Random set of the day: Jet-Copter Encounter

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Jet-Copter Encounter

Jet-Copter Encounter

©2011 LEGO Group

Today's random set is 7067 Jet-Copter Encounter, released in 2011. It's one of 10 Space sets produced that year. It contains 375 pieces and 3 minifigs, and its retail price was US$39.99/£30.99.

It's owned by 2356 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.

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66 comments on this article

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By in United States,

This set is already 10 years old?!! Mine is STILL in the box

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By in United Kingdom,


I cannot describe the emotions that seeing this evokes.

Thank you, Alien Conquest, for bringing me out of my Dark Ages.

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By in United States,

Never paid much attention to Alien Conquest, but I have to say, this looks quite impressive. Three decently sized and detailed vehicles for just $40? That's quite the steal.

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By in United States,

This was the only Alien Conquest set I didn’t buy. I loved the alien ships and the defense base set, but this one just seemed boring to me. Still, I’d take Alien Conquest or something similar as a theme making a comeback anytime.

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By in United States,

Gotta love that blue camo pattern on the wings.

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By in United States,

Heh. The name of this set makes it sound like it was just a couple of locals out for a cruise in their flitters and suddenly this giant blue UFO appears out of nowhere.

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By in United States,

This is the only one I didn’t get. These are great sets, the alien clingers and minifigures are really cool.

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By in United States,

What I appreciate most about this set is, unlike many City sets, the airplane isn't just a few big pre-fab hulls slapped together.

Also, you can't change my mind that Alien Conquest is a sub-theme of City rather than Space. lol

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By in United States,

@MCLegoboy said:
"Never paid much attention to Alien Conquest, but I have to say, this looks quite impressive. Three decently sized and detailed vehicles for just $40? That's quite the steal."

If I recall correctly, the two alien vehicles are actually one ship that splits down the middle.

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By in United States,

First Alien Conquest set. I'd expect a lot of comments with 7066.

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By in United States,

The weakest of the Alien Conquest subtheme and the only one I don't own. Looks like my opinion on the set is comparable to others as this set is the least owned on Bricklink of the boxed Space sets that year.

Altogether, Alien Conquest was so fun it was the first subtheme of Space I'd purchased in years. The alien ships are great 7052 and 7065 and the Earth Defense HQ 7066 is truly fantastic.

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By in United Kingdom,

Alien Conquest was the closest we'll ever get to Lego XCOM. Loved it.

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By in United States,

@guachi said:
"The weakest of the Alien Conquest subtheme and the only one I don't own. Looks like my opinion on the set is comparable to others as this set is the least owned on Bricklink of the boxed Space sets that year."
The resale value definitely reflects that. lol

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By in United States,

Wow. It's the only boxed set from that subtheme that has a new value that's LOWER than the MSRP.

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By in United States,

Alien Conquest isn't one of my favorite themes but this set is cool.

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By in United States,

Godly. Wish I had this. This theme was so fun.

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By in United States,

Underrated line tbh

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By in Canada,

Does it bother anyone else that the blue 1x3 tile on top of the right rear stabilizer (?) is not pushed on all the way?
I just can’t unsee that.

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By in United States,

@patch said:
"Alien Conquest was the closest we'll ever get to Lego XCOM. Loved it. "

I was waiting for someone to say this, I'll admit I've only played XCOM 2 but inspiration from the previous games is evident in the ADU figures. I don't remember being super into Alien Conquest, though, so I'm a bit confused realizing that I own about half of the sets lol. This wasn't one of them but I still don't get why its resale value is down, I guess most people just didn't find it as appealing as the other sets.

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By in United States,

Man I adored this set as a kid and played with it all the time. Unfortunately it fell to shambles and though I've tried restoring it a few times over the years I never got around to completely fixing it up. One day my sweet! One day!

Was it really only $40!? I could've sworn it was $60!

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By in Canada,

Looks like easy pickings for Blacktron.

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By in United States,

@Mr__Thrawn:
Oh, many, I put those clingers on our LUGBulk wishlist, and when it turned out they were available, I ordered 200 of them. The order came in unusually early that year (early May, I believe). Brickworld's theme that year (2012) was "The End of the World", but left it up to you to figure out what that entailed. Another member of my LUG suggested we do an alien invasion. He supplied a few gallons of minifigs for me to put the clingers on, and almost the entire layout was peppered with clinger victims. It wasn't a huge layout, so I think there was a stretch of about 3-4 roadplates left when I ran out.

