CallumPears

Yeah his entire existence is basically making clickbait YouTube videos. He does it for LotR stuff too.

Yeah... let's see how this one pans out. Tbh I wouldn't be sad if it does end up being fake.

Fel is in the trilogy, but he never meets Han face to face and it's basically a cameo appearance. I think most of his story is in the X-Wing comics which I have bought but not read yet. Those came out a full decade before Death Star, so it's possible that what you're referring to was either a retcon or is just referring to the family that he doesn't talk to anymore. (I have read Death Star but again it was a few years ago so I don't remember references to Han's upbringing.) Yeah him rescuing Chewie in Legends is much more of an active thing. He gets kicked out of the Empire for disobeying an order to kill Chewie. Anyway, I think we're at risk of becoming Rancor food so to help stay on target I'm just going to add that from Reddit it seems that the Walmart podracer is pretty difficult to get hold of even legitimately. The way it works is that you buy sets then submit a receipt afterwards to get the promo, but a lot of people's are getting rejected for no obvious reason. Also, having seen a few more reviews of the UCS barge and spending more time working on my custom guards I'm still so disappointed with the minifigure count, the details on a few of the figures that were included (Salacious's eyes, C-3PO's leg, Leia's shorts, Bib's lekku, Wooof having no leg printing and Vizam having too much dirt on his torso), and the lack of some obvious features such as that hatch Luke pulls a guard out of while climbing up the side.

Uh, it's been a while since I read A.C. Crispin's trilogy (some of the best books I've ever read btw) but pretty sure that has Han as an orphan living with a Corellian criminal gang. He eventually escapes, then works on Ylesia for a bit before escaping with some slaves and then joining the Empire where he meets Chewie, and so on from there. He does have some wealthy relatives (the Sal-Solos) but he's not in contact with them. As for the discussion on the Tantive hallway, it's a nice set but I would never pay the full price. It feels pretty expensive for what you get anyway even without what I'm about to say, and then you add on the dodgy Fives and Stormtrooper helmets, and for me personally the fact that I already have like a dozen of this particular Vader figure (they should've made a proper ANH version but alas they did not and instead we're still using the inaccurate-to-every-depiction hybrid-Vader) and enough Rebel Fleet Troopers from various advent calendars and the 2008 battle pack to keep me satisfied. I ended up buying just the build on its own for about £15 which I'm quite happy with.

But Pellaeon survived. Just seems weird that they apparently took the rest of the fleet to some random other place that's a lot easier to get back from than Peridea. Speaking of which, I wish they'd tried something new for that in the Sail Barge. Crazy that they're still using the same parts as they did in 2006.

One thing that bugs me about that is that it's clearly implied that the whales took his ship and a few others too, so it's weird that Thrawn's was the only one on Peridia in Ahsoka.

Grey actually came first, made for J. Jonah Jameson and also used on German Soldier 4 in the Indiana Jones sets. https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3626bpb0203&idColor=90#T=S&C=90&O={"color":90,"iconly":0} Yeah I don't remember whether he's described as having one in the HTTE trilogy but he is in some later books iirc. He actually doesn't have it in the comic adaptation of HTTE but the art in those comics was pretty inconsistent anyway (e.g. Rukh's design completely changes a couple of times).

Nahhhh it's one of my favourites. I actually really dislike the 2016 version. I use the grey version of the original on my Pellaeon figure and it's perfect.

Interestingly there is one spot where the Night Trooper has less printing than a standard stormie. Stormtrooper minifigures have grey squares printed in the black squares on the back of the helmet. For some reason the Night Trooper does not. The Mortar Trooper and Sandtroopers have this same problem. I'm not a fan of the new helmet anyway, but this is yet another issue I've noticed over the past few years.

And you know if they released a new one now she'd have the awful glossy eyes. Looking back, we really got lucky that they didn't put those eyes on the 2017 Aayla. Agree on the U-wing as its whole purpose is to be a troop transport, but I think you might be the only person who wants Enoch in the BP.

My thoughts as well. All of my standard Stormtroopers have had their helmets switched to the 2014-2018 design, and the same goes for my Sandtroopers (though that was a bit more expensive!) but it wasn't possible for modern trooper designs which don't have an older version, such as the Mortar Trooper and now the Night Troopers. I got the Mortar Trooper since I wanted the Marauder vehicle anyway, but with the Night Trooper pack there's really no reason for me to get it.

