bootz

The March sets have been out in the US for at least a week or two now. It seems to be nationwide, though I know some people are still having issues finding them. I haven't seen the Ghost microfighter yet, but I grabbed Obi-Wan's Eta-2, the Rebel and Empire battle packs, and the AT-DP. The Eta-2 didn't last a day before getting modded but now I'm quite happy with it. The Rebel Alliance battle pack is great, I love the inclusion of aliens, plus the speeder bike is a pretty good build too (I normally just use battle packs as parts packs, but I'm glad I built this one).

As a child, I certainly didn't have about $500 in just three sets. I was spoiled, but not that spoiled. Even then, a spring shooters ion cannon wouldn't have made a huge difference to me opposed to having a more detailed cannon without the play feature. We used our imaginations for years, and the ammunition I had for my spring shooting action figure weapons all got lost pretty quickly anyway. This set definitely would have benefitted from being split up and sold separately. Getting the ion cannon and shield generator with some of the Echo base control room would be more enticing as a standalone set.

Most of us grew up with the original megaphone blasters, no? Anything is a marked improvement over those. That said, I don't think I would have had more or less fun playing with the stud shooters instead of megaphones as a child. The spring shooters could have been fun though, even now I enjoy swooshing my ships around the house and shooting at my family.

I can't wait to see the Quasar Fire carrier alongside these.

Eh, we haven't even seen much of him since then. I'd want it for old Rex if I were buying for figs. I like the set overall, and the concept of them using an AT-TE as a fishing boat, but $120 is steep for a vehicle that only appears once.

Also to be fair

IIRC, the engines and fins rotate on the model, so you could be seeing them at some point in the middle of its range of travel. As for the shape, I think the curved bricks capture the shape better than flat slopes. I find that my MOC A-wing looks better than the pervious official sets, though I might be a little biased. The width looks ok to me, the last official A-wing seems too narrow IMO. Also bear in mind that the Rebels A-wing is not the same design as ROTJ RZ-1s. As for the color scheme, I prefer the blue ones to the green. Here's mine:

What's wrong with the A-wing?

I think they mean it's modular in that the turrets can be placed at any of the positions.

Indeed. I missed out on the first 3 modular buildings during my teenage years because, like you said, playing with Legos was not "cool". That's about the time period one you'd have their dark age.

I didn't realize that Han comes with Hoth Attack (along with the missing probe droid). So while we may not have Leia or Chewie, Han's twin can pick up their slack...

I love the background with the ball zooming towards the three helmets.

AFOLs on a Lego forum are not the intended audience for a $250 ultimate collector series set?

I haven't gotten around to playing with it in LDD yet, if I get a chance tomorrow I'll break some of it down and take pictures though. I did fiddle with my A-wing tonight however. I've been seeing so many MOCs with the proper wing angle, then between TheNerdyOne's squadron and the release of the official set, I felt it was time to re-design the engines on mine. I kept it simple, though somewhat by chance I ended up with modular engines that can be easily removed and swapped out. They even look pretty good, which again was more a function of trying to use particular pieces and filling gaps, it wasn't exactly intentional but I like it a lot. Of course, the rings on the rear of the engines aren't accurate, but I like the way they look and I think the fit the overall look. Sorry for the poor picture quality, I want to take better shots soon.

I missed out on all the UCS sets I wanted. At the time I couldn't justify them, but if I could buy the Falcon, SSD, and ISD as rereleases I would. I generally prefer the system scale because it fits my budget, they're more swooshable, and you can have more individual ships than you could with UCS sets. Plus, like you said they're easier to modify or duplicate.

I like the current snowspeeders, they're very solid and have good play value. They sorely need an update though, TLG can't keep passing off the same design as new every few years.

Whether it's this or the microfighters, I'm it buying for the figs and rather than the build, but I wouldn't mind if the microfighters came in a planet package again. I've seen them hung from the ceiling paired with those glow in the dark star stick-ons and it looks pretty cool, you certainly can't do that with cardboard boxes.

If we go that route, my TIE Interceptor and A-wing are my favorites.

Regardless, it would have made the set more of a legitimate assault, whereas an AT-AT would have jacked the price up significantly. Though it would have been interesting if they did a slightly smaller scale AT-AT for this, similar to the TIE Advanced in the Death Star. And I fully understand the point that there are only so many ways to build Echo Base, but spring shooters and flick fires should have no place in a UCS set.

Hmm, I'd assumed they were UCS. That makes this even more puzzling as a UCS set. And the Ewok Village looks to be a fine display piece. It's mostly the figs that are loose but they have plenty of places to stand.

I have the same B-wing, sealed in its box that I also bought at the $100 price that May the Fourth. Judging by the selling prices, we weren't the only ones with the idea to resell it. I never do that either, and it's also my only UCS. My girlfriend has to keep talking me out of opening it, but I don't see it being the great investment I had hoped. The Slave 1 is a definite future classic though.

I expect a bit of challenge in the build though, as it should be for ultimate collectors. You are right, in that Lego ultimately decides what UCS means, but this is certainly a downgrade from what we've come to expect. A new snowspeeder design would have been great, and a point of pride for the designers, who instead had to include the same old design(spring shooters aren't much of an update). Full disclosure, my only UCS set is in a box, waiting to be sold and the money spent on another set. But to me this seems like a case of mis-branding. To me there isn't enough new, unique, or challenging enough to constitute a UCS. In regards to anothergol's comments, the Death Star and Ewok Village proved that playsets can work as UCS sets and as display pieces. I have no issue with playsets, and I regret not getting the DS, but they didn't seem to prioritize play over design/display like this does. I really think this is a missed opportunity to call it a Super Battlepack and elevate that brand. Just imagine a series of battle playsets a step under the UCS series. Then the downsized elements and inclusion of old designs would be appropriate and more desireable.

But it is almost literally just a redesign of sets and vehicles we already have, in some cases they're virtually identical. Again, why would it be unreasonable to expect better than rehashes of older sets for $250? How is that entitlement? Because we expect better of something carrying this name and price tag? Bottom left corner.

You're clearly still missing the point, and just want to attack those who raised valid points regarding their disappointment with the set. A UCS set should at the very least challenger the experienced builder, but what little new we got looks fairly basic, and the rest we've literally build already. They used the same Snowspeeder we've has for years, where n is the fun in building the same thing we got in 2014? The figs included are all nice figs, but they're minor characters aside from Han(who was recently a polybag) and Luke. The exclusion of Leia is puzzling unless she is the May the Fourth polybag and there aren't as many Snowtroopers as one could reasonably expect in a set called "Assault on Hoth". The issue with this set is branding and pricing, not high expectations from whiny AFOLs. We didn't expect a 10k piece diorama, but we did expect something up to UCS standards, which this does not appear to be. Given the general consensus is that the set is underwhelming, clearly something is amiss.

I got the Raptor at TRU on Sunday, they literally put it on the shelf while I was in the store. I'm saving the Raptor for my girlfriend to build, since the real truck is the one vehicle she really, really wants, but the sticker sheet for it looks great to the point where I won't mind using them at all. I did build the Deuce coupe last night not expecting to come away as impressed as I did. The printed door pieces look awesome once they're on the car, and the whole build gives off a Model Team vibe. I really did not think I'd love the hot rod as much as I do. Now I can't wait to see the Raptor built.