My gosh, they actually did a 501st battle pack

Wait, this wasn't an April Fool's joke?

i hope we can pre order this

Oh good, now I won’t have to listen to people campaigning for it as nauseum. Plus it does look awesome. I don’t mean to offend anyone who wanted this, it just got a bit annoying.

Are we certain, this isn't a late april fools day joke?

It looks... fine. Great for die-hard fans of Star Wars, but not necessarily all that special for anyone else.

Wow, Lego impressed me. 4 generic troopers (2 normal, 2 jet?) and 2 battle droids. Better than the newer battle packs with like 3 different types of minifigs. Gonna be $40 in Canada I assume, but it's the 501st after all, what's not to love! The builds seem pretty good aswell, glad they gave us normal blasters instead of the clunky stud shooters.

This is not a drill!!

While a bunch of people will likely complain about the price compared to other battle packs the comparison I would do is 75261 which has slightly fewer pieces . Still includes and AT-RT but the baracade and spider droid now is a BARC speeder so a fair exchange. And we went from 4 figs to 6. With 1 from 75621 being the 20th anniversary Darth Vader, so not exactly someone you would want multiples of.

I'm also extremely glad to see they didn't put in unique clones as that would make the set one that people wouldn't want multiples of.

Overall this is exactly what I wanted and better than what I expected. The only thing that could make it better is if they had included a 332nd helmet as an alternate for the troopers, but i expect we'll see those in the future.

I think I'm getting emotional, it's beautiful.

@minishark1000 said:
"Wow, Lego impressed me. 4 generic troopers (2 normal, 2 jet?) and 2 battle droids. Better than the newer battle packs with like 3 different types of minifigs. Gonna be $40 in Canada I assume, but it's the 501st after all, what's not to love! The builds seem pretty good aswell, glad they gave us normal blasters instead of the clunky stud shooters."

Of course they include normal blasters, this is NOT a battle pack.

Interesting how they’re marketing this as “you asked, we did it!” because that enables a dangerous practice of harassing the absolute hell out of the social media teams to get the set you want. How many more campaigns like this are we going to get? I’m shocked they’re branding it this way.

What was that extensive social media campaign? I was aware of all the people clamoring for it, but was it in response to an official solicitation or something?

Pretty cool, but the best thing may be that the MFs have real blaster pieces instead of bloated looking hair-dryer stud shooters!

... and you still have two of those stud shooters at the speeder. (Just in case you missed something... :-))

^^ So it was just something Ryan started rather than LEGO starting out soliciting? No hate, was just unsure if I'd missed something from the wording of this article.

@Mister_Jonny said:
"It looks... fine. Great for die-hard fans of Star Wars, but not necessarily all that special for anyone else. "

Actually I'm certain a lot of SW fans will want this since LEGO hasn't made any clone wars sets in a while. Especially one with some cool figures.

The builds for this is mediocre at best. The barc is decent but that AT-RT is just horrible like its previous iteration. I'm glad and impressed LEGO had the intelligence to put mostly 4 generic clones instead of 3 unique ones like they usually do with there battlepacks or in this any other set. Also you can't really complain about the price of this too. With the known uproar in the online community, they are certainly going to take any means to make a profit.

Yup, that's a buy.

FINALLY! Seven years after the last 501st AT-RT was released, we get the updated version! One feels, however, that the LEGO Group has done a ‘Disney’ in the new designs, but one should certainly not complain. The LEGO Group has listened and not merely taken into consideration the campaign. Thank you LEGO!

Glad this is official so we don't have to hear about it again.

I had the original version of the walker, set 75002, but it's long since been scrapped. Will eagerly buy once I can leave my house after quarantine!

This is amazing! This and the Razor Crest are my most wanted Star Wars sets! Ryan is crying of happiness

I'm not sure what's more impressive, the fact that they actually did it or how fast the comments on this article are filling up.

Dumbfounded!! Looks excellently accurate and realised with the speeder and walker. Plus 4 cool looking troopers! Very happy...