Later on, I started building up my own set of minifigs to wear them, which you can see here: https://brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=509133

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By in Canada,

Looks across room at bookcase...sees set...smiles a griiiiin...

Seriously; normally I dislike helicopters (so many get released by TLG), but there's something about this 'chunky monkey' that made me have to get it...from Zeller's a mere...(roughly calculates) I'm gonna say five months before it vacated my area...similar thing happened w/Target actually, but I digress...

This helicopter looks as a amazing built as it did on the box, more so maybe:)
I know TLG doesn't like to do 'direct modern violence' (meaning: minifig vs, minifig w/firearms and such), but this looks...viable as a modern helicopter 'gunship', even ten years later...now that I think about it: Blue Thunder...literally:D

Beyond/besides that: the figures are great, still think that's the best helmet TLG put out in the modern era (if not 'best', then it ties w/the ones used predominantly in Nexo Knights), and the aliens are fantastic too. Very underrated series over all...

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By in Australia,

Looks like I scored about 75% of this set in a bulk Ebay lot recently. Still cleaning and sorting, so hopefully most of it emerges.

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By in United States,

I guess I'm in the minority, but this theme was never my cup of tea.. After Space Police III, and a Brickset archive binge through all the old space themes I had missed out on, I just wanted a more "traditional" space theme. I understand now what it was trying to be though. A lot of the sets were really well designed, and I kind of admire Lego having the guts to base a theme off old sci-fi b-movies.

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By in United Kingdom,


@CarolinaOnMyMind said:
"Does it bother anyone else that the blue 1x3 tile on top of the right rear stabilizer (?) is not pushed on all the way?
I just can’t unsee that. "

You're not wrong! The whole stabiliser is not pushed on properly.

I definitely don't blame the photographer though; even just the draught from spinning the main rotor by hand would make those stabilisers fall off.

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By in United Kingdom,


@Mr__Thrawn said:
"If I recall correctly, the two alien vehicles are actually one ship that splits down the middle."
They can indeed join together! Their wings fold vertically and they join up with Technic pins.

If you have enough copies of this set (they were REALLY cheap on eBay, and I freely admit that I'm addicted to Alien Conquest) you can join all the little craft together into one long (wide?) cigar-shaped UFO.

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By in United Kingdom,

@patch said:
"Alien Conquest was the closest we'll ever get to Lego XCOM. Loved it. "
Absolutely! Setting up\playing with a load of aliens Vs ADU in a city is so very much like an XCOM mission.
It's sadly also the closest we'll get to LEGO Space Marines; looking through Mark Stafford's amazing portfolio, the ADU vehicle colour scheme is seemingly based on 2nd company Ultramarines.
Huh, I wonder if there are people out there playing Warhammer battles using LEGO...?

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By in United Kingdom,

2011 was an amazing year for LEGO.

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By in Australia,

BRING BACK ALIEN CONQUEST

So many memories of these sets. The alien head attachment is still one of my favourite pieces

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By in Netherlands,

After those gorgeous space police III aliens, this space sub-theme for me was a bit meh. Too much city influences. The builds for the defenders looked a bit too “blocky” . The only nice thing were those clingers imo. Space redeemed itself with galaxy squad after this, but I guess sales weren’t up to par and space was discontinued...so sad. After starwars, space was always my 2nd favorite theme.

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By in United States,

Alien Conquest was absolutely incredible. That and Pharaoh's Quest kept me a Lego fan for longer than most kids my age, who had already moved on. This stuff delayed my dark ages for sure. This ship is so awesome. Seeing this picture makes me want to go grab it from whatever box it's in right now and swoosh it around.

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By in United Kingdom,

Alien Conquest, severely under-appreciated. The classic looking UFO set I have that can abduct the farmer fig is brilliant.

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By in United Kingdom,

@bananaworld said:
"
@CarolinaOnMyMind said:
"Does it bother anyone else that the blue 1x3 tile on top of the right rear stabilizer (?) is not pushed on all the way?
I just can’t unsee that. "

You're not wrong! The whole stabiliser is not pushed on properly.

