75204 Sandspeeder REVIEW

[MKJoshA]

Most of you know I'm a huge Star Wars fan. So when I saw the pictures of the new Sandspeeder on reddit, I knew I was going to get it. Well, thanks to others on this forum I was able to get the Target DCPI number (204-00-0294) and find one at my local store. It has a sticker price of $29.99.

I've never done a review before, but since this is such a fun set and I know some of you want to know what it's like outside the box, I decided to dip my toes into the review world.

So, here's my review of 75204 Sandspeeder.

The front of the box has a background set on Jakku. I don't know if Battlefront 2 was their inspiration, or if we are getting clues to something from Last Jedi, but based on everything else I've read no one knows. So we'll leave the speculation for now and wait and see what Lego has for the official press release.

The back of the box shows the play features. Pretty basic stuff. Swoosh the speeder, firing the missiles, and kill that sneaky snake!

I was surprised to find 1 loose wing inside the box. I checked all the bags to make sure none were ripped, but all were sealed with no openings. Later in the instructions you can see that Lego left the wing out intentionally, but just the right wing. An odd move on Lego's part, but I guess it had to do with the size of the bags. Bag 3, which has the left wing, also has all the parts for the moisture-vaperator so it's bigger already and could fit the wing.

There are some fun pieces in the set. The canopy is printed. You get 3 of the new black modified tile/plate that came out with the Ninjago Movie sets. And the printed computer is not very common, at least in the sets I've bought.

You can see here that the loose wing was intentional. You can also see how the build looks after bag 1.

I've never owned any of the previous snow-speeders so I don't know how to compare the sand-speeder to it's predecessors. But I found the underside of the wings to be very plain and almost unfinished. The plate-to-pin connectors are nicely covered with reverse curved slopes, but the missile shooter is left very exposed. They couldn't spare 3 extra pieces to cover it better? The rest of the underside is also pretty plain, but it connects to the body of the speeder very well so I guess I can't complain too much.

And of course, everyone wants to see the new pilots!

And here's the finished model. I love the feel and look of the speeder. And when part the set out, I'll have a bunch of earth toned plates for my castle MOCs! The moisture-vaporator seems very unfinished as the base is just a plate and a couple slopes. I'd rather they add Stormtrooper and a small turret or some other kind of antagonist for the speeder to attack. Overall though, I give this set a 4.5/5. I highly recommend picking it up!

[blackdeathgr]

Nice review MKJ! Interesting techniques in a cute set 

[JACKATTACKS]

Good review!

Interesting that this speeder doesn't use the click hinges unlike the 2014 version to attach the wings.

[Markalus]

I like the colour of the sandspeeder and it's a bit out of left field. What's your opinion on the minifigs? The helmets look pretty cool from what I can tell. 

[Lobot]

Thanks for the review @MKJoshA

I'll be interested to see the RRP for this set; if it follows 75176 which is a similar size it will be around £40 in the UK!  At that cost it will be an easy pass for me, but I might grab one if I can find it at a significant discount.  The speeder looks very similar to the Hoth designs and is a little disappointing if I'm honest, although I'm quite impressed by the moisture vaporator.

 

[Littleworlds]

Very good review and excellent photography! 

30 minutes ago, Lobot said:

The speeder looks very similar to the Hoth designs and is a little disappointing if I'm honest, although I'm quite impressed by the moisture vaporator.

I agree. Its really a bit cheap to just make a sand-coloured snowspeeder and call it something new... But I guess thats not the fault of the Lego designer - unless the sandspeeder is not in the new film... 

[MKJoshA]

9 hours ago, Markalus said:

I like the colour of the sandspeeder and it's a bit out of left field. What's your opinion on the minifigs? The helmets look pretty cool from what I can tell. 

I just added a photo of the pilots to the review. I really like them. They were a huge reason why I wanted the set in the first place and they don't disappoint!

9 hours ago, Lobot said:

Thanks for the review @MKJoshA

I'll be interested to see the RRP for this set; if it follows 75176 which is a similar size it will be around £40 in the UK!  At that cost it will be an easy pass for me, but I might grab one if I can find it at a significant discount.  The speeder looks very similar to the Hoth designs and is a little disappointing if I'm honest, although I'm quite impressed by the moisture vaporator.

 

It's $30 in the US right now. I hope you can find a deal sometime.

[dvogon]

Great review and photos! I haven't seen it on the shelves yet, but it's a must buy for me. Granted that fighting against the moisture-vaporator and the snake is not the best fight I would be able to imagine  but... 

From ESB, the snow speeders were used before, because they said they were having problems to adapt them to the cold weather of Hoth, so from that perspective this set makes sense. 

What is strange is the Jakku background... I recall others suggesting it to be a Rebels set.

[MKJoshA]

14 hours ago, dvogon said:

What is strange is the Jakku background... I recall others suggesting it to be a Rebels set.

Rebels is set before Episode 4, and because of the crashed Star Destroyer we can confidential say that this takes place after Episode 6. Also, I read someone else saying that the Nima Outpost "gate" being intact shows that this has to take place before Rey and Finn blow it up on their way off Jakku. So I think we have to assume that this is a Battlefront set.

