russs15

@Darth Fandom I am a bit late to the party here but I have been researching to find all the Lego Magazine Star Wars stories for a project. I am still looking for 6 stories from various years but I thought I would share here the main source I found in my research. Scroll down to the links at the bottom of the page. https://thegreatarchives.com/sources/lego-malego-magazine Regarding the Club Code content, I have trawled Wayback Machine and found all the archive pages associated with the US Lego Club Code website. There are 220 links and some lead to content but most do not. I hope this helps http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://club.lego.com/en-us/clubcode/* Happy searching...

Personally, I think this set is flawed and potentially dangerous, especially for the kids that the set is designed for. The front landing gear clip does not properly connect to anything and just sort of hangs in place falling off far too easily. With the nose facing the floor, two of the ends of the laser canons fell off. With the slightest of nudges, R2 falls out and the nose fell apart a couple of times just while I was holding the ship to fix on the wings. I would imagine after a good swooshing session that quite a few bits would be missing. These are all fixable and I hope that Lego do so quickly before someone's baby brother or sister finds the missing bits on the floor first!!!!!!! On a plus point, the wing mechanism is pure genius and worth the purchase price just to build that!

This is NOT a set review. There cannot be many Lego and Star Wars fans who, upon seeing this set, thought “WOW!!” followed by “How do I get one?”. Straight to eBay and seeing the prices of £250 to £300 and it was soon out of the reach of most of us. Anyone who pays that much is also unlikely to tear open the bags and build the set as that would lose much of the value. So, the next question is, “Can I Bricklink it?” The very short answer is “Yes” but with a few exceptions and things to look for. 1 The Body and Legs of the Yuletide Squadron Pilot are exclusive to this set but a very similar alternative is available. 2 The Black 2 x 4 Star Wars 20th Anniversary tile will cost approx £10. Mine looks OK without this part. 3 The Red 12 x 6 Left and Right wedge plates (two of each) are scarce and getting scarcer. I got these ordered as soon as I decided to go ahead with the build. 4 The Green sack carried by the Pilot figure is exclusive to this set. However a Green printed variation is available which can be “customised/modified” in minutes to be identical to the original item. This is the longer answer... Normally, Lego instructions are available for download from Lego and Bricklink has all the parts in a set listed to instantly add to a Wanted List. For this set, neither (currently) exist!! After much searching, I found a post on Reddit with the manual to download as well as a “head’s up” on what the “hard to get” parts are. More on that later. Further searching got me to a list of parts on Rebrickable with an option to “Add Parts to a Bricklink Wanted List” Just what I wanted (although some of the items did not transfer to the Wanted list correctly so please check everything just in case) At this point, the minifigures did not interest me so I placed the orders. That night I found and read a fantastic article at Newelementary which I really wish I had read earlier as it contained much of the research I had already done. They have also given me permission to use some of their pictures in this post so a BIG THANKS to them from me. The article also did all the hard work in explaining the parts in the three minifigures which then pushed me to getting three minifigures of my own. All of my research confirmed that ALL the parts are (currently) available to buy relatively cheaply and are readily available on Bricklink to build the Xmas Wing and the sleigh. The hut/igloo has the Black 2 x 4 Star Wars 20th Anniversary tile that will cost approx £10 but again, the rest are available to buy relatively cheaply and are readily available on Bricklink. Rather than pay out the £10, I chose to replace the part with a standard white 2 x 4 tile (although it actually looks better without it!!). The bad news is that the Red 12 x 6 Left and Right wedge plates were only ever available on the 2003 Air Blazers set and they are running out of stock on Bricklink VERY QUICKLY!! As I write this, only 40 Left plates and 61 Right plates are available to buy. Decisions??? I built the set with the exact parts to the exact instructions. In truth, there are many parts which are hidden so could be changed to alternative parts or colours – especially on the Xmas Wing. This could simplify the build immensely but the end product would look the same. Checking the build stages in the manual will highlight any such parts. New or Used The next decision is New or Used. I priced all the parts up as New and worked out that the cost would be heading towards £200 including delivery so that was out of the question. Switching to Used and the cost was nearer to the £100 I was hoping for. I swapped all the white tiles for New as they are on show and experience tells me that Used white tiles can arrive in questionable condition! With hindsight, I should have gone much further than this by swapping anything white, all tiles and anything smooth for new parts... Shipping After I had bought the 12 x 6 wedge plates, for the rest of the parts, 3 or 4 overseas sellers had all the parts I needed whereas in my country (UK), the best I could get was 7 sellers