General Grievous (Battle Damaged) — Star Wars The Black Series #GG 25

Overview

General Grievous (Battle Damaged) at #GG 25 is the Gaming Greats Collection’s Kaleesh cyborg general figure — the iconic Separatist military commander as he appears in the 2017 Star Wars: Battlefront II video game from EA DICE. Released October 2023 as a single-boxed GameStop exclusive in the Black Series Deluxe assortment. MSRP $33.99 (matching the deluxe pricing tier that Darth Malgus at #GG 24 carries). Eight accessories: four unique lightsaber hilts, two green lightsaber blades, and two blue lightsaber blades. 23-joint articulation including the distinctive Grievous arm configuration (4 ball-jointed shoulders, 4 ball-jointed elbows). Roughly 7 inches tall (17.78 cm). The figure is a repaint of the 2019 Black Series General Grievous (figure id=18326) with battle-damage paint detailing added.

The 2019 Repaint Question

The figure is structurally a repaint of the 2019 Black Series General Grievous figure — same body sculpt, same arm engineering (the splittable two-arm-into-four configuration that defines the Grievous body design), same overall figure. The differentiation comes through the new “battle damaged” paint application and the absence of certain accessories the 2019 figure included.

For collectors who own the 2019 Grievous, the Battle Damaged version is functionally a duplicate body sculpt with weathering paint detail. For collectors who don’t, the 2023 release is the more recent and more readily available version of the character. The detailed reviewer assessment is direct: the regular figure offers more because it includes a soft-goods cape and a Battle Droid blaster — accessories the Battle Damaged version doesn’t have.

The Black Series Deluxe Assortment

The figure was part of the Black Series Deluxe assortment, which cost $33.99 at the time of its release. This is the same deluxe pricing tier as Darth Malgus at #GG 24 — the higher price point Hasbro applies to figures with substantial scale, accessory complexity, or character-class significance. For Grievous specifically, the deluxe pricing reflects the eight-accessory loadout (more than any prior Gaming Greats figure), the 7-inch scale, and the splittable-arm engineering complexity.

For collectors evaluating value-per-dollar, the Battle Damaged Grievous offers eight accessories vs Darth Malgus’s three at the same price point. The accessory count is the strongest argument for the figure’s value proposition.

The Eight-Lightsaber Loadout

General Grievous came with four lightsabers which have detachable blades (two green and two blue). Eight accessories total: four unique hilts (each tooled differently to reflect Grievous’s collected-trophy lightsaber arsenal) and four removable blades. All four lightsaber hilts are unique from one another — Hasbro tooled distinct sculpts for each weapon, capturing the screen-accurate detail that Grievous wields Jedi-killed lightsabers as collected trophies rather than identical generic weapons.

The lightsaber hilts are a bit bulky, but it helps General Grievous to get a good grip on all of them. The figure can hold all four hilts simultaneously when the arms are split into the four-arm combat configuration (covered below), supporting the screen-accurate Grievous combat poses where the character wields all four sabers at once.

For collectors building dynamic combat displays, the eight-accessory loadout supports multiple configurations: single-saber stowed, dual-saber two-armed combat, four-saber four-armed full-combat, blade-removed-hilt-only stowage, and various combinations across the available colour blades. The display flexibility is the figure’s primary value proposition.

The Splittable Arms

A specific engineering feature that defines the Grievous body design: General Grievous’s two arms can be split into four. This is easy to do — just pull them apart. There are three pegs which keep the arms together. The character’s signature combat configuration (arms separated into four limbs, each wielding a lightsaber) is supported through the splittable arm engineering that the 2019 source figure tooled and this 2023 release inherits.

For collectors building dynamic combat displays, the two-arm vs four-arm configuration choice is meaningful. The two-arm configuration is the figure’s resting/walking display state; the four-arm configuration is the active-combat display state. Hasbro’s engineering supports both without requiring permanent modification, so collectors can switch between configurations during display rotation.

The arm-splitting mechanism uses three pegs to keep the arms unified — easy to pull apart, easy to reassemble. The mechanism is reliable enough that repeated configuration changes don’t degrade the joint integrity.

The Articulation Engineering

23 joints. Ball-jointed neck, ball-jointed lower neck, 4 ball-jointed shoulders, 4 ball-jointed elbows, 2 swivel forearms on the two back shoulders, ball-jointed upper body, ball-jointed hips, swivel joints above the knees, swivel joints below the knees, swivel joints above the ankles, ball-jointed ankles. The four-shoulder/four-elbow configuration is unique to Grievous within the Phase 4 line — necessary to support the splittable-arm character class engineering.

General Grievous’s articulation is impressive, especially the arms with four ball-jointed shoulders, four ball-jointed elbows, and two swivel forearms work fairly well despite being fairly thin. The figure’s spindly limb proportions could have made articulation reliability a problem; the engineering tooling kept the joint stiffness appropriate for both the two-arm and four-arm display configurations without floppy-limb behaviour.

