REVIEW: 75165 Imperial Trooper Battle Pack

[WhiteFang]

Hello everyone,

I am back again to share my fifth LEGO Star Wars Rogue One review with a bit of self promoting in mind. The earlier LEGO Rogue One reviews which I reviewed were the 75152 Imperial Assault Hovertank, 75153 AT-ST Walker, 75154 TIE Striker and 75155 Rebel U-wing Fighter. I had been buying LEGO Rogue One sets from time to time in order to expand and reminisce the battle scenes. This new battle pack was timely in order for me to amass the troopers in larger quantities. Please note this review will not contain major movie spoilers but bound to contain minor spoilers. Without further ado, let me indulge you guys in this simple review.  

Name: 75165 Imperial Trooper Battle Pack
Theme: LEGO System / Licensed / Rogue One
Year: 2017
Pieces: 112
Minifigs: 4 minifigures
Price: USD 14.99, GBP 11.99, EURO 14.99, SGD 29.90
Resources: Brickset, BrickLink

An original box image of the 75165 Imperial Trooper Battle Pack



Back view of the original box image of the 75165 Imperial Trooper Battle Pack

 

The Star Wars Battle Pack is a must-have LEGO set to increase your battle efficiency

When this battle pack was first released, I knew I would get more of these Star Wars battle packs to increase my troopers count within the battle armies. I would still freshly recall when battle packs were introduced in 2007 and a decade later, we have seen so many varieties of Star Wars battle packs across the universe in different eras. This battle pack were a few of the recent releases which caught my attention, largely because of the newly introduced Imperial Death Troopers which was seen accompanied with Director Orson Krennic, Advanced Weapons Research of the Empire's Imperial Military.. 


The content of the sealed box

The box contains two un-numbered sealed bags and an instruction manual. After building, these are the remaining spare parts. 
 

The must-have army building minifigures to form your Imperial Troopers

This battle pack contain two Imperial Death Troopers and two Stormtroopers, each equipped with a stud shooter. Looks like I have to replace these stud shooters with my standard short/long blasters from my spare inventories. I am not overly fond of these stud shooters. They work and play well for children but they look quite weird with the shooters when I display them altogether and I don't quite think I will be taking that minifigures moving around and shooting studs. Imagine the nightmare when you forget to keep the 1x1 round stud on the floor. I am sure you would be asking your children to keep those studs well after playing. Those studs are not expensive parts and there are spares, but just visualise yourself stepping onto one if you fail to keep it. 

The Imperial Death Troopers are my main reasons to buy this battle pack in order to increase my numbers of these new Imperial Death Troopers. These Imperial Death Troopers are pretty remarkably well designed. This minifigure can only be found in this battle pack and another variant of the Imperial Death Trooper with pauldron can be found in the 75156 Krennic's Imperial Shuttle. The Imperial Death Troopers were an elite variant of the Galactic Empire's stormtroopers. They served as protective details and bodyguards for important Imperial officers such as Admiral Tarkin and Director Krennic. They wore black suits of armor, trained in unarmed combat, heavy weapons, and sniping. in order to aid in their  commando missions. While the Stormtrooper were released over numerous times with many slight variants across different years, this iconic white minifigure design is the latest one which was made available in eight recent LEGO Star War sets including the recent Advent Calendars in 2015 and 2016. We had seen distinct Star Wars battle packs which focused on Stormtroopers and they are 7667 Imperial Dropship in 2008 and 75078 Imperial Troop Transport in 2015. 

I like these minifigures which is why I bought a few boxes. Upon removing their helmets, you can see front view of the minifigures with their same generic actual facial expressions. All of the minifigures are featured with back printing. 

The completed built of the Imperial Walker

The completed built of the Imperial Walker is very simple and good-to-have feature to accompany this battle pack. Standing at 10cm high, this is quite a short mobile walker to accompany the soldiers to take on the rebels. I prefer the actual Imperial Walkers such as AT-ST instead of this miniature version. It is a small built which can be piloted by one trooper. The firing arsenal including stud shooters on both arms which would allow it to adjust from an elevated height. This built does not give me a striking impression and I thought it was quite an average built. It is nice for small battle scenes for quick reconnaissance but it's easily dwarfed by other bigger and powerful Imperial vehicles. You can look at a greater details of this completed built from the side view and back view.  

