What To Buy? - Number 1

[Admiral-Ackbar]

Hello and welcome to the first edition of 'What To Buy?', where I'll try my best to help pick out the best set for you. Of course, you could do that yourself using the General Questions forum, but it's much more fun to do what a complete stranger tells you, eh?

Anyway, I will start this 'series' with the 'band' that I call the 'Birthdays'. I like using ' in sentences. This band covers £100 - £200, which at the moment encompasses 5 sets (not including the upcoming B-Wing Fighter) as seen below:

- 7964 Republic Frigate

- 7965 Millenium Falcon

- 9515 The Malevolence (It's £99.99, only 1p cheaper, so give me a break!)

- 9516 Jabbas Palace

- 10225 R2-D2

After giving some basics like the price (all prices are in pounds only for now) and piece count, I will grade each of these sets out of ten using my system of:

- Piece to person ratio (recommended to be at least price [i.e. £100 set should be at least 100pcs to 1 person]; rounded to nearest piece, lower is better),

- Playability features (the features within the set),

- Price per piece and (recommended to be ideally less than 10p per piece, over this is less value for money),

- Looks (the overall design and aesthetic of the set)

And make a final score to determine the best overall set.

First off, we have the Republic Frigate:

See this set in the Lego Shop

Set Name: 7964 Republic Frigate

Sub-Theme: The Clone Wars

Price: £102.99

Pieces: 1022

Minifigures: Yoda, Quinlan Vos, Eeth Koth, Commander Wolffe and Wolfpack Trooper (5)

____________________________________________________________________

Piece to Person Ratio: 204 pieces per minifigure. 7/10

Playability Features: 128 pieces per feature, 9/10

Price per piece: 9.9p per piece 10/10

Looks: Looks nice on top and sides, but poor from underneath; sizeable gaps in ship, 8/10

Brick Factor: 34/40, 85% (Brick-tastic!)

Up next we have the Millenium Falcon:

See this set in the Lego Shop

Set Name: 7965 Millenium Falcon

Sub-Theme: Ep. IV/V/VI

Price: £132.99

Pieces: 1254

Minifigures: Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Ben Kenobi, Chewbacca and Darth Vader (6)

________________________________________________________________________________

Piece to Person Ratio: 209 pieces per person, 7/10

Playability Features: 114 pieces per feature, 9/10

Price per piece: 10.6p per piece, 9/10

Looks: Looks nice from the front, but otherwise quite holey and under-covered, 6/10

Brick Factor: 31/40, 78% (Nice one, lego!)

Next, we have the Malevolence:

See this set in the Lego Shop

Set Name: 9515 The Malevolence

Sub-Theme: The Clone Wars

Price: £99.99 (Oh shut up about it!)

Pieces: 1094

Minifigures: Anakin Skywalker, Padme Amidala, General Grevious, Count Dooku, Battle Droid Commander, Battle Droid (6)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Piece to Person Ratio: 182 pieces per person, 8/10

Playability Features: 219 pieces per feature, 5/10

Price per piece: 9.1p per piece, 10/10

Looks: Looks very nice from above and below, few gaps, 8/10

Brick Factor: 31/40, 78% (Brick-tastic)

Penultimately, we have Jabba's Palace (my personal favourite):

See this set in the Lego Shop

Set Name: 9516 Jabba's Palace

Sub-Theme: Ep. IV/V/VI

Price: £119.99

Pieces: 717

Minifigures: Jabba the Hut, Salacious Crumb, Bib Fortuna, Gamorrean Guard, Han Solo, Han Solo In Carbonite (listed on box), Boussh Leia, Chewbacca, Oola, B'Ommar Monk (10)

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Piece to Person Ratio: 72 pieces per person, 10/10

Playability Features: 72 pieces per feature, 10/10

Price per piece: 16.7p per piece, 3/10

Looks: This is a very nice looking set, but is a bit small for my liking, 7/10

Brick Factor: 30/40, 75% (Nice one, Lego!)

And lastly, we have the giant R2-D2:

See this set in the Lego Shop

Set Name: 10225 R2-D2

Sub-Theme: Ultimate Collectors Series

Price: £149.99

Pieces: 2127

Minifigures: R2-D2 (1)

________________________________

Piece per Person Ratio: 2127 pieces per person, 2/10 (Slightly redeemed by the fact it's UCS)

Playability Features: 532 pieces per person, 3/10 (Again, slightly redeemed by the UCS name)

Price per piece: 7p per piece, 10/10

Looks: This set looks very nice indeed, and very accurate to the actual R2-D2; I like it!, 9/10

Brick Factor: 24/40, 60% (Not bad, but not great either.)

To finish then, in the birthdays band, the set you should be buying is.....

7964 REPUBLIC FRIGATE!

In second and third, we have the Millenium Falcon and the Malevolence.

If you wish to ignore the stores, and wish to just have the most playable set, buy Jabbas Palace, It has so many features and minifigures to play with!

Anyway, that concludes this first post, and if I continue, you'll hear from me soon!

Edited July 22, 2012 by grahamm5001

[Vindicare]

You do realize there's a what to buy thread in General...the beauty of it is, you can ask about any set(s), even SW.

[Brickdoctor]

I'm a little confused as to what the goal of this thread is. If the purpose is for you and others to ask other members what to buy, we have a thread for that in General Discussion. (and in the past, we've allowed such questions to be asked in General Star Wars Questions, provided that all the sets discussed are Star War sets) If the purpose is for you to review sets, then I suggest that you split things up into individual topics and expand them to full-fledged reviews.

[Admiral-Ackbar]

I'm a little confused as to what the goal of this thread is. If the purpose is for you and others to ask other members what to buy......

No, this thread is meant to help others make a decision on what Star Wars set they could buy, as a help guide of sorts. If this needs moved, help would be appreciated!

[Ricecracker]

No, this thread is meant to help others make a decision on what Star Wars set they could buy, as a help guide of sorts. If this needs moved, help would be appreciated!

As has been said, your help would be best suited in the Which set should I buy? topic, where you can offer your thoughts to others when they ask for opinions. That way, you're not introducing sets which aren't being considered, and can evaluate the sets they're actually contemplating.