REVIEW: 8128 Cad Bane's Speeder

[Flare]

This is my first review here on Eurobricks, I chose to review 8128 Cad Bane's Speeder. Lets begin!

Name: Cad Bane's Speeder

Set number: 8128

Theme: Star Wars / Clone Wars

Year: 2010

Pieces: 318

Minifigs: 5

Price: $50 / £45

Links: Peeron / Brickset / Bricklink

The front cover of the box. Flashy graphics and a big "special edition" image.

On the back of the box, it shows another view of the build, ads for 8095, 8097, and 8098, and on the right it features its two "features": Flick-fire missiles and an opening storage hatch in the back.

The pictures of the pictures on the front of the box. I'll have more pictures of the figures below.

Here are the instructions, bags, and decals. There is only 1 instruction booklet which I am not surprised about, considering that there is only a little more than 300 pieces in this set. Please note that I did not apply the decals, so do not expect to see them in the rest of the pictures.

Here is the front of the instructions booklet. Same graphics as the box.

Here are the advertisements for other Star Wars sets and on the top yet another view of the set with the "Coruscant-ey" background.

Random page in the instructions booklet, there are part callouts on every step and the dark gray/light gray/black difference is better than I have seen in other set instructions.

On every step there is a piece callout, and interestingly enough, I feel that each step is just a little too easy. Seriously, they only give 6 pieces in this step, but in many others there are just 2 or 3! Its just too few pieces in my opinion.

The black/dark gray/light gray difference is not a problem in this instruction booklet, you can see here all three colors and there is a noticeable difference - good job LEGO!

Here are all of the pieces in the set:

These are the light bluish gray pieces part 1, there are some nice large slope pieces and reverse slopes.

Here is the second half of the light bluish gray pieces, we have most of the tiles, plates, technic pieces, and a few random ones. I always have liked the 2x4 tiles, I'm glad they included 4 of them in this set.

Dark bluish gray, mostly plates but there are also a lot of jumpers and 4 chairs.

In this photo, we have black, red, and white; we have a few nice black pieces, half of them are technic. We also have 3 small red technic pins, and 2 white chairs and 15x white studs.

Here we have everything else, dark blue, yellow, blue, and translucent colours. I especially like the dark blue cheese slopes and translucent yellow 1x2 plates. There are 6 blue technic pins in this set.

On to the build!

To start the build off, basically all you are doing is stacking some plates.

A little bit farther on, we have worked on the back section a lot more than anything else, we have added only a few pieces on the side and on the front.

Here the front and sides have been built up a little more, the middle has been separated as well. One thing I do not understand, is LEGO's color choices... that yellow piece is blaring ugly, and I don't understand why the white studs! Neither are accurate colors.

Everything is being built up a bit more, there are tiles on all of the edges and the front end is being finished up.

The main thing that has been added in here is back weapons hatch. We're almost done!

Set completed! Yay! The only thing that we added here from the last step is the big "fin" underneath the main seating area of the speeder...

It only took around 1 1/2 hours to build.

These are the extra pieces. Not bad.

I want to move on to the figures, but first we should see the set features...

There is a storage hatch in the back, very convenient for storing weapons, a dead body, or...

... 80's DISCO PAH-TAY! *

* DJ not included with set

Here we have a nice seating area, you can store your guns in the clips. No clue what the trans-light-blue dots are supposed to be.

Here is the driving compartment, there are two white seats with a steering wheel on one side and another trans-light-blue stud and printed control panel piece in the middle.

We also have our FAVORITE, the flick fire missile. When are they finally going to get it that flick-fires are old!?

This is where you press to "fire" the flick-fires.

If you were curious how they worked, here is a diagram - its quite simple. There is one flick fire on each side.

There aren't many features in this set, one of the major disappointments. Besides swooshing it and playing battle there is not much else to do with it except scrapping it for parts

On to the figures!

The figures are the best part of the set. We get (from L-R) Shahan Alama, black Assassin Droid, Cad Bane, Senate Commando, and Senate Commando Captain. On Shahan Alama we get a nice pearl gold arm and hand, and on Cad there is a great new hat, breather-thing, and shirt design. Unfortunately only two different hats that I am aware of fit on top of Bane's breather, which limits its use with other figures.

