VC15 huh? Isn’t that a reissue of an older ROTS sculpt? Great at the time for sure, but I find VC42 to be a bit nicer. It was an adjustment at first, as I found it to look tall and slender compared to what I was used to, but ultimately found the older VC15 Clone sculpt to appear jarringly short and squatty.

I’d like 6 or so of each using the VC15 body, but a normal sized helmet. I’ve made some customs of the white grunts doing this that I’m pretty happy with.

See Target Rogue One TBS 6″ 3-pack. 1 repack, 1 new sculpt and 1 repack with new gear. Or last year’s Target The Force Awakens TBS 6″ 2-pack with repacked FO Stormtrooper with added riot control gear and all-new Poe Dameron.

Regarding Hasbro being a massive company and not some skint organization. I don’t think anyone is arguing that Hasbro does not have the means to produce more expensive items. But it is a balancing act with their retail partners and the end consumer. If they produce a costly all-new unique item with all the bells and whistles, TBS 6″ Special Forces Coffee Table a.k.a. TIE Fighter for example, they’re still going to need to maintain their profit on producing it. They’re not going to sell it to the retailers for near-cost. The retailer in turn is going to want to maintain their margin rate when they set their retail. Before you know it we have a toy/collectible with a final retail price that we wince at.

It is important for any company to control costs and grow profit. This is the nuts and bolts of why we see repacks, repaints and retools mixed in and not all-new items all of the time.

OK, I take your point on those wonderful VC42 sculpts having a slightly too-large Phase II helmet. It only bothered me slightly. The newest Clone sculpt however (Rex, Doom, Thorn, et al.) bugs the heck out of me. I would never ask for a new release using that sculpt. I’d go back to the VC42 sculpt, oversized bucket and all, any day of the week.

Army building, customizing or just to have one Clone from each of these battalions with the correct size helmet?

I meant that doing repaints and repacks for exclusives leaves more room for the retailer to squeeze out a little more profit margin for their company than if they were to sell let’s say a 4pk of 6″ figures that were all-new sculpts. I have to believe the cost to the retailer on a set of repaints is not too dissimilar to the cost of 4 mainline 6″ figures. Maybe slightly higher due to unique packaging, paint masks and a smaller production run. Because it is something unique and exclusive to that retailer, the retailer can then charge a higher retail for it than they would for 4 mainline figures, thereby getting a higher profit margin for the item.

If the exclusive set were all-new sculpts, I can almost guarantee you the cost to the retailer would be higher. If not, it would be Hasbro having to absorb that increased expense. Sure, the retailer could still set their retail price at the same margin rate, but the resulting retail may be too high to draw in the desired amount of consumers.

You’re right, repacks and repaints don’t help keep margins down on new figures. It helps keep the margins up (the difference between what the retailer bought it for and what they sell it for). They do however help keep the costs down for the line as a whole.

I’d be very interested in these in 3.75″ scale if they corrected the helmets. Each of those previous ones look terrible to me due to the oversized buckets… they did correct helmet size somewhat on the Commander Doom and Rex figures thanks to JTA pushing them at a QnA a couple years back!

EE is in the business of repaints apparently, maybe a big retailer can give us new sculpts…

I’m not against these, don’t get me wrong. Just considering the high price tag and that repaints relatively cheap they could at least throw us a bone. And i don’t agree with that repaints and repacks help with keeping the margins down for new figures. This is a massive company, not some skint organisation. Without going into it all that is just another Hasbro excuse.

I and many others do want these. But we’d also like some cantina aliens too, but new sculpts would make for a very expensive exclusive the way things are now.