[dmaclego]

20 hours ago, MKJoshA said:

I just added a photo of the pilots to the review. I really like them.

 

Thank you so much! I was about to ask :) .

The helmets are gorgeous. And the rest of the pilot minifigs - well, could be a nice material for, say, a Gray Squadron of X-wings in some huge Yavin IV project :) .

 

[Admonisher]

This isn't the first time a sandspeeder has been designed:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sandspeeder

A closer look:

I don't know to what degree (if any) the toy prototype inspired this model. Might be a fun mod, however!

Edited November 20, 2017 by Admonisher

[dvogon]

47 minutes ago, Admonisher said:

This isn't the first time a sandspeeder has been designed:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sandspeeder

Nice finding! With those two vertical stabilizers, it seems to be more or less the same craft.

 

9 hours ago, MKJoshA said:

... So I think we have to assume that this is a Battlefront set.

Yes, it makes sense and would be consistent with other data we have, which is nice. I cannot find it... did you get it at Target?

[dvogon]

On the minifigs: I love the helmets, but the male face... it's a bit overused right now I guess. The female one is good though, we don't get too many female pilots. My daughters like female characters a lot. That was an obvious lack in SW sometime ago, even in RO there are just too few still, although in TFA the balance is better at least. 

[samurai-turtle]

This is coming as an aaaeeeee from me. I don't think having three other snowspeeders helps sell this set to me. I guess putting this vehicle in every Hoth set they can don't helps sell this set. All this is to me is another "repaint" for me. (This is like the third color the Speeder comes in gray, white & now tan.) 

[MKJoshA]

14 hours ago, dvogon said:

Yes, it makes sense and would be consistent with other data we have, which is nice. I cannot find it... did you get it at Target?

Yes, Target.

[Fabiwalker]

This set is not from Battlefront 2. I played through the campaign and it didn't appear. Also didn't appear somewhere else in the game.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Fabiwalker

[Lyichir]

22 hours ago, Admonisher said:

This isn't the first time a sandspeeder has been designed:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sandspeeder

A closer look:

I don't know to what degree (if any) the toy prototype inspired this model. Might be a fun mod, however!

I would think it might be more likely that they might both be based on similar early concept art. I know a lot of recent material in Rebels or the Disney-produced movies has drawn from unused Ralph McQuarrie concepts...

[dvogon]

15 hours ago, samurai-turtle said:

All this is to me is another "repaint" for me. (This is like the third color the Speeder comes in gray, white & now tan.) 

A "repaint" is always something difficult to deal with. Is it worth? 

I had the same issue with the TFA Resistance X-Wing in blue and grey. But ok, the first one was Poe's, which was also the black leader, without any other black X-Wings like in any other squadrons by the way, and the rest were blue squadron fighters. An easy repaint I would guess although they fit in the story. 

With the X-Wing blue squadron in Rogue One, I got more or less the same feeling. I wanted to have a blue squadron X-Wing to fight against Tie Strikers. It wouldn't make sense to use red squadron X-Wings for that. So I got another brand new TFA blue and grey X-Wing (fairly cheap, about 50€) just to modify it as a RO blue squadron X-Wing. 

So my point is "it depends" on how the ship really fits into the storyline and what do you want to do with it.

Edited November 20, 2017 by dvogon

[legoman19892]

The red helmet is from A New Hope. John Branon was the character name.

 

[ThousandMoon]

9 hours ago, legoman19892 said:

The red helmet is from A New Hope. John Branon was the character name.

 

<snip>

Yeah Red 4 - I will buy this set for this alone - all we need now is the helmet for Red Leader, for a complete Red Squadron I believe!

The other helmet is Dosmit Raeh's (the helmet that Rey put's on in TFA) - it's plausible this set might be from a Rey flashback in TLJ??? 

Edited November 21, 2017 by MKJoshA
Don't quote pics

[1Panda]

 wow they finally used a gray color for the snake!

very good job on your first review! 

Might actually buy this set.

[brobert]

This is a weird set. No one seems to know what it's actually based on (except for that toy design from decades ago), and it's basically just a remix from the snowspeeder from 3 years ago...Even the piece count is the same :)

Although the snowspeeder is still a much more appealing set IMO, since that came with 4 minifigs, and some actual opposition to the speeder, not a moisture evaporator and a SNAKE(???) 

Interesting though how they changed the fixing of the side wedges, but the spring shooters left there so plain and uncovered is just appalling. They did it much better on the snowspeeder. 

It's an interesting novelty, but to me it has absolutely zero appeal. 

[Moff Muffins]

Nice review! - I will definitely get one. I like the gray flight-suits, and I always wanted that Kenner toy back in the days (which was never released). So I'm gonna try to mod this baby to look more like the toy ...add a little dark orange and tweak it a bit.

[roadstermatt]

On ‎18‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 11:01 PM, dvogon said:

Great review and photos! I haven't seen it on the shelves yet, but it's a must buy for me. Granted that fighting against the moisture-vaporator and the snake is not the best fight I would be able to imagine  but... 

 

depends on how sneaky the snake is

[brobert]

2 hours ago, roadstermatt said:

depends on how sneaky the snake is

OR...what if the SNAKE IS SNOKE???!?!?!???  ok, sorry I'm finished