I definitely don't blame the photographer though; even just the draught from spinning the main rotor by hand would make those stabilisers fall off.
"


Wow, that is rubbish, can’t believe that would get by the marketing guys at Lego. Maybe we need an article on ‘worst mistakes in lego promo photography’

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By in Belgium,

I bought this one last year, along with every set of the theme together for €80. This set is the weakest of the bunch. It looks ridiculously weaponized; I found having the wings point backwards instead makes it look less silly at least.

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By in Poland,

While I think newer Space sets can't hold a candle to older Space sets, something is better than nothing and currently we have nothing...

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By in United Kingdom,

I like the way there was a pod to put the alien in at the back of the aircraft. Unsure about how jet engines work at the same time as turning helicopter blades, but I guess by the time the aliens arrive the mini-figs will have sorted out the engineering. Looking forward to seeing the mothership and other more recent space sets as future RSOD.

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By in Germany,

@Slave2lego said:
" @bananaworld said:
"
@CarolinaOnMyMind said:
"Does it bother anyone else that the blue 1x3 tile on top of the right rear stabilizer (?) is not pushed on all the way?
I just can’t unsee that. "

You're not wrong! The whole stabiliser is not pushed on properly.

I definitely don't blame the photographer though; even just the draught from spinning the main rotor by hand would make those stabilisers fall off.
"


Wow, that is rubbish, can’t believe that would get by the marketing guys at Lego. Maybe we need an article on ‘worst mistakes in lego promo photography’

"


Oh trust me, this is pretty far from the worst one. Iirc the RSotD comments were all over the 2006 (ish) Battle of Hoth set.

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By in Germany,

@The_Creator said:
" @guachi said:
"The weakest of the Alien Conquest subtheme and the only one I don't own. Looks like my opinion on the set is comparable to others as this set is the least owned on Bricklink of the boxed Space sets that year."
The resale value definitely reflects that. lol
"


Like a lot of other one off themes from that era. A lot of these were actually quite decent, but just pretty overlooked. I think, I may pick this theme up someday, while it's still cheap.

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By in United Kingdom,

Love Alien Conquest - I think the alien Spaceships were fantastic, very "flying saucer". Shame there was no static building base, and I always thought the Earth Defence Force had much superior vehicles,so could easily defeat the aliens!

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By in United States,

@goldenguy880:
If only Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were afforded that same recognition...

@Moriboe:
Forward-sweeping wings are something that was studied in the X-plane program, with the X-29. The theory was that it would allow faster flight by keeping the air from spilling off the wingtips and basically creating a bubble around the wing with little to no airflow, resulting in a complete loss of lift. It was abandoned as changes in air combat rendered that direction of advancement irrelevant, but it did worked as intended.

@ambr:
Look up the Sikorsky–Boeing SB-1 Defiant. Traditional helicopters are slow, as they use lift combined with tilt to travel forward. Adding jets allows faster horizontal travel, but with a single main rotor there’s a practical limit to how fast you can go before the rotor loses the ability to generate lift on the “returning” side. The SB-1 (or SB>1) uses stacked counter-rotating main rotors so that each side has a forward-moving edge that generates more lift the faster it flies. Then they stuck a huge fanblade propellor on the back to achieve at least twice as much speed as a single-rotor design is capable of.

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By in United States,

I have this whole theme, managed to get it all for decent prices shortly after coming out of my dark age. Its not my favorite Alien Conquest set, but i like the helicopter more than everybody else seems to. It reminds me of something from Starcraft, like a cross between a wraith and a banshee.

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By in Belgium,

@Arnoldos said:
"While I think newer Space sets can't hold a candle to older Space sets, something is better than nothing and currently we have nothing..."

I'd say the current city space sets are more akin to classic space sets than Alien Conquest, despite the colors.

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By in Croatia,

Wait, so this set is cheaper MISP right now than the original retail price? I'll without a doubt get it very soon if that's the case.

Fun fact, originally the ADU's color scheme was supposed to be Orange and Trans-Blue instead of just Blue (you can see that in the Alien Conquest concept art and set prototypes). I am really curious what caused that change.

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By in United Kingdom,

I have a definite appointment with ebay later on today. Let's keep the postal service busy.

