[Review] 8015 Assassin Droids Battle Pack

[Millacol88]

It has become a tradition of sorts that every January wave of LEGO brings a new pair of Star Wars battle packs. This year, We got Phase 1 clones (8014), and Assassin droids (duh, this set). Both of these sets contain characters inspired by the recent CW Star Wars show. Most people liked 8014 but scoffed at this one, as the figures in it were unrecognizable to anyone who doesn't watch the CW. Some, however, liked the set for the simple but sleek speeder, and the various battle droid parts in rare colours. Well, if you are one of the people still standing squarely on the fence about whether or not to get this set, read on!

Set Name: Assassin Droids Battle Pack

Set Number: 8015

Theme: Star Wars

Subtheme: The Clone Wars

Released: 2009

Pieces: 94

Minifigs: Five

Price: 9.99 USD, 9.79 GBP, 12.99 CDN, Price in Euros varies from 13.95 to 18.95.

Brickset

Peeron

Bricklink

Shop@Home

Shop@Home Description:

Unleash an army of destructive droids!

Programmed for stealth and destruction, assassin droids are used by gangsters, smugglers and crooks on every planet from Coruscant to Tatooine. Build up your own army of these silent, skilled and sneaky droids and send them out with their flick-missile-firing speeder on secret missions all across the galaxy!

* Includes 3 Assassin Droid™ and 2 Elite Assassin Droid™ minifigures and 2 flick fire missiles!

* Build your army and add #8014 Clone Walker™ Battle Pack for even more fun!

* Measures 8" (20cm) long!

Box Front

This is just a standard CW box, with a nice little "Build Your Army" logo in the bottom left corner. It shows the included speeder swooshing along with some Assassin Droids running alongside it, fighting an unseen enemy. The boxes lately seem glossier than they used to be. Perhaps they changed the cardboard they're made of, or the paint they used on them.

Box Back

The box shows the included figures as well as a battle scene that can be made if you combine this set with the 8014 Clone Walker battle Pack. It looks kind of bare, most likely because this set really doesn't have any features that can be showed off here. Oh, except the amazing flick-fire missiles.

Instruction Book-Front

This is the same picture as the front of the box. The instructions had no errors.

Instruction Book-Back

The back of the instructions advertises a contest to win some free LEGO. I believe the same advertisement has been on the back of almost all of my instruction books since I started collecting LEGO again in late 2007.

Minifigures

These are the real attraction of this set, and are the reason why most people bought it. Here we have two new types of figures, 3 "assassin droids" and 2 "Elite Assassin droids". I'm not a big fan of the CW, so I'm not sure whether these look anything like their respective characters in the show. The best part of these figs, for me at least, is the variety of battle droid parts in two unusual colours: black, and, much more importantly: Metallic silver! I honestly would have prefered a new B1 battle droid pack with a new vehicle, and B2 battle droids with that new "gun-arm". However, my enthusiasm for these figures is greatly increased by the lovely colours.

Weapons/Extra Parts

For weapons, we are given one long, and four short blasters. We get quite a volume of spare parts as well: Two clips, one in Mettallic silver, one in black, three 1x1 round plates in black, metallic silver, and trans-orange, a bley technic connector, 2 straight battle droid arms, one in metallic silver, and one in black, as well as two curved battle droid arms, and a 1/2 technic pin.

The Speeder

Overall View

This is one of my favourite battle pack vehicles. It has a very nice colour scheme of dark bley and dark blue, as well as a very nice shape and quite sleek lines considering how few parts it uses. The two wing-like parts that stick out the back are quite interesting. The part that is dark bley is clearly just standard ABS, but the the bley part is bendible and rubbery, kind of like Kit Fisto's head. While I'm not sure why they did this, its cool nonetheless. This neat little speeder also makes great use of these slopes, which I find quite useful for MOCing.

Front View

This is basically what a clone trooper sees right before he dies in a painful, anonymous death.

Side View

Heres a great shot of those awesome Flick-missiles.

Back View

Here you can see the two dark bley jumper plates that two of the droids can put their blasters into.

Top View

Here you see where two of the droids can sit.

