6th Anniversary REVIEW: 75036 Utapau Troopers

[WhiteFang]

Hello everyone,

It has been quite a long while since I done any Star Wars review. I recall that my last Star War review was the 9489 Endor Rebel Trooper and Imperial Trooper Battle Pack. This time, I am also sharing a new 2014 Star Wars battle pack review. Personally, I am very fond of buying and reviewing Star War battle packs as it will give people a better insight of the value of the minifigures versus the given built of the very small set. Let's see what does this 75036 Utapau Troopers Battle Pack can bring.

Name: 75036 Utapau Troopers

Theme: LEGO System / Star Wars / Episode III (Clone Wars)

Year: 2014

Pieces: 83

Minifigs: 4 minifigures

Price: USD $12.99, GBP 11.99, EURO 16.99, SGD $26.90

Resources: Brickset, BrickLink

Defeat the Tri-Droid with the Utapau Troopers™ battle pack!

Help the 212th Battalion Clone Troopers take on the Octuptarra Tri-Droid with the LEGO® Star Wars™ Utapau Troopers™ battle pack. But watch out! With a rotating head, poseable legs and 3 flick missiles, the dangerous Tri-Droid is more than a match for the Clone Troopers! Includes 4 minifigures with weapons: 2 212th Battalion Clone Troopers™ and 2 Airborne Clone Troopers™.

• Includes 4 minifigures with weapons: 2 212th Battalion Clone Troopers™ and 2 Airborne Clone Troopers™

• Features a Tri-Droid with a rotating head, poseable legs and 3 flick missiles

• Includes 4 new blasters that really fire

• Features new Airborne Clone Trooper™ helmet design and body detailing

• Tri-Droid (with legs folded) measures over 5” (14cm) high, 3” (8cm) long and 2” (7cm) wide

An original box image of the 75036 Utapau Troopers Battle Pack

Back view of the original box image of the 75036 Utapau Troopers Battle Pack

Clone Troopers having a tough battle with Octuptarra Tri-Droid

Putting four Clone Troopers together in a box versus the Octuptarra Tri-Droid under the Separatists! It is totally awesome to see all four minifigures are part of the Republic and these minifigures are all generic soldiers under the 212th Battalion and Airborne Clone Troopers. You also get a fun robotic Tri-Droid of roughly 70 plus brick count. This is definitely welcoming for any LEGO Clone War fans.

The content of the sealed box

The sealed box comes with two mint packages and an instruction manual to guide the user to build up the set. After the building is completed, these are the remaining spare parts. As you may noticed that the high amount of spare parts is due to the 'bullets' for the blasters, where children is most likely to misplace after random shooting in their play time.

Let's start the building process

Front view of Airborne Clone Trooper and 212th Battalion Clone Trooper

I just love these very much, especially when these minifigures have a sense of belonging to the Republic.

Let me give the breakdown of their origin. The generic 212th Battalion Clone Trooper (on the right) is part of the 212th Attack Battalion under the leadership of Clone Commander Cody and Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi during the Clone Wars. Clone Troopers assigned to the 212th Battalion were distinguished by the orange markings on their battle armour. The generic Airborne Clone Trooper (on the left) or also known as Clone Paratrooper is part of the 2nd Airborne Company which was attached to the 212th Attack Battalion. These are part of the 7th Sky Corps.

This is a close up view of the Clone Troopers without helmets on. Their facial appearance look better and nicer than the old Clone Troopers design in the 8014 Clone Walker Battle Pack. The Clone Troopers also contain very nice detailed back printing. All in all, these minifigures are definitely worth getting in multiples.

A closer view of the new blaster

Since I did not highlight this before, I thought you should know that the new blaster is made up of three simple components which was also designed by Erland Front, LEGO Parts Designer. I am honoured to hear his presentation during the Eurobricks Tenth Anniversary in Billund and his presentation covered this new blaster. In order to innovate this blaster design for high playability, he resorted to do up a prototype of the design blaster which is quite big in scale for your hand to hold. He shrink it down and made this blaster undergo quality testing and I believe it can click and shot up to 10,000 times before it start to worn out. I don't think any of us will actually do more than 10,000 worth of clicking for these new blasters.

