Thorg23

The shop at home site is an embarrassment. TLG should be ashamed not having extra server capacity on hand for what was guaranteed to be a ridiculously high traffic period.

Well this is a nice palate cleanser after Assault on Hoth.

The biggest problem for this set is that it's just trying to do too much with too little. Trying to make echo base, the shield doors, the ion cannon, the snow trench, the snowspeeder, the wampa cave, and have a bunch of minifigs with this kind of piece count just ends up with everything looking underdesigned (for the new stuff) or phoned in (for the re-used builds). The scope of the set as a whole is simultaneously too large (in terms of number of scenes included) and too small (focusing on unnecessary play features). Both those issues end up wasting a ton of parts and design space, meaning the set is just not up to the level of an ultimate collector series set, and instead amounts to a lazy "greatest hits" of Hoth system sets. Setting aside the design issues completely and looking at the set purely as a value proposition, I have to agree with the person who made the "4 in 1 pack" comparison with 7666, 8089, 75014, and 75138. If you are willing to buy some of them used, you could buy all of those sets for less or about the same as what lego is charging for this set, and you would arguably get more. You'd lose the half baked ion cannon and shield generator, but gain 2 more speeders, more imperials, a couple probe droids, and more minifigs overall. This set is going to be an easy pass for me and that doesn't actually bother me that much, as it's nice to have a set I don't feel compelled to buy, seeing as how I have a bunch of other exclusive sets to catch up on right now. But it's still a pretty big misstep for the UCS line after such great successes as the Tie Fighter, Slave 1, and Sandcrawler (which btw is a great example of a UCS "playset" done right).

Can't log in to the S@H website. Used my saved password and it told me the password was wrong. I reset my password just in case someone had hacked my account or I had changed my password at some point and forgotten to save the new on in my browser, but it still won't log in. On firefox trying to log in just loops me back to the log in screen; on Chrome it still tells me my password is wrong. Also had issues lately like some others where trying to view order details would redirect you back to the main S@H page, and the only solution to that was to log out and then log back in every time I wanted to actually view account or order details. Given the boatloads of cash LEGO is making, they have absolutely no excuse to be running a store website this bad. Hire some competent programmers, get some decent servers. Whatever the problem is, fix it.

What I did with mine was simply not lock together the two clip pieces on the underside of the top portion with their partner on the other side. If you fold the entire top section together so that the clips are touching the bars, but not attached to them, the top section will sit in the slot in the hull perfectly without moving at all, and the middle stays perfectly straight along the center line. I actually came upon the idea purely by accident, as I forgot to connect the clips on the underside and finished the model, then wondered what people were talking about when all the reviews said the top section was loose and moved around too much. I went back and checked, noticed my mistake, but decided to leave it alone since it seemed to fit better as it was. Your solution is prefereable if you want to do some "take evasive action" style swooshing though, as the top section in my setup still isn't connected to the bottom and would still fall off if you flipped the ISD upside down.

The original star destroyer model used in ANH actaully did have a vertical tower. Since the 10030 is obviously intended to be the Devastator (given the inclusion of the Tantive IV model), the vertical tower is correct. There is a detailed look at all the different bridge models used in the films here: http://www.theforce.net/swtc/towers.html

The Azure Angel set looks like a good Lego interpretation of the source material, but I never really liked the ship itself. The whole aesthetic of it smacks of fan fiction/crappily written EU nonsense - like the designers took a regular Jedi fighter and said "Guns are cool - okay let's add A WHOLE BUNCH. Extra fins are awesome looking - let's add some of those too, YEAH! Oh, and let's add some GIANT ENGINES on the front, everyone loves BIG ENGINES." And eventually you end up with the Star Wars version of this:

The newer one is much more accurate to the shape of the speeder than any previous version. Previous iterations used a 3x12 wedge plate for the edge of the wings, but the slope was too shallow, and always made the speeders look too square and boxy. For 75049, they used 2 3x6 wedge plates on each side, giving the edges a much steeper slope, which nails the overall profile of the vehicle. This also allows for the rest of the wings (both the laser cannons and the sloped bricks that hold them) to be more accurately shaped as well. I have held off on buying previous versions (like the wampa cave or battle of hoth), but 75049 was good enough for me to finally get one. It has the new spring launchers that are in a lot of the sets in this wave which I don't ever plan to use, but they are well hidden under the wing and don't hurt the profile of it at all. Aesthetically, I prefer the orange striping on the other Rogue speeders to the gray on Luke's, but it's film accurate. There are still some annoying things, like having a ton of stickers for a small set and the x-wing/y-wing canopy instead of a properly shaped new one, but those were issues with previous versions as well, and compared to those it's still a marked improvement.