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By in United States,

Man, this is the first set I bought multiple of to build out my ACU army

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By in United Kingdom,

What are the rotor blades for anyway, since a helicopter only works when there is an atmosphere so wouldn't work (unless perhaps on an alien planet)? I suppose they're just there to look cool and appeal to the target age group.

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By in United States,

Here's the logic:

If you make a technic rescue vehicle that is based on a military aircraft, it has to be canceled last minute because it is 'violent'.

However, a modern attack helicopter that is chock full of machine guns, lasers, and missiles is fine since it is fighting aliens and everyone understands that it is just a toy.

Come on Lego, did you really have to cancel 42113?

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By in United States,

@Paperdaisy said:
"What are the rotor blades for anyway, since a helicopter only works when there is an atmosphere so wouldn't work (unless perhaps on an alien planet)? I suppose they're just there to look cool and appeal to the target age group. "

Alien Conquest was supposed to be on Earth. Aliens attacking and abducting people.

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By in United States,

Alien Conquest was a great theme, with set with unique builds and good play features.

I never did get this particular set, but I wish I had.

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By in United States,

@CarolinaOnMyMind:
@bananaworld:
And that’s why they use CGI artwork on most LEGO packaging these days. Evidently this is still a photograph.

@brick_r:
I despise the ADU helmet. Seriously, it’s a terrible design. It sits way too high on the head. The chinstrap partially covers many mouths, and the top leaves too much of the forehead exposed. I suspect it was originally designed to sit lower, but was raised up as a quick-n-dirty way to create more clearance at the bottom.

This isn’t the only instance of a helmet that sits too high, as the Type 2 Batcowl, through at least the point when Electro-Suit Batman was released, sat about half a plate too high. You could see the black stripe at the top of the white eye hand, the chinstrap obscured many mouths (especially if the print was a bit off), and you could see his neck from all sides. They reduced the depth of the anti-stud some time after that, and everything lined up perfectly.

@Paperdaisy:
The human minifigs include a farmer and a businessman, neither of which are likely to be tagging along if this took place on an alien planet.

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By in United States,

nice! one that i have . . . well mostly. picked it up on ebay a few years ago and it's missing one of the small alien ships. loved collecting the theme years later!

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By in Belgium,

Hell yeah! Well done huwbot! This one makes me smile.

It didn't exactly bring me back from my dark ages, but it got me starting to order lots of old sets on private market, along with 3 other non licensed themes with a great story: Atlantis, Pharaoh's quest and Monster Fighters. All from 2010-2012 but just bought them sometime around 2019.

They're still great. ADU (=Alien Defense Unit, i guess) got just such a great team of agents and vehicles, the hq is marvellous! And the aliens are so well designed. Especially the alien leader and the ufo's.

And it makes a very easy story to play with my sons. Alien mission: invade the city and kidnap humans! Agents mission: destroy aliens! Usually me playing the ADU commander's voice and giving commands to the other agents... (learning my boys English in the meantime) :p

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By in Belgium,

@Fandabidozi said:
"2011 was an amazing year for LEGO."

It really was. It really was! And the next year the Hobbit and LoTR theme started! And guess what? I collected those too! (some sets double prized, ... but yeah)

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By in United States,

@The_Creator said:
"What I appreciate most about this set is, unlike many City sets, the airplane isn't just a few big pre-fab hulls slapped together.

Also, you can't change my mind that Alien Conquest is a sub-theme of City rather than Space. lol"


Quoted for truth.

@PurpleDave
Those aliens with the clinger heads and lower body tentacles are excelent!

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By in United States,

@PurpleDave: there's also the Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne, from the late 1960s.

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By in Germany,

Looks good, but not like what I would call Space, at least that helicopter.

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By in United States,

@kdu2814:
I’m really happy with the design, which uses my favorite minifig head, but they were a serious pain to produce at the time. There were only two lime torsos that I can recall. One was the S1 Clown, and the other was a Ninjago snake character. The latter was a lot less expensive (and made of better plastic), so I ordered about 30 of them, only to find that they had both front and back print! It took about half an hour just to clean the print off one torso with Brasso and a rag, after which my hands were killing me. And I only had about six weeks to get them ready for Brickworld. I figured out how to use a Dremel to power-scrub them (still with Brasso), which was not an easy thing to do. Run it too fast and you’ll slag the plastic, or burn it.

