Magmafrost

One data point does not a pattern make. Same to you. One person asking if its dead isn't everyone saying its dead.

The inquisitor isn't actually new, she made a brief appearance in the 2017 Vader comic

I dont think anyone's complaining about it being a repeat, the sentiment Ive seen here leading up to this was that pretty much everyone wanted a new one. But what we wanted was a well-proportioned, nicely detailed UCS, and what we got was a poorly proportioned, sparsely detailed playset that no child could ever afford.

Has that ever been the case for a set thats had a normal release? The only times Ive seen bricklinking be cheaper is when its a highly desirable set that either had a very limited release or has been out of production for an extended period of time, and even then its often pretty close (outside of some extreme examples)

Probably not worth it either way, the promos go for like $25 - $30 AUD on bricklink, and should only cost like $2 to ship. So it'll probably be cheaper for wait until this shows up in Big W, and buy the polybag separately. It will take an extra 6 months though haha.

I dont thing the issue is that the cockpit is too big, I think the main body is too small. It should be wider. Not by much, maybe just 2 studs on each side, and at a shallower angle. And I think the round sections need to be a little thicker. The engine block looks too small in the box picture too, but its hard to tell whether or not it'll look more proportional in person. But naturally the biggest problem it has is the fins. It was never going to be easy to render in Lego but what they came up with is really not a good solution

Nah people are still just riding on the rumor of it from last year

Dont give them so much credit, they'll blow a gasket anyway

Yeesh, its even more anorexic than the 2009 one. And are those friggin stud shooters on it? I guess we know why its not labelled UCS... In all seriousness though it looks really small. Maybe its actually not taking the May 4th UCS slot after all, it doesn't look big enough to IMO.

You know I think thats an important consideration too, does anyone really know which of the two has the stronger frame? Im sure they're both sturdy but 10030 famously does not have a frame that holds up over time. Given that these are relatively new creations, does anyone know whether they're likely to suffer similar issues? Because if one does and the other doesn't, I think that'd tip the scales pretty decisively.

Id definitely go with the Monarch personally. Its bigger, to start with, so you're getting a bigger ship for your money, but I think the biggest factor for me is how they handle the edges. Maybe its just a personal thing but I really dislike the look of tiles over the top of wedge plates (which the Aggressor does), it gives a really awful jagged look. It looks better to just have some wedge plates on the top and accept a few exposed studs IMO, which is what the Monarch does. And yet despite that the Aggressor STILL has more exposed studs. Of course naturally there are things on the Aggressor I like better too, but they're much less immediately obvious.

Im not sure Australian Toy World and NZ Toyworld are the same. I hear NZ Toyworld has sales, Aus Toyworld I dont think has ever had a sale of any kind, not in the past 5 years at least, just very rare clearance deals on specific sets. But I dont think the dropship is being treated as a battle pack anyway (certainly its price isn't). IIRC the only Rebels sets that showed up in Australia were the first wave, so I suppose its not surprising that the Resistance sets arent either. Does anyone know whats going on with the Scout Walker over here? Thats not available in most places too.

Well we dont know the full parts list, so... no, nobody knows. Wait until the partslist is available, and bricklink has a feature to add all the parts of a set of a set to a wanted list.

Keep in mind its (supposedly) the May 4th UCS. Its almost certainly going to be about $200 US and comparable in overall size (to be 100% clear, NOT scale. Size) to the previous May 4th UCS sets (Y-wing, Slave I, Snowspeeder, X-wing, etc). Its not going to be massively big. Good chance IMO its smaller than the first UCS Tantive IV, at that size it could maybe have some rudimentary cockpit space for one or two minifigs. But we can only guess, we hardly even know for sure that its actually a real set

So while they wont be available "early" per say on Shop At Hope, here in Australia sets have a habbit of showing up in normal retail stores about a month after they're supposed to. How bad the delay is varies from wave to wave, but generally you can expect a set to be available on Shop At Hope before its available in Australian retail stores, that isn't exclusive to VIPs though. Haha, if only we had things so good here. Our big box stores put out sets late, not early, sometimes by a few months (Often 6 or more for D2C sets). The may 4th threshhold for last year was $100 AUD, which is more or less $75 USD, but its also not uncommon to see much worse threshholds. We recently had a promo (the TLM 2 one) with a threshhold of $200

The ISD was a pretty unsubstantiated rumor *for 2018, and it somehow got carried over to this year (of course real sets have been known to do that from time to time). However Im pretty sure it was always meant to be for the the September/October slot anyway, we were never going to get a 1500-2000 piece UCS ISD, thats just too small.

A new wedge plate was introduced with the new Slave I, so maybe it'll show up in this new falcon and we'll finally have something slightly less horribly gappy. That'd be a worthwhile update IMO.

IDK if its just me but Black Ace looks really, really small in the official picture. Maybe it'll look bigger in person though, and it does otherwise look alright. Something about Vonreg's TIE looks really bad to me, I think its how messy the color palette of the cockpit is. I wish Lego would just suck it up and built a whole TIE cockpit in a single color like its meant to be, it really shouldn't be an incoherent mess of three different colors, it looks like crappy camo. A lot of the rest of the ship kinda looks messy too honestly. I know those shooter sets aren't meant for us (although I wouldn't have liked them as a kid either), buuuut Im still gonna laugh at how bad that AT-AT's legs are. Wow. The only positive thing I can say about any of this is that the 20th anniversary box art is phenomenally good. Great packaging, but seriously disappointing wave. I'll maybe touch the Slave I if it ever sees at least a 30% discount, and nothing else.

Hmm, I kinda agree with the opinion that it doesn't look like a real set. It would certainly be a weird direction for them to go, although I guess no matter what it was going to be a weird set

No Australian p[rice has been revealed yet but it goes without saying that if the price is even bad in the US, its going to be absolutely awful here.

The dark red slope/wedge that makes up most of the base only exists in dark red and white. It was designed specifically for this set too, apparently, and the Overwatch team got special permission to use it a little early, so it could very well be a good while before we see it in dark blue or dark grey/sand green (dark grey being more accurate but Lego's used sand green before for some reason)

It'll probably be one of those "actually cheaper to import from the US" sets over here

I kind of agree. Thanks to the new wedge/slope piece, the dark red base of this Slave I actually looks good, for the first time in the ship's Lego history. That area was a huge issue for me in the UCS, since its absolutely hideous. But honestly I'd rather just buy a load of that new piece and fix the UCS Slave I I already have, its not like Im gonna take it down and put a smaller model in its place. Im still struggling to see how the new one managed to be over 1000 pieces, too. I definitely dont think its worth the price tag that comes with that.

Typically a "smaller" (1500 - 2000 pieces) UCS is released on May 4th and a larger one some time in september or october

Poe especially, the angry face especially looks more like Nic Cage than Oscar Isaac, and Im really not sure how you screw up *that* badly