20 replies to this topic

[sok117]

Since 2007, TlC has been producing "battlepacks" with each year of Star Wars sets. These battlepacks were a quick, cheap, and effective way to quickly build up your armies. A battlepack would normally consist of four minifigures and a small vehicle, with the exception of droids and turrets. To accurately determine the best battlepack, I have split the judging into three distinct criteria

1. Minifigures, the number one reason you consider to buy a battlepack, consider the army building potential, the uniqueness, and the want factor when choosing

2. Pieces, many are known to "whore" out their vehicles for parts, which battlepack is the best "parts pack", consider the MOCing potential, the usefulness, and the rarity

3. Design, is the vehicle/turret worthy to take space in your army? which design is the most appealing to you, consider the army building potential, accuracy to the Movies/TV show, and playability

Please vote, and state an opinion as to why you voted the way you did. I'd like to get as much feedback on this as possible. Below are pictures of all the battlepack's throughout the years.















I look forward to reading you opinions!

**I will update this poll when new battlepacks are reviewed and widely available, not for preliminary images

[Diaaabo]

For minifigs, the 8014 Clone Walker Battle Pack. Three plain soldiers, plus one gunner which is already to have extras. The ARC gear may or may not be used in these minifigs, so I chose it as the best army builder.

For parts, again 8014. Those hinges and dark red tiles are handy, the green plates can always go into landscaping and the other plates may be useful.

Design, I'd go with the 8083 Hoth Rebel Battlepack. The Icecutter is recognizable from the movies (at least for geeks who know what that actually is), the flick-missiles don't mess up the design and it's (almost) a canon vehicle.

[Brickdoctor]

Minifigs: '08 Clone BP. The Star Corps trooper takes the cake here, even if I like OT stuff. Nice cheap way to amass them. (as in, without going to BL or buying a ton of CTTs) Tie for second place between the Battle Droid BP and Hoth Rebel BP.

Parts: Rebel BP. Light bley is extremely useful, and I use those 1 x 2 x 3 slopes so often. Second place to the Battle Droid BP, if not just because of the sheer amount of pieces.

Design: Stormie BP. None are really accurate as a whole, but the Dropship is the best play feature of any BP. Second place to the Battle Droid BP for still having the best STAP of all time.

Overall, though, my vote would go to the Battle Droid BP. Because it's simply a great value all around.

[KielDaMan]

Interesting topic. Here's my 2 cents:

Minifigs - 8014 Clone Walker Battle Pack. In terms of army building, this one is the best IMO since you already get 3 standard clone troopers in one pack, which is essential for any clone army builder, compared to the other recent BPs where you get 3 types of minifigs, most of which has low army-building potential (AT-AT pilot / Bomb Squad Army anyone?). Interestingly, even the minifig market sees the high demand of this standard clones as average BL cost for plain clone troopers are even higher than the newer BP minifigs, like the ARFs and the Mandos. In our country, the 8014 BP also costs much more than the '09 and '10 BPs.

Pieces - 8014 Clone Walker Battle Pack. Personally, this has been the most useful BP for me in terms of parts since I was able to use most of the parts to transform those hideous clone walkers to my Lightning Squadron AT-RTs.

Design - 7913 Clone Trooper Battle Pack. Since the design mainly focuses on the BP vehicle and the accessories, I would have to go with the updated BARC speeder. Yeah it's not perfectly accurate but compared to the other BP vehicles, the BARC is the best and most useful BP vehicle for any army builder IMO.

[382nd Legionnaire]

Minifigures: 8014 Clone Walker BP - easy choice, 3 plain clones and a gunner for all those undermanned sets like 7675 AT-TE back in 2008.

Pieces: 8014 Clone Walker BP - another easy choice, not the best walker design but it had lots of mocing parts. cheese slopes, triangular plates, oh my!

Design: 7913 Clone Trooper BP - close call between the Snowtrooper BP. Speeder is a fantastic vehicles. Love the harpoon usage on the side.

[PhantomX]

I would have to say snowtrooper battlepack is my favorite because it has two snowtroopers, and snowtroopers are my favorite minifigure.  The new clone packs also are awesome, there is so much detail.

[lightningtiger]

Well, this was a tough one.....
Minifigs - 8014 - Clones, clones and more clones !
Parts -  8014 - yep, again.....handy light bluey grey parts !
Design - 7667 - easy, cool dropship....I even modified once and posted it....learnt a lesson in design with that one !
They all have merit except one, the worst one and we know which one that is......
8015 - boring and MEH that droid pack.
Fingers crossed for next year then !

[StoutFiles]

Minifigs - 7667 - Stormtroopers.

Parts - 7668 - I guess the Rebel logos would be nice to have.  They all kinda suck on parts.

Design - 7667 - The dropship, it can fly and can hold all the figures.

[Lord Starkiller]

Wait a second... That can't be right.. For set 7667, I got 3 Shadow troopers and 1 Storm Trooper! Sweet!

[RileyC]

Minifigures - I chose the Rebel Scout Speeder. Just because the soldiers are so iconic and yet this was the first set to have them! And to make it even better you get four!

Pieces - I chose, again, the Rebel Scout Speeder. A good sticker sheet (yes you can have one of those), some interesting curved and angled bricks and a nice colour selection too. But I dont expect a BP to be the best parts pack ever.

Design - I chose the Hoth Rebel Trooper pack. Mostly because it's a pretty good design, looks good for how many pieces were used. Also because it's a canon vehicle in Star Wars. This was the first time we had seen this in BPs and it was OT.

[mutley777]

Minifigures - 8014 Clone walker BP. I great set of figs that means you can just keep buying loads of it. I know I did.

Pieces -  8014 Clone walker BP again. Lots of good parts that can be use for almost anything!

