stormtroopers, for the most part, didn't have holsters...  I think some can be seen sporatically on troop's belts aboard the Death Star when they're in formation for Palpatine or Vader...  NOt many though, and I don't recall any on Endor wearing them, but I'm not positive.

A holsterless Stormie wouldn't bug me for sure...  I just want this figure to be available to buy at reasonable prices and in good quantities.

[Clone Commander]

Well, I got a stormie for 27$  Hefty price but I couldnt be more happy seeing as I havent gotten a stormtrooper since 1995 this one is a great improvement over the buff stormies on steroids.

[Mitsukara]

I totally relate, Clone Commander. I have yet to dish out for a VOTC stormtrooper, myself...

However, by some weird twist of luck our Wal Mart had a few Clonetroopers Evolutions sets- fashionably late, this was last month- on clearance! I have no idea why because I never saw them out anywhere; knowing Wal Mart, they kept them in some stupid place nowhere near the figures and then wondered why they didn't sell good.

But the plus side of this was that I picked up two boxes for $15, and I was pretty happy at that. The Sandtrooper rocks (I apparently got the middle set, with the yellow uniforms and the sprayed-on sand rather than the smeary crud), and sad to admit I never bought a clone before then either!

So my totally amazing army consists of one loose Sandtrooper with the pauldron removed (are the heads supposed to pop off and on that easily on these figures? I did it by hand accidentally the first time, and it stays on pretty well when popped back on), one in abox, and two POTF2 Stormtroopers (one with playwear). Likewise, I have four clones total.

I toyed with the idea of modifying one of the Sandtroopers but that just doesn't seem right. I aim to get at least one VOTC Stormtrooper eventually, and fill the ranks a little more with some more POTFs and maybe commtech ones.

Since that's kinda pathetic, I count my two POTF2 Tie Pilots in with my stormtroopers, so my empire has 6 troops! Yay! And the Grand Army of the Republic is an army of 4.

Then again, the Empire looks a whole lot more impressive when it's got 2 and a half ("quick change!' y'know) Vaders in it, no?

Of course, I don't own a single snowtrooper or scout trooper I need to get a VTSC Scout Trooper in stores if at all possible, as I really love those guys; they're really my favorite kind of stormtrooper, actually.

[Clone Commander]

The heads on the sandtroopers tend to pop off easy Mitsukara.
Well so far I am up to 3 VOTC Stormies!!!
I got 2 the other day.

[Mitsukara]

I'm not 100% sure, but I think the Sandtroopers heads are made to pop off so you can remove their pauldron (you have to pull a little bit but it pops off and back on without any damage as far as I can tell) and thus make them into "stormtroopers," which would make sense considering the box identifies them as such. I've actually tried my loose one both ways for a while, but they're not quite right for stormtroopers since the stuff on their belts is wrong and of course, they're covered in sand (or in the smeared figures' cases, perhaps another word not entirely dissimlar to "sand'...).

[Darth_Anton]

I've done the same thing Mitsukara. In the end, I just kept those with my sandtrooper squad.