Review: 9495 Gold Leader’s Y-wing Starfighter

[Lobot]

9495 Gold Leader’s Y-wing Starfighter

Box weight: 701g, Dimensions: 48cm x 28cm x 6cm, Parts: 458, Cost £49.99 (UK)

Minifigures: 3 (Princess Leia, Gold Leader & R5-F7)

Lego details from S@H:

'Begin the attack on the mighty Death Star in the Y-Wing Starfighter!

Recreating the intense finale of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. Fly Gold Leader Dutch Vander over the Death Star in his Y-Wing Starfighter with bomb load-and-drop function, dual flick missiles, opening cockpit and rotating cannon turret. Then use the medal and Princess Leia at an award ceremony! Includes 3 minifigures: Gold Leader Dutch Vander, ceremonial Leia with medal and R5-A7.

•Includes 3 minifigures: New Gold Leader Dutch Vander, ceremonial Leia and R5-A7

•Features Y-Wing Starfighter and 2 blasters

•Y-Wing Starfighter features dual flick missiles, bomb load-and-drop function, bombs, opening cockpit and rotating cannon turret

•Award the medal of honor with ceremonial Leia!

•Y-Wing Starfighter measures over 16” (41cm) long’

To be honest I wasn’t that impressed by this set when it was released. However, at midnight on the 4th May I decided to take the plunge; a standard cost of £49.99 seemed a lot to pay for 458 parts, but with the inclusion of a TC-14, mini TIE-Fighter, Poster & free shipping it suddenly became a lot more attractive! Anyway, onto my first review, I’ve included Han in some of the photos for scale.

Box & contents: The box art is really nice (apart from Darth Maul...anyway, moving on) with a nice image of the Y-wing in mid-battle with an unseen Empire. Oddly I think that the back is nicer than the front, I love the dark blue background. First impressions on opening the box were less impressive, as it was half empty! I never understand why Lego insist on making such big boxes, as it must really add to their shipping costs, but I guess that it looks more impressive on the shelf. Anyway, you get a single 55 page manual, DSS and 3 part-filled bags. After the initial ‘how can this cost £50?’, I was actually quite impressed by the variety of parts included, and it was great to see some alternative colours from the default ‘bley setting’ that most SW sets I’ve built seem to have.

Front of box:

Reverse:

Contents:

Minifigures: The set includes 3 figures; a cute Princess Leia (in Ceremonial dress), Gold Leader (which is a standard rebel pilot from what I can see, but perhaps I’m not discerning enough) and R5-F7. I’m surprised to say that he’s the best of the bunch by far; no photos that I’ve see do him justice – the printing is just beautiful He has a series of silver ‘wedge’ markings on the top of the dome, and lovely dark-red detailing. Princess Leia has a ‘happy’ and ‘stern’ face, I’m not sure which one I prefer. The silver detailing on her torso is well finished, and adds a nice touch.

Minifigures:

The build: I’ll admit that I’m a conformist; I’m never late for work, I put my bins out on time, and I’m happy to queue, but as far as Lego goes I’m a rebel....I hate the idea of numbered bags and refuse to use them & I also usually build on the carpet!! It wasn’t the most challenging of build but I guess that it shouldn’t have been. If I hadn’t stopped to take photos, it would have been less than an hour. You start by building the main hull, then the cockpit & finally the two engine sections. For the first time ever I kept the ‘flick-fire’ missiles attached, they fit nicely into the hull and don’t look like the (usual) afterthought...I’m also a complete sucker for trans-neon green, it reminds me of the Space Lego of my childhood. I've included phots at 10 page intervals.

Result after 10 pages:

Result after 20 pages:

Result after 30 pages:

Result after 40 pages:

The result: I’m surprised by how much I like this. I normally prefer larger (UCS) sets as the system ones usually leave me with a slight ‘underwhelmed’ feeling after I’ve finished them, but after all they’re designed with 8-14 year olds in mind rather than someone in their mid-thirties!! Being objective it’s a nice design, instantly recognisable, with some nice ‘greebling’ touches and reasonably scale. It’s quite solid and would survive a vigorous ‘swoosh’ without falling to bits, although the front cannons are a bit delicate. My only real complaint is that the landing feet look very basic and are too small. Something similar to the design of the current system Falcon would be a vast improvement; it would also help to raise the entire ship up a little, which would be better for displaying. The underside also looks a bit ‘unfinished’ whilst I’m being picky and would benefit from a few extra parts. In an ideal world the design would have allowed the droid to sit facing front, but I can see why the compromise was made.

