Rufus

Step 8, according to the instructions downloaded from Lego Customer Services (I don't have this set ) I think those are the ones you've missed - hard to tell the black on black on the computer screen. Hope that helps. Rufus

I really like this! I agree with Darth Legolas, good crossover between Repubic Cruiser and Tantive. It could almost be an alternative model for the RC. The bulkiness is actually quite Star Wars - many of the SW ships are a bit workhorsey (Falcon, Twilight to name but two) and the YT variants show that variations on a basic design are commonplace. Good work getting a useable interior, tho' it does look a bit cramped. What is the ambulance stretcher for (if that is not a very silly question)?

What's this? Latest BASIC set? No it's: Set: 10019 Ultimate Collector Series Rebel Blockade Runner Year: 2001 Pieces: 1748 Price: I bought it for £135 in 2002 With the eagerly awaited Tantive IV just around the corner, I thought it was high time her UCS elder sister got a bit of limelight, and thus filling a hole in KimT's excellent Review Index. The Box Black and white, typical of early UCS sets. Mine has withstood the test of time reasonably well, considering it has moved home 5 times. No relief printing on the front, unlike the X Wing and Tie Interceptor. Just imagine there's something interesting on the back: Inside the box The box opens with a lifty lid, no tear tabs at the side. Inside are two smaller white boxes. The box is pretty full, but bear in mind the smaller white box is full only of the 31 (empty) original polybags which I've kept for some reason. All the pieces in their new homes (supermarket freezer bags). 1748 pieces doesn't sound much by today's standard, but these are mostly large pieces. The centre bag is entirely full of 52 4x4x6 quarter circle wall pieces. There are too many to sort prior to building, unless you have a very large table. The busy Decal Sticker Sheet: Unfortunately I didn't think to do a size comparison. It's slightly smaller than the instruction manual. The worst news for sticker haters is shown in this page of the instruction book: look at the pieces on the back of the model here... ... Aaargh! STAMPs! No wonder I didn't apply them. To be honest, I don't think the model needs them. The instructions are generally clear, with no colour issues. There's no piece inventory either. The Build The ship consists of three sections, held together strongly by technic pins. The front section is built first. The build is very traditional, with some interesting SNOT techniques and not very many out-of-place colours. The bridge sides are constructed thusly: There are meant to be elastic bands holding the wing-pieces together, but mine have long perished and it seems to manage without them. The mid-section takes shape. There is room for a small interior here, for the diehard modders out there, but getting into it would be such a hassle I never bothered. The side greebles get added. It seems no starship is complete without telephones, binoculars, radiator grilles and classic space droid ears. The rear section consists of engine mount, side 'wings' attached with some SNOT, and eleven identical engines. Here I'm afraid the build gets rather repetitive. The engines consist of a reinforced tube of white, a classic space radar dish, a large cartwheel I've not seen before in Republic Red, a Clone Turbo Tank wheel, smaller Castle cartwheel and trans-orange dish. A lot of unseen pieces help to reinforce the centre (unlike the engines in 7665 Republic Cruiser): All the sections ready to couple together. It takes a bit of effort to get the mid-section onto the engine mount, but the rest come together nicely. You can see the diminutive UCS description stand, sans sticker, in the middle. The Whole And the finished product, with Lando for comparison (he was the only figure to hand): Overall Design: Perfect I should say: faithful to the real thing, and extremely well put together. Very sturdy too! Build: A traditional brick-built model, with Technic used only when necessary and for strength. The rear gets a bit repetitive, but by this point the end is very much in sight. Pieces: Mostly standard stuff, unless you need an odd number of oversized wheels or are building a very tall wind turbine. Swooshability: Believe it or not you can swoosh this thing: it balances nicely around the radar dish at the back of the mid-section. Weighs in at over 3 kg though, so some upper body strength necessary! Playability: You can swizzle the radar and the guns, but that's about it. No minifigs, this is very much a true UCS. Price: �135 seems such a bargain now, but at the time it was a fortune, and by far the most expensive Lego model I'd ever bought. This is a display model, through and through, but looks great on the shelf. It remains one of my favorites, and I usually have it on display. It's fun to build, imposing, and incredibly sturdy - you can stand it on the floor on its engines if you're short of shelf space (or on the kitchen scales, which is how I know how much it weighs!) You can even use the back of the box as a 'space' photo backdrop - see my Lambda Shuttle for an example. Thanks for viewing, and hope you enjoyed the tour. Feedback on the review most welcome! Rufus

Weird: I just built this ship again today; spent hours modding the cockpit so Han and Chewie can sit side by side. It's a great model, one of my favorites, and definitely the better of the minifig-scaled millenium falcons (MF MFs?) However, it has a few flaws: too many holes and woe betide anyone who tries to flip it upside down. Plus, the mandibles are too small. Anyone else find the long trans-blue tubing is too long? Excellent review: a thorough tour of the ship, quality pics and like the movie quotes. the last pic of Han in front of the ship! Great work, thank you!

Good spot! THX-1138 was, I think, Lucas's first film, and he refers to it incessantly: hence DolbyTHX. In ANH, when Han and Luke are escorting 'prisoner' Chewie in the Death Star, Luke says something like 'Prisoner transfer from cell block 1138'. I believe there are many more references, but my nerdiness ends here.....

Awesome review!! Putting in cut scenes from the movie is a great idea. I don't collect Indy, but am seriously thinking about starting having seen this. [steely Dan] Ain't never gonna do it without the fez on [/steely Dan] Anyone know what I mean?? Am I too old???

I feel sorry for bald horsey Paradisa girl. 12 years of winning the lame yellow trophy with no competition and this girl comes along! Her bigger smile suggests she's won. Shame she's still bald. Seriously though, this repeats an interesting point that this year's City possibly has had a more unisex appeal. I imagine (but am prepared to stand corrected) that the farm and CC line has much more appeal to girls than the usual fire/police stuff. Potential for debate here, I hope! Rufus PS Nice review!

