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Review: Sandcrawler 10144

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Whats big, brown, and moves slowly through the desert?

No, not a camel, a Sandcrawler.

Pictorial Review: Star Wars: Sandcrawler, 10144

Set description.

Set Name: Sandcrawler, 10144

Year of release: 2005

Set Number: #10144

Pieces: 1669

Minifigures: 11

Price: On sale everywhere,119 Eur/75.36 Pound/99.99 Dollars US/ 207 Au Dollars

Brickset

Bricklink

S@H

On with the show.

Box

I have to resort to using the Bricklink pic as my Sandcrawler was mailed to me without the box to save on postage. For those interested, here are the dimensions in centimetres 57.2 x 38.1 x 9.

10144-1.jpg

Instructions

The front cover shows the same picture as the box art. As this is an older set, they have crammed the whole build into one manual which is quite hard to turn pages and keep them on the right page whilst building. It is also without the piece checklist on the last page, though piece call outs are used throughout.

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A random page shot.

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Bits and pieces

Shown here in the many sealed bags are all the parts necessary to build your big brown box….i mean sandcrawler.

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On a set this big, I like to organise all my parts into colour piles, and often stick all the identical pieces together to aid in finding them quickly, as I really dislike sifting through piles of bricks to find 1 x 1 plates and bricks.

Stickers

Only a teensy tiny DSS for this set, It consists of the windscreen at the very front of the Sandcrawler.

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Minifigures

This set includes 11 minifigures. Though as expected with this set there are a lot of droids. Due to a lot of the figures being brick-built, I left construction to the end for all figures, kind of like a treat when all the hard work is done. One thing I did notice with the minifigures (Jawa and Owen) was the heads were already placed onto the torso’s, very weird.

Here is a pic

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First up we can see the lovely Jawa’s in all their splendour. (A definite reason for buying this set).

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Next we have another unique figure in the SW universe, Owen Lars, Luke Skywalker’s Uncle and guardian and the infernal clap-trap C3PO

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Next up is R2D2, R5D4 (the one that blows up in SW) and Treadwell droid.

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To finish, we have the ASP droid, R1G4 and Gonk droid. The gonk droid is seen throughout the SW movies, always an amusing character the way he shuffles around.

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The Build

Time to get into the meat of this set. This is quite a large build so I will give you a look at my organisation first. This involves colour separating etc as mentioned above. Building big sets like this are always tricky. I prefer the dinner table to work at, which is obviously only a temporary site as toddlers will always grab bits or heaven forbid the family actually needs to sit down for dinner. So I need a way to find parts quickly and pack it all up if the build isn’t completed in the first sitting. This took me 3 nights, about 4-6 hours.

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Starting with the baseplate, we are off.

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The side sections are built separately and then attached to the base. This picture shows one such section. The technic pieces in the middle are responsible for turning the wheel assemblies, more on this later though.

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Another shot showing four sections attached.

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Next up is the back of the sandcrawler. This is packed full of greebles to give a really nice finish.

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Now its time to show you the tractor tread construction. There are four of these, all built identically, with the exception of the technic pin used to attach them to the underside of the Sandcrawler. Lots more greebles again just add to the detailing of this set, bravo TLC.

A couple of progress shots

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Finished wheel assembly and laid out tread. The tread is 34 pieces long.

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This next picture shows the treads attached to the underside of the Sandcrawler.

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Next we will look at the steering section in the rear. This controls the back two tractor treads. There is a knob on the rear of the vehicle to allow this to turn left and right. Note all the unused space inside.

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Rear view to show the knob for turning as well as all the great greebling.

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Here is a shot of the ramp on the front of the Sandcrawler as well as the front angled sections attached by two hinge pieces. In this area, a crane is stowed for use on the roof to aid in the movement of droids.

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Then we can see how the ramp and the angled pieces fit together at the front.

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Here is the detachable midships deck. Once again, lots of great detailing here. This attaches to tiles and limited plates to make it modular.