Prepare the troopers and move out

Arc Trooper and Airborne Clone Trooper

The building process of the Octuptarra Tri-Droid

The fast moving Octuptarra Tri-Droid

The Octuptarra Tri-Droid is an advanced combat droid used by the Separatists during the Clone Wars. The stilt-legged spider-like droid, armed with laser turrets. They were equipped with three laser turrets and in this case represented as flick missiles, one on each side, below each photoreceptor. Their rotating multi-jointed assemblies allowed them to change facing almost instantly and they could fire from extended ranges, though they were vulnerable in close-quarters fighting. It was almost impossible to approach such droids, as all sides conceivably faced the front. It has appeared a few settings, but more notable in the Battle of Utapau.

Our battle unit is ready for deployment

Take it down before it wipe us all

To conclude, this battle pack is worth getting in multiples. Rarely, we are able to get four minifigures of the same affiliation where most of it are battle packs that consist of two versus two play scenario. I think this is a smart move by TLG as it help to boost army building and definitely will help to increase the possibility of amassing a bigger 212th army through this battle pack. Not only that, this Octuptarra Tri-Droid is pretty decent and I like the built of it, which is similar to the original design.

Summary review

Playability: 8/10 (Fun to play with the Octuptarra Tri-Droid with the Clone Troops together.)

Design: 9/10 (The Octuptarra Tri-Droid is a decent design but the high rating is for the excellent design of the Clone Troopers.)

Price: 8/10 (The price is on the quite high side with the low parts per cost ratio especially in Singapore context even though the price has reduced a little as compared with previous years.)

Overall: 8.3/10 (Excellent way to army build the 212th Battalion Clone Troopers and Airborne Clone Troopers.)

I gave it a "5" 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.

[Sir Brickalot]

Fantastic review as always WhiteFang! This looks like a great set.

[aayla-secura]

Superb Review Whitefang ! I always enjoy your reviews :-) Since its a Battlepack there cant go that much wrong, i share your rating.

[ChubbyMcPorkins]

Excellent Review Whitefang! This is certainley one of the better battle packs!

[Flieger]

It is a well executed BP with attractive figures, but I still think the Death Star Troopers and the Kashyyyk Troopers were better. It is just that this wave was very, very good when it came to BPs.

I have two little problems with this BP:

1) The Droid. I know there was a Tri-Droid in the background of Utapau somewhere, but a Crab Droid would have still been the far better choice. It may be just me, but I think this scene is far more iconic than this...

2) The Death Star Troopers and the Kashyyyk Troopers have a lot of sets to go with, while Utapau is still rather unexplored. There is the Wheelbike, but that is it. The Kashyyyk sets combine a lot better e.g.

Again, this is just complaining about extremely minor issues, I am very happy to have this set. It was actually the first of the BPs I bought in 2013.

[WhiteFang]

Thanks guys for your kind words! I enjoyed as much as I opened up this battle pack. It is a pity that I only bought one pack so far.

It is a well executed BP with attractive figures, but I still think the Death Star Troopers and the Kashyyyk Troopers were better. It is just that this wave was very, very good when it came to BPs.

I don't disagree with you when you put the other two battlepacks together. It is true that the rest are more iconic than this in terms of recognisable. I also own them and I know roughly what you meant. However, the main focus for this pack is more inclined towards people who have strong liking to the animated Clone Wars cartoon which I enjoyed watching. Furthermore, the design of the minifigs are good enough reason for me just to buy. All in all, this is an excellent year for SW battle packs, similar to 2008.

[DarthBrickus]

Interesting Info about the studblasters, i don't like them visually, but they work really well.

Thanks for the review, i wouldn't mind reading one for the Kashyyk Battlepack *wink* *wink* *cough* *cough*