Xizor's guards are like his soldiers, but they have a pike-like melee weapon in their hands, not a pistol. While the guards stood in the throne room and in front of it,  and in front of the palace, the Xizor soldiers defended strategic sites in the corridors of Xizor's palace, and they welcomed the unwanted visitors in the sewer system under the palace. Obviously, Xizor felt that the sewer system was the weak point, that was less transparent and controllable, where the intruder could potentially try to get into his palace, so there were plenty of security systems and lots of soldiers down in the sewers. So the basic troopers got some fire weapon, the guards had autenticaly some melee weapon, which is a Star Wars trivia, after Palpatine's Royal guards, and Snoke's Praetorian guards, who were the same elite, hand-picked, specially selected personal bodyguards.

The Empire's victory in the Battle of Hoth has brought hard times for the Rebel Alliance. Han Solo has been frozen in carbonite by Darth Vader, and according to the story of SOTE two huge bounties have been placed on the head of Luke Skywalker. The Emperor wants him alive, but Prince Xizor, underlord of the most powerful criminal organization in the galaxy, wants him dead. Worse still is that the diabolical Xizor is holding Princess Leia Organa prisoner in his castle on the Imperial Center of Coruscant. This is a tactical maeuver, part of a larger master plan to lure Luke Skywalker into his castle where he can be easily eliminated – the key step in Xizor's plan to replace Darth Vader at the Emperor's side. Unaware of the Emperor other plans, and the danger of pissing off the young Jedi and his rebel friends, sincs that is obvious that they will find out something, and sneak into Imperial City hoping to rescue Leia. However laying foot on Coruscant is a dangerous act for these rebel personers: they are high on the Empire's list of most-wanted outlaws, they could easily be recognized and captured – or talking about Dash Rendar, assassinated. Luke and Lando disguising themselves as beggars, they "borrow" the armored uniforms from a pair of elite Coruscant stormtroopers. In the SOTE story Luke Skywalker will wear this armor in attempt to infiltrate Xizor's nearly impenetrable stronghold and rescue the princess.

This gave the base story of Luke Skywalker's Imperial Guard disguise action figure in the Shadows of the Empire series. Compared to the soldiers previously discussed, the Imperial Guard's armor is darker a bit, and the light parts are not white but gray. And in their hands there is not a pistol, but it's a spike or spear shaped handgun with a thicker part at both ends.

I got such a figure long ago, but it was in terrible shape. It was a fake Chinese piece in a screwdriver in the back, lousy-loose, worn, incomplete. So I did not handmade it, I only "restored" it, I replaced the missing parts, painted the worn parts, and got an authentic weapon I did not get when I bought it. This custom work is an "easier" thing when you do not make the whole figure from putty by yourself, but you bring a bad figure to an acceptable state. 

 

Take a look at my Custom Xizor guard figure!

Custom Xizor bodyguard figure front

Thanks for your attention, visit CustomStarWars frequently!

written by: Norbert Rostas 2018. 11. 26 the figure was made years before