Without figures.

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With figures.

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Almost done, here are some progress shots. Up front is the cockpit for one Jawa driver.

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Onto the complete product.

A side on view.

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From the front. Quite an impressive view, though I can’t imagine that aerodynamics were ever a design factor.

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A quick look at the rear again.

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Let’s see some action shots. Shown here is the removed roof with the crane installed. You can also see the open cockpit.

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What are those sneaky Jawa’s up to now?

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Conclusion

I’m not sure who decided to make this set, TLC or LucasArt, but I’m pleased to get a set crammed full of useful bricks. The main two reasons for buying this set was to increase my amount of reddish brown, dark orange and tan bricks and snag some cool Jawa figures. However I was pleasantly surprised at the complexity of the build, I really enjoy these exclusive AFOL aimed sets due to the level of detail and time needed to construct. I would have no hesitation in recommending this set, just on the parts alone, though I now feel it offers a lot more, what with the angled nature of the construction and all the greebling, there is a lot to admire about the Sandcrawler. So in closing, snap one up on sale now and you wont be disappointed!

Design: 10/10, With a lot of nice greebling and little touches here and there, I have to say the design is very good and faithful to the movie and Lego Star Wars video game.

Price: 10/10, Hey I got it on sale, what’s not to like about a discount like this $295 down to $207

Playability: 8/10, With the modular mid section and interchangeable roof/crane as well as the opening front and turning tractor treads, this set has enough playability to keep you going for a while.

Overall: 9.3/10, What a great set for what could have easily just been a big brown box, instead it is crammed full of greebles and details as well as some nice play features.

Thank you for reading.

Cheers

ISC

More pictures can be found here

:classic:

Edited by KimT

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Great review and it seems like a nice set! :classic:

I would buy it just for the jawas, they look awesome!

Edited by BRICKLANTA

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Great review, but I still think I'm gonna pass even with the reduced price; as you said, it's pretty much just a big brown box, and if I want Jawas that bad I'll by them off ebay or something.

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Nice Review!

I'm waiting on mine in the mail at the moment :cry_happy:

Well it seems a nice set, but IMO, at 24 studs wide, its way... too fat. It would look better at 22 or even 18. Also, the front doesn't look very... well, nice. It has far too bigger air gaps at the sides of the ramp.

However, despite all it's downfalls, i quite like the set. :sweet:

Thanks again for a great review

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Price: 10/10, Hey I got it on sale, what’s not to like about a discount like this $295 down to $207

Are those prices in pounds, Canadian or US dollars?

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your c3po appears to be the one from the death star and not the original one from 10144, am i right ?

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your c3po appears to be the one from the death star and not the original one from 10144, am i right ?

2 batches of 10144 was produced.

The latter has the newer C3P0 in pearl gold.

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Great review! I got this set a month ago and was surprised to get the DS C-3PO.

I wonder which piece of Jawa-hater rated this set as poor.. :hmpf_bad:

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Thank you for the nice review. :thumbup::classic:

Minifigures

This set includes 11 minifigures. Though as expected with this set there are a lot of droids. Due to a lot of the figures being brick-built, I left construction to the end for all figures, kind of like a treat when all the hard work is done. One thing I did notice with the minifigures (Jawa and Owen) was the heads were already placed onto the torso’s, very weird.

Here is a pic

7.jpg

Actually, it was common that minifigs already had their heads upon their torsos until around 2006.

When I was a child they already had their heads on their torsos also.

I thought they didn't do that anymore in the factory because it was al work that people can do by themselves and they cut on almost everything between 2004 and 2006 to get out of the losses.

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Awesome review of this great bulky brown thing.

A must have set, but not nearly as good as it could have been.

The Jawas make up for that :wub:

Indexed

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..and this is the first SW Lego set I've ever bought, although I'll admit I bought it as a parts collection. Now most of the minifigs will wind up on Bricklink, so that I can possibly buy another one or two before they become unavailable.

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