MaximillianRebo

Everyone's forgetting about GONK.

"What sets have we got left Sam?" "Well, let me see. Oh yes, lovely. Clone sets. And look! More Clone sets" I feel a bit petty complaining about no OT playsets when not long ago it was OT sets everywhere, but all I can see myself picking up this year is the U-Wing (it's OT adjacent) and possibly the buildable K2SO, as I do like the buildable droids. Oh well, more money for other themes, so it's not like TLG won't get my money one way or another...

Big W has it listed for $89 aud but marked as 'sold out', which I'm guessing actually means 'not in stock yet' but that should be the price when they get some in.

Exactly. Over on reddit there's been the usual number of 'lined up at the Lego store on day 1 and paid full retail to get the sets I want' type of posts. With this type of activity there's no reason for them to change their pricing strategy. In Australia one retailer has indicated they'll be selling the ARC-170 at about $15 usd below retail AND that shop regularly has 20% off sales. Wait a month or two and you'll get the set for about $45 usd rather than $70. If people are happy to pay a premium to get things early that's their choice but it's not one I'd ever be making.

This feels like when a couple of years ago every second comment on Reddit and YouTube was "Why doesn't Lego make more clone sets, they'd make so much money" and Lego looked at this and said "You know what, they're right" and another finger on the monkey's paw curled...

It's a niche area, but IMO 1x5 plates have opened up a bunch of possibilities with micro builds where things sometimes are only a few plates high. A single 1x5 can provide a solid base at the desired scale in situations where 2+3 is unstable and 4 or 6 are too short or too long.

Agree about not needing a multi-thousand piece shield bunker. A couple of things that I think made the Cantina 'pop' and took it beyond being just a tan box - the skylight design on the building means you that even when displayed closed up you can see some of the interior, plus the additional shops (yes, more tan boxes) and speeder gave the basis of a street scene and made it more of a Mos Eisley set rather than just a Cantina alone. Sure there would be an AT-ST plus a bunch of trees/foliage with a hypothetical MBS shield bunker but I'd argue a lot of that could be achieved at a playscale level rather than MBS. Personally I'd say the bunker door and the clearing outside are much more iconic, and this could be achieved in a similar (albeit larger) style as the Scarif bunker set. If there was a vote between MBS Shield Bunker or Ewok Village, I'd go with Ewok Village every day.

Liking this series much more now that better pics are available. I'll definitely get the Steampunk inventor and will try to find the Wolfpack Beastmaster. I wish the Jetpack Racer was more space-like, guess imagination will have to fill in the gaps. Boogeyman and Pirate Quartermaster are tempting (the latter if only for the sulphur crested cocky).

The exception here could be to give each figure hair pieces and make the alternate face a non-visored version. Otherwise I agree re: leg printing, dual moulding etc.

Got Ahsoka's Shuttle for just over $30 usd as a Black Friday deal. It wasn't high on my list of priorities, hence why I hadn't picked it up previously, but at that price I couldn't say no. Gonna have a look at some of the many excellent alt builds out there for this set - got my eyes on a B-Wing build as the cockpit is the perfect size for that ship.

Review up on JB Spielwaren of the ARC 170. Ship looks good and the technic mechanism seems to work well, especially hidden as it is inside the ship. Scale wise the ship doesn't look too small, especially compared to the figs, although the fuselage does look a bit short in comparison to the wingspan. The underside is pretty blocky though, with some oversized plates on the base of the ship - perhaps to protect the technic mechanism, or give it extra stability when landed? I'm not fussed about landing gear, there's no way you could fit decent retractable landing gear in without making the body of the ship much bigger. Lots of stickers of course, including canopy stickers which, like on the Ghost, end up looking more greyish than white when applied.

Very happy we're getting more Horizon sets. The designs of the machine animals are perfect for realizing in Lego; fingers crossed there are many more to come (although I already have a Sawtooth moc that I'm pretty happy with - looking forward to placing it next to the official model). The price as mentioned sounds excellent, much better than other licensed IPs. The Tallneck had a great price too - $90 usd for around 1200 pieces. I wonder if Aloy will become the new Mando - a rare and highly sought after fig when first released that ends up appearing in just about every set related to the franchise

I read this as 'the triumphant return of sand PEOPLE' and thought 'hmm, actually a Tusken Raider helmet wouldn't be a bad idea'. Could be an interesting build to see how they get all the facial features. Probably not the most popular choice for a helmet, but definitely something different to the steady stream of Imperial and Mandalorian helmets we get.

Thanks everyone! I spent a lot of time looking at screen shots from the game and also cross section photos from books and yeah, there's a big discrepancy. One cutscene in the game shows Jan sitting in the cockpit with the hatch open and the ship doesn't look much bigger than a starfighter, while the cross section illustrations include a sleeping area (albeit cramped) in the nose section and space behind the cockpit where the crew access the docking ring on the top of the ship. I built the whole thing in Stud.io first before attempting a physical build, starting with the wings/engines, and the rest of the ship went through multiple revisions as I tried to keep the whole build to scale with those original sections. I'd go as far as saying the scale of the whole ship was basically decided by piece 3176 which I wanted to use the get the curved ends on each engine section, and everything scaled up from there. It's definitely solid; the only issue with swooshability is that the wings/fins make the whole build fairly back-heavy, but the easiest place to pick it up is around the cockpit area which is too far forward. The balance point of the ship is about 2/3 of the way back and while there are spots to grip onto, the body of the ship is a lot thinner at that point so it's not as easy. Yes! There's a hinged hatch directly above the cockpit which I removed for the close up photo. It's 8 studs long by 6 wide, so there's enough space for adult fingers to place the figs in their seats.

A while back I posted my purist figs of Kyle Katarn, Jan Ors and Mara Jade, but never got around to posting photos of the ship that Kyle and Jan flew in the first two Dark Forces game: the Moldy Crow. Not sure how close my moc is to minifig scale, but I'm happy with the scale I used and the detail I was able to achieve at that scale, including a cockpit with space for both pilots. Close to 1000 pieces in total and no super rare pieces needed - the dark tan flag pieces on the wings and red window pieces on the side intakes were a little difficult to source in Australia - and luckily I didn't have any trouble with all the reddish brown pieces used in the build.