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In 2007, Lego introduced a great new concept into their annual lineup of sets, the battle pack, and they have produced various ways of building up your minifigure armies ever since. But after a while, even clones and Stormtroopers tend to get boring, so they decided to dabble in lesser known parts of the Star Wars universe, such as the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, which became free-to-play last November. Was this a smart move? Is the game popular enough to warrant a battle pack based on it? And most importantly, should you buy it? Perhaps this review will answer some of these questions for you. Set Number: 75001 Name: Republic Troopers vs. Sith Troopers Theme: Star Wars Subtheme: The Old Republic Year of Release: 2013 Pieces: 63 Minifigs: 4 Price: $12.99 USD S@H description: Brickset Bricklink Brickshelf S@H The Box The box is small and almost square, just like every other set in this price range this year, and features the new green Yoda design. It goes well with the green hills that make up the background which I believe is supposed to be Alderaan, as seen in the . It also has the logo of the game in the lower left corner to let people know what the set is based on. The back features a very similar scene along with several views of the speeder and of how it fires its flick missiles. Most of these images are somewhat redundant in my opinion, but at least it's not boring. There is also a teaser image for The Yoda Chronicles. TLG is really trying to push the popularity of the little green Jedi master this year, aren't they? Contents Inside the box there are two bags, the instructions booklet, and a sticker sheet. I think this is the first time that there are stickers in a battle pack, or any $10 Star Wars set for that matter. Also, look at how relatively empty these bags are. I know this is a small set, but I can't help but feel ripped off already. Oh well, let's reserve our judgement for the end. Here is a random instructions page. There are only 14 pages of instructions and they are pretty easy to follow. The last few pages show a lineup of all the minifigures and sets of the winter 2013 wave and a code that unlocks something on the Lego Star Wars website relating to The Yoda Chronicles. Even though there is only a small number of parts in this set, there are a few noteworthy ones among them. The obvious one is the 6x6 round corner slope which has appeared in only a nine other sets, of which only two have it in dark gray. Another interesting piece is this new plate with flick fire missile holder. This one is all over the 2013 sets and it does help incorporate the missiles less conspicuously, so I'm not complaining about it. The third is the 2x2 hinge plate in red, which is fairly new and rare and has only appeared in two other sets in this color. All of these pieces are pretty useful. Minifigures There are two troopers of each faction in this set. The Republic troopers are wearing identical armor and have the orange markings that all regular troopers in the game have as opposed to the red special forces markings that Jace Malcom has. Their helmets are a new mold and exclusive to this set for now. They are quite detailed and even have leg printing. Both of them come pretty heavilly armed too, which is only fair given that they don't get a vehicle like the Sith troopers. One of them has a long blaster rifle while the other has heavy gun. It is not said what kind of gun it's supposed to be, and it doesn't look like any particular gun that I know from the game, but it captures the general look of a heavy gun, so I guess that's good enough. They have back printing as well. Maybe it's just me, but the back of their heads seems a bit too exposed by the opening under their helmet. Other than that, they look terrific. When you remove the helmets, you'll find that they have different heads. Oh hai there, Endor Rebel! What are you doing in the Old Republic era? Seriously, it's pretty odd that they chose to include the same head they used for one of the good guys in a battle pack last year. The other trooper seems very familiar too as he has the same head as the imperial officer in the Hoth battle pack and the Hoth Rebel from the latest AT-AT set and many other generic guards in other licensed themes, including the hapless security guard in Super Heroes. The Sith troopers are even better than the Republic ones. There are two variants: one is the same black one you get in the Fury-Class Interceptor, except with leg printing this time, and a red variant, the kind that you encounter on the planet Korriban. Their designs look similar, but there are subtle differences. Variation is always nice, and the metallic silver printing on these figs makes them look so shiny and cool. The details on their helmets is incredible. The black one gets a blaster pistol and the red one gets a regular blaster. Their helmets seem to protect their necks much better than those of the Republic troopers. The stripe on their helmets goes all the way down the back and they have printing on the back of their torso