Three of the figures have back printing, unfortunately Cad Bane (and the Assassin Droid ) don't. Shahan Alama also has a little bit of printing on the back of his head.

Cad Bane is the best figure in the set. I have no complaints about him at all, except his breather-device is made with the same type of cheap plastic that we find in the collectible figures He has two of the standard Star Wars guns, which is pretty sad considering his pistols were nothing similar, but oh well, its just TLG being cheap again...

Some might be curious to see what Cad looks like without his hat, so here he is. The head is fairly similar to the "real" Cad Bane.

Here is Cad Bane's breathing device, it was packaged separately from the other pieces and appears to be similar to the Chinese collectible figure pieces.

Shahan Alama... don't ya just love that name? He's pretty similar to the other Weequay pirates in the Pirate Tank, but not identical. I unfortunately do not own the others so I cannot compare.

The standard assassin droid, which I've never been a fan of. Not much else to say here.

The Senate Commando and the Senate Commando Captain. We've seen the normal one before, but this is the first and most likely only release for the Captain. Notice the difference between the two in the visor.

Here is an upclose picture of the Senate Commando Captain's new details.

Unfortunately LEGO decided to give them the standard Clone Trooper heads... I'm sick of them! Can't they think of ANYTHING else?

Before we wrap it up, lets see some pictures of the completed set!

Side view

There are lots of nice details, notice all the seats for plenty of seating... its like the speeder equivalent of a mini-van

Front view

You will definitely notice the three "front lights", interestingly enough the outside two are the flick fires which makes absolutely no sense if you think about it too much

Back view

Not much, you can see the formation of the back section and the nice big tiles in use.

Top view

This is a great overall view, you can see most of the features and again see the plentiful seating.

Its time to wrap this party up!

Playability: 6/10 - Sadly there are not many features to keep anyone occupied for very long. It is very swooshable though, I couldn't resist swooshing it a couple times It probably could keep a younger child engaged for a while.

Design: 9/10 - Its a very nice build, there are some great pieces and it was very enjoyable. The only con is that I didn't learn any new techniques, and it wasn't very difficult (I like hard builds )

Price: 7/10 - The price is pretty bad considering it is $50 for just a little more than 300 pieces. In fact it is about 16 cents per piece, which is pretty horrible considering that 10 cents a piece should be the standard. There is a pro, it has some rare figures which are released in only this set or one other.

Minifigures: 10/10 - The figures are fantastic, most with back printing too. I especially like Cad Bane.

Overall: 8/10 - Its a wonderful set or gift, but it does has some flaws. If you're buying this for the figures or pieces, then I'd say go ahead. If this is a gift for your son/nephew/etc, then it might not be the perfect gift as its playability is limited.

Thanks for reading my review!

For those of you who need something to brighten their day...

Lets make this a bit more interesting!

Thanks for viewing!

[just2good]

Great review, 'Flare'!

I always thought this was a cool set since I first saw this in 2010. If I ever do get into Star Wars (which I might), I think I'll pick this one up, as the figures look great and the speeder looks pretty cool.

[Aanchir]

Ummmm... wow. This is a pretty good review with great and thorough photographs, but you certainly are pretty hard on TLG about some things.

One thing I do not understand, is LEGO's color choices... that yellow piece is blaring ugly, and I don't understand why the white studs! Neither are accurate colors.

Most of the time, especially with parts like this which are normally hidden, it's to make the build easier in two key ways: it makes it easy for kids to find the parts that are needed and it makes it easy to read in the instructions where the parts go (high contrast is a good thing).

In the case of that yellow piece, it also already existed in yellow and red, but not any other colors. That means releasing it in a less vibrant color would be an extra expense for the sake of lower visibility. Since then it has been released in Medium Stone Grey (Light Bluish Gray), so if the set were released today, eliminating the yellow would be more feasible.

We also have our FAVORITE, the flick fire missile. When are they finally going to get it that flick-fires are old!?

Old or not, flick-fire missiles (the current style, not the awful ones from Mars Mission and Exo-Force) are IMO one of the best action features because they are inconspicuous, easy to incorporate into a set without huge structural changes, easy to replace with regular Technic pins in many cases, and usable for things other than launchers (this is a big one).

The flick-fires in this set are a bit bizarre in that they seem to take the place of headlights rather than blasters of any sort, but it's a cheap way to add "play value" to a set without having to add features that disrupt the appearance and likewise have no basis in the source material.