The Photo-Real Face Printing

The photo-real face printing technology on the face looks good, and the sculpt overall looks quite nice. Hasbro committed to capturing the Kaleesh cyborg character’s specific facial structure with sharp definition — the mechanical jaw, the facial expression details, the proportions appropriate to the source material. The face reads correctly under display lighting and matches the Battlefront II in-game character configuration.

For a video-game-derived character whose source material is CGI rather than live-action, the photo-real printing approach captures the in-game model cleanly. This is among the better Phase 4 photo-real face printing implementations.

The “Battle Damaged” Question

The figure’s most defensible structural critique: what is battle damaged on this figure? This is a tough one to answer because this version of General Grievous looks just like a regular General Grievous figure, but with slightly more dirt added to the arms, chest, and legs (the back of the figure has no dirt added at all).

The “battle damaged” branding suggests substantial weathering and combat-trauma paint detail — scuff marks, broken armour panels, exposed mechanical components, scorch marks from saber strikes. The actual paint application is significantly less ambitious: subtle dirt smudges on three body panels, with the rear of the figure left entirely clean. The added battle markings don’t take “battle damaged” far enough and don’t make this Black Series General Grievous stand out much from the regular version.

For collectors who expected meaningful weathering to justify the paint-variant repaint, the figure is a disappointment. For collectors who already own the 2019 regular Grievous, the Battle Damaged version offers minimal additional visual differentiation despite the new product positioning. The figure is a good General Grievous, but the “Battle Damaged” branding promises more than the paint application delivers.

The Missing Accessories

A robe and a blaster were not included with this release of General Grievous. The 2019 source figure included both — a soft-goods cape that adds visual depth to the figure’s silhouette and a Battle Droid blaster that supports the character’s secondary-weapon configurations. Dropping both accessories from the 2023 release while charging the same deluxe pricing is a meaningful regression.

For collectors comparing the Battle Damaged version against the 2019 source figure, the missing accessories are the most significant practical drawback. The eight-lightsaber loadout is impressive, but losing the cape and the blaster reduces the figure’s overall display flexibility. Detailed reviewers’ direct assessment: the regular figure offers more.

The Standing Stability

We didn’t run into any balancing issues with Grievous, but it did take some time to get him balanced. The figure’s spindly proportions make balance more demanding than for standard humanoid characters, but the engineering tooling supports reliable standing display once the figure is properly positioned. For collectors building photography displays, allow time to find the right balance configuration; for collectors building static shelf displays, the figure holds position reliably once placed.

The Mural Collection Position

General Grievous (Battle Damaged) sits at the twenty-fifth position in the Gaming Greats Collection mural display. For loose display, the figure works best alongside the other Battlefront II Gaming Greats figures (Imperial Rocket Trooper at #GG 01, Jet Trooper at #GG 06, Umbra Operative ARC Trooper at #GG 09, Old Master Maul at #GG 23) for a Battlefront II hero/villain ensemble. The figure also works alongside the broader Black Series Grievous releases across multiple Star Wars sources for a Grievous chronological display.

Secondary Market

Single-boxed GameStop exclusive, October 2023. Aftermarket prices on the secondary market have generally tracked at or near the original $33.99 MSRP. Verify all eight accessories — four hilts, two green blades, two blue blades — are included. The small blade pieces are easy to lose during transit, and the four-hilt configuration is the figure’s primary value proposition. No production variants documented.

Verdict

General Grievous (Battle Damaged) at #GG 25 is a solid Battlefront II character figure with impressive accessory engineering — eight unique lightsaber components, the splittable two-arm-into-four configuration, the photo-real face printing, the 23-joint articulation that supports both two-arm and four-arm combat displays. For collectors who don’t own the 2019 source figure, this is a strong Grievous release at the deluxe tier.

The “Battle Damaged” branding promises more than the paint application delivers — subtle dirt on three panels with a clean rear is structurally underwhelming for a deluxe-tier repaint. The dropped cape and blaster accessories make the figure poorer than the 2019 source. The $33.99 deluxe pricing on a repaint with fewer accessories than the original is hard to defend on value-per-dollar terms.

Buy this figure if you play Battlefront II, if you don’t own the 2019 General Grievous, or if the eight-lightsaber loadout matters more to you than the missing cape and blaster. Skip if you own the 2019 figure and the minimal weathering doesn’t justify a duplicate purchase.

The Battlefront II Kaleesh cyborg general. The figure with the four unique sabers and the splittable arms. The “Battle Damaged” repaint that doesn’t take battle damage far enough. GameStop exclusive, October 2023.

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Part of Star Wars The Black Series | Phase 4 Gaming Greats Collection. Related: Darth Maul (Old Master) P4-GG-23 | Imperial Rocket Trooper P4-GG-01 | Darth Malgus P4-GG-24.