Star Wars

Dark Trooper Helmet

The moodiest, blackest head in the whole Helmet Collection, and I mean that as a compliment.

Brick Rated Score

3.7/5

Set 75343 · 2022

Pieces693

Minifigsn/a

Year2022

Set number75343

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The verdict

This one surprised me.

I went in expecting a flat black brick and got one of the more clever sculpts in the Helmet Collection, all sunken cheeks and angular menace. The catch is honest and it is a real one: an all-black model in a room with normal lighting loses a lot of its detail, so where you put it matters more than usual. If you loved the Dark Trooper reveal in The Mandalorian Season 2, this is a lovely tribute. If you want a display piece that pops from across the room, look at the brighter helmets first.

Best for: Mandalorian fans who have a well-lit shelf and want the villain, not another stormtrooper

The full review

What it is

The Dark Trooper Helmet is the third-generation droid trooper that stalked out of the shadows in The Mandalorian Season 2, rebuilt in 693 pieces as a display bust with its own stand and nameplate. I will be straight with you, I did not have high hopes going in. A completely black head sounded like a chore. But the sculpt is what got me. Designer Hans Burkhard Schlömer packed real cleverness into the angles, the sunken-in cheeks and the aggressive jaw, and building those shapes turned out to be more satisfying than I expected. It captures that cold, mechanical menace the droid had on screen, and there is a quiet thrill to watching that face take form under your hands.

The catch

Here is the caveat, and it is the reason this one lands where it does rather than higher. It is entirely black. In the show that darkness is the whole point, but on a shelf in an ordinary room, all those slopes and reflective angles blur together and the detail you worked so hard to build just disappears. Even the stand is black, so the helmet blends into its own base instead of standing out against it. The eyes only really catch the light from a few angles, and this feels like the obvious set that should have come with a light brick and did not. Then there is the crown, where a patch of exposed studs sits against the smooth panels. Some builders love the texture, others think it looks like the droid is wearing a beanie a size too small. At its original 70 dollars it was fair for the piece count, though it has climbed on the secondary market since retiring.

Who it's for

The audience for this splits cleanly. If the Dark Trooper reveal gave you chills and you have a spot with decent lighting, maybe a shelf with a spotlight or a lamp nearby, this is a moody, characterful piece that rewards a close look. If you are building the Helmet Collection for a lineup that reads clearly across the room, or you want the instant wow of a Boba Fett or a Mandalorian, this darker sibling is the harder sell. It asks a little more of you and your lighting, and it gives back plenty if you meet it halfway.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this is less about racing through bags and more about coaxing shapes out of slopes and plates. Because there are almost no printed decorations or color changes to guide you, you build largely by feel and geometry, watching the cheeks pull inward and the jaw jut forward. It is a surprisingly technical little sculpt for its size, with angled sections that lock together in ways you do not fully appreciate until the face suddenly resolves. That said, an all-one-color build is not for everyone, and a few sections ask for patience when every piece in your hand is the same black.

The real story here is quantity and consistency rather than exotic new molds. This is a treasure chest of black slopes, curved pieces and plates in a huge range of angles, which makes it a genuinely useful parts pack if you build in dark tones or do your own sculpting. The printed nameplate tile is the one bit of decoration and a nice finishing touch. At 693 pieces for its original price the value was reasonable, and if you part it out you end up with a serious stock of black wedge and slope elements that are always handy to have in the drawer.

Fun facts

01The set recreates the third-generation Dark Trooper, the fully mechanical version that cornered Din Djarin aboard the cruiser in The Mandalorian Season 2.
02It was designed by Hans Burkhard Schlömer, whose sculpting gives the cheeks and jaw their intimidating angular shape.
03Released on 1 March 2022 and retired at the end of 2023, it has since climbed above its 69.99 dollar launch price on the secondary market.
04Unlike most Helmet Collection sets that recreate a worn helmet, this one is really a droid's head, which is part of why fans argued about whether it counts as a 'helmet' at all.