All done:

R2 & R5 have a staring contest:

Final thoughts: This is expensive, especially when compared to the current X-wing which is the same price but has an extra minifigure and 102 more parts. Logically I should have purchased the X-wing, but I’ve always preferred the design of the Y-wing, it looks like the sort of ship that the rebels would have built in their equivalent of a ‘garden shed’, lots of awkward angles, exposed sections etc, the X-wing looks too refined to me! The minifigures are nice, with R5-F7 & Princess Leia being the highlights; I’m a little disappointed that they didn’t include a rebel technician as one would have been a nice addition. The build was interesting and the set includes a nice range of parts and colours. In conclusion, I don’t regret adding this to my collection but I’d recommend waiting for the next sale before ordering one!

C & C welcome.

[Bilbo Baggins]

Great review, I'm definetaly getting the set.

Edited May 16, 2012 by Bilbo Baggins

[The Blue Brick]

Great review indeed. I most likely won't get this one as I already have the past few, but maybe if it goes on sale sometime.

[JackJonespaw]

Nice review! I've never been a fan of the Y-Wing, but this is one of the only ways to pick up Leia in that dress. (Bricklink and Amazon come to mind.)

[ETAV8R]

Great review.

I just picked this set up with the TC-14 promo and haven't built it yet. Looks fun and I will hopefully figure out something with the landing gear as I did with my falcon.

[the-bricking-builder]

Great review of a good set.

The only thing I don't like is that it has less more greeblings then the 2007 version has, but you can modify that

[Ki-Adi-Mundi]

Thank you for this nice review. It grants a good insight into what one gets with the set.

I have it, too and like the set and it's design and composition very much. The weaknesses (IMO) are:

- the brown poles don't fit into the colour scheme. They should have been whitey or grey

- the hatch for the bombs/torpedos can't be closed

- i can't get myself to like stickers

Despite this criticism, the set remains very good. The overall design very much resembles the original and looking from above or side, this depiction is pretty much excellent. The greebling is well done and make the ship really look rebel-like. Yes, this is the Alliance's steady workhorse.

A word on the pricing: In Europe it comes for 50 EUR (some 63,60 USD), while the X-Wing goes for 70 EUR (some 89 USD). There is a serious difference...

The Y-Wing is significantly cheaper and belongs to the rare sets that come out at the right price from TLG themselves. Yep, i will get a second one for sure.

Two more comments:

- Minifig Leia is beautiful in her ceremonial dress and cape. She looks much better with the happy face.

- You got something wrong with the frontal weaponry. It shouldn't stick out that much.

Edited May 17, 2012 by Ki-Adi-Mundi

[Lobot]

Thanks for the comments everyone, really appreciated

I'll try & do a more interesting set next time! It's one of the disadvantages of living in the UK, we don't get the new sets until a lot of other countries have, so it's difficult to find any that haven't already been reviewed.

- You got something wrong with the frontal weaponry. It shouldn't stick out that much.

Yes, you're correct, sorry about that! I was actually trying to build it as fast as possible so that I could get all the photos taken in natural light; I didn't push them in far enough, which also explains why they fell off a couple of times

[TheLegoDr]

Thanks for the review, I have only seen the box art and wasn't too impressed. After seeing this set close-up, I can finally see how beautiful it really is. I just got into Star Wars, but I think TLG hit 2012 SW out of the park for sure compared to previous versions. I definitely like this ship more than the X-wing, but due to figures and pieces and cost, I never picked this one up, only the X-wing on May 4th. If I ever come across this on a good sale, I will seriously consider getting it. I would much rather have this ship displayed than the X-wing for some reason. But as stated, I don't know much about SW, so I don't know when they actually use this ship.