He may only serve a supporting role in all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies that he appears in, but no one can deny that War Machine gets his fair share of high-end collectibles from Hot Toys! In 2015, not one, not two, but three sixth scale die-cast War Machine Hot Toys figures have been solicited! The Hot Toys Captain America: Civil War War Machine Mark III Die-Cast figure is now up for order! What sets this one apart and makes it worth buying yet another Rhodey? Read on…

As soon as it was confirmed that Don Cheadle would reprise his theatrical role as War Machine in next year’s Captain America: Civil War movie, it became an inevitable question of when–not if–we’d get a fresh Movie Masterpiece Series die-cast figure of Tony Stark’s best buddy.

Seeing as how both die-cast Iron Man 2 and Avengers: Age of Ultron figures of War Machine went up for sale already in 2015, I figured it might be a short wait into next year before another version appeared. Hot Toys, obviously, thought otherwise!

At a glance, it’s pretty easy to see that this latest iteration of the War Machine armor is a bit of a hybrid between the Iron Man 2 and Age of Ultron versions. It’s less streamlined and packing more ordnance than the AOU version, but not nearly as bulky as the Iron Man 2 version. As a happy medium between the two, I think it looks pretty decent.

The biggest change from the past WM armors, of course, is the crazy light-up LED shoulder cannon that can be removed and used as a handheld extendable baton. This sounds a little ridiculous on paper, but I’ve a hunch that we’ll be seeing this used in a very cool way in the Captain America Civil War movie (if not the next trailer released for the film).

Displayed next to the Iron Man Mark 46 PPS figure, this Die-Cast MMS War Machine fits seamlessly and looks awesome, despite being from a different series (but the same scale).

It looks to be the same old Don-Cheadle head sculpt that we’ve seen before packaged with this War Machine, but since it looks quite accurate and we often don’t get an extra flip-up faceplate head with WM figures at all, I’m not going to complain.

Along with the Don Cheadle head, other accessories will include the articulated back-mounted machine gun, interchangeable battle-damaged chest armor, a specially-designed Captain America Civil War display stand (which actually looks really cool), a bunch of interchangeable hands and the aforementioned electronic shoulder-mounted cannon/extendable baton. All-in-all, it’s a pretty decent haul of accessories for a die-cast MMS!

Supposedly the new armor is black and silver now, but I’m not convinced that it’s actually black and not just dark grey from the official photos of the prototype. Hopefully Hot Toys will make sure that the colors for this figure are dead-on accurate before it actually hits production–because at this price, it had better be 100% authentic. And speaking of the price…

I really thought that Hot Toys was going to try to extort us with a price-tag of $350+ on this 13″ figure, but they’re keeping with the “safe” value of $344.99 (which is only “sort of ludicrously expensive” and not “jaw-droppingly ludicrously expensive”). I think this is a smart move, as as beautiful as the die-casts are, I can’t see the die-cast MMS line surviving if the price continues to go up and up.

The Civil War Hot Toys War Machine Mark 3 figure is now up for order, and is expected to be released in late 2016. And no, that’s not a type-o–that’s a full year from now. I like to be able to have a super long time between pre-order and release so I can have a drawn-out FLEXPay payment plan with minimal payments per month, but your preferences may vary.

Are you stoked about yet another War Machine die-cast MMS being released next year, or do you feel like Hot Toys is really running this well dry?