having all but 4 parts needed. For both overseas and UK, the cost for parts was comparable but the shipping cost difference was massive. At one point with 3 overseas sellers, the shipping was over £50 so I ended up with the £1 to £3 per order 7 UK sellers. For the 4 parts not available in the UK, I ended up with another 2 overseas orders and paying as much for the shipping as the items cost. This is lots of trial and error and there is no single “best way” of doing this. However, acquiring the Red 12 x 6 Left and Right wedge plates might dictate who and where to buy from. I managed to buy the 4 plates from the same overseas seller but now, that could be 2, 3 or 4 sellers from wherever on the planet they happen to be!! The Minifigures To be honest, the choice of minifigures in this set really confused me. They went from very easy to get (I already had three of them), the hard to get (three existing parts) to the impossible to get (three parts unique to this set).... R2-D2 Who does not like R2-D2? Lego love him and have already released three Christmas versions of him which is why I am surprised that a bog standard R2-D2 was included with this set. The R2-D2 part number is as follows... Minifigure 1 x R2-D2 (Flat Silver Head, Dark Blue Printing, Lavender Dots, Small Receptor), sw0527a Yoda The Yoda figure looks great but again confuses me. The good news is that the head, the body and the legs are existing parts and readily available on Bricklink. My issue is that in this set, Yoda is depicted as the elf in the workshop. However, with the Santa body, He look more like “Santa’s stalker” than “Santa’s little helper”. To me, he should look more like and dress like an elf and thankfully there are plenty of options available for anyone that agrees with me. Yoda is made of the following parts... Head 1 x Minifigure, Head Modified SW Yoda Curved Ears with Black Eyes and White Pupils Pattern, Olive Green, 13195pb01 Body 1 x Torso Santa Jacket with Fur, Black Belt, Button and Candy Cane Pattern / Red Arms / White Hands, 973pb2863c01 *probably easier to buy the full minifigures hol110 or hol125 Legs 1 x Legs Short, Dark Green, 41879 Yuletide Squadron Pilot In my opinion, rather than “random pilot”, this should be a “named” minifigure such as Luke Skywalker or Obi Wan Kenobi or any other named character. It just isn’t very Star Warsy! However, this minifigure looks great but the body, legs and sack are unique to this set. I doubt that many, if any, will ever reach the market and if they do, they will be expensive (currently on eBay for £200!!) so I doubt that many Bricklink builds will have this minifigure 100% correct. At this point, there are options 1 Don’t bother. 2 Wait for the inevitable Chinese Lego copy and the even more inevitable people trying to sell the Chinese Lego copy minifigure as genuine Lego. 3 Try as near as possible to replicate the original Yuletide Squadron Pilot minifigure. 4 Design your own festive Star Wars pilot. I will give details of how best to build a replica Yuletide Squadron Pilot minifigures. The replica is made of the following parts... Helmet 1 x Minifigure, Headgear Cap, Aviator, White, 30171 Head 1 x Minifigure, Head Beard with SW Gray Beard and Eyebrows, Furrowed Brow, White Pupils, Cheek Lines Pattern (SW Obi-Wan) - Hollow Stud, 3626cpb1172 Beard 1 x Minifigure, Beard, Fancy, White, 93069 Visor 1 x Minifigure, Visor Standard, Trans-Red, 2447 The best available body and legs come from a B-Wing pilot as follows... Minifigure 1 x Rebel Pilot B-wing (Reddish Brown Helmet), sw0455 or Minifigure 1 x Ten Numb (Red Jumpsuit), sw0556 or both of... Body 1 x Torso SW Rebel B-wing Pilot with Medium Dark Flesh Vest and Silver Front Panel Pattern / Red Arms / Black Hands, 973pb1376c01 Legs 1 x Hips and Red Legs with Light Bluish Gray Belts Pattern, 970c05pb05 The B-Wing pilot hands are black so you will also need... Hand 2 x Hand, White, 983 The green sack is exclusive to this set but another minifigure has the green bag but with a $ sign on it. I spent 2 minutes with some Rubbing Alcohol (IPA 99.9%) and a cotton bud and the $ sign was completely removed with no damage or scratches. Sack 1 x Minifigure, Utensil Sack / Bag with Handle with White '$' (Money) Pattern Minifigure 1 x Cheetah (Complete Set with Stand and Accessories) Original Minifigures Bricklink Minifigures As you can see, there is not a lot of difference between the original and the replica and I am more than happy with this minifigure. Or am I??? I did get a little hung up with the pilot not being an actual Star Wars character so I did a custom design which is basically the replica Yuletide Squadron Pilot but with a few changes. Any fleshy coloured older Obi Wan Kenobi head will do and I have gone for a Trans-Light Blue Visor to match the Trans-Light Blue Lightsaber blade which is attached to a Chrome Silver Lightsaber hilt. Let me introduce Obi Wan-ta Claus.. However, the truth is that the Yuletide Squadron Pilot minifigure is such a tiny part of the set. So much so that ANY standard – as released - Santa minifigure will look brilliant with this set. Add the helmet, visor and beard as listed above for the replica and most people will hardly notice the difference Official set vs Bricklink set comparison This is the official Lego packaging. This is a Typical Bricklinker’s packaging This is the official manual This is a typical Bricklinker’s manual. Bricklinking a set is not perfect but it does give people the opportunity to get hold of a set that is retired or exclusive. It is not perfect but it works for me...

