Stegoceras

Review: 7913 Clone Trooper Battle Pack

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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:

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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:

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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.

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Nothing really special in the side view except the amazing details on the ARF trooper helmet.

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All of them are back printed and this shot also shows the nice markings on the Clone Commanders and bomb squad trooper backs.

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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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Great review! Thanks. The ARF trooper helmet detail is amazing. I think just that helmet makes him my favorite of the four, even thought the body printing on the others is really good.

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This is definetly a great set, and as you said, the battle packs are never perfect and the BARC is a little wide.

I saw on a YouTube reveiw of this that if you swap the ARF and "commander"'s legs, it looks preety good on the ARF!

Great review with good things that you pointed out, including the "friendly fire" bit :laugh:

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Thanks for the review! The vehicle IMO is the best I've ever seen in battlepacks, a lot better than the Mandalorian battle pack, but that's not so hard :tongue:

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Great review. Have you considered joining the Reviewer's Academy? I think you'd do well.

The minifigures look great. I especially like the uber-detailed ARF trooper.

I'm also one of those who like the BARC speeder. It's a nice model, and a good one to use to build up your ground vehicles.

Those new pistols are looking nice. Like you said though, they'd look better with the Mandolorians.

I'm actually glad that the ''WIN" poster picture was too blurry, we've seen it plenty. :wink:.

Good review, I can't wait to see more from you.

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Nice job on the review! :classic:The only thing you missed is build pics.

This set has grown on me as a whole, but I still don't like the BARC. :hmpf_bad:

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Thank you for the nice review. :thumbup::classic:

The stud on the head who is now closed is also seen by someone on Brickshelf and I saw it also with some of my newer minifigs. It looks like it is a new design, but I not understand why. The hairpiece of the female bountyhunter in the new SW bountyhuntership (just lost her name) would stay in both studs, I think.

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Nice review. I like this set. The BARC is really considering it's made to be flung off a flight of stairs by a bunch of 8 year olds. The figures are amazing, but I don't understand the point of the new closed head stud design :wacko:

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Cheers for the review!

I'm very much sold on this battlepack, the minifigs are superb and that BARC speeder isn't too bad at all; the front engine could be slimmer but the rest is pretty solid (the rear section actually bears resemblance to my own design). I can see myself purchasing many of these.

If I could change anything about this battlepack... an extra ARF or patterned clonetrooper as opposed to the bomb trooper - they're the kings of this pack in my opinion. I think they could've taken the variation a step further by varying each (or at least one) of the faces - like Captain Rex - considering how much variation we see in the troopers in the series'. But those are minor niggles really - this is one of the best battlepacks yet.

Thanks again Stegoceras! :wink:

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Thank you for the nice review. :thumbup::classic:

The stud on the head who is now closed is also seen by someone on Brickshelf and I saw it also with some of my newer minifigs. It looks like it is a new design, but I not understand why. The hairpiece of the female bountyhunter in the new SW bountyhuntership (just lost her name) would stay in both studs, I think.

Really? Interesting move. If I remember correctly, the studs were hollowed out to allow air to flow through the head, reducingthe chance that air pressure (or lack of it) could cause the head to become stuck.

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Thanks for the review Stegoceras!

I really can't wait to get this set, personally I think its a nice change not to have loads of generic clones and for once all printed clones! :wub:

The BARC is great imo, I might do alittle moding of it but I'm very happy with it.

Thanks again for the review!

CF

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Great review, love this set. I have been trying to find it for weeks now in the US... Don't want to order online.

The ARF trooper is incredible and will easily be the new favorite, especially after the DM Secrets trailer.

Has anyone seen these in the US yet?

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Thanks all for the kind words on my first review.

Great review. Have you considered joining the Reviewer's Academy? I think you'd do well.

The minifigures look great. I especially like the uber-detailed ARF trooper.

I'm also one of those who like the BARC speeder. It's a nice model, and a good one to use to build up your ground vehicles.

