40407 Death Star II Battle Gift With Purchase

While the practice of giving away a LEGO set – also known as a gift with purchase (GWP) – has been around for decades, only recently has LEGO chosen to take a step away from the traditional available-through-retail set and begun providing genuinely worthwhile exclusives in the form of micro-scale battle scenes.

Ostensibly the first to fit this bill was the 6176782 Escape the Space Slug set, distributed at LEGO retail stores in the US and Europe for May 4th, 2016. in the run up to the promotion, selected VIP Rewards members received an invitation which rewarded them with the opportunity to receive the vignette depicting the Millennium Falcon bursting from the maw of an exogorth should they make an in-store purchase of more than $150 worth of LEGO Star Wars products.

Thankfully the invitation-only mechanism and purchase threshold have become more universal, with the last two – 40333 Battle of Hoth and 40362 Battle of Endor – made available through a far more affordable offer, and this year is no different.

May the 4th be with every Star Wars fan who recreates Star Wars: Return of the Jedi battles with this LEGO brick Death Star II Battle scene, A-wing and TIE Interceptor!

With the global closure of LEGO retail stores during the COVID-19 pandemic the promotion became their first on-line only offer, with 40407 Death Star II Battle being automatically added to shopping carts once a $75 threshold in LEGO Star Wars purchases was made between May 1st and 4th.

The set comes in a very presentable box housing the instruction booklet and the three baggies which contain the 235 pieces that make up the surface of the semi-contructed Death Star II and the microscale A-wing and TIE Interceptor.

The exterior of the Death Star II is the bulk of the bricks and uses the SNOT (Studs Not On Top) technique to create a multi-textured surface that includes the characteristic semi-constructed, rust-red scaffolding towers and a turbolaser. With the base taking up around 90% of the set’sinventory not many elements are left for the focus of the vignette: the A-wing and TIE Interceptor.

Though both of the starfighters are very small (which is an amusing juxtaposition when the new Ultimate Collector’s Series 75275 A-wing Starfighter is taken into consideration) they are carried off reasonably well. The only real crticism of these two mini-scale vehicles is that there are better versions in the LEGO Star Wars Advent calendars.

Differing from the two previous “Battle of” microbuilds which were side-on dioramas, this vignette is best viewed from above to best experience the speed and nimbleness of these two pinnacle fast-attack spacecraft.

All-in-all the simplicity of this set fails to really capture the dynamic environment of the pell-mell race across the Death Star II. Perhaps it is because the two earlier “Battle of” scenes featured a broader landscape and focussed on the lumbering AT-ATs that the 40407 Death Star II Battle, with its more dynamic environment and tight centre of attention, is left at a standstill.