She featured quite heavily in LSW The Video Game so I guess there can't be a licensing issue. I think the lack of Padme is more to do with the the ships and scenes she's associated with - she'd need to be in a set with a big smooth silver ship which would cost a small fortune to produce; even the Geonosis arena would require three moulded monsters. Retaking Theed palace is a good idea, now we have a Nute Gunray. Personally I'd love to see the royal starship from Ep I but I suspect it's too big a risk for TLG.

Excellent stuff, love the 45 degree angles, and all the features. I'm amazed you've had the patience to do all these. What are you going to do when you've finished? I'd love to see a whole Greek alphabet of shuttles!

It's not UCS compared to Baronsat's or Cavegod's versions. However, if TLC produced something similar I'm sure they'd label it UCS. Top fin: No, I'm sure it isn't! Just a question of parts: I didn't want to have to order lots of parts or to raid too many SW sets, so I used what was to hand. You're probably right. I used this picture for reference; the wings aren't quite as long as the hull, but probably longer than mine. @Mods: sorry if this pic is too big; I don't know how to do external links. Feel free to fix!

Wow that's fantastic. Best MOC I've seen in a long time! Do you have a picture of the real thing to compare?

Thanks everyone! @Strand: I was planning to a Home One hangar diorama; just waiting to get the Endor set. A good excuse to dig all my Rebel ships out the loft! Will keep you posted.

Nice work Lars, great attention to detail, love the cockpit. Any chance we could see the interior? Rufus

Thanks Guys! JD: No I don't have the cross sections book (good tip tho' ), but I used some schematics from Wookiepedia for reference. Alas, the landing gear protrudes into the interior a little when folded which prevented me putting in any more chairs - there are I think nine?? in the real thing.

Hello everyone. Here's my take on the Empire's beautiful Lambda Shuttle. My goal here was to create a minifig-scaled shuttle with a realistic budget and minimum of hassle. I missed both official versions, but didn't like them that much. I didn't want to do a UCS version (many good versions exist), and it didn't have to be exactly to scale, but I wanted as many features as possible including chin-ramp, working landing gear, two-seater cockpit and reasonable interior. Eventually I was inspired to get started by the 8019 Attack Shuttle and the flat windscreen from City Corner, and here's the result! On the ground: And in flight: Side elevation: The vast majority of the model (I'd say about 95%) comes from just three sets: Imperial Landing Craft 7659, Attack Shuttle 8019 and the Torrent 7674 which I bought specially. A few small creator sets make up the rest of the pieces, except for eight black technic liftarms which I got from a pack of spares in the Lego shop and, of course, the City Corner window, which defines the look of the cockpit. I'm missing a few pieces, hence the asymmetric cockpit side-windows and grey 3x2 wing-pieces on the 'jowls'. More piccies: The cockpit seats two comfortably and connects to the rear through a short tunnel. Unfortunately I don't have an Imperial Officer so this one's being flown by a Tie pilot and a Stormie. The rear: You can see I've borrowed the RAS's opening mechanism. The underside, with one landing leg half-deployed: The interior seats four comfortably and holds a weapon rack.... ... and refreshments for weary travellers! On the whole, I'm quite pleased with this. There are problems, like the dorsal fin's exposed technic beams, blocky colours and too-shallow rear edge. One day I will mechanise the wings and landing gear, but for now they are manual like the RAS. Any other things you like or don't like - fire away! Finally, Darthie decends the ramp, (almost) without banging his head... Let me know what you think! Rufus [Edit: fixed the width problem]

The two heads side by side, sans body: Similar but not identical shade. Kinda disproves my own theory; it's more likely that when the photgraphs were taken the camera adjusted the contrast for Akbar's white body, making his head look darker. I've wasted a lot of time on this very minor point!!

Apparently so! Wow. 10th post, me....

I think this is an optical illusion, as the darker body of Mon Calamari makes his head look lighter, as in the following example squares A and B are (supposedly) the same shade of grey: (with apologies to whomever I've borrowed this image from)

As promised (not that anyone's been reading). This is a simple mod using only the pieces from the truck. Pallets and forkilft intact. It's a little bit fragile... It's also my first attempt at photos so be gentle! Rufus

RBR: Wow. Go to the lego shop and do the 360 spin. Looks awesome! Perhaps no landing gear, but it appears to sit in the two underside protrusions. The only odd thing is the green-yellow engine lights - they were red in the movie and on the UCS RBR. Rufus

I bought her the Cafe Corner 2 years ago and it's still sat MISB in the loft. Windsor 2010? Tell me more! [edit] Ah! Found the thread... My Classic Space stuff has been sat boxed in the loft for 20 years so remains to be seen what state it's in. I'll keep you posted....

Nice. I'm with you on the whole 'using only parts from the set' thing. I just wonder whether it would be possible to articulate your truck into a tractor-trailer arrangement (there are enough wheels for that, and a big turntable). I might just experiment myself (I'm in the process of building 7733 as we speak!)

Excellent story, very funny! I particularly like the pants gag. Does this set have reversible MF heads like the Medieval Market? Rufus

Hurrah! Now I can see what all the fuss is about. It looks like they've gone for the same design ethic as the Republic Cruiser (which in my opinion is one of the best LSW models ever, at least System scale), so should have a degree of playability. If it's anything like the UCS version, building eleven identical engines will be an endurance test... I hope the front pieces aren't trans cones with stickers, or my non-application policy goes out the window.

You tease - that's so cruel! I got very excited for a while wondering how many gazillions of pieces a UCS Super Star Destroyer would have. Rufus