Design -  7654 Droid BP. The speeder was ok and did it's job but the STAP was perfect! Design wise though none of the sets look amazing, as it was always about the minifigs!

[Rook]

Excellent poll. Not sure what the purpose is other then just because but I had to vote for:

Minifigures:
8014 Clone Walker Battle Pack
The Phase I Armor is iconic when it appears in mass at the end of SW EPII.

Pieces:
8015 Assassin Droids Battle Pack
I actually had to go with this one. Taking out the minifigures in each set and just looking at the remaining pieces this set had the most useful pieces for me as a builder.

Design:
7913 Clone Trooper Battle Pack
Hands down! TLG is finally designing sets for a broader range of builders. We FoLs are more then just 6-12yr olds.

Note to original postee: Battle Pack is two words, and assassin has 4 "s's".  

[KimT]

This is a really good question and poll.
I like all the work you've put into finding pics and setting up the vote
I'll have to sleep on this before I vote and explain my picks.
Thanks sok117 - this is so neat, I had to blog it

[BrickArtist]

Minifigs-Clone Trooper Battlepack. Phase II clones, 'nough said.

Parts -Rebel trooper Battlepack. Bley slopes are handy.

Design -Droid Battlepack. A great STAP, and a nice little carrier. Overall the best BP IMO. 3 SBDs, and 4 B1s. Doesn't get much better than that. Or does it?

[Churchill]

Minifigs:  Rebel trooper battlepack.  These guys are so iconic of the rebellion, and you get four.  

Parts:  Again the Rebel trooper battlepack.  I agree with Roncanator- I like the colors.

Design:  Hoth Rebel trooper battlepack.  I agree with those who said that it includes the only near canon vehicle.  But I wish it had four troopers...

[Clone O'Patra]

This is a very fun discussion!  Battlepacks are about the only SW sets that I actually buy anymore, and it's great fun to compare them all.  Coming out with a new set of opposing battlepacks each January is one of the best thing LEGO ever did with the SW line.

Anyway, my picks:

Minifigs - 7655 Clone Troopers Battle Pack.  Maybe it's just because it was the original Clone BP, but the Phase II helmets are lovely and the Shocktrooper is probably my favorite Clone of all.  Compared to the newer Clones, the printing on the Shocktrooper is quite simplistic, but I loved it at the time and still do.

Pieces - I'm not so sure.  I'm not much of a builder at all, so it's hard for me to judge.  Based on just parts that I like, I would go with 7913 due to the long white tiles, white skis, plates, etc.

Design - 7667 Imperial Dropship.  Though I love the BARC in the latest Clone BP, the dropship will always be my favorite, I think.  It's not based on any source material I don't believe, but TLG did a wonderful job at inventing a ship that fits into the universe anyway.  It's a nice little flier in and of itself, even outside of the SW theme, but it fits in nicely and has a fun function.  The little wheels used as engines are a nice choice, and I like the effect of the bubble cockpit on the front even though it displaces any space there would've been for controls.  All in all, I love that dropship (and the fact that it came with better-designed stormies and a blackhole stomrie!).

[Drock]

Minifigures: 8014 - Clone Walker.  This was the best set for building a uniform army with 3 regular clones.  The gunner was nice too.  And we had the option of making 1 of the clones into a commander with the included armor.  This was a quick and cheap way to build a large army, the way we saw it in AotC.  I was sad when these left the shelves, but my bank account was happy since that meant I had to stop buying them.  

Parts: I'm not an MOCer, but I do like the 8014 as well.  All of those gray hinges could be useful.  Along with the gray wedge plates.

Design: 7913 - Clone Troopers.  So nice to see a BP with something that resembles a real vehicle, and not some expedient piece of crap to throw in with the minifigs.

[Praiter Yed]

This is an interesting question.

Minifigures: Easy, it's got to be 7667 - Three Stormies and a Shadow Trooper    the only way this could've been improved would be to lose the Shadow Trooper and add another Stormie.

Parts: Now it's getting harder, I suppose 7668 because that's the only one I've used parts off in an MOC but I keep thinking 8083 will come in handy.

Design: Hmmm, I think 7668 again. It's a pretty sleek looking speeder. The only thing that bothers me about it is, please correct me if I'm wrong (and I hope I am), that this vehicle was just invented by TLG.

[Solscud007]

Minifigs: I guess im in the minority for choosing the Mandalorian set. I really like how they recycled the new Boba Fett. Plus it gives me a pseudo new Jango Fett. Although I do like the new clone trooper pack for the fancy new orange clones.

Parts im not that into harvesting sets for pieces I need.

Design: Out of all the BPs, again I really like the Mando set. You get three play items. I felt as though the Mando BP was a mini advent calendar. I get 4 mandos, 1 bipod gun, a mounted gun station and a small jet!!! Tons of neat little accessories. Plus I turned my 4th Mando into Pre-Vizla so he can just stand about and bark orders to the other three occupied mandos.

[Supersonic]

Interesting topic...
Minifigures: Droid battlepack for me. I know they're just droids and they're cheap to produce, but 7 figures in a BP is just awesome.
Parts: Easily the 8014 Clone Walker. SNOT parts, 8 hinges and some plates and wedges, great for MOCing.
Design: The Hoth rebel pack. The Ice Cutter is well done, it looks exactly like in the movie; that's something you don't usually find in BPs.
It's a tough choice, though - most BPs are great in one or two of the three criteria.

Edited by Supersonic, 30 March 2011 - 07:49 PM.

[gogocar]

Minifigs: 8084 Snowtrooper Battlepack - 2 snow stormies, at-at pilot and general Veers

Parts: 8083 Rebel Trooper Battlepack (Hoth) - it has some interesting and useful pieces

Design: 7913 Clone Trooper Battle Pack - that BARC speeder just looks awesome compared to others