Review:9489 Endor Rebel Trooper & Imperial Trooper Battle Pack/Ministargazer

Featured review

General Solo, is your strike team assembled?!!!

If it isn’t then this entry level set will help you to build your Rebel and Imperial Armies.

The promotional image for the set

Overview

The set contains an Imperial Speeder Bike with a Scout Trooper, a Storm trooper, and 2 Rebel Commandos with a mounted gun/missile launcher under a small tree. All the minifigures are equipped with blasters and there is also a flick fire missile included.

Details

This battle pack has clearly been designed to fit in with previous sets based on the forest moon of Endor from Star Wars Episode VI : Return of the Jedi. (8038 The Battle of Endor and 7956 Ewok Attack ) and as such looks right at home when placed with either of these 2 sets. The set itself follows the tradition that has been established over recent years of small Star Wars battle packs with a few minifigures and a small vehicle, (for example:- 8015, 8083, 7913, to name but a few) This specific set in itself is very similar to the 2009/2010 Snowtrooper Battle Pack, both sets contain a speeder bike, a small weapons platform, 4 minifigures and have an almost identical number of pieces.

Although small, this set has many features and details that should satisfy new and old Lego Star Wars fans alike. The Scout Trooper is quite rare, having only appeared in 5 traditional build sets since 1999, The Stormtrooper has a slightly redesigned torso for 2012 and the Rebel Commandos have new torsos too, 1 is just a slightly clearer design from the Battle of Endor Set, whereas the second is shown to be wearing a open light tan jacket and grey shirt combination. The tree/missile platform is constructed of quite common pieces, however the 4 base plates do appear in a darker green colour that does not appear too often in sets. Finally the Speeder Bike, although this looks similar, it has changed slightly from previous sets, whether this is because each Lego designer wishes to put their own mark on the bike,

Comparison shot of 3 different designs of Speederbikes from sets 8084, 7956 and 9489.

or perhaps they are just making them different so we can tell which set they came from? (the answer to this, we'll probably never know.) This version has taken the rear satchel and grill layout from the White Snow Speeder Bike in set 8084, and the central and front section from set 7956, however the lower guns have been removed and replaced with a round 2x2 slide plate. (see comparison pic)

Construction

Building the set is quite easy, the tree and weapons platform is constructed out of 28 pieces, is very straight forward and will take an advanced builder less than 2 minutes to build, and a small child around 5 minutes. The speeder bike is made from 25 pieces and is slightly more complicated for smaller hands, mainly when connecting the front part to the rear which can be a tight fit, and also lining up the front rods and the triangular elements, that said, an experienced builder will still be able to complete the bike in less than 3 minutes with a small child taking between 5 and 10 depending on how much help you give them. With the minifigures and blasters included, this brings the total build time to around 10-20 minutes.

Playability

This battle pack itself works as a set on it’s own perfectly well, unlike previous sets that only included 1 faction of Clones/Soldiers/Droids, once built you can get straight into the action and pit the 2 Imperial Troopers against the 2 Rebel Commandos and have yourself some great little battles. As with the previous battle packs, there are no major characters included, this also means you can buy multiple sets and build yourself a small battalion, or, use this set to expand the existing Battle of Endor and Ewok Attack sets, then you can re-create full scale battle scenes from The Return Of The Jedi.

Pros

• Cheap (for a Star Wars set)
• The Speeder Bike
• Great for army building

Cons

• Could be a popular set and hard to find.
• Connection on Speeder Bike can be difficult for smaller hands

Rating

Appearance:	4 / 5
Playability:	5 / 5
Value for money:	4 / 5
Overall:	4½ / 5