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

[Mandalorianknight]

@Sabre-aN thanks for the detailed analysis!

This confirms for me that I'll be picking up an AAT and 3 501st packs once they're available over here, same as you. I also like the idea of swapping out arms to differentiate squad leaders. I've got some ideas already on how I'll be customizing some of the troopers, especially with swapping my 2013 501st trooper into it.

[Graupensuppe]

2 hours ago, Sabre-aN said:

 

I still can't get over how much worse new helmet and torso prints look compared to the 2013-2019 style...

Edited August 2, 2020 by Graupensuppe

[Redroe]

Just now, Graupensuppe said:

I still can't get over how much worse new helmet and torso prints look compared to the 2013-2019 style...

That was my knee jerk reaction but I think I actually prefer the stylised look of the new ones now that I look at them together. I've totally lost track of how many styles they've done over the years.

[THELEGOBATMAN]

Just ordered my 501st Battle Pack, very excited to lay my hands on it 

[Sabre-aN]

1 hour ago, Mandalorianknight said:

@Sabre-aN thanks for the detailed analysis!

This confirms for me that I'll be picking up an AAT and 3 501st packs once they're available over here, same as you. I also like the idea of swapping out arms to differentiate squad leaders. I've got some ideas already on how I'll be customizing some of the troopers, especially with swapping my 2013 501st trooper into it.

I like to organise my troopers into squads of 8 which was why I went for 3, for me it's just the right number to look impressive together whilst not being too difficult to amass. Often I like to give the squad leaders one of the cloth kamas from either the 2012 ARC Trooper or the 2014 Airborne, but I've run out (even had to steal Rex's!) and they're particularly hard to come by now - I'm hoping the new dark grey one from the new Airborne Trooper makes its way to Bricklink in good amounts, I might give that to the 501st squad leader if I can get my hands on some. 'Course there's always aftermark cloth accessories I suppose but I've always remained purist when it comes to the cloth parts

46 minutes ago, Graupensuppe said:

I still can't get over how much worse new helmet and torso prints look compared to the 2013-2019 style...

Yeah, in my opinion ideally I think they'd have used the 2014 helmet and torso design as a base with no changes at all, and then just given them some new legs. These new Troopers do look very different and their helmet prints are so stylised, they do look nice on their own or amongst themselves but mixing them with other types does not go very well. I wanted a squad of 501st regardless due to the special significance of that legion, and I never did it with the 2013 ones, but I'll definitely be keeping them separate from my other troopers. At least we had a good run with that previous movie style.

41 minutes ago, Redroe said:

That was my knee jerk reaction but I think I actually prefer the stylised look of the new ones now that I look at them together. I've totally lost track of how many styles they've done over the years.

I think that can vary depending on what you consider a style change (e.g. do the Shock Troopers in the 2008 AT-AP with their white hips count as a style change? No change in printing), I would say based on print style we've now had 5 distinct main styles with a couple of subvariants:

The 2010 Phase II Clone (2nd from Left) is probably the ugliest of the bunch in my opinion, the dark printing on the upper chest and that old helmet mould with the slightly altered print didn't work well. Weird mould variations too, some don't have the round bump on the back of the helmet for some reason. 2013/14 movie-style is still my favourite I think, for now at least, but the new 2020 style comes in second for me. Not sure which I think of the original 2002/05 movie style or 2008/11/13 Clone Wars would come third, the originals have a certain simplistic charm to them, plus a sense of nostalgia for me for sure as they're what got me into Lego in the first place.

[SillySeeker]

5 hours ago, Redroe said:

I can't see them ditching battle packs.

 

3 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

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

Maybe they won’t ditch them but what’s stopping them from raising the price to 20, 25 or 30 bucks and saying “battle packs restrict the vehicles we can include” as justification to raise the price just like the designers said in that 501st interview with brickset. Even though vehicles are not the reason people buy battle packs, adding two of them or making them slightly bigger justifies a price double of a normal battlepack and people are still gonna buy it, the designers also said in that interview “We wanted to include as many minifigures as possible!” but our extra “minifigures” end up being two battle droids instead of another 501st clone. What i'm saying is instead of ditching the battle packs they slowly-

16 hours ago, jdubbs said:

Nothing slow about it. 

or not so slowly, turn them into like what we see in the 501st set. I still like 501st set and the kind of set that it is, however I do not like if that kind of 30 dollar set replaces the current battle packs completely or that battle packs slowly turn into that kind of set. Ideally I’d like to see both exist, two normal battle packs in the winter wave and one larger battle pack during the summer wave.

