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Alien Pack

A pocket-sized invasion that is more charming than it has any right to be

Brick Rated Score

3.3/5

Set 40715 · 2024

Pieces181

Minifigs1

Year2024

Set number40715

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The verdict

This one snuck up on me.

It is a promotional freebie set, only 181 pieces, and I went in expecting filler bricks and not much else. What I actually got was a genuinely fun little scene: a brick built alien with real personality, a tiny ground vehicle for it to putter around in, and a leafless, gnarled tree that sells the whole otherworldly landscape better than I expected from something this small. It will not challenge anyone's building skills and it will not fill a shelf. It is a fifteen minute build that made me smile, and I think that is exactly what it was designed to do. I would not go out of my way to hunt this down at aftermarket prices, but if it landed in your cart as a gift with purchase, build it before you write it off.

Best for: collectors who like display shelf oddities and anyone who got this free with an order and almost skipped it

The full review

What it is

I will be honest, my expectations were low walking into this one. Gift with purchase sets usually feel like an afterthought, a handful of bricks LEGO tossed in to sweeten an order. The Alien Pack surprised me. The alien itself has a proper build to it, not just a slapped together torso, and the little ground vehicle gives the scene somewhere to go instead of just being a static figure on a base. The bare, twisted tree is a small touch but it does a lot of work making the whole thing feel like a landscape and not a pile of parts.

The catch

I do have to be straight with you about what this is not. It is not a substantial build, 181 pieces goes by in one sitting, easily under twenty minutes if you are not stopping to admire anything. It was only ever available as a LEGO.com exclusive through 2024, so if you did not pick it up during that window you are now shopping the aftermarket, where it runs well past its original price for what is objectively a small amount of plastic. The community reception backs up that hesitation too, sitting in the low threes out of five on Brickset, which tells me plenty of builders felt the same way I almost did before I actually put it together.

Who it's for

Grab this if you already have it sitting in a drawer from a past order and have been putting off building it, or if you collect the odd small sci fi vignette sets LEGO drops as promos. Skip the aftermarket hunt if you are looking for real building time or a centerpiece for a display, because this was never built to carry either job.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

There is not a lot of build here, and LEGO does not pretend otherwise. You put the alien together first, and it is the most satisfying part of the set because the proportions actually land, it looks like a creature and not a mascot. The ground vehicle goes together in a couple of minutes and reads more like an accessory than a model in its own right. The tree closes things out, a few branch pieces arranged to look wind bent and alien rather than earthly.

The real value here is the unique minifigure, which you will not find packed into any other set, and that is the piece collectors are actually chasing. Nothing about the build screams new mold or rare print the way a big licensed set might, this is a promo through and through, small pieces doing small jobs. If you care about part count value per dollar this one will not impress you, since it was never sold as a standalone purchase to begin with. Judge it as a free scene builder that came along with a bigger order, and it holds up fine on those terms.

Fun facts

01The Alien Pack was a LEGO.com exclusive gift with purchase, available only from May through December of 2024.
02It comes with one minifigure that is unique to this set and cannot be obtained any other way.
03It has a companion set from the same wave, the Alien Planet Habitat (40716), suggesting LEGO built out a small connected scene rather than a single standalone freebie.
04Despite the small size, the finished model measures a respectable 7 x 6 x 7 cm thanks to the tree and vehicle bulking out the footprint.