Black Major 2017 Cobra Soldado
There’s going to come a point where my posts about custom Cobra Troopers, Night Vipers and Alley Vipers are going to all sound the same, which is frustrating. However, it’s a risk I’m willing to take to keep putting out posts on the different 3rd party releases, as there’s not a lot of information on these out there. Plus, there’s so many of these repaints I genuinely like, I’m beginning to think I just can’t get tired of the Cobra Trooper mold. Here I’ll be looking at The Black Major’s Cobra Soldado, a reinterpretation of the Brazilian Comandos em Acao figure.
TBM’s Cobra Soldado is made from his second Cobra Trooper mold that he began using around 2014. It’s noticeably different from the 2010 mold, but the only real flaw in my view is that the figure’s stance is somewhat pigeon-toed. Other than that, it’s a really solid mold and there’s a lot of changes I like here. Notably, compatibility with standard vintage backpacks, though I also feel as though these can sit better than the 2010 figures, which had an odd habit of their legs wanting to spread apart.
This figure is of course a remake of the Brazilian Cobra Soldado, as mentioned before. It’s really cool that TBM chose to make this because that’s a very nice figure famous for it’s bright blue color it used instead of the standard Cobra blue. The downside of that figure, (besides being rare) is that it makes use of the ‘82 straight-arm tooling. For me and most collectors, this renders a figure nearly useless, so this Black Major release is the first Cobra Soldado that actually works with the other 90% of a collection.
There’s at least three different takes/variants on this figure, which is surprising. The first release has a black cobra symbol and a black mask, and later figures showed up with chrome masks, Micky-mouse Cobra Commander styled silver-symbols, and finally a red-symbol figure that is a slightly different shade of blue. The last figure is the one that stands out the most as it’s blue color looks closer to the original Cobra Soldado, besides having the appropriately colored symbol. Of them, the red-symbol variation is easily my favorite, though I saw them less often than the first release.
Of course, another cool thing about the second Cobra trooper mold is that you get some extra accessories with it. Besides the classic Dragunov, you get a Cobra Officer’s AK47, and the ‘86 Viper’s backpack. I rarely use the packs, but the AK is nice the have in ample supply, and it really adds value to these for me. Of course, I guess you could complain that the figure doesn’t include Rock&Roll’s M60, like the original Soldado, but personally I really don’t care since machine-gunners are niche and not something you need a lot of.
The 2017 run of Cobra Troopers saturated the market a little more than older TBM Troopers. For a while, you saw these show up in good numbers, and less popular figures could be had pretty cheaply. As one would expect, they’re a little harder to find now, and generally they run around $20 a pop. For me, this is a perfectly reasonable price given the nature of these figures, though I’ll probably not be buying more since I already acquired a nice squad while they were cheap.
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of this color scheme. I advocated for it for quite some time. And, was grateful to be able to get a few when they were cheap.
Something happened in 2018. At the end of 2017, I bought 5 of these guys, 5 each of multiple Steel Brigades and many of the other Cobra trooper colors for $7 each. It was great. Starting in 2018, the price nearly doubled to $12 and now we’re at $18. I suspect that lowered production runs play a part and dealers don’t have to worry about having unsold inventory like they did in 2017 and earlier.
But, man, I miss being able to army build every release. At current pricing, at best, I can pick one color scheme per release to acquire in multiples. But, more often than not, now, I end up skipping them entirely as I don’t find value in one of an army builder and armies are just too expensive.
It’s no secret that I hate this color scheme. I advocated against it for a long time…and I’m kidding around. I don’t own any of these. But that never stops me from replying.
I think the Cobra solider mold works best in solid colors, not camos. So this one works, and had that foreign mystique to coast on.
I also think almost everything is too expensive, fan made and company made. $25 HISS tanks and Awe Strikers unassembled, when in 2008 they were $16? A pointlessly redone FANG for $25? (Hey, Hasbro, Cobra is more than HISS and FANGS) $18 for “carbonized” 4″ star wars figures few were asking for?
Yet, Lanard can still pump out cheap toys. Hmmm…
This figure was quite inspired, actually. I never really figured it would happen, but was glad to see it, since it provided a familiar variation on the theme. Plus the figure is an excellent match for Cobra Commander v1
I’m kind of excited at the prospect of new 82 Trooper repaints, but I don’t know how much army building I’ll wind up doing. There’s a couple potential figures I’ll probably look into getting squads of, but who knows.