REVIEW: 10195 Republic Dropship with AT-OT, part 1+part 2 and final photos Options

[starstreak]

Direct quote from Lego.com:

Two incredible Star Wars™ vehicles in one!

Flying through the skies of hostile planets, the Republic LAAT/c (Low Altitude Assault Transport/carrier) Dropship swoops down and deploys the AT-OT (All Terrain Open Transport) troop carrier for attacks on Separatist strongholds. Dropship features an opening cockpit, rotating front and rear cannons, auto-firing missiles and armament bay, and a fold-away handle on top. AT-OT features poseable legs, rotating cannons, crew compartment with weapon racks, and folding cockpit and boarding ramp. Drop ship automatically locks onto walker, then releases it with the push of a switch! Also works with #7675 AT-TE Walker. Includes 2 clone pilots and 6 clone troopers.

Includes 2 Clone Pilot™ and 6 Clone Trooper™ minifigures!
Two incredible vehicles in one!
Republic Dropship features a fold-away handle on top!
Republic Dropship automatically locks onto AT-OT Walker™ and releases with the push of a switch!
Dropship features an opening cockpit!
Dropship includes flick-fire missiles, as well as rotating front and rear cannons!
Dropship measures over 18” (46cm) long and has a wingspan of over 21” (53cm)!
Customize your Dropship with alternate stickers!
AT-OT Walker has 8 poseable legs!
AT-OT Walker features cockpit that really opens!
Assemble your forces aboard the AT-OT Walker that seats up to 16 minifigures!
AT-OT Walker measures over 16” (40cm) long and 5”(13cm) wide!
AT-OT Walker features a fold out boarding ramp!
Republic Dropship also combines with #7675 AT-TE Walker™!


Set Name: 10195 Republic Dropship with AT-OT
Theme: Star Wars Clone Wars
Released: 2009
Pieces: 1758
Price: $249.99/249.99euro/170.00pounds

Wanna see some pictures? Let's start with the normal box arts and manuals!

Box opening


Not much to say. It's a box. A 1/2 empty box.



See? Lots of bubble snakes. Half filled with Lego, half with bubble snakes.



Err. You can see box now. Wait, you can see two boxes.



Here is the front and back shots of both boxes.



Closeup of front of the box.



Closeup of back of the box.



Minifig count on the side of the box. I really, really wish there was more types.



Sticker shot.



Ok, is it me, or is the wing sticker a helmet sticker? Heh.


Lego says this is a 2009 minifig list. I dunno. Alot of those look like they came out of last year.



3 books. All kind of thick. 1st book is 83pgs, 2nd book is 76pgs, and last is 63pgs.



Wow. It's numbered. One.


And this set is two. I guess having two numbers makes building easier.



Parts list page 1. I swear I'm going to scan pages instead of taking a picture of it.



Parts list page 2.



Shows how you lock the AT-OT, and how to hold the Dropship's handle.



Picture of the nose stickers and rear drop ramp and front cockpit open on the AT-OT.



Extra missles stored in the storage bay. And Dropship cockpit open.



Front guns move and wing flick-fire missles can be launched with a button from the back on the AT-OT.



"Stand in line troopers!" Said the Captain.



The Captain said, "You were out of line." "Who me? It was him." Said a Clone Trooper. "How do you know it's me? We all look the same." Said another.


THE BUILD!

The sub-frame. One of those "Do this 2x" in the manual. And join.



The making of the leg motors.



Done. Again, do this part 8x in the manual.



All of the leg motors now joined to the subframe.



Adding the underside.



The rear ramp. Yes it does open up.



And here the ramp has been added to the now called "frame".



I was like, "What is this for?" Then it dawned on me, it looked like the center piece of the newer AT-TE. It's for the "Holding Arm".



See, I was right. Not sure what the yellow swing thing is for yet.



Now the green chairs. Reminds me of those old manager or teacher's chairs. Same green color.



Sorry if the color is off on the next set. It's shot at home and not at work.



Part of the front that will eventually hold the canopy.



Later you find out, this is part of a "hood" for the cockpit.



Now the part is added to the frame.



Ok, thanks guys. Since I was taking too long, the Captain came in to "help" me along and work faster so his AT-OP gets done TODAY. In the process, he'll be pointing out what I completed in the picture. If you notice, there is the "holding handle" and I now figured out what the yellow swing thing is. When you lift up the handle, it swings and locks the handle up.



The legs are being created.



If you look in the front of the legs, you can see the different stages of the thigh being created.



