RC-1138 (BOSS) — Star Wars The Black Series #GG 07

Overview

RC-1138 (BOSS) at #GG 07 is the Gaming Greats Collection’s first Republic Commando representation — the leader of Delta Squad, the elite clone commando team from the 2005 LucasArts game considered one of the most influential Star Wars video games of its era. Released March 2022 as a single-boxed GameStop exclusive. MSRP $26.49 (year-imprinted 2020). Two accessories: a backpack and a blaster. 17-joint articulation. The figure is essentially a repainted Hunter (the leader of Bad Batch, figure id=25925) with a new helmet — and the comparison to the source figure exposes several deficiencies worth flagging up front.

The Hunter Repaint Problem

For this figure, Hasbro essentially repainted the Hunter figure and added a new helmet. The same Bad Batch leader body sculpt, the same articulation, the same overall engineering — with a different head and a different paint deco. This is a meaningful parts-reuse strategy, but the execution exposes problems that detailed reviewers have flagged across multiple critiques.

The Hunter figure, released in 2021, came with five accessories and a human head with removable helmet. Boss ships with two accessories and no head underneath the helmet. This is a meaningful downgrade from a figure that uses the same body sculpt — and the price comparison makes it harder to defend: Hunter shipped at $19.99 MSRP, Boss at $26.49. Collectors get fewer accessories, less paint application, and additional features that shouldn’t be there (covered below) for $6.50 more than the source figure.

The Hole in the Forearm

A specific manufacturing carryover worth flagging: there is a hole in Boss’ left forearm, a left-over feature from the Hunter figure, which has no functionality and should not be in this figure. The Hunter’s left forearm includes a hole for accessory mounting (specifically a knife sheath that ships with the Hunter figure but not with Boss), and the Boss tooling didn’t fill or rework that mounting point. The result is a visible hole in the armour that serves no purpose on the Boss configuration.

For collectors who notice these things, the carryover hole is a meaningful quality-control oversight. For collectors who display figures at standard shelf distance where small details aren’t immediately visible, the issue is less critical. Either way, it’s the kind of detail that signals corner-cutting — Hasbro saved tooling costs by reusing the Hunter mould without adapting it for the Boss configuration, and the visible hole is the consequence.

The No-Head Decision

Hunter ships with a human head underneath the removable helmet — a meaningful display flexibility feature for clone trooper characters. Boss does not. There is no head underneath the helmet, which means the figure is locked into the helmeted configuration without an unmasked alternative.

This is doubly disappointing because Boss is a named clone character — RC-1138 is the same Mandalorian-DNA template as every other clone trooper, and a generic clone face underneath the helmet would have been screen-accurate to the Republic Commando in-game character. The Hunter figure’s head sculpt could have been reused directly. Hasbro chose not to, and the Boss figure is poorer for it.

The Soft-Plastic Shoulder Bells

A genuine engineering positive: the shoulder bells are made out of very soft plastic which bends if you move the arms more than 90° up. This is the right approach for armour-piece accessories — soft plastic accommodates arm movement without forcing the bells to pop off, which preserves the armoured silhouette across full articulation range. Most Black Series clone trooper figures use rigid shoulder bells that limit upper-arm movement; the soft-plastic approach on Boss (and Hunter) is a notable upgrade.

For collectors building dynamic-pose displays where the arms need to raise above shoulder level — two-handed weapon bracing, pointing, throwing motions — the soft-plastic shoulder bells make those poses possible without the armour pieces dislodging.

The Paint Critique

Delta Squad looks beat up and dirty in the game, and this unfortunately didn’t translate into this figure at all. Republic Commando’s visual aesthetic is heavy on combat weathering — the squad’s armour shows blast damage, mud spatter, and accumulated deployment grime as part of their character design. The Boss figure ships with a blue T-visor in the helmet, orange, white, and black colours with some grey scratches in the abdominal area, the right thigh, and the left knee, but there is no dirty wash on the armour and the back of the figure is all clean.

