Lordhelmet

Watch, next year we will get a b1 and IG88 :)

I say bring on the clone sets this year. That way I can save for the u wing and the Death Star.

Would love one OT play set for sure, but with the Death Star potentially having a bunch of figures I would be good without an OT play set this year to not spend extra. We also need more lando figures. Hopefully that is the Gold Leader.

Trying to answer in order. Love the pictures it looks like there are some customs, are those official lego parts or custom parts? Specifically looking at the droid three back on the left. I am not familiar with that droid head piece but it looks cool. Who is the bald officer? - Also love the focus. My primary collection goal for SW is one of every ship/vehicle that shows up in the OT, and one variation of each character - so one pilot Luke, one Hoth Luke, one Zuckuss, etc. - some of these are way to expensive so its a long term goal. (specific to A new hope I am missing the Death Star a sand crawler and 15 mini figures -more for the other movies) I love that you created your own ranks. I am going to try to stick to the movies/cannon ranks - but admittedly it is tricky as the movies are not consistent (especially ROTJ), and Lego has not released enough imperial officer minifigures to help with the ranks for army building Empire. - Probably why they are so expensive and there are lots of custom options out there. I am sticking with storm trooper officers wear black uniforms (as do star fighter pilots, and security forces). My biggest take away from this thread is that building a true Empire Army is difficult mostly because of the gaps in ranks from a figure standpoint. We don't have minifigures with certain key ranks (or at least accessible for someone who would want to army build without significant resources).

I can agree to the first part, Pualdrons were only on sand troopers, but some do show up in Rebels. Maybe they are optional - who would want to wear a marker showing who is in charge? Snowtrooper Commanders did wear armor, I do not believe we ever saw a potential storm trooper commander wearing a chest plate like veers in any movie though. I think the black uniforms denotes a few things but I think stormtrooper officers is one of them. - Evidence for this is from episode IV/VI. We see the leadership of the stormtroopers (Dain Jir, Praji) who are directing the search of Tantive IV wearing the black uniforms. Other black uniformed officers seem to be in charge of storm troopers although they were likely in security roles on the Death Star and do not have a direct link like the first two mentioned have. We also see the black uniforms on Endor (when the rebels are being captured). There is a combination of black uniforms Among the storm troopers, with a few grey uniforms. The rank insignia in that movie was all messsed up so it is hard to tell what ranks everyone is. This would indicate that the officers don't always wear the chest plates (they are in a known combat situation and don't have them on) and there is some connection to the black uniform and the storm troopers. We don't know if these black uniforms are NCOs not wearing armor (seems unlikely given the situation) or officers for the storm troopers, as we know the grey uniforms are most likely more senior Navy from the context. Besides it is the current cannon.

Great call. I saw that breakdown by pauldron type. I am a little confused by it though as it does not really line up to in movie (or any real world) types of rank structure. I would think the squad leader would be a sergeant - and there is some evidence of this in characters in the movie. I see in that wookiepedia article that orange could be a squad leader, red is a squad leader, White seems to be just for sergeants, but sergeants would theoretically be squad leaders (LTs would theoretically be Platoon leaders). Orange in the article also includes Sergeants, Captains, Commanders, and squad leaders. In Movie/Show - I think a lot of the orange pauldrons were squad leaders (thinking sand troopers, then in Rebels some of the orange pauldron) but I think the officers all wore the black uniform with the blue rank like Dain Jir (StormTrooper Captain? - so company?) , then Praji was a stormtrooper commander (BN Commander?). I do not recall a red pauldron in movies/shows for Empire. All this to say rank in the Empire makes no sense - considering it changes from movie to movie, and ROTJ they admittedly just messed up the rank insignia. Would love if they used the new plastic cape material for pualdrons, we need more of them for sure. Personally I think I will have the squad leaders use orange, maybe one or two in each squad have a white pauldron (probably won't use black - unless I do a sand trooper squad). The problem for me is how to do the Platoon and Company leaders. I think for a Platoon we could use an orange pualdron on a stormtrooper, because Lego has not produced a Stormtrooper LT. (although there are customs out there). Then for a company it would be the Imperial Non Commissioned Officer SW0774 - the rank insignia should be stormtrooper CPT and that could be the company commander. So I would build a stormtrooper platoon with the following - One commander (Probably Praji or NCO until Lego makes a Stormtrooper LT), Five orange pualdron storm troopers, ten white pauldrons, and 35 regular storm troopers. Snowtrooper - Easiest one, I think this would be 50 snow troopers, with one snow trooper commander in the front. Sandtrooper - Probably similar to the stormtrooper platoon, but I would have 35 black pauldrons for the standard troopers. Scout troopers - no idea, assuming smaller detachments, less pauldrons (maybe one for the commander? They might work as 4-10 next to the platoon or 20-30 next to a company.

