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I was lucky enough to find this at Target (USA) along with the other new sets. They had x4 Republic Attack Gunships, x4 AT-TEs, x6 V-19 Torrents and x6 Magnaguard Starfighters.
Build: 7/10 – Pretty straight forward build. The ship is divided into sections which clip into each other using pegs (lower body, front nose, upper body, cockpit, wings). If you get tired building the main sections you can take breaks and assemble the small removable sections (bacta tank, bacta controls, speeder bike). The only repetitive part is the hinged side doors. Big boring expanses of white plates….
Parts: 9/10 – most of the pieces are standard bricks with only a few special pieces. Technic pieces were used sparingly. My set included 2 sets of Commander Cody’s accessories and 2 extra curved lightsabers!
Minifigs: 5/10 – the detail and printing on the new minifigs are superb, but come on now, a Republic Gunship with only 2 clone troopers?! I will definitely be picking up a few clone trooper battle packs when they are available…..
Commander Cody: 10/10 – finally, a face under the mask!. The printing on the armor and helmet are clean and crisp. I absolutely love the accessory pack (visor, shoulder pads, skirt, x2 blasters, x2 head antenna, x2 head flashlight) that came with Cody.
Clone Trooper: 9/10 – same face as Cody since they are all clones. Printing is clean. There are 2 holes on the helmet to attach the antenna and flashlight. Only minor issue would be the visible peach gap since the helmet doesn’t cover the entire head.
Obi Wan: 6/10 – nice hair and nice printing. Horrible stylized face.
Asajj Ventress: 6/10 – cool curved double lightsabers and extremely detailed printing on the face. Strange fish-like lips and the cloth dress looks bizarre.
Plo Koon: 8/10 – not bad, its really does look like him. I don’t mind his rubber head, it reminds me of stale fruit snacks.
Detail: 7/10 – for the most part, this set is very detailed. The only area that is lacking would be the upper half of the ship. TLG did an outstanding job with the lower half with all of its compartments but the upper half felt like an afterthought. There is so much unused hallow space. On the bright side, this would be very customizer friendly.
Playability: 10/10 – Way too many features to list. Here it goes:
-x2 opening front cockpits
-x2 opening wing cockpits which can fit a minifig
-x2 ball jointed front cannons
-x1 ball jointed rear cannon
-x2 front doors (access to bacta tank control area)
-x2 small doors (access to bacta tank)
-x2 mid doors (access to front troop area)
-x2 large doors (access to speeder bike hold)
-x1 rear ramp (speeder bike access)
-x1 top hatch (access to x2 round droids)
-x1 rear hatch (leads to hollow rear section)
-x4 storage compartments
- missile rack with x8 removable missiles (missiles lock into the rack so they will not fall out)
- removable bacta tank with hinged opening
- removable bacta tank control area (seats 2 minifigs)
- extremely cool speeder bike
- weapons storage rack in the center speeder bike bay
- cool hallow opening below the nose to see directly up into the bacta tank control area
Swooshability: 4/10 – while this ship is very solid, it’s not very swooshable due to its weight. You have to be careful not hold the ship by its sides since the hinged side compartments are quite delicate.
Design: 8/10 – a very nice and accurate representation of the Clone Wars Republic Gunship. Keyword being “Clone Wars” since this is modeled after the ship in the upcoming CGI movie. Some people complain this is missing the x2 pods on the side of the ships but you can clearly see the movie version of the RGS doesn’t have these either.
Stickers: 5/10 – this set has a lot of stickers. Fortunately most of them fit on individual pieces. There are 2 stickers for the computer screens in the cockpit that go over overlapping pieces (which I did not apply). I liked how they gave you the choice of either using the Spider Monkey bombs away sticker or the Twi Lek Girl sticker.
Price to parts: 8/10 – When the Target cashier rang up this set he said “Wow, that’s expensive”. $120 is a bit much for this set but once its built you won’t feel so bad. If they added in a few more clone troopers it would be worth its price.
Availability: 2/10 - since it’s not supposed to be released until 7/26, availability is extremely limited to the few Target stores that put them out early. I expect these to be widely available after the release date.
Overall: 9/10 – a few minor quibbles aside, this set is a MUST BUY. I rank it slightly higher than my all time fav 4504 Millennium Falcon.
Edited by Pineapple, 24 July 2008 - 10:23 PM.
Thanks for the detailed review, I am going to get a copy of this set. So I have decided to camp outside of TRU on Friday night.
Well anyway, great first review! 
You did a good job! 
