Review: 76101 Outrider Dropship Attack
Posted by CapnRex101,
76101 Outrider Dropship Attack is the smallest of the six Avengers: Infinity War sets but I have been looking forward to it very much. Not only does the set include two prominent characters but it provides a perfect opportunity to gather an army of Outriders.
Furthermore, the dropship looks interesting, more so than one might expect for a set that contains just 124 pieces. I like its unusual geometric shape and the colour scheme appears to work remarkably well in official images. Four desirable minifigures and a great vehicle should make for an excellent set, particularly given the low price of £11.99 or $14.99.
Minifigures
Captain America minifigures from the Marvel Cinematic Universe have featured the same torso since 2015 so this updated version is very welcome. The design is familiar, featuring stripes on the abdomen as well as reddish brown straps on both sides of the torso, but a few smaller details have been refined. For instance, the red stripes are now darker and the buckles are a little more intricate. However, the most notable change is the star on Captain America's chest which is now almost entirely obscured.
Steve Roger's head has also been updated to include a beard. The combination of reddish brown and medium nougat is unusual but I think it looks very good, accurately recreating the rugged appearance of the character in the film. The medium nougat hair matches the beard nicely and Captain America comes with two pearl silver claw pieces which represent his new shields. These look reasonably similar to the weapons in the film but pearl dark grey would have been a better colour choice.
Black Widow has also undergone several updates and now includes a blonde hair piece in place of the standard dark orange. The colour looks superb but I think a shorter style would have been more suitable, perhaps using the bob element which was created for Irina Spalko in the Indiana Jones theme. Jyn Erso's double-sided head, on the other hand, is perfect and includes a great angry expression as well as a calm face.
The torso and legs are both printed with tremendous detail but have fallen foul of concept artwork that shows Black Widow wearing green body armour. Unfortunately, this was changed to a very dark grey for the final costume so the sand green torso is not ideal. Even so, the printed designs look splendid and the trans-light blue 4L bars with which she is armed, representing electrified batons, are alright.
An enormous army of Outriders accompanies Thanos and the Black Order during their invasion of Earth. These four-armed creatures appear very intimidating and look marvellous in minifigure form, although the fact that they have six arms is an obvious issue. Such inaccuracies are usually attributable to a design change made during production of the film but in this case I wonder whether LEGO chose to include six arms as the Outriders in the comics have four arms and it seems unlikely that that was ever altered for the movie.
In any case, you can easily remove a couple of the arms if you wish. I actually rather like the six-armed variant though and the printing on the torso and head looks brilliant, featuring an appropriate mixture of metallic gold, dark bluish grey and black. The dark red mouth is equally impressive and these designs continue onto the back of each minifigure, as shown below. I am also pleased with the new backpack element to which the arms are attached as they are individually articulated so you can create some realistic poses.
The Completed Model
Smaller Super Heroes sets are often only loosely based upon scenes from a given movie and some include vehicles which have been entirely invented. This Outrider Dropship is not an exact match for anything we have seen in promotional material so far but it does resemble these craft from the trailer quite closely, featuring the same pyramidal design. They seem a lot bigger than this model but I can imagine small fighter craft, with room for just a couple of Outriders, protecting the larger dropships.
The model measures just over 12cm in height so is quite imposing and I like its unusual configuration. Combining the angled panels on either side with these trans-light blue windscreens is more effective than I was anticipating and the dark blue and teal highlights look superb, not least because teal is currently a fairly rare colour. The trans-neon orange 1x1 round plates on the stud shooters look out of place to me but this is a minor issue and the stud shooters, which can be angled up and down, are a welcome addition for play.
Five stickers are included and four of those are used on the exterior, adding some extra teal highlights where tiles and plates could not. I like the worn designs and the pearl gold details below the rear flaps, presumably depicting landing jets of some kind, are excellent too. In fact, my only issue with the craft relates to the gap between the angled panels and even this is fairly insignificant as it would be very difficult to fill this space.
All four sides of the pyramidal hull fold down to provide access to the interior. This features a few more teal 1x2 tiles and some tan upholstery which looks remarkably comfortable for an alien ship! The final sticker forms a control panel with a Black Panther emblem which is fitting as the trailer has shown Wakanda under attack by the Outriders. There is also a golden stand for the blue Space Stone, four of which are included on a sprue.
While building this set I became concerned that there would not be space for both Outriders and their extra arms in the cockpit. Thankfully, there is enough room to stand them back to back and close the panels around the minifigures which is impressive for a vehicle of this size. In fact, I am very pleased with every aspect of the model, due in particular to how closely it follows the visual style of the Outrider ships in the Avengers: Infinity War trailer.
Overall
Several of the smaller Marvel Super Heroes sets have disappointed me but 76101 Outrider Dropship Attack is great. I love the Captain America minifigure and Black Widow looks good too, although the inaccurate colour of her torso is unfortunate. The Outriders may also have been affected by changes during production but I am still very pleased with these figures, despite the inclusion of two superfluous arms!
However, the most pleasantly surprising aspect of this set is the Outrider Dropship. This is obviously not an accurate rendition of the vehicles in the trailer but it matches their design quite well and is a lot of fun to play with for a small model. I therefore have no hesitation in recommending this set and it might even be worth getting a couple of additional copies if you are intending to build an Outrider army.
I hope you have found this review informative. Let us know by liking this article and share your opinion of the set in the comments below.
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17 comments on this article
Much better set than the 2015 small ultron battle pack
I have a policy of never buying products based on a movie or tv show until I've seen said movie or tv show, that being said, this set is REALLY tempting.
Wait, those claws are shields? How do you know that?
GET THIS MAN A SHIELD...
Im lookin forward to getting this, as cap is in it.. Or is he Nomad?
Also I need a black widow minifig too and at £11.99 I, ll make room on a shelf at home, it's a bargain.
I swear those are yellow jacket torsos.
Ok, a quick Google search revealed that Cap does indeed have claw-like shields. I guess he won't be getting his old shield back?
I miss Cap's star spangled shield...
Great set, one I actually received in the mail today! Something tells me Black Widow’s hairpiece isn’t only the wrong mold, but should be white, too. Hmmm...
thebrickpal
I also got this set in the mail today and have built it and I am very tempted to get another one after JW sets and HS and HP sets have been purchased.
Black Widow torso will make for great military MOC's, the ship is awesome and it is a great set as I can attest.
Great set. I'm definitely getting this.
Not bad for a small set. I admit, this is one of the few lineups of sets where I'm actually kind of tempted to get most of these sets. Of course, it would set me back a lot and also the Solo sets look fairly good as well. So, I'm just not certain what I should do here. I'd love to hear your opinions. Thanks.
^get ine of these and two of the Imperial Combat Speeder BP.
What I love most is the sprues of four infinity gems. I *lot* of those will end up on eBay and Bricklink by the end of the month, if not sooner. Getting hold of the gauntlet won't be easy, but finding all six gems won't be too tricky at all.
@LordMoral. Thanks for your opinion. That helps me a bit.
I'm probs gonna scoop this just for the Cap fig. Will likely just build the set once then use it for parts. I don't like the new Black Widow look so I'll probably use her parts to make other figures.
i like the minifigs, although i wish you didn't have to buy all the other sets to collect all the stones.
i like all but the sanctum sanctorium and the thresher attack, but i don't want to buy those for 4 stones each, all the same color.
@fowlerbricks, in the teasers for INFINITY WAR, cap has those grey things on his arms, no doubt what the claws represent.