Star Wars Battle Packs

After a couple more nights' work on 10179, I got distracted again.  Today, another Ebay purchase arrived, which I think is the last of the battle packs I need to complete the collection.  Back in the early days of courtship with my wife, she bought me the very first battle pack as a birthday present - 7654 Droids Battle Pack.  It came in at significantly fewer pieces than the UCS sets which were the only other things I owned at the time so was, if I'm very honest, a bit of a disappointment.  

As a rule, I still find the Battle Packs to be an oddity.  Apart from the very first of them, they all conform to a strict rule of 4 minifigs (7654 had no less than 7!) along with a small vehicle/gun.  In many cases, the minifigs are a bit unimaginative - you get 3 or sometimes even 4 of the same one and, for a set where these are clearly the focus, they're often not unique.  

However, today's delivery is a near mint copy (for a really good price of £20!) of 9488: Elite Clone Trooper and Commando Droid Battle Pack (what a mouthful!) which is, in my view, one of the better examples.  The gun is nothing special and the droids aren't unique.  However, the two clone troopers are both really nice minifigs and unique to this set.  The "ARC trooper with backpack" comes with printing all the way down to the feet and two separate cloth capes (the build extends to a 3rd page of the instructions).  The "ARC Elite Clone" is slightly less spectacular but I love the helmet detail.

It's never going to be my favourite set but the fact that it was hard to get hold of at a decent price tells me that others think this is also a worthy set.  7 out of 10.






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