Those new pistols are looking nice. Like you said though, they'd look better with the Mandolorians.

I'm actually glad that the ''WIN" poster picture was too blurry, we've seen it plenty. :wink:.

Good review, I can't wait to see more from you.

I certainly have thought about joining the academy, but I didn't want to start something and then realize I was never going to follow-up on it. Now that I have proven myself I can do it I will reconsider.

Nice job on the review! :classic:The only thing you missed is build pics.

This set has grown on me as a whole, but I still don't like the BARC. :hmpf_bad:

Thanks, as for the build pictures, I decided it wasn't real worth it on such a small set, you can pretty much see how it's build-up.

Great review, love this set. I have been trying to find it for weeks now in the US... Don't want to order online.

The ARF trooper is incredible and will easily be the new favorite, especially after the DM Secrets trailer.

Has anyone seen these in the US yet?

For once us Europeans are in luck with the early releases here. But I think they will start popping-up in USA as well very soon.

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I certainly have thought about joining the academy, but I didn't want to start something and then realize I was never going to follow-up on it. Now that I have proven myself I can do it I will reconsider.

Thanks, as for the build pictures, I decided it wasn't real worth it on such a small set, you can pretty much see how it's build-up.

I know, I was just pointing that out because that's a requirement for 'proper' reviews. :wink: The RA will make you do that.

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Very nice review Stegoceras! :thumbup: I really like some of your keen (and funny) observations on this set - the wrong Clone Trooper name of the Clone Commander, the "stolen" pistols by the ARF, and the friendly fire hitting the ARF in the boxart. :grin:

Regarding the set, my view of this has always been the same since Day One - this is really a must-buy. Excellent variation of new clone figs with a pretty decent speeder (the best BP vehicle IMO), just overall a very good buy anytime of the day.

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I was waiting for a review of this, thank you for an amazing review :classic:

I'm kinda upset with the change in the head are you sure its not just an accident?

I am now skeptic of this...

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Nice review.

Dunno how I missed this one.

I'll frontpage it tomorrow and leave the T-6 Jedi Shuttle Review up for a little while.

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Well looks like your review will make front page over my review of the same thing I only discovered that the set was already reviewed after i posted mine so congratulations i looked over yours compared to mine and inspite of my self i think yours is better and more deserving of front page

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Has anyone seen these in the US yet?

Picked up two yesterday at the local LEGO store. The entire shipments worth of these sold out within an hour or so.

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Thank you for good review. :laugh:

Now I'm thinking about buying more than 3 Clone BP's when they come to Croatia. :thumbup:

I wasn't so excited about ARF Trooper but he is beautiful. :thumbup:

Although, Horn Company Trooper is way more cooler. :thumbup:

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Thanks for the review Stego,

I must say I am quite fondo this BP verses the old one with the walker in it. It's just, nicer and the clones are great looking. The off white on the bomb troopers doesnt bother me. The new helmet looks stunning as well. And, the Barc Speeder is surprisngly nice in this set, the quality of the models in these battle packs are finally starting to go somewhere. I'll probably pick up two of these.

I certainly have thought about joining the academy, but I didn't want to start something and then realize I was never going to follow-up on it. Now that I have proven myself I can do it I will reconsider.

Well for a first review thi is definatly shades of an excellent review, I think the academy would help you put those skills to use and truley make a great review.

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Really? Interesting move. If I remember correctly, the studs were hollowed out to allow air to flow through the head, reducingthe chance that air pressure (or lack of it) could cause the head to become stuck.

To counter that, I heard it was so if a child swallowed it, they could breathe through the holes.

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Wow, I think I would still get the set just for the minifigs. They look very nice. The speeder is an added bonus. For price issues, I'd just wait for a coupon, because they are starting to creep higher and higher. I still remember when they had ones that were just 9.99 each, now the battle packs are like 14.99 each. Shesh.

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To counter that, I heard it was so if a child swallowed it, they could breathe through the holes.

What do you mean 'counter that'? Those are both reason's for the holes.

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