Hopefully the previous rumour about Enoch isn't true- he really doesn't belong in a battle pack. Though tbh I don't have much interest in a Night Trooper bp anyway. Wasn't a huge fan of Ahsoka, but even if it was my favourite Star Wars series ever I wouldn't be interested in the LEGO set since they'll all have the terrible helmet.

Yeah I only try to collect realistic Clones so I've had basically no interest in any made since 2020 for that reason. Honestly not sure what I dislike more between the new Clone artstyle and the new Stormtrooper helmets.

Wookieepedia says that the officers are indeed extra, so a squad is 9 troops + 1 sergeant, a platoon is 36 troops + 4 sergeants + 1 lieutenant, etc. Yeah this is my issue with that set. I think Barriss and Ki-Adi are literally the worst possible choices they could have gone with. Both have very unique robe designs and distinctive heads which aren't easy to reuse (and Barriss has the eyes ). Plus, both of them had already been made in cheap sets previously and weren't exactly hard to get hold of even years after those sets had retired. I would have preferred Ep2 Anakin and Obi-Wan honestly. Both of them have generic robes that can be reused, and faces that aren't too distinctive. Also Anakin is a pretty hard-to-find figure, especially considering he's a main character, so it would've been good to make him more widely available. Of course a better choice would've been 3 troopers and a lieutenant but I'm going on the assumption that the set is inherently flawed and we had to have Jedi at all.

While this is true, the issue for me is that we also don't have many civillian options to make such ragtag Rebels as customs. In fact, I usually end up going the other way and using figures from the 2016 and 2017 Rebel battle packs as civillians.

Yeah I much prefer the smaller 1-faction packs. 75280 was a blatant cash-grab but people proved that they'd pay those prices. And yes please I've been begging for a new Endor Rebel pack since they made the updated design back in 2015. Crazy that we haven't had a single Endor Rebel since then, aside from the terribly inaccurate Luke and Leia figures in the Speeder diorama.

Yeah we had some really good years for battle packs in the 2010s (other than the stud shooters). I doubt we'd have any chance at a Senate Commando pack today, for example. Bring back the glory days of 4 per year. One for Clones, one for some Stormtrooper variety, and a couple wildcards.

Yeah I get annoyed with LEGO for stuff like the 501st Jet trooper, Fox, and Vaughn where they are objectively just wrong and inaccurate, but stuff like "nooo they haven't made the 420th legion airborne trooper from one panel of the 2003 comics" does go a bit far sometimes. (Though unless they get rid of the hybrid armour style I'm not particularly interested in new Clone figures anyway tbh.)

Ironically he wasn't too hard to make with some spare parts I had. Yotts Oren and Lathe, however...

Yeah idk how the system works for packing sets but I have had some weird substitutions myself in the past. E.g. in my Jedi and Clones battle pack back in 2018 I was missing a 3x3 wedge plate but in its place I had a 2x4 sand green tile.

Another one that happened recently is that they accidentally sent the UCS Hogwarts Express set to someone who ordered the Lion Knights Castle, before the set had even had a single leaked image.

The issue for me is that I am absolutely rabid for anything related Jabba's Palace, hence why I want all the individual guards to be made.

Same. Nowhere near enough figures, the figures which are present have some pretty big issues, and even if it had more figures it'd still cost a good 100 more than it should. A few months ago I was probably the most excited about it being a UCS set out of anyone but now it just feels like they really fumbled the opportunity to make it truly great.

Might be a hot take but personally I didn't care for Rivendell and I doubt I'm gonna care for any set related to the Shire (though it does slightly beat Rivendell at least in theory). Great scenes in the movies, but not really what I'm looking for in a set. I want soldiers and orcs and stuff.

Honestly I just don't think it's a good pick for a MBS or UCS set. Make it a few separate smaller sets, like the Carbon Freezing Chamber and the Bespin Duel. Trying to do everything in a single set just means they all end up getting done badly, especially when they're crammed into an awkward circular shape. Same goes for the Death Star sets.