Another pretty standard Lego box with some pretty cool artwork showing little Lego people running for their lives while the alien menace descends on them. Once again, I get a nice B-movie vibe from this line, right down to the intentionally cheesy logo. The set boasts 166 pieces, which is around 60 or so pieces more than the first set I looked at. The box contains an instruction book, a sticker sheet, and three baggies of bricks, which build two minifigs (three if you count the alien head clinger), and the alien Tripod.

The minifigs include an Alien Trooper, an Alien Clinger, and a human businessman-slash-captive. Like I said when looking at the last set, I’m getting a little burned out on the Lego alien minifigs. This guy looks ok and I still like the pink veins that make up his brain, but he’s nothing all that special. The purple and black suit is pretty sharp, though. The human is just a guy in a business suit with a happy face and a “holy shit, I’m about to get my ass probed” scared face. He does come with a briefcase that opens, which is kind of cool, and if you collect Lego City sets, I’m sure you could get some more mileage out of him. The Clinger is just a single piece that fits over the head of the human, obviously while in the process of digesting the human’s entire head. It’s a cool idea. I like him a lot.

The Tripod is actually built up in two main pieces. You have the lower part that includes the legs and the death ray and the upper part that detaches to form a space ship. At first I wasn’t crazy about the top part not being a symmetrical looking Tripod body, but I’ll confess having it detach to double as a spaceship is just so cool and adds a ton of play value to the set. The legs don’t actually move a lot, but they do support the ship very well and it’s very cool how the death ray sockets into the globe like an eyeball. I’m sure this sort of thing has been used in Lego sets before, but this is the first time I’ve encountered it and I think its terribly clever.

The spaceship itself has an opening dome canopy so you can put the Alien Trooper at the controls. There’s also some socketed bricks around it so you can plug his laser gun into the ship for some added firepower. The stickers do a very nice job adding detail, including a bumper sticker that reads: “We’ve Been To Earth.” The back of the ship features a green pod that opens and serves as a prison to put the captured human into. The ship portion rests on a large rod and simply lifts right off when it’s ready to fly away.

The Tripod Invader set retails for $20. It’s a fun build, albeit doing the three legs is repetitive, but what you get when you’re done is well worth the money. Possibly the only downside here is that you don’t get a human vehicle to play against, just some poor sap in a suit to get captured. Nonetheless, if you already have the Defender set we looked at last time, the two compliment each other very nicely and I do recommend picking up the pair of them together.