And here you see the 4 legs now on the AT-OT.



Again, repeat 4x in the instructions.



Rear side armor and gun mounts being made.



Here, the rear side armor is added to the frame.



Repeated for the other side. Now you can see the other side of the armor plate.



Adding the rear guns. The Captain called a trooper to point to where the ball mounted gun goes.



Here, they point to the front side armor with gun mount. That's both sides standing there.



Now the Captain shows the front side armor on the frame.



The center armor has been added.



Front side armor getting more protection added.



Front side armor finished.



Now the front main guns are added.



"About time you made my cockpit!" said the Captain.



"Hmm not a bad fit." he said.



Front canopy is added.



"Ah yes, it's conditioned too." said the Captain.



Now the cockpit is added.



FINISHED AT-OT. "Allright! You Wampa fodder, mount up! Time to take this to the paint booth to get our markings added." Yelled the Captain. (He's talking about the stickers. You'll notice none are added. In the rush to bring it home to finish, I left the sticker sheet at work!)



FINISHED AT-OT. Here you see the Captain and his cockpit in the "upright" position for either launch or pickup from a Dropship.


I hope you liked part one. Part two, the Dropship and final photos to follow in next post due to the forum not allowing any more pictures.

This post has been edited by KimT: Mar 30 2009, 08:25 PM

[starstreak]

This is a continuation of the REVIEW: 10195 Republic Dropship with AT-OT.
Due to the limit of photos a forum post can take, I had to split up my review.


THE Dropship build

Top frame of the rear of the Dropship. Looks similar to the gunships.




Wow, those pins "glow" don't they? That's a sticker on the bottom rear grey brick.





The rear gun is added and the rear vents is a sticker. I think only in the original gunship was it painted on.




Ok, this is THE most important piece for the Dropship. This is how it grabs the AT-OT. The yellow stud (wrong name, don't hate me) at the bottom gets pushed up when the AT-OT locking beam hits it. When it moves up, the rubber band loaded locking bar slams into a hole on the AT-OT locking beam. Note: I tried locking it on to my AT-TE. Nope. Won't work without modification. All you need to do is move the holding pins in the handle one hole down. Now the beam can lock into the top hole.



The finished inside assembly. The top part is actually the handle.



Hmm. It's straight in the picture but as you can guess, it was lying at an angle. The grappling arm isn't dead middle so it's off balance.


Creation of the side holding arms.






Final assembly before adding to the frame. Notice the blue rubber bands. It allows the arms to stay open.



Close up of the underside. You can see the rubber bands now tight while the arms are open.


Cockpit creation





You can't really tell in the shot, but that white flap in the back opens. Not sure why yet...



That's the frame for the long neck of the Dropship. It has three separate beams. Interesting design.



The studs facing you swivels out and up. It's for the doors.



And here you see the doors are added. One up and one down.



With 66% wanting the Wompa, the Wompa it is. :) This ends book 2.


And now the last Book 3. :)

The head and neck connects to the rear frame.



The neck armor. Whatever you may want to call the cover for the neck sub frame.



Here, both sides of the neck armor is added. This still seems flimsy to me, but I think it has something to do with counter force. The more weight the head pushes down, the more the neck armor is supposed to stay together. But I guess we'll find out in a bit.



This is what it looks like from the top down before the top neck armor is added.

The cockpit.


Note. This is like any of the gunships. The cockpit sits inside the head. The little beige stud you see on the bottom sits between 4x4 studs. That was hard to do. It kept coming out. Also, I changed the "seat" for the pilot. For some reason, he sits on a 1x2 smooth piece and has a 1x2 stud to hold his butt. Um no. That never holds. so I moved the smooth piece out of the way and had him sit on a 2x2 row of studs. Still doesn't hold him well, but better than before. Also, no cockpit controls. Sad.



This is the exterior piping. Have no idea what it is. Not a gun, although it looks like it should be.

Spare missile holder.


Holds enough spare missiles for a reload on both wings. And, yay! The missiles stay in place. One of my pet peeves is flick fire missiles that don't stay put. Like those found on the 7679 Republic Fighter Tank and the 7676 Republic Attack Gunship. They fall out too easy.

The wing


Noteworthy is the 4 flick fire missile launcher under each wing. When you hit the technic rod to fire them, it fires all 4 at once. And since they are held well in the missile holder, it does shoot fairly well.



A finished shot with the wings on the Dropship. I still find it funny how multi-tasker Lego pieces are. The thrusters use a wheel rim.

