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My first set review; Sorry for the slightly blurry shots here and there, still trying to improve my photographing skills.
Set: 7913 Clone Trooper Battle Pack
Pieces: 85
Year release: 2011
Minifigures: 4
Price: Eur 14.99(got it for 12.49), USD 11.99, GBP 9.99
Official Lego.com text:
Unleash the might of the clone army against the Mandalorians!
As the Clone Wars rage across the galaxy, the Army of the Republic faces a powerful new enemy- the Mandalorians! Build up your crack team of clone troopers with the BARC speeder, the all-new ARF clone trooper, 2 new bomb squad clone troopers and the new clone commander minifigures.
· Includes 4 minifigures: clone commander, 2 bomb squad clone troopers and 1 ARF clone trooper
· Features 5 weapons!
· Includes BARC speeder
· Move the cannon turret!
· BARC speeder measures 6” (15cm) long, 3” (7cm) wide
Nothing spectacular, although TLG seems to have made a big mistake in the features of this model.
Box:
The box design is the same as that of the sets we have seen in 2010, featuring Captain Rex. It also show a small blue box where the ARF trooper has stolen the pistols from the Clone Commander.
The side has a 1:1 shot of the Clone Commander, who is as far as I can tell simply a clonetrooper from Horn Company featured in the 9th episode of season 2 of the Clone Wars series. Who confusingly is stated as Clone trooper on the box art and as Clone Commander on the Lego site.
On the back the set is shown in combination with the Mandalorian battlepack. Which is said to be inspired by a battle that is going to happen in the Clone Wars series.
Manual
The cover of the manually pictures non-surprisingly the same picture as the front of the box, so nothing special. Though I did notice that the ARF trooper is going to get hit by friendly fire. Coming from behind him.
Random shot of the steps, nothing special. Darth Vader pops out of the corner just a bit but that’s nothing new.
The back of the manual featured the parts list, box shots of the v-wing, Battle of Naboo and bounty hunter fighter sets and the usual 'WIN' advertisement. Sadly the photos turned out too fuzzy to use.
Parts:
Having read so many reviews here, I decided trying giving you a nice picture of all pieces spread out. One of the black droid arms is the only spare piece of the set. The set comes with 5 guns, including 2 rifles, a blaster and 2 new pistols with scope. I personally think it’s nice to have some more of the rifles. The pistols look great but I think the old ones look better for clonetroopers. These look much better on bounty-hunters or even the Mandalorians. Also noticed the difference between the head stud, closed or open, not sure why there is a difference(maybe I accidentally mixed it with other clone heads, but I can't remember doing that) Maybe someone else noticed the same in some set.
The Minifgures:
The most important part of this set, 4 fabulous figures. From left to right: Clone trooper commander (Horn company clone trooper) 2 Bomb squad troopers and an ARF (Advanced Recon Force) trooper. The printing is simply amazing, a few things you could remark on this is that the torso and legs of the ARF looks a bit bland in comparison and that the white on the Bomb Squad trooper has a bit of orange hue. A bit like what happened in the past when they put yellow print on black. Nothing too bad because these characters still look very impressive. I'm especially fond of the Commander which has such amazing detail on him.
Nothing really special in the side view except the amazing details on the ARF trooper helmet.
All of them are back printed and this shot also shows the nice markings on the Clone Commanders and bomb squad trooper backs.
The faces are all the regular clone faces, I heard people getting pupils on the other corners of the eye, but so far all my clones have their pupils towards the left.
TLG has made a slight chance to the visor of the Clone helmet, making it shorter. Looks better in my opinion and the change isn’t obvious that it would look out of place if used in conjunction with the old style.
The model:
The Barc Speeder. Many people loathe it, I personally think it’s a decent Lego model of the real one without making it feeble or using non-conventional construction techniques.
Top view shows it’s maybe a tad fat and not very articulated but Battle Packs are not known for their great vehicles and I still think it’s one of the better vehicles we haven gotten in these sets.
Apparently the Clone commander is supposed to ride this puppy, although I replaced him with a regular clone in my collection, since having him ride it completely blocks the view of that amazing leg print.
Score:
Design 8/10, I know many people screamed about the inaccuracies of the speeder, but I think it’s one of the better Battlepack vehicles to date.
Playability 7/10 Enough guns to go around at least, no enemies or flick-fires but I can’t say this is an important point to me.
Swooshability 9/10, if you can’t swoosh this then you have to stop and wonder what’s wrong.
Pieces 6/10: Not much there, nothing really special or very strange colors. 85 pieces for 15 euro is pressing it a whole bit (what’s up with the continuous raising of prices anyways).
Minifigures 9/10, The main reason you should get it. Why no 10? Because of the double Bomb squad trooper.
Overall 7,8/10, which makes it a more than decent set, do take in consideration that this is an overall and you may decide what points are more important or less important to you.
Parting thoughts:
A great set and a very nice addition to your clone forces, this Battlepack is all about the minifgures, which in my opinion also has the greatest setback for this set (similar to the Mandolorian battle pack), 2 bomb squad troopers is overdoing it, you don’t want to buy many packs cause what is the use of a bomb squad army? TLG would have done better by replacing one of them by a duplicate of one of the other 2 or even a regular trooper in my opinion.
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