I was at Target after work and happened to see they had put some more JOEs on the shelf.

I moved each one aside to see what was there and noticed something very interesting.

There appears to be a packaging change with the Cobra Trooper.

One figure has has two silenced pistols in his hands while the other has the Dragunov Rifle in his hands.

The two pistol guy has "11871" while the other has the Rifle guy has "12141".

Looks like the pistol guy comes with all the accessories (pistols, silencer, rifle, launcher, barbed wire, etc), while the rifle one is missing at least a silenced pistol and the wire.

I haven't heard about any variations at all.

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This is the two pistol guy...it mentions all the extra equipment.

This is the rifle one...it mentions less equipment.

I think those five digit numbers are batch numbers. Not sure what else to call them...

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Ummm I'm sure this was discussed a month ago.

It's news to me...

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Interesting. Still, if the only change is the hardware and a bit of the file card, I can still do a bit of army building if I want, and the TROOPERS will all be identical, I assume?

I'm nowhere near as particular about what they carry into combat.

I guess even terrorist organizations are having to make cutbacks in today's difficult economic climate!

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Meh, packaging variants are just a way to wring more cash out of MOC collectors. I wouldn't be able to tell you which guy came from what style package once I rip them open.

I noticed this variation too, and the one with less accessories is shipping in the 30th wave 2 cases. I'm sure this was yet another cost-cutting measure rather than trying to get more money out of collectors, since Hasbro loves taking promised accessories away from us these days. However, I will admit in this case that I don't mind the missing pistol and barbed wire coil - the figure only has a holster for one pistol (and it doesn't fit very snugly in there), and I don't have any real use for the barbed wire.

I completely forgot that the trooper came with barbed wire. I got one at Target over the weekend (they finally had something besides arctic destro) and just ripped him out of his package and put him next to the one I found at Wally-world a few months ago. The figs are identical and that's really all I care about.