Blocks is looking back through the Imperial ranks at the LEGO Star Wars Stormtrooper minifigures, with this look at Scout Trooper LEGO characters.
The Star Wars original trilogy started a tradition that nearly every film in the franchise would go on to follow — each film introduced a new type of Stormtrooper to help fill out the ranks. In 1983’s Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, it was the Scout Trooper’s turn to join Star Wars canon. These specialist troopers first appeared on the Forest Moon of Endor, serving as the adversaries in the iconic speeder bike chase through the forest. Since then, they have been a staple of Star Wars media, appearing in everything from The Mandalorian to Battlefront II.
Despite being one of the best known Stormtrooper specialists, the Scout Trooper hasn’t had many different renditions over LEGO Star Wars’ 25-year history — much the opposite of the standard Stormtrooper. Only four proper versions of the Scout Trooper have been released to date. Join Blocks, the monthly LEGO magazine, in a shuttle down to Endor to inspect the ranks of the LEGO Star Wars Scout Trooper.
1999 — A speeding start
Given that the much more iconic Stormtrooper didn’t get its first minifigure until 2001, it is a bit surprising that the Scout Trooper was part of the first wave of LEGO Star Wars sets in 1999. In fact, 7128 Speeder Bikes included two of these original figures. By modern standards, the figure isn’t too exciting to look at, but in its day it was a solid design. The torso print captures the look of the on-screen armour with very little printing, including a utility belt and chest plate. But the helmet is by far the most impressive part of the figure — it’s a brilliant mould for 1999 and set the standard for what LEGO Stormtroopers and Clone Troopers should look like for about a decade.
This combination of helmet and torso printing would be used until 2012, with the only changes coming in the form of slight colour variation and different head pieces. The yellow head with visor was replaced with a plain black head in 2009 and a black head with a face printed on was used in 2012 for this figure’s final appearance.
2013 — Accuracy upgrade
One of the defining features of Scout Trooper armour is its slim design — the white armour doesn’t completely cover the body as typical Stormtrooper armour does. And that is what the 2013 redesign of the LEGO Scout Trooper sought to capture, doing so with the help of black arms and legs. The legs then have printing to bring in the essential bits of armour. The torso printing had a full revamp as well — the utility belt was lowered slightly and makes use of some additional hip printing to bring it down to a more realistic level. The helmet remains completely unchanged from the previous version and the rather strange print for the face was thankfully never used again. This figure was only ever released in 2013, appearing in 10236 Ewok Village and 75023 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar.
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2019 — A new helmet
After its 2013 redesign, the Scout Trooper wasn’t seen again for six years. And that time away was put to great use — the 2019 Scout Trooper arrived in 75238 Action Battle Endor Assault with a brand-new helmet mould. The helmet takes full advantage of dual moulding; the main part of the helmet is moulded in white, and the visor and other highlights are added with a second layer of black plastic. The result is the first Scout Trooper with a solid visor, eliminating the need for a solid black head underneath. The torso and leg printing have also been updated, though the changes to the legs are much more noticeable. The new design has proven to be quite the success — it’s appeared unchanged in six sets as of 2024, making it one of the most consistent trooper figure designs in recent years.
2022 — Heading to Hoth
The fourth and final Scout Trooper minifigure released to date isn’t a new version of the classic trooper, rather a variant of the 2019 version. Appearing in 2022’s 75320 Snowtrooper Battle Pack, the cold-weather Scout Trooper takes the same printing layout as the 2019 figure and swaps the black bodysuit for light bluish grey, though the black detailing on the helmet remains the same. The Hoth Scout Trooper has never actually appeared in any official Star Wars media, as the Scout Trooper hadn’t yet been created when The Empire Strikes Back featured the Battle of Hoth in 1980. So its inclusion in the battle pack was a welcome surprise to fans, as the LEGO Group doesn’t too often pull from Star Wars Legends for its sets and figures.
Do you have a favourite LEGO Scout Trooper minifigure? Let Blocks know on any of our social media channels.