LEGO Star Wars 2020 Set Discussion - READ FIRST POST!!!

[ToaDraco]

I'm glad to hear we'll at least be able to grab the sets at Target on the 15th here in the states. 

[lego_guyon02]

I'm honestly surprised at how quickly the 501st set sold out everywhere. Are people really spending all that money just to get those 501st figures? Because the droids are incredibly common and the builds are pretty bad  

[BigGuy4U]

34 minutes ago, Guyon2002 said:

I'm honestly surprised at how quickly the 501st set sold out everywhere. Are people really spending all that money just to get those 501st figures? Because the droids are incredibly common and the builds are pretty bad  

I mean it was the result of a massive fan campaign, not to mention directly based on TCW which is pretty rare nowadays especially for how popular the show is.

[benderisgreat]

56 minutes ago, Guyon2002 said:

I'm honestly surprised at how quickly the 501st set sold out everywhere. Are people really spending all that money just to get those 501st figures? Because the droids are incredibly common and the builds are pretty bad  

This sets sells like hot cakes and that is a great thing! This shows that when LEGO LISTENS to their fans and makes something they want it sells!!! Hopefully they will do like an annual poll from now on giving fans options from each trilogy so one them can become a set in the future kinda like thy did Ucs set this year.

[Mandalorianknight]

1 hour ago, Guyon2002 said:

I'm honestly surprised at how quickly the 501st set sold out everywhere. Are people really spending all that money just to get those 501st figures? Because the droids are incredibly common and the builds are pretty bad  

I mean, your opinion on the builds is subjective and it's never bad to get more droids, but even with all that aside, yes. 501st troopers sell for $20+ on bricklink all the time and now you can get four of them, two vehicles, and some droids for $30. Of course it's going to sell like crazy.

[Sneakguest]

1 hour ago, Guyon2002 said:

I'm honestly surprised at how quickly the 501st set sold out everywhere. Are people really spending all that money just to get those 501st figures? Because the droids are incredibly common and the builds are pretty bad  

I ser at lego shop in my region half of the new sets are out of stock. Makes me wonder of they even were in stock to befinner with.

[Evergreen]

1 hour ago, Guyon2002 said:

I'm honestly surprised at how quickly the 501st set sold out everywhere. Are people really spending all that money just to get those 501st figures? Because the droids are incredibly common and the builds are pretty bad  

The builds are bad, but they're not going for accuracy like a MOC. And yes, of course you'd get this set for the figures what else? This is a great opportunity to make a clone army as well and who knows when we might another set like it. 

I find it disappointing that LEGO still fails to make enough stock even though the high demand is obvious. 

Edited August 1, 2020 by Evergreen

[Redroe]

Curious, I am. How are the builds bad? I don't care for the 501st colours, and both are obviously oversized. But "bad" why?

I'd still get the whole set for the useful parts each build contains, rather than spend however much on individual figs from BL.

[ToaDraco]

The only bad thing about the builds is the cannon (which can easily be solved with a piece or 2) on the AT-RT and its size. Aside from that it looks excellent and the Barc speeder is one of the best ones they've done so I don't understand the complaints at all. 

[SEmrys]

I built mine earlier and I think the AT-RT looks pretty good, personally. Yeah, it's a bit big, and the cannon doesn't look great but those are fairly menial issues, I think (especially since as ToaDraco says above, the latter is an easy fix). 

The speeder was fun to make too (although I myself am fairly indifferent on it). 

Love the new clone heads as well; removed one of their helmets, gave him a classic plastic pauldron and bam, cheap Rex alternative. Just need one of those fabric hip pieces now to complete the look. 

Basically what I'm saying is I can very much understand why this set has sold well, even ignoring the campaign. 

22 hours ago, wesker said:

Edit: I can't get rid of this quote from my previous post on my phone, sorry wesker! 

Edited August 1, 2020 by SEmrys

[Flieger]

Question: would you want a Star Wars Squadrons Battle Pack?

There are some very interesting pilot helmets and suits, which would add to attractive minifigs. Of course that is not a traditional army builder, more like an Inferno Squad or Bounty Hunter type pack. But I would like it very much.

 

4 hours ago, benderisgreat said:

This sets sells like hot cakes and that is a great thing! This shows that when LEGO LISTENS to their fans and makes something they want it sells!!! Hopefully they will do like an annual poll from now on giving fans options from each trilogy so one them can become a set in the future kinda like thy did Ucs set this year.

...listens to their adult fans, to their PT/TCW fans, and to their army builder fans.

[KevinYoung]

On 7/31/2020 at 6:23 PM, legocaptainrexfan said:

Just to let you all know that the 501st   battlepack is currently restricted to one per household. These things are selling like hot cakes 

One per household. Wow that's not good!!

[SillySeeker]

Anybody get a strange feeling we’re not gonna see any battle packs next year? I feel like sets like the new 30 dollar 501st set will take their place. Over the past few years battlepack prices have gone up and they started only releasing two packs a year instead of four. I also noticed that in the City line they stopped making the 10 dollar sets that had 4 figures. It feels as if normal battlepacks are slowly being pushed out.

[getbusybrickin]

Where are y'all buying the 501st set? It isn't available in the places I am checking?

EDIT: Nm, sorry for the redundant post.

Edited August 2, 2020 by getbusybrickin

[jdubbs]

56 minutes ago, SillySeeker said:

It feels as if normal battlepacks are slowly being pushed out.

Nothing slow about it. 

[lego_guyon02]

9 hours ago, Redroe said:

Curious, I am. How are the builds bad? I don't care for the 501st colours, and both are obviously oversized. But "bad" why?