What is Brickficiency ? Brickficiency is a tiny Windows program that basically downloads all the prices for all parts from all Bricklink sellers into it's database so that when you load up a Bricklink Wanted List, it calculates the cheapest combination for that Wanted List across up to 4 or 5 sellers - should such a combination exist. I filter the sellers to UK and a few EU countries to save on postage. The software does not take into account any specific seller rules on minimum purchase price or maximum lots so you need to check each seller in turn. Once you have chosen the sellers you want to deal with, there is a fairly simple method to generate the list for each seller into secondary Wanted Lists that you can then quickly turn into orders. For the 8038 AT-ST, once I had worked out what parts I needed and entered the list into a Bricklink Wanted List, it took under 10 minutes to run Brickficiency, find the three cheapest sellers who had all the parts I needed and place the orders!

I Bricklinked the AT-ST from 8038 for under £20 from only three sellers (by using Brickficiency) which kept the postage quite cheap. I took the 8038 Parts List in Bricklink and simply deleted all the parts in the list not required for the AT-ST by following the pages in the instruction manual. I far prefer the look of the 8038 version but hate the legs mechanism.

All the Landspeeders At the back, 7110, 4501, 8092 and 75052 At the front, re-creations of the Comic Con and Bag Charm Landspeeders Small scale Star Destroyers At the back, 30056, 4492 and the one from Super Star Destroyer 10221 At the front from 7958 R2 D2 Minifigures The first two are from numerous sets, followed by... Y Wing 8037, Ewok Village 10236 and Jedi Interceptor 75038/Sandcrawler 75059 R2 D2 Minifigure Keychains inc LED torch

R2 D2 is the same size in all the X Wings with minifigs. Looking at pictures of the UCS models, R2 does does look small.

Don't know about System Scale of Minifig Scale but on my display shelf, the 4502/6212, 9493 and Psiaki are all about the same size as each other give or take a mm or two either way.

The Psiaki X Wing is an amazing build but it is the most fragile thing I have ever built!!! Bits fall off just by picking it up!!! I even considered glue at one point as it was so frustrating but managed to stop myself. I would go for the current model or look out for a 4502/6212. Either that or just blow the whole budget on the latest UCS which is what I plan to do next.....

I second that. Even Vader has a minifig medal so why not Chewie???

I also did mine 12 months ago and it came in at £540. I used both new and used and replaced the usual expensive parts. Most of it was via Bricklink but I also used Lego Pick a Brick and the Lego Replacement Parts service. A very big spreadsheet is essential to allow comparing prices from all the sources as well as keeping track of what is needed, what is ordered and what has arrived. I too recommend doing this as it is an amazing build. I just need to get the thing wall mounted so it can be seen and not under a table as it currently is!!! My only problem is finding something equally good to do next...........

I might have to have a go at this as well. The official model is simply too big to display (until I can come up with some decent mounting solutions!!!) and the midi ISD and Falcon are two of my favourite sets. Besides, after Bricklinking the Psiaki X Wing and the UCS Falcon, I need another project that will not break the bank too much!!!

One alternative is to go for something like this...

I originally built my 10179 using 47 black 1 x 16 3703 bricks instead of DB Grey but ended up buying 6 of the correct colour for the front mandibles is it looked wrong. The other 41 are hidden so any colour would be OK in my opinion.