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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...
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