[Graupensuppe]

2 hours ago, Redroe said:

I've totally lost track of how many styles they've done over the years.

Realistic, Phase 1, version A (2002-2003; first introduced with the original AotC wave)
Realistic, Phase 2, version A (2005-2008; first introduced with the original RotS wave)
Realistic, Phase 2, version B (2010; Palpatine's Shuttle, Swamp Speeder, ARC-170)
Realistic, Phase 1, version C (2013-2018; first introduced with the 2013 AotC wave)
Realistic, Phase 2, version C (2014-2019; first introduced with the 2014 RotS wave)

Animated, Phase 1, version Z (2008-2012; first introduced with the TCW movie wave)
Animated, Phase 2, version Z (2013-2014; used in TCW season 4 and 5 sets)
Animated, Phase 2, version Y (2016; only in the Rebels AT-TE)
Animated, Phase 2, version X (2020-?; used in the 2020 TCW and RotS sets)

 

That's how I'd classify them.

Edited August 2, 2020 by Graupensuppe

[Redroe]

42 minutes ago, Sabre-aN said:

would say based on print style we've now had 5 distinct main styles with a couple of subvariants:

Thanks for the pic! That is dedication. What really strikes me is how consistent the CW vs. Non-CW torsos are. The printing is actually very close between variants, much closer than I had thought. I hadn't realised how CW specific the 501st printing is.

23 minutes ago, Graupensuppe said:

That's how I'd classify them

Neatly done. The sharp delineation between animated and "real" still bugs me however. 

Edit: the 2010 phase II clone really has a foot in both camps. Was a weird release at the time. 

39 minutes ago, SillySeeker said:

two normal battle packs in the winter wave and one larger battle pack during the summer wave.

I think this remains more likely than phasing out the low price BP altogether, but I still can't see beyond this 501st one as a one-off, feeling more like a "set" than a battle pack. 

Gosh, how excited the 16 year old me was when that very first pair of BPs was released. I think it was 8 gbp . If they stop the battle packs a part of me will curl up and die.

Edited August 2, 2020 by Redroe

[Graupensuppe]

9 minutes ago, Redroe said:

the 2010 phase II clone really has a foot in both camps.

This one? It looked entirely movie-based to me; what details would you say are based on the TCW armor?

[ARC2149Nova]

1 hour ago, Graupensuppe said:

This one? It looked entirely movie-based to me; what details would you say are based on the TCW armor?

None, imo. TCW didn't even have Phase II armor until 2012 (show-wise)

[Kit Figsto]

9 hours 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 would hate to see $15 battle packs go, but from LEGO's perspective, they really could do away with it and give us $30 sets with 4-6 figures and slightly larger builds.  At this point, I was going through Brickset, and we really aren't getting that many Battle Packs that couldn't be adapted and sell well at the $30 price point.  Anything Rebels vs. Empire or First Order vs. Resistance would probably do fine (and you can mix in a different figure, so say 3 regular Stormtroopers and 1 Imperial Officer or TIE pilot or whatever), plus you could swap it for a Hoth or Endor scene with different Rebel troops and Snowtroopers/Scout Troopers instead of basic Stormtroopers.  This pretty much proves that any clone-related version would probably sell well, either a different clone legion (say, a Kashyyk based one or a Battle of Geonosis set) or maybe Gungans vs. droids.

They could very, very easily milk this and essentially put two of these out every year and cycle through the same 8-10 basic ideas every time, which means that they can go 4-5 years without re-releasing the same one, but have some pretty much guaranteed sellers.  It would suck for a lot of collectors though, since the price goes up and it would get rid of the more character-based or obscure-type battle packs, since no one is going to pay $30 for a Jawa/Tusken Raider or Assassin Droid battle scene.  

[Mandalorianknight]

5 hours ago, Sabre-aN said:

I like to organise my troopers into squads of 8 which was why I went for 3, for me it's just the right number to look impressive together whilst not being too difficult to amass. Often I like to give the squad leaders one of the cloth kamas from either the 2012 ARC Trooper or the 2014 Airborne, but I've run out (even had to steal Rex's!) and they're particularly hard to come by now - I'm hoping the new dark grey one from the new Airborne Trooper makes its way to Bricklink in good amounts, I might give that to the 501st squad leader if I can get my hands on some. 'Course there's always aftermark cloth accessories I suppose but I've always remained purist when it comes to the cloth parts

Hey, same! Currently I'm thinking I'll get three packs and organize it by: 8 normal 501st troopers, 2 501st jet troopers, and then swap parts of the remaining 501st trooper, 501st jet trooper, and 2013 501st trooper to make two more clones and a squad leader to represent Appo. (Fun fact, Appo's arrow is a reference to Appa from Avatar, who is voiced by the same guy that voiced the clones). I agree about the cloth too, it gives them a nice officer look. Like you, I try to stay purist, but the cloth parts are super tough to get. 

