Senate Guard/Imperial Royal Guard/Emperor’s Shadow Guard (Legends)/Elite Praetorian Guard (With Double Blade) - TBS [P3] - Six Inch Figures (Exclusive)

Senate Guard: For centuries, the Senate Guards kept the galaxy's legislators from harm while they went about the Republic's business on the capital world of Coruscant. With the decline of the Republic, the blue guards were eventually phased out by Imperial stormtrooper patrols and the red guard in the Emperor's service.

Imperial Royal Guard: Resplendent in crimson robes and armor, the Imperial Royal Guard protected the Emperor. Secrecy shrouded the Guard, with rumors abounding about the sentinels' backgrounds and combat abilities.

Emperor's Shadow Guard (Legends): Each one of these elite guards is specifically chosen by Palpatine for his exceptional loyalty to the Emperor and the Empire, and for his ability to use the Force. Each Shadow Guard carries a pike that can be ignited to use as a lightsaber-like blade.

Elite Praetorian Guard (With Double Blade): As the Supreme Leader of the First Order, Snoke was flanked by crimson-clad guardians, loyal protectors encased in ornate armor ready to defend the Supreme Leader from any threat.

No matter how hard Hasbro tries, they seem to create some envy between the two different collector classes: 3.75” collectors and 6” collectors. When you see something as awesome as the GameStop/Barnes & Noble exclusive Senate Guard/Imperial Royal Guard/Emperor's Shadow Guard (Legends)/Elite Praetorian Guard (With Double Blade) four-pack, how can any 3.75” collector not desperately wish he had it in his size too? Sure, all of these characters are available in one way or another in the 3.75” range but most of the sculpts are obsolete. We want to see Hasbro take the digital scans of these 6” figures and shrink them down to 3.75” scale so that we can have definitive versions of all of these guards. (This is a great The Vintage Collection exclusive ides for you, Hasbro!) Now that you know where we stand with the Senate Guard/Imperial Royal Guard/Emperor's Shadow Guard (Legends)/Elite Praetorian Guard (With Double Blade) four-pack, let’s actually talk about the four-pack. Jedi Temple Archives broke the news this set was coming in January 2017. And while rumors after ours stated that it would be a four-pack of Elite Praetorian Guards, we think it’s pretty awesome our original rumor report held true. Hasbro HAD to amortize the brilliant 2017 TBS [P3] Imperial Royal Guard (38) figure and they did so rather quickly by cobbling together this brilliant exclusive. It may not be 100% accurate or perfect, but we don’t think too many collectors are going to care about the slight differences that exist on these individual characters that Hasbro didn’t execute exactly on some of the guards included within this set.

Given the nickname "Guardians Of Evil", this name appears nowhere on the packaging. Hasbro should have given it that name for simplicity's sake. Aside from not being too happy with Hasbro now calling the Emperor’s Royal Guard an Imperial Royal Guard instead, it is a rather flawless figure. There are no removable helmets, there is a fully armored body underneath the flowing crimson robes. And the weapon accessories perfectly accent the figure. Although a straight repack, we’re pretty sure that no collector is going to get his panties in a bunch over getting another Imperial Royal Guard in this set. It’s just a win for this set. All of these characters are army-builders. Save for the Elite Praetorian Guard (and they could have even done a multipack with all four unique characters), all of these characters could have been put together as solid four-packs and collectors would have bought them all. For us, we’re thrilled to get the Revenge Of The Sith version of the Senate Guard. We knew Hasbro would attempt this version first as the Episode I and Episode II versions reveal a human face behind the helmet. This was the safe way to go. Besides, we love the anonymity of a fully enclosed helmet. If you recall, this version of the Senate Guard actually made his first appearance in the Tartakovsky Clone Wars micro-series, so it’s fair to say we have another Tartakovsky 6” figure now. (The Phase II Clone Trooper was the first…. technically.) The Senate Guard’s robes aren’t completely accurate to the film, but it is so close that we don’t think too many people are going to pick up on it. But the new helmet and strapped blaster rifle are just beautifully sculpted and painted. Fans of this line are going to see this figure as a highlight of this set. It’s easily our most favorite figure in this exclusive set.

We’re also extremely partial to the Emperor’s Shadow Guard. As huge fans of The Force Unleashed video game multimedia event, we’re so happy that Hasbro still sees these engaging characters as valuable augmentations to the 6” scaled line. Basically a “reverse” or “negative” to the Emperor’s Royal Guard, the Emperor’s Shadow Guard is black where the Imperial Shadow Guard is red and vice versa. The Emperor’s Shadow Guard is simply a reversal of the Imperial Royal Guard in paint operations. They are identical otherwise. We’re not sure of what happened to the visor of this figure, however. In The Force Unleashed it is red. We do see a very slight change in color on the visor of our figure, but it isn’t nearly as vibrant as it should be. At just a glance you wouldn’t even realize that Hasbro made an effort to paint this figure’s visor at all. We wish it appeared “more red” just from an accuracy standpoint. The Emperor’s Shadow Guard has an all-new lightsaber accessory. You know well by now that we’re very disappointed in the thinness of the lightsaber blades in the 6” line. The Emperor’s Shadow Guard is no different. We also feel that Hasbro got the color of the blade wrong. All previous versions (of ESG collectibles across different lines) appear to come with a neon red lightsaber blade. The one in this set is just red. This isn’t a huge deal, but we’re sticklers for important details like this. We think Hasbro missed an opportunity to get this detail correct. All three figures that share the tolling of 2017 TBS [P3] Imperial Royal Guard (38) figure have joints that are much tighter than the regular figure (which thrills us). All of them are able to sustain the poses you put them in and look fantastic doing so.

The final figure in the set is the Elite Praetorian Guard (With Double Blade). Based on 2017’s TBS [P3] Elite Praetorian Guard (50) figure, Hasbro has given this figure an all-new head sculpt and a new soft-goods skirt (which required the lower skirt to be retooled to allow for this accommodation. Soft-goods have always been a controversial topic for Star Wars action figures, but we always prefer them as they don’t inhibit movement like molded lower skirts do. The Elite Praetorian Guard (With Double Blade) is able to move much more freely than the mainstream release and sustain aggressive poses that many other figures in the 6” line cannot. The new head sculpt looks a tad dopey to us, but because all four of these guards in Episode VIII are unique, they needed to be given differences to show this. Like all 6” figures, the Elite Praetorian Guard (With Double Blade) is really able to move and make full use of its wonderful 28 points of articulation. His accessory breaks down into two pieces but on our sample the weapon has a difficult time staying together. The plug doesn’t connect tightly enough to the hold on the other half. His shoulder armor is also removable just like the basic figure as well. If you recall, the Elite Praetorian Guard (With Double Blade) is a 6” version of the one from 2017’s SW [TLJ] Rey (Jedi Training)/Elite Praetorian Guard Two-Packs set. We’re slowly but surely getting all of these Snoke protectors! We’re totally digging the Senate Guard/Imperial Royal Guard/Emperor's Shadow Guard (Legends)/Elite Praetorian Guard (With Double Blade) four-pack. We really hope that Hasbro keeps up with these great retailer exclusives…. and also makes them for 3.75”super-articulated fans as well.