It was so annoying to look at anything Lego posted on Instagram and see the comments rife with not-too-clever variations of "we want a 501st battlepack!" Of all the things desired in Lego Star Wars...sheesh, at least this looks like a decent set. That AT-RT design isn't doing it a lot of favors, but the fanatics clamoring for this won't care too much about that, methinks.

Me: "Man that 501st campaign was annoying. I want a 501st battlepack like everyone else, but jeeze its so annoying hearing all the kids crying for it."

Lego: "Due to popular demand we made a 501st Battlepack!"

Me: "Ohmygoshitactuallyworked?!?!?'

Me five seconds later: "LEGO, BRING BACK BIONICLE, CLASSIC SPACE, CASTLE AND WESTERN NOW! Begging Lego works!"

April fools was yesterday right lol.

Looks amazing and its what we wanted a 501st battle pack.
£24.99 is fair for what you get, definitely going to pick up one at least.

@Robot99: None of the above. It's that they used normal blasters instead of stud shooters!

Favorite LEGO set. Hands down. Gonna by like a million of these.

Glad to see you're back on your feet, Cap'n! And what a way to come back!

Oh wow. I don't believe it! Certainly gotta get this.

The price is good, too, the last at-rts have been 30 and this has way better figures

This is the way

... of doing an excellent battle pack: 3 regular troopers, one special trooper, no officials, a couple of battle droids, decent vehicles (not tiny) and BLASTERS instead of stud shooters!!! 10/10.

If this isn't an April fools joke, then YAY!!!! 501st rock.

Now if only we could get a Jedi Temple for them to attack... ;-)

Proof God is real.

My god.. 4 clones, 2 droids, the right blasters.. wtf is going on?! Am I dreaming? Great job Lego!

Hmm, a double battle pack of sorts. I wonder if this will become a thing, like how we've had the double microfighter packs for a few years now.

Well, not quite, since this is clearly weighted towards one side. Still, when a pair of battle packs are clearly themed together, putting them together in one box wouldn't be a bad thing.

I immediately thought this was an April fools joke, but no, it was posted on the 2nd! I’m impressed! If people are still doubting it’s authenticity, it’s on the LEGO website. I don’t care much for Star Wars battle packs, however, I’m impressed that the spamming of LEGO’s comment sections actually worked!

As much as I like this set, this kind of feels like one of those situations in the toy shop where a little brat is crying and wailing till they get the Lego set they want and the parents give in just to shut them up.

However the problem with this behaviour is that in the next shop the child performs the same stunt and this happens again and again.

Was kinda hoping for 502nd.

Next time.

Am I the only one that has absolutely no idea who is Ryan, what is 501st and why this is so special? It looks like any other SW set to me. In case it's not obvious- I'm indifferent to SW theme.

Fantastic: now MandR and his clone army will ship up and stop spamming comments everywhere... at least until MandR starts his next crusade ??

@Sandinista said:
"Fantastic: now MandR and his clone army will ship up and stop spamming comments everywhere... at least until MandR starts his next crusade ??"

dude MandR starts a new crusade every other month at this point. He's also the leader of the group that got us a UCS Republic Gunship.

I’m going to cry, the Lego Star Wars community made it! We made it! Lego listened!

Very excited for this. Now that the excitement is over can we start asking for a Geonosian Arena set? haha

This is pretty much the triumph of the spammers. Pathetic.

From now on we all know: we can bully, spam and harass LEGO into producing whatever set we want, no matter how niche it is.
Get ready for further pathetic campaigns like the one that led to this.

This is a terrible precedent and LEGO will eventually regret it.

@LuvKernow said:
"Better dig out my Phase 2 Captain Rex! (these are Phase 2 troopers, right?)"

Yep.

The 501st is actually a Fan Legion who George Lucas decided to include into the SW universe with episode 3, they are the ones marching towards the Jedi Temple and also the center of the CW show. Ryan is the man who campaigned to get this done.

@djcbs said:
"This is pretty much the triumph of the spammers. Pathetic.

From now on we all know: we can bully, spam and harass LEGO into producing whatever set we want, no matter how niche it is.
Get ready for further pathetic campaigns like the one that led to this.