5 hours ago, SillySeeker said:

Maybe they won’t ditch them but what’s stopping them from raising the price to 20, 25 or 30 bucks and saying “battle packs restrict the vehicles we can include” as justification to raise the price just like the designers said in that 501st interview with brickset. Even though vehicles are not the reason people buy battle packs, adding two of them or making them slightly bigger justifies a price double of a normal battlepack and people are still gonna buy it

Ideally I’d like to see both exist, two normal battle packs in the winter wave and one larger battle pack during the summer wave.

What's stopping them from raising the price is what stops any company in a free market: consumers not buying them. Sure, we'll still buy them, at least most of us, but a $5 increase is a fair amount of money to most kids, and parent's probably wouldn't be too keen on it either.

I agree with your second idea though, two normal packs in the winter and a larger summer one would be ideal.

[Brickadeer]

Sabre_aN made a nice picture:

The lightning achieves for the plain white phase 1 and phase 2 clones what the printing means to achieve for the new 501st clone: The printed ("grey") cheek lines are perceived as "shadow" and work comparatively fine as a cue for "depth". The tubes ("bright") are perceived as significantly brighter than the area above ("light grey"). Due to the contrast in brightness, the size of the tubes is immediately perceived. The printing of the 501st clone, however, doesn't work so well. It mostly looks like printing to me.

So it's nice that Lego finally made some new p2 clones again. But I clearly think they could have done easily a better job.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Brickadeer

[Redroe]

8 hours ago, Graupensuppe said:

This one? It looked entirely movie-based to me; what details would you say are based on the TCW armor?

Not the helmet: just the torso. The belt area matches the movie versions but the chest plate has the bolder lines and shading of the CW versions.

[Graupensuppe]

3 hours ago, Redroe said:

Nbut the chest plate has the bolder lines and shading of the CW versions.

Ah, I never noticed the resemblance before. Though bolder lines and shading could be just a stylistic choice. The lower edge of the breastplate is shaded like that as well, even though its shape and position are clearly based on the movie version. It would be a pretty weird decision to incorporate a detail of the animated phase one armor into what's otherwise a depiction of realistic phase two armor.

[CallumPears]

I posted a few weeks ago about the 501st Jet Trooper having an extra blue line on his helmet between the visor and brim. However, in this image from the Lego Bricks and Pieces inventory the mark is not there. Could it be that the line is simply some sort of production error present only in the first few batches? They're clearly aware that it shouldn't be there whatever the case. 

[TeeNuggetTa]

The blue lines on the helmet appear to extend further onto the side of the helmet and the mouthpiece looks a lot thicker. This render looks quite different and it has some improvements so maybe they made this but used the older printing??

[jdubbs]

There’s a great photo of watermarks circulating. Oh and some other guys too. 

[BrickBob Studpants]

Just now, jdubbs said:

There’s a great photo of watermarks circulating. Oh and some other guys too. 

They look great 

[namioik]

Just now, jdubbs said:

There’s a great photo of watermarks circulating. Oh and some other guys too. 

Thanks for the tip :)

[wesker]

Both minifigures look great - especially Ponda Baba with that new Aqualish head piece! Can't wait to see what other characters are in store...

[benderisgreat]

So, Mos Eisley confirmed I guess?! Hope we see some other great mini gigs of obscure Cantina patrons.

Edited August 3, 2020 by benderisgreat

[Brick Cucumber]

The new leak seems really warped on the edges of the figures, and the guy that posted it was also circulating false info on the Cloud City set before. I'm not convinced until I hear something from Falconfan or see unedited images.

[jdubbs]

Just now, Brick Cucumber said:

The new leak seems really warped on the edges of the figures, and the guy that posted it was also circulating false info on the Cloud City set before. I'm not convinced until I hear something from Falconfan or see unedited images.

There's always a Doubting Thomas...

[Renown]

21 minutes ago, Brick Cucumber said:

The new leak seems really warped on the edges of the figures, and the guy that posted it was also circulating false info on the Cloud City set before. I'm not convinced until I hear something from Falconfan or see unedited images.

They are real.