I'd still get the whole set for the useful parts each build contains, rather than spend however much on individual figs from BL.

I don't think there's much wrong with the BARC besides it being too blocky and simple (and I just don't like speeders all that much) but the AT-RT is just horrendous imo:

- Way too large

- Underdetailed legs

- Weird looking leg/''cockpit'' connection

- Awfull canon

- Overreliance on stickers for pilot area

If you guys are happy with this set that's great, I'm genually happy for you. But ignoring the 4 great 501st figures I just don't think this is a good set at all.

[benderisgreat]

4 hours ago, jdubbs said:

Nothing slow about it. 

So there will be no more "traditional" 15$ battlepacks next year then? Or do you mean they will get rid of them in a year or two?

[Nootella]

43 minutes ago, benderisgreat said:

So there will be no more "traditional" 15$ battlepacks next year then? Or do you mean they will get rid of them in a year or two?

Its purely speculation but I wouldn't be surprised if we see battlepacks replaced with this more expensive option within the next few waves. People did vote with their wallet so expect to see less affordable options and piece counts in the future with star wars.

Edited August 2, 2020 by SCREDEYE

[azzer86]

For the UK folks, the 501st pack is in stock at Smyth's for home delivery

[GalacticHippo]

4 hours ago, SCREDEYE said:

Its purely speculation but I wouldn't be surprised if we see battlepacks replaced with this more expensive option within the next few waves. People did vote with their wallet so expect to see less affordable options and piece counts in the future with star wars.

I know this might be getting a bit off topic, but I do think there's only so far Lego can push the envelope with these prices. Grievous' starfighter is 78€ which is just over 90USD, in Australia it's just over 85USD. I think this wave of sets being sold out so quickly might be more an indication of limited stock/supply than people being willing to pay the high prices and I hope Lego thinks that too....

[jdubbs]

5 hours ago, benderisgreat said:

So there will be no more "traditional" 15$ battlepacks next year then?

Always in motion is the future... but it's not looking good, at least not as mainline releases.

[Redroe]

I can't see them ditching battle packs. This 501st one is a bit of an outlier, being campaigned for for years. Yeah we've dropped to 2 per annum, but that is probably because they realised they were spreading themselves thin (senate commandos, really?) And with not a lot of new content on the immediate horizon, except Mandalorian and the Bad Batch, they might want to pace their releases.

[Mandalorianknight]

 

1 hour ago, Redroe said:

I can't see them ditching battle packs. This 501st one is a bit of an outlier, being campaigned for for years. Yeah we've dropped to 2 per annum, but that is probably because they realised they were spreading themselves thin (senate commandos, really?) And with not a lot of new content on the immediate horizon, except Mandalorian and the Bad Batch, they might want to pace their releases.

I agree. They're probably slowing down, but there's no way they'll get rid of the $15 battle pack.

[Sabre-aN]

Picked up 3 501st sets and 1 AAT in Smyths stores in the UK yesterday, I ended up initially only getting one of each as I got the very last 501st set they had, and this was at about 12:30 so they sold out rather fast - the store manager seemed quite surprised to find out they'd already sold out when I aksed whether they had any more. I wonder if any set has sold out like this before, and whether it's mostly down to stores simply underestimating demand and not ordering enough to get in stock. To be fair the only time I've ever been in a physical store to pick up Lego on the first day of release before was the midnight madness event for the Clone Wars film toys at Toys"R"Us back in 2008 and they had plenty of stock then iirc, though of course things were quite different back then.

Some thoughts (and some images which I hope are useful) - the new Troopers do look less plain in person than Lego's press images suggested I think, probably due to the lighting & white background they'd used making the troopers almost merge into it. They look pretty good as a group with their own kind, so will be good for new army builders, but the 2014-style trooper's helmet rather outshines them when put together in my opinion:

The 501st helmet ends up looking quite odd next to it, especially around the mouth/frown area, but the 332nd helmet doesn't as much due to the difference in cheek printing - for some reason the cheek printing is inconsistent, the 332nd trooper's cheek printing is noticeably wider than that on the standard 501st and the 501st Jet Trooper, which makes it more accurate as it means the edges of the mouth are much closer to the bottom of the cheeks - 2014 got this spot on by having the cheek edge highlight print connect to the corners of the mouth. I do think it's an improvement on the 2013 Clone Wars 501st, though there is a noticeable style clash when next to the 2013 Rex, hopefully they'll redo him soon to match among others.

^ You can see the difference in the width of the cheek print pretty clearly here - I had noticed it in photos prior to release but wasn't sure of the extent of it, but now I have them in hand every standard 501st and 501st Jet Trooper I have has a noticeably less wide cheek print than the 332nd one. One actually has a pretty bad misprint too, I hope this isn't a common issue:

As for the builds themselves, though most will be buying these sets for the figures I do find it quite funny how we got an undersized AAT at the same time as an oversized BARC speeder and AT-RT - the BARC speeder is as long as the AAT including its massive barrel, and the AT-RT towers over the AAT which looks quite pathetic really. The BARC and AT-RT do look like nice models though, they just look too oversized next to anything else.

For what it's worth, I think Ahsoka is improved by swapping out one of the 4L lightsaber blades for a 3L one (though it is a bit rare, I Bricklinked mine ahead of time). I haven't tried swapping out hip pieces on the clones, but I have swapped out the arms on one and I'm fairly neutral on it in general - I do think it makes a nice squad leader though

[Redroe]

Thanks for the detailed breakdown. The torsos seem a closer match to the old 2008 clones. I wish they'd stick to a consistent print over the years, but I'm hardly overloaded with different types. I will wait to see what future BP's we get (hopefully standard ones!) before trying to fill up older clones off the aftermarket.