This is a terrible precedent and LEGO will eventually regret it."

I doubt LEGO caved to a bunch of children and TFOLs online. If they did, they would have done so a year or more ago. Right now is a perfect time to release sets like this and for fun, they probably just added 501st troops to this. If the "movement" didn't exist this set would have still been released, probably with different kinds of clones.

So what this was the subject of a "spam" campaign? I for one think the set itself looks awesome, and can't wait to army build these new troops. It was only a matter of time before Lego was going to give them to us, anyway.

Only thing bothering me is the front of the AT-RT. It looks too jagged, but I'm not complaining.
Now all we need is a Galactic Marines version. Fingers crossed.

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s been so long, thank you Lego. I’ll get it as soon as I could. And what’s better... normal blasters!

Does anyone want to campaign for a Geonosian Arena?

Reminds me of the letter writing campaigns by Star Trek fans in the Sixties ;-p

Must admit I don't know the source material for this set and personally it doesn't have any appeal to me.
But if so many people are happy, I will be the last to complain. After all, no one is forced to buy it.

All I’m happy about is that I can read comments on Lego’s social media again.

@djcbs:
I mean...if people really want it so badly that they'll go to such lengths, at least they know the set should sell. The only comparable thing they have right now is Ideas, but SW is on the restricted list, so there's no way to actually push something like this through unless the theme finally collapses so badly that they decide to end it. And at that point, I think it's a safe bet that they'd just ignore any SW Ideas projects.

@AustinPowers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501st_Legion

Basically, it started out with a small group of cosplayers who would make their own Stormtrooper armor to wear to conventions and the like. Then people started making other Imperial costumes, someone coined the term "501st Legion", and eventually the whole thing came to the notice of some guy named George Lucas. Unlike Paramount, he had a great relationship with the fan community, and he worked a deal with them where Lucasfilm wouldn't sue their pants off for copyright infringement, on the condition that they agree to certain voluntary limitations (no personal profit, no disrespecting the franchise, etc.). This eventually led to the 501st becoming a legal charitable nonprofit (in the US, at least - not sure how it works elsewhere), and Lucas even wrote them into SW canon as Vader's personal unit (they're the ones he leads into the Jedi Temple during the execution of Order 66). Whenever Lucasfilm gets requests for costumed characters, they generally point the requesting parties towards the 501st Legion and their sister club, the Rebel Legion. Oh, yeah, and some 501st members appeared in The Mandalorian, because the directors realized they didn't have enough armor to complete a shot in the pilot.

So, suffice to say that there are a _LOT_ of people who have been interested in seeing 501st minifigs produced. Partly this is due to the fan organization, partly just because of the story tie to Darth Vader, and partly due to the more intense focus they got during the run of the Clone Wars animated series. After the 501st, probably the next most popular unit would be the 212th Attack Battalion, which was led by Obi-Wan and Commander Cody during Ep3. From there, it would be really hard to tell, because there really aren't any other groups that have the same level of significance to either the story or the fan community.

The big question is, will Lego now complete the fleet?

I would have liked to see a smaller AT-RT and have the set cost $20 - $25, but overall it looks like a pretty good set!

@TheMikeAwakens said:
"I would have liked to see a smaller AT-RT and have the set cost $20 - $25, but overall it looks like a pretty good set!"
I wish LEGO would do an atrt better scaled to a minifig but they seem to only make the oversized ones ??

And thus the meme of getting the LEGO 501st battlepack has come to an end

This is technically not a battle pack, but this is the best battle pack yet

the worst part is that we now have to here Ryan gush about how he is the king that made it all happen....

@PurpleDave said:
" @AustinPowers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501st_Legion "

Thank you very much for the heads up. I had no idea. Call me uninformed as the only association I had with 501 before had something to do with jeans. ;-)
As much as I like classic Star Wars, I am far less of an expert on the subject than I am on Star Trek or Red Dwarf.

Having read up on the subject at hand I can now understand why so many people here are so thrilled about this set.