LEGO Star Wars 40755 Imperial Dropship vs. Rebel Scout Speeder review

LEGO Star Wars sneaks one final 25th-anniversary set on to shelves with a redux of two retro army builders, as it continues to play with the format and execution of battle packs in a slightly puzzling package.

The LEGO Group started 2024 by revisiting the very first battle packs in 75372 Clone Trooper & Battle Droid Battle Pack, and now it’s capping off the year by calling back to the second round of army builders: 2008’s 7667 Imperial Dropship and 7668 Rebel Scout Speeder. They’re combined here into a single set, 40755 Imperial Dropship vs. Rebel Scout Speeder, with some upgrades, some downgrades and a sprinkling of 25th-anniversary celebrations on top. But is there enough substance here to warrant building an accidental army of pink astromech droids?

Release: October 1, 2024 Price: £34.99 / $39.99 / €39.99 Pieces: 383 Minifigures: 7 LEGO: Order now

Third time isn’t the charm

The LEGO Group must have an absolute surplus of Rebel Fleet Troopers and Stormtroopers in a factory somewhere, because this is the second LEGO Star Wars set this year to throw them at us like they’re going out of style. 75387 Boarding the Tantive IV serves up two apiece alongside three named characters for £49.99 / $54.99 / €54.99, while 40755 Imperial Dropship vs. Rebel Scout Speeder redresses the balance to three Stormies, three Rebels and one bonus 25th anniversary minifigure for £34.99 / $39.99 / €39.99.

Those of us playing the numbers game can already see that’s a better and more affordable way to build out armies of these two factions, and that’s supported by the fact this set is a direct remake of two of the O.G. battle packs from 2008. This is actually the third run around the block for the Imperial Dropship, which returned in 2019 to celebrate LEGO Star Wars’ 20th anniversary (so now holds the sole acclaim of honouring both these occasions). That version was a more direct nod to the 2008 set, with three Stormtroopers, a Shadow Stormtrooper and a bonus Han Solo 20th anniversary minifigure.

This one’s dropped the Shadow Stormie and instead puts a regular trooper in the pilot’s seat, so with only two other Imperial soldiers in the box the dropship has been cut back to just two seats. (The original held four, while the 2019 version held three.) The release mechanism for the troop platform is smart and effective, combining a clip with rail elements to anchor it in place but allow for a swift disconnection. It’s tough to say this is anything other than the least attractive of the three dropships so far, though – the cockpit feels horrendously oversized and as a build experience it’s very much giving ‘What spare parts do we have lying around?’

Rebel retro redux done right

It’s a different story for the Rebel Scout Speeder. Both of these transports were dreamt up by the LEGO Group back in 2008, so there was plenty of room to get creative without worrying about accuracy to the source material (the source material is, indeed, a LEGO set), and while the dropship is lacking the speeder is a real success story. It’s compact and concise in all the right ways, and yet still shrewdly keeps the focus on that massive turret strapped to the rear end of the vehicle.

There are a handful of stickers across the two models to incorporate each faction’s logos and a little extra detail on the speeder, but they’re by no means a calamitous amount – and they do nothing to slow down the build process, which is over quicker than it will take to remember what you were doing in 2008 back when the original versions hit shelves. (I was stockpiling them because I was still interested in army building then and, you know, they were £10.)

Still, battle packs have never really been about the build experience. If one happens to churn out a good vehicle we call it a happy accident and move on with our lives. What you’re really coming to a set like this for is the minifigures, and the potential to amass huge numbers of generic soldiers without breaking the bank. It’s a remit 40755 Imperial Dropship vs. Rebel Scout Speeder aims to fulfil in 2024, only once again on vastly different terms to previous battle packs.

A battle pack identity crisis

When battle packs first arrived on the scene in 2007, they stayed pretty consistent for a good few years, serving up four minifigures (droids being the exception to the rule) and a couple of small builds for £9, then £10, then £12, then £13 and so on. Minor changes along the way mainly involved which factions were included in the box – sometimes one, sometimes two – but it wasn’t until 2020 that the LEGO Group really started to shake up the battle pack format with 75280 501st Legion Clone Troopers.

That set (the result of a fan campaign) increased the size of the builds, the number of minifigures and above all else the price – at least compared to traditional battle packs. Regular army builders then returned in 2022 with an exorbitant price bump to £18, then jumped once more in 2023 to £19, until the LEGO Group tried something different yet again in January with 75372 Clone Trooper & Battle Droid Battle Pack, which offers surprisingly good value compared to its recent contemporaries (four clones, five droids and a bunch of builds for ‘only’ £25).

This brief history lesson is important to understand the context in which 40755 Imperial Dropship vs. Rebel Scout Speeder arrives on shelves. By all accounts £35 for what’s in the box is pretty favourable, at least compared to recent battle packs. But there’s one more piece of context to consider: this set is a LEGO Store exclusive, and feels very unlikely to ever hit deep discounts in the same way that you can regularly find Ahsoka’s 332nd Clone Trooper battle pack on two-for-£20 deals, or 75372 for £17 at Amazon (for instance).

And then there’s the minifigures themselves, which are just… fine. The Rebel Fleet Troopers sorely need dual-moulded legs to give them an edge over the originals, which are now old enough to get married in the UK (think about that one while you’re putting this together), and the Stormtrooper helmets have been around long enough now that you’ll have made your mind up on them one way or the other.

QT-KT is a real highlight, not only for the droid’s backstory – she’s based on R2-KT, the astromech created by 501st Legion founder Albin Johnson for his daughter Katie, who tragically passed away from brain cancer in 2005 – but for having an all-pink astro droid to add to your collection. Between this and L3-G0, it’s shaping up to be a pretty good year for astromechs. But including the droid in an army building set still feels like a strange decision: we can buy this one instead of 75387 Boarding the Tantive IV to avoid getting a bunch of extra Vader and Fives minifigures, but instead we’ll end up with a tonne of QT-KTs. Hmm.

It’s a puzzling set in more ways than one, and perhaps the only explanation that makes any sense is that there really are too many Stormtroopers and Rebel Troopers clogging up production lines around the world. If the LEGO Group wants to offload them like this, though, who are we to say no?

This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

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Our honest opinion: A relatively easy way to build your Imperial and Rebel armies if you’re into that, but you’ll want at least one copy for the novelty, nostalgia and QT-KT.

Author Profile

Chris Wharfe

I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.

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