[Review] 8031 MINI V-19 Torrent

[Brickdoctor]

This is an older set that I found in the Easter section at Target. I picked it up because of the printed piece and good variety of pieces, but we'll get to that later.

Name: MINI V-19 Torrent

Set Number: 8031

Pieces: 66

Price: $4.99

Ages: 6-12

Minifigs: 0

Theme: Star Wars

Year of Release: 2009

The Package:

The bag displays some nice, flashy art, with the late 2008-early 2009 Clone Wars logo. Observant readers will notice that the fighter is flying past the starboard wing of a Venator-class Star Destroyer during the Battle of Coruscant, which is innaccurate since by that period of the Clone Wars, V-19s had been replaced by ARC-170s and V-wings.

The package is slightly larger than your standard polybag; around an inch wider and taller than the ones that the promotional minifigs and Mini ARC-170 came in:

All opaque save for the one strip along the back, which allows a peek at the contents.

The Instructions:

The instructions (predictably) show the same art as the bag, without the extra information:

They unfold into one sheet, with instructions on both sides. Color definition is excellent, especially since there's no black to conflict with the dark bley. The only thing different from standard instructions is that instead of piece call-outs, the sheet lists the part number of every element.

The Pieces:

Here's all the pieces you'll get in the bag:

Of note are these:

The dark red roof tile is one I haven't seen in many other sets; it came in very handy when building my UCS V-wing. The dark red headlight brick is also pretty hard to find, and you can never have to many bricks with studs on the side.

The Build:

The build is simple and fairly straight-forward. There is one step that actually involves a sub-sub-assembly, displayed in a blue box in a yellow box on the gray background. Interestingly, the instructions have you finish in a half-wings-up position, and don't tell you to rotate them to the landed or in-flight position.

Once finished these are the extra pieces:

The selection will vary by bag; I opened multiple copies of this set while building the afore-mentioned MOC, and got either three or four pieces, sometimes getting a white cheese instead of the blue pin.

The Finished Model:

The finished model actually looks pretty good for a CW ship. As a ship from an animated series, it stays pretty true to the shape and design.

The side is probably the worst angle to view the model. You can clearly see the gaps on the front, and the cheese wedge on the center wing sticks out like a jagged tooth.

From the back, you can see a little of the wing mechanism, and the huge gap it leaves when rotated down.

A detailed shot of the mechanism reveals how the central wing rotates. It uses some Technic to allow a full 180-degrees of movement. The whole thing, unfortunately, makes extensive use of TLG's favorite blue pieces, which slightly detract from the coloring of the model.

In the 2008-present Clone Wars show, which the model is based on, the craft looks like this:

Overall, it's a little chubbier than the 'real' thing, but that can be expected from a LEGO Mini-model that doesn't use illegal connections. Most annoying is that gap between the dorsal/ventral wing and the body of the ship, but that will remain there until TLG makes inverted cheese slopes. A pity the cockpit isn't tinted gold. The only real feature is the rotating wings, and the model actually does that pretty well, utilizing a bit of Technic to rotate the middle wing. That's about all the model can do, so on to the ratings.

Ratings:

Price/Piece Count: 18/20 With 66 pieces for $4.99, this is one of the few newer Star Wars sets to pass the magical 10-cents-per-piece ratio.

Bricks: 17/20 It's not the greatest selection of bricks; I would have preferred a brick-built cockpit, but there's not much to complain about. The printed piece definitely makes it worth it.

Build: 6/20 Extremely simple, but it's a nice quickie if you've got a little time to burn.

Minifigs: n/a

Playability/Features: 12/20 The one major feature this set should have it does, and it's definitely swooshable, but it's primary function is going to end up as a display item, if you don't take it apart.

Grand Total: 53/80, or 66%. Slightly above average; it's a good parts pack, but not a set to keep together.

Conclusion:

It's not a torrent of fail, but it's not a torrent of praise, either.

[prateek]

Great review. I built this set on LDD, and I was impressed with the wing mechanism

[Brickdoctor]

Great review. I built this set on LDD, and I was impressed with the wing mechanism

It was quite clever.

[XimenaPaulina]

I'm not much a fan of minis, but the wing mechanism does look very cleverly done. And the whole build is pretty accurate to the real V-19 considering it's a mini.

[Masked Builder]

Nice work here BD. Though you stole my mini review!

[Brickdoctor]

Nice work here BD. Though you stole my mini review!

No reason you can't give it a shot yourself.