Let's destroy the Rebel soldiers

 

Director Krennic will be very pleased

 

 

3rd Platoon, search and destroy those rebel elements

To conclude, this is an above average LEGO Star Wars battle packs and I bought it largely because I want these minifigures. Both troopers' type are equally distributed and there is no need to have a specific section commander. I prefer more troopers to be generic, so I can quickly build up a sizable force. The Imperial Death Trooper is the biggest attraction for me, while the Imperial Walker built was quite average which I do not fancy much. The concern which I have noticed is the increase of Star Wars battle packs for US region of USD$1 which does not quite justify the increase and making these battle packs expensive. Thankfully the battle packs cost the same in Singapore without price increase. I sincerely hope this will not be an increasing trend. Hope to pick more of this set when it is on sales in the later half of the year or next. 

Summary review
Playability: 7/10 (Fun to play with to increase the troopers count for your battle scenes)
Design: 7/10 (Good minifigures designs but average looking design for the Imperial Walker.)
Price: 7/10 (Get this polybag via promotional means, and re-consider getting it via secondary market.)
Overall: 7/10 (Average battle pack design but with great assortment of minifigures to increase the troopers and is best to buy when there is a sales.)

I gave it a "3" based on my Review Score Card. What about yours?

I hope every one of you enjoyed reading this simple review of mine. Comments and Criticisms are strongly welcomed.

Pictures can be found in My Flickr.

[XBrickmonster]

@WhiteFang

Very accurate review, I think. I don't have a lot oi stormtroopers anyway, so it might be worth it...

 

 

[kaelthas]

Very nice review! I agree that the walker is not impressive. So mine have been torn apart and became spare bricks. 

[Tidy]

it is worth noting that this is listed as 'retiring soon' on the lego website.

[samurai-turtle]

9 hours ago, kaelthas said:

Very nice review! I agree that the walker is not impressive. So mine have been torn apart and became spare bricks. 

That is my thought on it too. When I first saw a picture of the set. My thought was "What is with LEGO and Battle Pack walkers?" 

[r5-j2]

Great review ,cool figures...very poor walker and also those danged stud shooters!!

Edited August 9, 2017 by r5-j2

[JDbricks]

Great figures in this set. Unfortunately both of my Stormtroopers were misprints. :( 

[roadstermatt]

I have brought a few of these to boost my death troopers ranks as has been previously mentioned the walker isn't the greatest and it would benefit from proper blasters not stud shooters

[LEGOtastic]

Have a few myself, love this range!

[WhiteFang]

Thank you guys. I am glad you enjoyed reading it. The minifigures are certainly the main attraction for me. 

[LegoFjotten]

Thanks for the review!

I've picked up a lot of these packs (30+) at a good price and I think it is a great BP. All figures are proper army material which is a huge relief. Mostly interested in the Stormtroopers so I'm in the process of selling off  most of the Death Troopers.

Don't really care much about the builds in the BP's anyway, just consider them random parts for my collection (although I'll admit this walker is subpar).

 

[brickmasterben11]

On 8/7/2017 at 10:33 AM, Tidy said:

it is worth noting that this is listed as 'retiring soon' on the lego website.

But is this set already retiring? The resistance and first order battlepacks from last year are still active, so I don't think this set should be active still.

[Tidy]

16 hours ago, brickmasterben11 said:

But is this set already retiring? The resistance and first order battlepacks from last year are still active, so I don't think this set should be active still.

neither the resistance and first order battle packs are listed as 'retiring soon' on the lego site.  those 2 obviously didn't sell as well as 75165, which probably drained the inventory levels a lot faster than anticipated [aka, not enough death troopers to sustain prolonged sales]. i personally bought 100 of 75165 and only 2 each of 75131/75132.

if you don't believe me, just go to the lego shop @ home and look for yourself.