Cad Bane is the best figure in the set. I have no complaints about him at all, except his breather-device is made with the same type of cheap plastic that we find in the collectible figures He has two of the standard Star Wars guns, which is pretty sad considering his pistols were nothing similar, but oh well, its just TLG being cheap again...

You call it cheap, TLG calls it cost-effective. It would be a huge waste of money for TLG to release a brand-new piece for every variety of blaster that exists in the Star Wars franchise. Now, a smaller gun would be good, but at the time this set was released (2010), the smaller "blaster pistol" piece had not yet been introduced. There probably just wasn't room in TLG's budget to have a new blaster pistol piece ready for 2010.

Unfortunately LEGO decided to give them the standard Clone Trooper heads... I'm sick of them! Can't they think of ANYTHING else?

Why do they need to think of anything else? If the characters are clones (and I'm assuming they are), then they should be mostly identical. And since neither of these is a named character, chances are they don't have any "official" depiction that varies from the Clone Trooper norm.

Years ago, TLG would have just used a generic smiley face or an unprinted minifigure head for characters like this who are never seen out-of-uniform. So I don't think it's fair to act as though TLG should waste money on unique prints for these characters when they have existing prints which are as accurate as are necessary.

Overall there are definitely things to gripe about in this set like the implausible positioning of the flick-fires, but sometimes you have to think about what's going to matter to the kids playing with the set. New molds, parts in new colors, and even new prints cost money, and often lots of it. There was probably already a considerable expense creating this set with the never-before-released Senate Commando figs.

[The Blue Brick]

Great review. I never got this set as it didn't appeal to me that much. I ended up brick linking Cad Bane because I like him.

To me, this set seems average, not the best, but not the worst.

[BrickPicker]

Excellent review. I can see you spent a lot of time on it.

[Masked Builder]

Good work buddy! I think there's a great selection of grey parts in this set.

[TheLegoDr]

Thanks for the review. I remember seeing this set on clearance on S@H last winter, but I never picked it up because I wasn't into Star Wars yet. I'm still not into Clone Wars, so I doubt I would pick this up regardless, but Cad Bane does look interesting. I may have to bricklink him sometime.

[DFOL]

Thank you for the review Flare, i enjoyed reading it! I still feel a twinge of regret for not getting this set when it was still available, because i really like the design of the speeder and the Cad Bane minifig. But i could never bring myself to pay the rather ridiculously high price for it, and apparently i missed out on the clearance sale. Ah well...

[Mr Man]

Why do they need to think of anything else? If the characters are clones (and I'm assuming they are), then they should be mostly identical.

No, the Senate Commandos are a branch of the Senate Guard, the predecessors of the Red Guards, they are all human, not clones.

Very good review Flare, the Commandos make this set a good buy.

[Flare]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments

Aanchir - I'm not going to respond to each thing you said, but I'll say your probably right that I'm being overly critical of the set... but I'm just expressing my opinions

No, the Senate Commandos are a branch of the Senate Guard, the predecessors of the Red Guards, they are all human, not clones.

Very good review Flare, the Commandos make this set a good buy.

Yes, I was pretty sure that they weren't clones. Thanks

[CaptainCRO]

Great review! The set is ok I would say.

A CW set has to be really special for me to buy it(like republic gunship) because I am much more into PT and OT sets.

I don't own this one and don't really want it, but I must say Cad Bane minifigure is pretty cool.

[Bilbo Baggins]

Great review, I specially like the senate commando captain.

[Flare]

Thanks CaptainCRO and Mr. Baggins.

[purpleparadox]

It's a pretty good set. I'm on the fence about buying it though. I'll probably pass. Cad Bane is a good figure, but I don't like him nearly as much as some people do. I'll see about getting him after I get all the 2012 SW sets I want and all the LOTR.

[Ceroknight]

Good review! I still regret not getting this when the Canadian price was cheaper than the American one

[Hartfan]

Great review. Thanks for all the pictures. Cad Bane's minifigs is really good.

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Superb review ...I like the soldiers and the (not included) DJ!

[JackJonespaw]

Nice review! I really like this set - it's nice and solid, and the figs are great!

[thecolossus]

The DJ made me laugh!

[Flare]

Thanks everyone