My comprehensive wishlist for Lego Star wars (each category is in order). Everything is OT (in movie - although the dragon is just bones). These are just things Lego has never done, There are some definite remakes that would fit in the top of some of these lists. Ships/sets - Outrider, Bright Hope (rebel transport), A-1 Deluxe floater, Flare-S Swoop, Void Spider, Coruscant Patrol Craft Big Figs/ Molds - Bantha, Ronto Creature build (but playset like Ninjago) - Krayt Dragon Minifigures: Imperials - Tagge, Motti, Chief Bast, Lt. Childsen (would take a stormtrooper Lt. instead), Officer Evax, Cpt Needa, Admiral Ozzel, Sim Aloo, Janus Greejatus, Moff JerJerrod Rebels - Hobbie, Major Bren Derlin (actually named, not a nod to him), Tiree, Rebel Guard (Yavin with green outfit) Droids - E-3PO (E chu ta), 8D8, R5-M2, R4-E1, CZ-3, WED-1016, 2X-3KPR, M-HYD Binary droid, Aliens - Gran (Ree Yees species), Joh Yowza, Quarren, Rystall, Sy Snootles, Lyn Me, Bane Malar, Doopy McCool, Greeata, Myo, Djas Puhr, Muftak, BoShek, Ephant Mon (Big fig), Wioslea, M iiyoom Onith, Klaatu, Rappertunie, Hermi Odle, Yarkora (could be Sault Marae but generic is fine), Geezum (or generic snivvian), Ariel Schous, Neb Dulo, Shistavanen. (Could use a CMF for Star Wars Aliens on their own)

I would live to build empire army. Has anyone done the research to see if we have the figures to build out the ranks? Officers, NCOs etc, troops. Is it possible to accurately build a Battalion or division for empire? edit: briefly looking a stormtrooper squad is ten storm troopers (9 troopers 1 SGT), a platoon is 5 squads but I am not sure what platoon leadership is needed, would praji be a company commander? Hard to figure out. I think a company would have four platoons so a stormtrooper company would have 200 storm troopers (20 of which would need a Pauldron thinking orange?) then additionally there would need to be 5 platoon commanders (not sure if that is officers like praji or pauldroned storm troopers - thinking it is uniformed officers LTs with all black?) then one company commander - assuming captain). Unless someone is doing a battalion (four companies) or bigger there is probably not a need to do specialized detachments like scouts, cold weather, etc. i also think blizzard force is the easiest as they do not wear any unique pauldrons, so you could have 50 snow troopers with a snow trooper commander and veers to capture the unit well.

Building the small/medium sets just makes me want more around that size so badly. Plus the play functions make it so much more fun.

I would expect farmer cotton to look like the movie version, but would prefer farmer maggot who has a speaking role. This is also why I think they need to do 12-17 mini figs if they are doing hobbits. They will all have the same legs, same hair (different colors) it is just head and torso prints. They are not overly special or expensive to produce.

I know I’ll buy it regardless, but for me the difference is when I buy it. If the set shows it has some value to buy early (good minifigures selection - ie 1 for every $15 to $20). Good build price per piece wise - if it’s not close then big pieces or unique ones or lots of prints. A good gwp is also a deciding factor. i was always going to get Barad Dur, I bought it day one because of the gwp. Same thing for bag end, if there is value I will buy day one. If there is no value I’ll wait till there is 2xvip plus a decent gwp (Black Friday most likely). my value in this set is 12-17 minifigures (especially considering repeats from Rivendell - I am expecting 5 repeats - maybe 6 if there is a Nazgûl). A good build. Or if those parameters are not met then a gwp would have to be included that has a unique hobbit. And this assumes $250.

* Tie Shuttle (never had one before)

Seconded, looked but couldn’t find anything.

Picked up a few used sets/parts and one new set. used bespin duel, Hoth AT-ST, Skyhopper parts Nebulon B (I color swapped the one engine part to save most of the cost) new tantive iv starship collection - really surprised at how good this looks in person. I was concerned about it from the pictures but it really is a lot nicer in person.

I have the following but could be missing some. Rebel Transport outrider flare S swoop (special edition) Void spider easy ride passenger airspeeder Tie shuttle A1 deluxe floater Braha Tok class gunship there may be others that I have missed but that is the list. Outside of the first two the rest have very little screen time (or in the outriders case additional media time).