too. Again, you can see some subtle differences here. And under their helmets... What's this? More Super Heroes heads? I knew Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor owned an empire, but I never knew it was a Sith Empire. What happened? Did Lego have excess heads from the first Super Heroes sets left over and decided to put them into this battle pack or is it a coincidence that the most generic heads can be found in that theme? Either way, it's odd to see these three DC comics characters in Star Wars uniforms. The funny thing is that the instructions don't even tell you which head goes onto which body, except that the security guard head goes onto one of the Republic Troopers. I'm assuming this was done in order to encourage interchanging the heads to create personalized troopers, kinda like in the videogame itself, which is a pretty good idea. Here's a side view so that you can see all the great details on the side of both helmets. Comparing them to some reference images, they are all very spot-on. There is not much to show from the build, so I'll just skip to... The Finished Speeder After only about two minutes of building, this is what you get. It's actually not a bad looking speeder. It looks kinda like a mix between a STAP and an AAT. It also reminds me of the old Stingray vehicles from Aquazone. Ah, nostalgia. I couldn't find this speeder on Wookieepedia, and this is the best reference image of it I could find. I have seen it several times in the game, but it always had blue markings like in the following picture rather than the red ones on the Lego version, but perhaps that's just because I haven't been playing the game for long yet. Aside from the color scheme, it's about as accurate as you can get with Lego. Most of the details on the front are made up by the stickers and I doubt it would look quite as good without them, so applying them is recommended. On the side of the handle bar it has a clip to hold the pilot's blaster so that he can grip the bar with both hands. Safety comes first! On the back it has two thrusters and a small platform for the pilot to stand on. Looking at it from the top, it looks nice and aerodynamic. The Complete Set Looking at the finished product, you can't help but feel underwhelmed. The minifigures sure are nice, and the speeder and brick-built blaster are decent too, but there's just so little there, even for a battle pack. But does there really need to be? I'm still not sure. Let's go on to the final ratings. Ratings Design: 4/5 - To be fair, the speeder is pretty accurate and looks good. The design even made me a bit nostalgic. It's nothing extraordinary though. Build: 1/5 - Very short and unsatisfying. It almost feels like a polybag model, plus you have to apply stickers. Ugh! Minifigs: 5/5 - These minifigs are amazing. They have an incredible amount of detail, new helmet molds, and leg printing. The fact that three of the heads are from the Super Heroes theme and two of them have appeared in SW battle packs before is a bit odd, but at least you get four different, generic heads that you can use to customize your troopers, a feature that I have been hoping for in battle packs for a while now. Playability: 3/5 - Pretty basic for a battle pack. You have a speeder that you can swoosh around and some missiles to flick, and the fact that you get two troopers from each faction in this set allows you to play out several battle scenarios right out of the box. Parts: 4/5 - There aren't many parts there, but most of them are useful and some of them are fairly rare, plus you get four different blaster types, so overall not bad. Price: 1/5 - 63 pieces for $13 is pretty bad. It even tops the terrible price-to-piece ration of the Geonosian Starfighter from 2011! But why? Were the new molds and prints on the minifigs so expensive that they had to reduce the amount of bricks so drastically? I don't get it. Overall: 4/5 - This is a tough one. What you get in the set is great: four incredible minifigures which are perfect for army building, four different kinds of weapons, and a neat speeder. The only thing that keeps it from being a great battle pack is the high price and the building experience (or the lack thereof). While I would recommend this set based on its pros, it will probably end up not selling well. Not only is it too expensive, but it's based on a videogame that not many care about. TLG could have easily fixed this problem by including another speeder for the Republic Troopers or by lowering the price which would have made the set more appealing, especially to people who are not into SWTOR, but as it is, I don't think many will buy it. If you see it on sale, I'd say pick at least one up because even if you have never even played SWTOR, you will still be able to appreciate the high effort that went into designing these minifigs and might be able to use the parts for MOCs. And if you do know about SWTOR, you will appreciate it even more. Well, that's all I have to say about it. I hope this review was helpful to you and wish you a happy new year. Billionaire Cosplay by Oky - Space Ranger, on Flickr
