Review of A-Wing 7134

[Dfenz]

Having waited for a while to see if a 7134 A wing fighter review would emerge from the darkness of pending reviews I felt a disturbance in the force and finally secumbed to a review of this set. I today opened my box and commissioned a new 'mark 1' A wing into the Dfenz rebel fleet. As I already had the more recent 'mark 2' A-wing fighter (6207) it was interesting to see how the two compare.

First up, the box. Its reasonably small, not much wasted space, but then again it contained not only the pieces and instructions but also advertisement leaflets for the Mindstorms Droid Developers set and other Star Wars sets.

Here's the rear side of the box.

The contents of the box include three bags of lego and two loose pieces. As this is an older generation of set there is no dreaded sticker sheet.

Another nice aspect (for me) was to open a box and see lovely pristine old grey colours - not a bley in sight!

The set is a very easy build, about 10 minutes max and that's including some stoppages for photos. As usual its minifigures first. There are two in this set. A pilot for the ship and a mechanic. Unlike some other sets there are no maintenance bay/ technician accessories, just the ship and a mechanic with a magic wrench to fix all problems.

Some random instruction shots

Once the minifigures are assembled its straight to the ship itself. As its relatively small it doesn't have too many moving parts, so no interim build pics. The windscreen canopy opens as does the storage compartment behind the pilot and the guns on the wings also move. All three aspects also feature on the more recent version. Indeed many aspects of the Mark 1 version are carried over. The guns and canopy look identical and the storage cover is only slightly different. The ship has a few multcoloured filler bricks with yellow, black and blue all making an appearance.

The 7134 version is two studs narrower than the mark 2 but this is due to the guns extending further rather than any significant width difference in the ship itself. However it is a few studs shorter. The main differences between the two versions is that this older version is blockier especially around the front and sides. There isn't a wedge slope in sight. Instead we have roof slopes which aren't too bad from the side but are inadequate from the front perspective giving the ship a far less streamlined look than its successor. For landing gear there are three standard support pieces (no resting on the rear chassis for this version unlike the mark 2 set). One positive feature is that the front slopes are printed but in 6207 its stickers galore. Both versions have the printed 2x2 slope for the cockpit (see minifig pic). The other noticeable difference is the rear engines which are smaller on this version. When the two ships are side by side the mark 1 version appears stubbier as its shorter. The 7134 a-wing isn't particularly streamlined from the underneath but then again neither is the later version and it's not a necessity. Its a small ship so it has plenty of swooshibility and like most of the older models is of a sturdy design.

The colour scheme shows its age, with grey and red predominant. In my view this isn't a patch on the white and dark red colour scheme of later ships.

Here are the two ships in action

and, back at base.

The only spare part was a second visor for the pilot.

Overview

I purchased this set off ebay a few years back so I probably paid way over the odds for this set and can't comment on the price or value. Others may have picked this up when originally available. Like most of this generation of Lego Star Wars sets it suffers from the 'could have done better' syndrome. However, given the parts and colours available its not the worst design and indeed many features and parts reappeared many years later. An easy set to acquire a few copies of and build up the rebel fleet.

Design: 7/10 - It seems to be accurate representation. Like all old sets it has some wierd colours but its not the blockiest build. Its quick and easy to assemble and its sturdy.

Minifigs: 6/10 - Two minigures which I like.

Playability: 8/10 - This is not a set for gimmicks. Its simply a pick me up and throw me into the fray, expendable ship.

Swooshability: 9/10 - Very sturdy and not the worst looking ship. Reasonably light.

Overall: 7.5/10 - An average score.

As I can't add a poll, perhaps one of the mods may like to do so.

Edited May 26, 2009 by KimT

[prateek]

i like this, but the newer one is better. BTW, why dont you deeplink the pics?

[Dfenz]

i like this, but the newer one is better. BTW, why dont you deeplink the pics?

After, a crash course in deeplinking from the tutorials the pics have now been deeplinked.

David

[ILikePi]

Thanks for the review! A few weeks ago, I went to my friends' house (yes, they're twins ), and saw that they had the 2006 version A-Wing. In person, it looks really cool and seems much heavier than it looks. It also looks very sleek.

EDIT: Thanks for deeplinking the pictures!

Edited April 12, 2009 by ILikePi

[SWMAN]

For when this set came out, it was a great set. However, in 2009, it isn't really that good of a set. It is was too boxy and unrealistic to pass for a good set today. Still, it was a nice set for the time.