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By in Canada,

Love this theme, I have all the sets but one, the little UFO. I got this set on extreme discount from my local Lego store, I think I paid $12 for it (regular $50CDN).

My youngest son and I built this whole theme for the first time a couple years ago, he loved them. He's a big Star Wars Lego fan but he still thought these were great, particularly the mobile base.

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By in Brazil,

Got one of those. Still sealed, but I know it's awesome.

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By in United Kingdom,


@meclo said:
"(...)My youngest son and I built this whole theme for the first time a couple years ago, he loved them. He's a big Star Wars Lego fan but he still thought these were great, particularly the mobile base."
So great to hear the next generation is getting to enjoy them!
I wonder how much Alien Conquest in 2011, and Galaxy Squad in 2012, had to compete with Star Wars, and thus experience poor sales...

Tangentially related to Star Wars: the parts from 2 or 3 of these Jet-Copters allows you to build a pretty convincing blue\yellow version of the Soulless One!

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By in United States,

@560heliport:
I was not familiar with that. I knew about the Defiant because I saw an article about it that included a thumbnail image, so I had to read what that was about. But, in spite of looks, they operate very differently. The Cheyenne has a single main rotor, and uses tiny plane wings to ensure lift on the retreating side of the rotor*. The Defiant has two main rotors stacked one on top of the other, rotating in opposite directions. When hovering, both rotors generate lift equally on all sides. As it speeds up, lift from the CW rotor increasingly shifts to the left, and from the CCW rotor it shifts to the right, keeping lift balanced at all times. The Defiant also has a 20% speed advantage over the Cheyenne, and can hover in place while tilted.

*For those who aren’t familiar with how helicopters generate lift, the rotor blades are shaped like tiny airplane wings, and can tilt the trailing edge up and down to control movement. On a rotor that rotates clockwise, the blades on the left side of the craft are moving forward in relation to the hull, and on the right they are moving backwards. As you speed up, the effective airspeed on the left blades increases, and decreases on the right blades. At some point, the retreating blades on the right will be cutting through the air too slow to generate adequate lift, and the helicopter will tip sideways. The three basic solutions to this problem are:
1. Don’t go that fast.
2. Add fixed plane wings to generate lift at high speeds.
3. Add a second main rotor that rotates in the opposite direction, so each rotor “stalls” on opposite sides of the aircraft.

@bananaworld:
I suspect quite a bit. From high school, I got into collecting comics. I gave that up to collect SW action figures. I gave those up to collect SW LEGO sets. I gave those up to collect Bionicle. And I gave that up shortly before getting started on LEGO Batman. Now, I would be hard-pressed to seriously collect any Space theme. I know I’m not alone in that regard. Most FOLs have spending limits, and prioritize which themes to collect. These days, SW is the most popular theme, I believe, which means any genre-based theme (even Castle or Pirates) is going to be fighting SW for attention.

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By in Denmark,

@The_Creator said:
" @guachi said:
"The weakest of the Alien Conquest subtheme and the only one I don't own. Looks like my opinion on the set is comparable to others as this set is the least owned on Bricklink of the boxed Space sets that year."
The resale value definitely reflects that. lol "


Lack of popularity when new can certainly also result in the opposite result: high demand and high prices years after.

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By in United States,

@PurpleDave: I saw a Cheyenne at Fort Campbell, Kentucky when I was stationed there in 1988- it was part of an outdoor museum of military equipment. It looked awesome. (There were only a few prototypes built- ten, I think.) Thanks for mentioning the Defiant: new to me.

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By in United States,

@bananaworld said:
"
I cannot describe the emotions that seeing this evokes.

Thank you, Alien Conquest, for bringing me out of my Dark Ages."


Same here! It was the theme that finally put me over the edge. I loved the humor .

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By in United Kingdom,

@kdu2814 said:
" @PurpleDave
Those aliens with the clinger heads and lower body tentacles are excelent!"

If you mean these ones:
https://brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=5557102 , I totally agree. Great bunch of aliens! (What is the collective noun for aliens?)

I used a clinger with a mouth-head and a lime body to create an aquatic fantasy creature. Maybe it’s the tentacles but it looks thalassic to me.

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