LEGO Avengers Infinity War 76101; Outrider Dropship Attack: When a Battle Pack isn't a Battle Pack

With Infinity War now being released in cinemas, and seeing as I won't get to it until this time next year (maybe, might break that rule for this, at time of writing the movie's not out for another few days), I still want to do something more directly connected to the film, so why not review the Lego Sets made? I know I said I'd do the Hulkbuster, and I still will, I just flipped the order around. Instead, these are going to go in order the Infinity Stones were revealed in the movies, and because the first was the Space Stone, first seen as the Tesseract in Captain America: The First Avenger. We're doing the smallest set of the wave first. Sound good? No? Too bad.

For all of these though, as there will be a mix of "these being written before watching the movie" and the fact that these are all coming out within a few weeks of the film in cinemas, I am going to avoid movie accuracy in these reviews. At least when I did Black Panther, the movie was still out in cinemas and had been there for a long time. If there's a second wave (which I do hope there is), I will look at those in the context of the film itself. I will, however, be referencing the trailers though, as I feel like that's fair game. But for now, getting all the exposition out of the way, let's get to it.

Starting with the Minifigs and Minifig accessories. In this set, you get two Outriders, the cannon fodder of the movie by the looks of it, Black Widow with her two batons, and Steve Rogers with two claw gauntlet pieces to represent the new shields that he gets in the movie. While the minifigs of Cap and Widdow do look really good, have some great prints for their bodies and both have alternate face prints behind their hair. The only real flaw I have with them is that I'd rather they'd made a new piece for the shields as the claw gauntlets don't look appropriate. The two are also the biggest reason why people don't like the set. See, this sort of set is seen as a Battle Pack. Something that collectors will buy lots of to serve as army builders. It's why you have the two Outriders. While many will still buy the set for that reason, they'd have rathered Cap and Widdow either be two unnamed army building characters of the Wakandan army, or just two more Outriders. Even the army builders don't need lots of Cap and Widdow and while they could sell on aftermarket places, they wouldn't sell that well cause they're in a cheap set that anyone could buy with loose change, so what's the point in going to aftermarket? As for the Outriders though, they... look like cannon fodder... there's not much more to them than that. Again, torso and head prints are nice, and they both have a new piece on their backs to allow for four extra arms to be attached (hello obvious reuse for a Doc Oct set), but you don't need this set for them, as you get more of them in the other sets. The biggest draw of this set though is the Space Stone. Each of the sets come with one Infinity Stone, you get a set of four of the color in each set though so you have spares. Their main functionality won't appear until a later set, but for now, you do get a little stand to put the stone on. The stand is the only way a Minifig can actually hold the stones, the pin on them is too small, though for a good reason. The stone itself is done in Lego's traditional dark blue translucent plastic, and does look really good, its a nice interpretation of the Space Stone.

As for the Outrider Dropship itself, for a set this size, its fine, but there are a few things that do annoy me. The ship is capable of holding two minifigs inside of it, including the Outriders and their backpacks, but it's not the most secure of connections, relying on a piece meant for holding the minifigs by their feet in with friction, as such its kinda easy to knock them over when trying to put them in. I'd have rathered this be a full on stud connection. There's also a lot of empty space in the cockpit of the dropship due to the pieces they used for the Dropship's glass. The shape of the set is cool and looks distinctly alien (even if it means that there's a gap in the ship), but it needed something to fill in that dead air. The build is simple and easy enough to do and the sticker details are subtle, yet effective. But one thing I really hate, something that they've done a lot and it annoys me every time, how they handled the Stud Launchers. Like with the Rhino Face off, this set has Stud Launchers, but unlike that set where it uses brick mounted launchers, these use ones that are meant to be held by minifigs, where the handle is at an angle. This build trick drives me insane because it does not look aesthetically pleasing. The launchers are always at an angle due to the way the piece was molded with an angled handle, it was meant for minifigs to hold after all. As a result, the launchers don't fire straight, making them really ineffective guns on a ship. Unless you're Hawkeye who can easily calculate bounce back from shots to land direct hits on an enemy, you are not hitting anything smaller than the ground with these guns. Why they don't just mold a new version of the launcher to have a straight handle is beyond me cause they do this a lot (I have plans to review two Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 sets that do this too, but those are for another time).

As a traditional Lego set, its fine, though it feels like it should have been a Battle Pack and as a Battle Pack, it shouldn't have had two named, iconic characters. It needed more grunts, more cannon fodder to replace Cap and Widdow. That's really the only fault with it that I have. Up next on the main site is Captain America Civil War, on there right now is the review of Ant-Man, and coming up next on here, the Mind Stone with set number 76103: Corvus Glaive Thresher Attack.