FINISHED PHOTO

Here you see the Dropship "sitting" on the AT-OP. Pretty smart that the head of the AT-OP fits into the neck. Mind you, when flying around, the AT-OP hangs lower and doesn't really inter the Dropship. But at least by allowing the head to fit, the Dropship does fit well enough to stay put.

The bonus pictures! I know this is what you really want to see. Not my boring build shots.

Why? Because my 5 year old daughter drew it. Kinda cute. Has legs, the back ramp, the chairs, the cockpit and even has a bow, the gun is holding a heart. Err... It's ok. She drew it.



Straight on front view of Dropship and AT-OP.



Straight on rear view of Dropship and AT-OP.



Rear top view of Dropship and AT-OP. I like it. Everything is so symetrical.



A closeup view of the locking pin. I would hate to be the clone trooper sitting in his seat watching this Dropship come down on him.



Rear angle view of Dropship and AT-OP.



Again, another view of Dropship and AT-OP. This view you can see the huge side "suction cup" and the rear door on the nose.



Front angle view of Dropship and AT-OP. Here you can see the AT-OP cockpit and guns folded up.



Family photo of Dropship and AT-OP.



Now some photos of just the AT-OP. With stickers. :)



This reminds of of a Elephant walking.



Straight on front view of AT-OP.



Straight on rear view. Everything is so symetrical.



Top view of AT-OP. Here you can see the rear ramp that's folded, and the 6 clone troopers sitting in the back.



AT-OP. Reminds me of someone looking up to one of those heavy hauling dump trucks.



I like this low view. You can see the Wompa sticker well. I had another shot where the AT-OP was in focus, but the post said I couldn't put up any more pictures.



Here is another side view of the Dropship and AT-OP. I guess those cups on the side keep it from swaying too much while in flight.


The Dropship carrying the AT-TE

And here is the Dropship carring the AT-TE. The main gun needed to be rotated to the side.



You can see how the AT-TE has semi tight fit with all its guns. Mind you, while in flight, the AT-TE does hang lower so the cockpit doesn't actually go into the neck of the Dropship.



Here is a rear shot of the AT-TE being held by the Dropship.



I turned the AT-TE around. While more unstable in flight (It was more back heavy) the Dropship could carry the AT-TE this way and not move the front gun.



Features
This whole frakkin thing is a feature! Ignoring the outrageous price, you get two large sets and they join! Plus either by pure luck or thinking ahead, the Dropship can join with the newer AT-TE.
For the Dropship:
There's a missile rack that holds 8 spare flick fire missiles, which stores in the storage bay below the cockpit.
Speaking of the storage area, it's behind the Wompa sticker. And the storage doors opens on both sides. Same as the newer Gunship.
There's also a rear door that lowers. I thought it would allow access to the AT-OP, but it doesn't.
All guns move on the ball.
The cockpit opens.
There are 2 sets of 4 flick fire missiles that really shoot 4 at a time if you hit the technic poll behind them.
The top of the Dropship lifts so you can use it as a handle.
As for the AT-OP
All legs move to some degree. It seems every single AT-TE and now this AT-OP uses a different leg system. The first AT-TE was ratcheted, good for posing, but fell apart easy. The newer AT-TE used rubber bands to spring the legs to the position it should be in. And this one, while doesn't use ratcheting, it's free movement but doesn't fall apart as easy.
The side armor and "wings" move a little to give angle.
There's a rear ramp that unfolds.
The front cockpit window opens forward and the two side windows pivot open.
The cockpit and main guns pivot up wards for extraction with the Dropship.
There are handguns and rifles that are mounted on the side armor.
Enough chairs 16 troopers

Issues
I'm ignoring the price. Lego choose to make it that much. Nothing we say will change that. Either the set sells well and holds value, or eventually it'll drop in price, which I doubt.
There is nothing wrong with this unit. Go buy my extra box. Ok, just kidding. For starters I think this set should've came with 10 troopers and 2 pilots. Maybe one Jedi for good measure for the price.
The minifigs don't like to "sit". They pop off too easy of the chairs.
The position of the handle isn't on the balance point, so the weight feels uneven when holding.
The neck of the Dropship IS flimsy. The neck armor will come part where you have to pinch it back.
Putting the cockpit on gave me trouble. But I think it felt harder than it really was. All you have to do is make sure its straight and push it on.
The locking mechanism seems flimsy. But that's only because it's made out of plastic. I'm sure if it was metal poles, it wouldn't look like it was going to snap. Don't worry, it sounded worse than it really is.
No extra guns for the minifigs. You have to pull off the guns from the weapon mounts.
The stickers are normally hard to put on. But not this time. Most of the stickers are big pieces. Just take your time at putting the stickers on. I too wish the window stickers was painted and not a sticker.