The selective weathering — scratches on a few panels, but no overall dirt-and-grime application — reads as half-finished. A more consistent weathering pass across the entire figure would have transformed the display reading substantially. As shipped, Boss looks like a tutorial-mode clone commando rather than a deployed Delta Squad operator.

The Backpack and Blaster

The backpack plugs firmly into a hole in the back. The blaster fits well into both hands. Both accessories support the standard combat-pose configurations — two-handed firing stance, single-handed sidearm draw, weapon-stowed display with the backpack as the visual focus.

The two-accessory loadout is lean for a $26.49 GameStop exclusive figure, particularly compared to the five-accessory Hunter at $19.99. This is the structural value problem with the Boss release — the figure costs more than its source figure but ships with less.

Articulation

17 joints. Ball-jointed top neck, ball-jointed lower neck, ball-jointed shoulders, ball-jointed elbows, ball-jointed wrists, ball-jointed upper body, ball-jointed hips, swivel-jointed thighs, ball-jointed knees, ball-jointed ankles. Standard Phase 4 baseline articulation, supporting the necessary combat poses but without the upgrades (butterfly shoulders, double-swivel knees) that distinguish more recent releases. The figure stands well on display without falling over.

The Republic Commando Source

LucasArts’ 2005 Republic Commando is widely considered one of the most narratively focused Star Wars video games — a tactical squad-based shooter following Delta Squad through three campaigns during the Clone Wars era. The game’s atmospheric writing, character voice work, and ahead-of-its-time squad mechanics earned it a strong cult following that has persisted across the two decades since release. Boss is the squad’s leader and the player’s commanded character, alongside Sev (RC-1207), Fixer (RC-1140), and Scorch (RC-1262).

The Gaming Greats Collection eventually covers all four Delta Squad members across multiple releases — Sev at #GG 11, Fixer at #GG 13, Scorch at #GG 18 — so collectors building the complete Delta Squad display can do so by collecting the four figures across Hasbro’s 2022-2023 release schedule.

The Mural Collection Position

Boss sits at the seventh position in the Gaming Greats Collection mural display. For loose display, the figure works best alongside the other Delta Squad members (#GG 11 Sev, #GG 13 Fixer, #GG 18 Scorch) for the complete Republic Commando squad configuration. The figure also works alongside the various Black Series Bad Batch releases (Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, Crosshair, Echo) as the reused-body-sculpt comparison reference.

Secondary Market

Single-boxed GameStop exclusive, March 2022. Aftermarket prices on the secondary market have generally tracked at or near the original $26.49 MSRP, with steady demand from Republic Commando completionists building Delta Squad displays. Verify the backpack and blaster are both included. No production variants documented.

Verdict

For Republic Commando collectors building the Delta Squad roster, the Boss figure is the only path to acquiring the squad’s leader at the 6-inch scale — and it’s the right purchase for completionism. The Hunter repaint strategy delivers a functional figure at the standard Phase 4 trooper baseline, the soft-plastic shoulder bells support full arm articulation, and the new helmet sculpt is screen-accurate to the in-game character.

The figure is poorer than its Hunter source, though. Two accessories instead of five, no head under the helmet, the leftover hole in the forearm, the inconsistent paint weathering — these are the structural problems that make Boss feel like a lacklustre version of a figure Hasbro could have done better. The $26.49 price point on a Hunter repaint is hard to defend.

Buy this figure if you collect Republic Commando, if you’re building the Delta Squad team display, or if RC-1138’s character mattered to you. Skip if you only want one Delta Squad member and prefer the better-equipped Hunter figure for general clone-commando display purposes.

The Republic Commando squad leader. The Hunter repaint with the cost-cutting visible. The figure that should have done more for $26.49. GameStop exclusive, March 2022.

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Part of Star Wars The Black Series | Phase 4 Gaming Greats Collection. Related: RC-1207 (SEV) P4-GG-11 | RC-1140 (Fixer) P4-GG-13 | RC-1262 (Scorch) P4-GG-18.