We continue our early look at the upcoming LEGO Star Wars sets from Solo: A Star Wars Story, following our review of 75210 Moloch’s Landspeeder. Each new Star Wars movie spawns another batch of characters, including stormtrooper variants that generate another batch of Battle Pack sets. Solo is no different, with 75207 Imperial Patrol Battle Pack. The set includes four minifigures with 99 pieces and will retail on April 20th for $14.99.

Despite the official release date a couple weeks away, many brick-and-mortar retailers have begun stocking the sets on their shelves, and they’re also showing up from reputable online sellers. As with the previous LEGO Star Wars Solo set review, it’s unlikely that a LEGO set released ahead of the movie will contain spoilers, but without seeing the film or having reference books in hand yet, our speculation may cause unintentional spoilers for you.

Packaging & instructions

The Imperial Patrol Battle Pack comes in standard Battle Pack packaging — a small box for a small LEGO set.

There really aren’t too many play features in such a small, minifigure-focused set, so the back of the box showcases stud shooters.

The box includes two small, unnumbered bags along with the brief instruction booklet.

The build

Smaller sets like Battle Packs are brief builds indeed, focused as they are on the standard grouping of four minifigures. The instruction booklet is a mere 36 pages long with just 32 steps to complete the little speeder that comes with the minifigures. With angled exterior panels, the central core of the speeder consists of a bunch of technic pins and axles.

The panels connect to those pins with large hinge plates. And yes, those 1×1 round tiles are printed!

The finished model

As Chris and I noted in our book Ultimate LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Star Wars set designers often create non-canon vehicles for sets whose focus is less on a specific scene in one of the movies or TV shows (these are indicated in our DK book as “LEGO Creation”). I stand by the critique I voiced about these “filler” vehicles in my review of last year’s 75167 Bounty Hunter Speeder Bike Battle Pack, but based on production lot photos and a brief appearance in the teaser trailer, the speeder in this Battle Pack does appear to be a canonical vehicle that we’ll see in Solo.

Overall, taking into account the limited references we have at this point, the speeder looks like a great LEGO representation of the movie vehicle — the right overall shaping and scale, with accurate details.

The front of the vehicle has a splitter that presumably forces air through intakes to the engines.

Each side has a stud shooter aligned with the break in the paneling, with asymmetrical detailing on the left and right. The 1×1 round tiles on the rear are printed with the Imperial insignia — another LEGO Star Wars set without a sticker sheet.

The back of the speeder has a pair of trans-blue elements to indicate heated exhaust.

The stormtrooper driver can’t quite reach the controls, but I’ll accept a more realistic and accurate control setup over strict adherence to a minifig’s odd body proportions and limited range of movement.

The minifigures

Battle Packs are of course all about the minifigures. Whether you’re an army builder bent on galactic domination or a collector who wants to ensure you have each unique character, LEGO certainly knows how to scratch our minifig itch. 75207 Imperial Patrol Battle Pack includes three new and unique minifigures (with a duplicate stormtrooper). According to early set descriptions we’ve seen, the minifigures are an Imperial recruitment officer, emigration control officer, and two Patrol Troopers.

The Patrol Troopers appear to be a law enforcement variant of the standard Imperial stormtrooper, with more black markings on their legs and helmets that makes them look more like the color blocking on a traditional police car.

More and more LEGO elements incorporate over-molding or double molding — a technique in which plastic in a second color is injected over a previously molded element in one color. We’ve seen this in numerous Collectible Minifigures, but this appears to be the first stormtrooper helmet that incorporates plastic in two colors as well as printed details. The result is excellent, and we hope to see this approach applied to the standard stormtrooper helmet as well.

The mouthpiece, goggles, visor rim, and rear of the helmet are all a single black piece that underlies the white plastic injected over it (or vice versa — it’s hard to tell after the fact). Printing in gray and black adds additional detail.

The Imperial officer has a new face with a small beard and large sideburns (everyone in movies like Rogue One and Solo set before A New Hope looks like they walked off the streets of London or New York circa 1976), with a new torso design that carries the Major rank badge.

The First Order that succeeded Palpatine and Vader’s Galactic Empire consists of a diverse cast of humans, though they continue to maintain the anti-alien stance that prevailed in the decades before the Rebellion and the destruction of the Death Stars. Thus, the First Order includes female stormtroopers at every level up to Captain Phasma, but the original Empire itself has stolidly remained largely white male-dominated, with rare exceptions like Lothal Governor Arihnda Pryce from Rebels and Thrawn. So it’s noteworthy that the Imperial emigration officer in this Battle Pack is a woman. She wears an all-black uniform with armor on her torso and a standard-issue Imperial Navy trooper (aka Death Star trooper) helmet.

Conclusions & recommendation

With a solid, movie-accurate vehicle and four brand new minifigures that fit right in with the aesthetic of the Galactic Empire, I can find very little to criticize about this Battle Pack. At $15 for 100 pieces, you’re paying for the extra cost associated with manufacturing the four minifigures, of course, but that’s expected and it’s the standard price for a four-fig Battle Pack, with the parts for the vehicle essentially just a nice bonus.

We’ll have to wait another couple of months to learn more about what role these characters and their vehicle play in the movie, but we definitely recommend picking up at least one copy of the Battle Pack when it’s released on April 20th.

75207 Imperial Patrol Battle Pack includes four minifigures with 99 pieces and will retail for $14.99 on April 20. It’s already hitting some brick-and-morter store shelves, though, and available intermittently at higher prices online from secondary sellers.