Entire Set

While two droids man their guns and prepare to swoosh off in their small speeder, three others are ready to take down some clone trooper scum with their good old-fashioned High-powered-liquid-cooled-atomsmashing-ionizing-dishwashing-super-duper-blasters-of-death.

The Ratings:

Build: 7/10 - There were no troubles here, but there weren't exactly any interesting design techniques either.

Design: 8/10 - My favourite battle pack vehicle, it looks very sleek and fast.

Playability: 7/10 - It holds up well, but there aren't any interesting play features that draw you in.

Minifigures: 7/10 - I'm not big on the CW, so these figs don't mean much to me, but they do come in some great colours.

Price: 9/10 This is on par with the other battle packs, and is certainly worth it.

Total: 38/50

Conclusion

All in all, I really like this set. It has a solid ship, alright minifigures, and a very affordable price tag. If you are a fan of the CW, I highly recommend picking this up. If not, it makes a nice complement to a clone BP, and is a very nice parts pack, as well as having some cool-coloured BD parts. Although, with me being an OT/PT guy, I can't see the appeal of making an army of these, a CW fan definitely would. I bought two for the excellent parts and OK minifigures in good colours.

Thank you for reading my review! C&C is definitely welcome.

Edited June 18, 2009 by KimT
indexed and poll added

[Luke McAwesome]

I'll post this here so my fellow teachers as well as the students of the RA can comment on it. Once the thread dies, I'll post this in the SW forum.

You forgot to remove this.

While two droids man their guns and prepare to swoosh off in their small speeder, three others are ready to take down some clone trooper scum with their good old-fashioned High-powered-liquid-cooled-atomsmashing-ionizing-dishwashing-super-duper-blasters-of-death.

Thanks for the review! This set is just a basic Army Building set, so I'm not really too interested in this. But the firgures are still cool.

[ILikePi]

Thanks for the review, Millacol!

This is a pretty good battle pack for $10, but I don't like how around half of all the pieces are droids parts...

[def]

I enjoyed this battle pack much more than the old droid battle pack. These droids at least had moving legs The ship isn't so interesting, but it's well modifiable with a nice color scheme. A solid set... but I liked the clone pack a smidgen better.

[prateek]

I HATE Droid BP's! good review though

[Dr. Steve]

Great Review...Awesome Pics!

[the horrorist]

I think the bendible parts of the wings are to prevent the kiddies from hurting themselves. It would be to sharp otherwise.

[Fumoffu]

Thanks for the good review.

I like the silver colour pieces but find the proportion for the assassin droids to be the shortcoming (body and head too long). This set isn't very popular if my local toy stores are anything to go by. The Clone Walker pack tends to sell out very very quickly but you can always find plenty of this set on the shelves.

[KuchN]

Same here, I work in a toy store and if we get a lego shipment the clone BP are allways sold out ASAP. Droid sets in general sell poor, other than the halfire droid we still have plenty Assansins and Hyena Bomber Sets :( and Lego shoud know this Kids love Clone Minifigs but hate Droid ones. It seems besides AFOL'S almost nowbody buys a Droid set.

[UsernameMDM]

Good review. I hope this set goes on clearance soon as I would like to buy a couple, but not at full retail. These seem to sit on the shelf more than the Clone Walker battle pack does.

[salty tbone]

Thanks for the review. I got this set free with the Lego store promotion this month and really like the metallic droids. Plus a whopping 11 extra pieces for a 94 piece set!

Same here, I work in a toy store and if we get a lego shipment the clone BP are allways sold out ASAP. Droid sets in general sell poor, other than the halfire droid we still have plenty Assansins and Hyena Bomber Sets :( and Lego shoud know this Kids love Clone Minifigs but hate Droid ones. It seems besides AFOL'S almost nowbody buys a Droid set.

I noticed the same thing, and it makes me wonder who the clones are fighting if kids don't get the droids too?

[LegoPigeon]

I don't think it would long to build it; fairly cheap price; I prefer the Speeder bikes though :)

[The Cobra]

I would have rated it "Above average", if it wasn't for the price increase. So I only rate it Average and hope to find it for something less than RRP (I'm not a SW fan so I'm only buying one each of these battle packs).