Review of Praetorian Guard - Heavy Blade
Star Wars Sixth Scale Action Figure

Introduction

Many Star Wars fans hated The Last Jedi. I am not one of them. While it has its issues, it's still not in my bottom three. And there are highlights that stand out across the entire series, scenes that set themselves apart.

One of those scenes involves the Praetorian Guards. Tyey dress in red like the Emporer's Royal Guard of the original trilogy, but the similarities ends there. These guys kick ass, and the battle between them and Rey/Kylo was epic, and one of my favorite light saber battles in the entire franchise. It's not tops, but it's well above most.

A big reason for that is the cool Guards themselves and the terrific Samurai inspired armor designs. I've already bought way too many Hot Toys troopers, and combined with this terrific design, it was a no brainer to pick up the two releases of these guys.

Yep, there's two releases. I'm looking at the 'heavy blade' version tonight, and I'll get around to checking out his cousin, the 'double blade' soon. They have been shipping for awhile, and will run you around $205 each depending on the retailer.

Packaging - ***
Pretty standard shoe box design, and mine ended up with quite a bit of wear and scratching on the cover. Inside, the plastic tray keeps the figure and accessories safe and sound, and there's various plastic wraps and covers to keep the armor from damaging the underlying suit. It's all collector friendly as well, of course.

Sculpting - ***1/2
This figure comes with two different helmets, with the grid face cover in a different position on each.

The head he comes wearing has the grid raised upward on the side of the face and extended in front slightly. The second head has the sculpted cover set back with the rest of the helm, and lower on the jawline. Both of these helmets draw heavily from the knights of old.

The former helmet is my preference, not just because of appearance but because the face is narrower along the jawline, allowing the head more mobility between the top pieces of shoulder armor.

This hard plastic armor looks fantastic, and the pieces work pretty well together as they drape down either arm. The two piece boots look great and allow for plenty of ankle movement, and this is another excellent example of Hot Toys engineering a complex suit design where sculpt and articulation work together.

While I do love the overall look, I did dock them slightly for the softer details. There aren't a ton of details on the plating, but what's here isn't as sharp and well defined as I expect.

Still it's a really minor nit with an otherwise fantastic looking design. He stands just shy of 12" tall.

Paint - ****
The bright red color is impeccable, and the high gloss finish is clean and consistent. He looks like a cherry muscle car from 1968. This figure has two key features - the armor design and color. Hot Toys did not skimp in either category.

They also managed to keep the red color fairly consistent between the hard plastic armor, soft cloth skirt, and underlying torso covering. Even though they are all three different materials, this consistent color creates a seamless appearance.

If you like the bright, white, clean look of the Hot Toys Stormtroopers, you're going to adore these guys.

Articulation - ***
While they did a great job designing the armor to work with the underlying body, they couldn't get around every restriction.

As I mentioned, the one head works better with the close shoulder armor than the other. Besides, don't you want the funky look with the extended face guard anyway?

The shoulders, elbows, and wrists are wrapped pretty tight in the segmented pieces of arm covering, but you can still get some reasonable weapon wielding poses. Thankfully, the armor is attached to the underlying body suit, so when you pop off a hand it all doesn't just slide right off.

Swapping hands is concerning, however. Taking the hands off wasn't hard, but re-attaching them created a worry. You have only the plastic armor to grip, and as you force the hand on - which does require some effort - you may pull downward on the armor. I was worried about damaging it and pulling it free from the body suit.

The torso can't tilt or lean too much, but you can get a slight turn out of it. It's important to break up straight lines when you're posing your figures, and a slight turn at the waist can do wonders.

The hips, knees, and ankles are less restricted than the upper body. The tight suit is fairly stretchy so you can get medium stances, and the ankles have a ton of rocker movement thanks to the two piece boot design.

Accessories - ***1/2
He's pretty well outfitted, particularly considering the price point.

He has those two helmets I mentioned, which are fairly easy to swap. The second helm was a tighter fit, but I was still able to get it fully snapped in place.

Of course there's an assortment of hands. He comes wearing a specific gripping set, and has a tight grip set, as well as a splayed right and fist left. There's a couple extra wrists pegs just in case.

There's three different weapons as well. These guys are known for their 'whip staff', which is sort of an electrified sword. The blade can be turned into a whip by releasing the sections. To imitate this effect, they supply two whips - one as a stiff sword, and one as a loose whip, each section held together with three short wires.  This allows you to pose the whip in various ways.

There's also his heavy blade, a long, large bladed staff. This comes as two pieces in the box, which attach together tightly. The sculpt and paint work on all three weapons is amazing, and picking just one or two to use is going to be tough.

Of course, he wraps up with a standard display stand with support rod, complete with Star Wars logo.

Outfit - ***1/2
I've already discussed the excellent armor, both from a sculpt and paint aspect. The engineering is excellent, and I love the final look.

The underlying stretchy body suit, red on top and black on the bottom, looks great where you can see it. The red color matches the armor nicely, and the black pants are tight, but slightly padded to add some muscle to the frame.

The flowing skirt looks great too, and the layers are designed to cover the legs in even deeper stances. It does come out of the package a bit wrinkled, but I'm thinking a quick steam from an iron should take care of that.

This is almost a four star costume, but there is that issue with changing the hands. Every time I did it, I was worried about pulling the armor loose from the sleeves, and it reduced my desire to swap things around too much.

Fun Factor - ***
I really like the look of this figure, and thanks to the hands, weapons, and two heads, you have plenty of options for posing and display. However, worrying about damaging things when swapping the hands did reduce some of the 'fun'.

Value - ***1/2
Hot Toys rarely gets a great value score from me.  At best, they come in at an average **1/2 when the provide enough goodies for the higher price.

But this guy is just $205, a surprisingly good price for any Hot Toys figure. And they didn't skimp on him either, giving you a great outfit and a nice variety of accessories. This is $20 or so less than an average Hot Toys figure costs, making army building (or at least picking up two) a much better deal.

Things to Watch Out For -
I've already beat the armored arms thing to death, so I won't mention it again here. But there is one other area that I have not talked about - the tiny wires holding the segments of the extended whip together. I didn't break any of them, bit it does look quite possible, particularly with more extreme poses. Just keep that in mind as you're working with it and you should be fine.

Overall - ***1/2
I buy a lot of different Troopers in this scale. I love the armor designs, and Hot Toys always nails the realism and quality. These two have quickly become favorites, combining many of the design features I love. I had a few minor quibbles that held him back from a perfect score, but I still highly recommend picking up one or two to add to the Trooper shelf.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ***
Sculpting - ***1/2
Paint - ****
Articulation - ***
Accessories - ***1/2
Outfit - ***1/2
Fun Factor - ***
Value - ***1/2
Overall - ***1/2

Where to Buy 
Online options include these site sponsors:

- Sideshow has him (or the other) for $205 as well.

- or you can search ebay for a deal.

Related Links -
There's no shortage of Hot Toys Star Wars figures, including the recent Hoth Princess Leia, Grand Moff Tarkin, and the Executioner Trooper.

You should also hit the Search Reviews page, in case any other applicable reviews were done after this one was published.

Discussion:
Want to chat about this review?  Try out one of these terrific forums where I'll be discussing it!

Enjoyed this review? Be sure to head back to the main page to find thousands more just like it!