Final Thoughts
Sorry if this review took a while to finish. I did try to rush and finish it for the forum members. I hope it was worth the wait. You could say this is more a build review than just a review as I included many pictures of the build process. I figured many people wouldn't get the chance to buy an exspensive piece of Lego, so at least you can see how it was made.
I think at this point, I spent about 4+ hours in editing the pictures and about 2+ in trying to organize the review for posting.
I hope you had as much fun reading this review as I had in making it.

All pictures should have links to larger photos on my flickr site. Just click on the pictures. If you want to see all current pictures please click here. -->10195 Republic Dropship with AT-OT


My Rating
Playability: 4 out of 5. My 7 year old son proved it can be played with. Mind you he did break a few loose parts off, but easily fixed. Remember, this set was for 14+ years old. Haha.
Design: 4 out of 5. Why so high? It's in line with other SW sets. Not realistic, yet enough details to keep you happy.
Build experience: 3 out of 5. Three is the complexity of the build. Not too hard, but there is alot of pieces so I can see some younger kids like 9 year olds saying it takes too long to build.
Overall: 4 of 5. Why again so high? As a Star Wars and Lego fan, it's worth it. It's not a copy of any other set, and it is unique. Just that the price is high, so a average player or someone not really into Star Wars wouldn't see much value in paying $240+ for a set that has only 1700+ pieces.



This post has been edited by starstreak: Mar 31 2009, 04:51 PM

[starstreak]

EDIT: Can you give me a measurement of the box (length, width, and depth)? I just want to know how big it is.

EDIT 2: You got two, huh (one to keep, and one to sell according to your Flickr picture)?

I don't want to get busted in the review about selling. So ask me this on flickr. Had to make up for the shipping to Hawaii. GOD.
As for the size, I'll do that once I get a ruler.

This post has been edited by starstreak: Mar 25 2009, 04:13 AM

[Svelte]

Don't tell me they packaged this set in those horrible boxes where you have to tear the corners and flip up the lid?

[CloneMe]

Awsome. I cant wait for more pictures. You need to hurry up so I can decide if id like to go ahead and get it now or just wait a little while. Hmmm. What to do. What to do.

[ILikePi]

Don't tell me they packaged this set in those horrible boxes where you have to tear the corners and flip up the lid?

I think that the box is only kept closed by two stickers at the bottom of the box. See starstreak's enlarged picture: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3160/338333...a06b54e1c_b.jpg

This post has been edited by ILikePi: Mar 25 2009, 06:10 AM

[Roncanator]

Cant wait until the review. i THink this looks like a really cool set but its way to expensive in New Zealand

[Svelte]

I think that the box is only kept closed by two sticker at the bottom of the box. See starstreak's enlarged picture: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3160/338333...a06b54e1c_b.jpg

That's what I was looking at. Usually it's the *sides* that are stickered if the box is the type that can be slit up the side and then easily flattened.

[CloneMe]

[quote name='svelte_corps' date='Mar 24 2009, 09:49 PM' post='470764']
That's what I was looking at. Usually it's the *sides* that are stickered if the box is the type that can be slit up the side and then easily flattened.
[/quote/] I understand what your saying but no. He got 2 of them. I would love to do that but thats way to expensive for me.

[ILikePi]

You know that he's only keeping one of them, right?

[Siegfried]

I don't want to get busted in the review about selling.

It's OK. Feel free to try to sell it here. I look forward to the review!

[starstreak]

Ok yes. It's the junk boxes. Reminds me of a cheap version of a theft protection. You rip it open and there's no way to seal it up again.
The box is 19x23x3.5 inches.

[CommanderCody77]

YES!!! Finally the Republic Dropship landed!
I can't wait for your review! (Since you're so good in reviews )
I also really like the new 2009 poster they made! My favorite pose in the picture is the pilot droid and Dooku

This post has been edited by CommanderCody77: Mar 25 2009, 11:25 AM

[CloneCommanderDe...]

Wow, it's finally in the hands of a Eurobricks member willing to review it. I want more of this review!!

[Future74]

Congrats on being the first to start this review!
Looking forward to the rest of your review Starstreak

As for the Euro price you mention in your first post it's €249,99 as well. Dollar = Euro.
But that didnt stop me from ordering it, of course