Holy crap... most impressive.

In no particular order: Big Boy Mallard CP Royal Hudson An updated Superchief SP Daylight 0 Series Shinkansen Anything with the Yellow Red Grey Union Pacific Livery

The set designer from TLG, Mark Stafford, has talked about it on Reddit when discussing the set. http://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/2cc734/sold_out_online_lego_stores_are_loaded/cjec9ga

It should be on Amazon for MSRP at some point. They end up selling nearly all of the exclusive/hard to find sets eventually.

Exo Suit I also preordered the Star Destroyer, AT-AT, and Snowspeeder from Amazon.

I just preordered the AT-AT, Snowspeeder, and Star Destroyer on Amazon. Several of the Summer 2014 wave are discounted 15% or so on amazon US right now.

Nice review. I'm definitely going to be F5'ing Shop@Home at midnight on August 1st to make sure I get one of these.

Someone posted one on reddit a few days ago. Link: http://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/2a2jgx/ucs_sandcrawler_sticker_made_by_a_friend_enjoy/

The Summer Star Wars Wave really hit it out of the park for me - so much OT goodness! Guaranteed Buy: 70816 Benny's Spaceship Spaceship Spaceship 75049 Snowspeeder 75051 Jedi Scout Fighter 75054 AT-AT 75055 Star Destroyer 75059 Sandcrawler Might Buy: 10188 Death Star 21108 Ghostbusters 75052 Mos Eisley Cantina

I used MS Paint to combine them into a composite image. If you zoom in on a train image you can see the pixels and it's pretty easy to separate engines and cars as needed. As far as I know you have to host the actual images somewhere else, so I put my finished image on my flickr page, and in my sig I linked directly to the picture file using the image tool. It's kind of a pain to find the link you need now in flickr; stupid Yahoo keeps changing things and every time they do things seem to get worse. If you have a more convenient place to post your images to and link from (such as Brickshelf or some other moc site), I would try that instead. edit: there is a good tutorial on how to link images from brickshelf to eurobricks here: http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=18451

There is now UCS branding on the box, so yes, it is (at least according to TLG) a UCS.

All the mid 90s space themes - M-Tron, Blacktron II, Space Police II, Spyrius, and Ice Planet 2002. I can't pick just one because they were all so cool.

I think the piece I use the most is the black track supports from my Airport Monorail set. They have been repurposed as display stands for most of my Star Wars sets and MOCs.

I kinda hope that there ISN'T a TIE advanced set this wave. Between all the OT sets in this wave and the rumored Slave 1 UCS, my wallet won't be able to handle any more sets for a while.

I don't actually mind much that this doesn't have an info plaque. Putting those info sheet stickers on is always a huge pain, since it's so easy to get lots of air bubbles or dust underneath, even when you're careful about it.

Picked up a Jedi Defender today at the Lego Store. I know it was way cheaper at Toys R Us, but I detest them, and the VIP points and value of the Revan minifig basically make up the difference anyway.

I have a few rules that I (mostly) follow: 1. Has to be OT, or something EU that interests me (such as the Fury Interceptor). I avoid prequel and clone wars stuff like the plague. 2. Has to be a starship or vehicle of some kind. I don't really like playsets much - you can't swoosh them! That being said, I'll make exceptions for cool non-vehicle stuff (like UCS R2-D2). 3. I'm not a huge fan of minifigs. That's not to say I don't want a certain minifig if it's particularly cool (Admiral Ackbar or Max Rebo), but I won't buy a set that doesn't interest me just for the minifigs in it. 4. I prefer UCS over system scale. I have all the 2012-2013 OT system scale ships, but that's because I had come out of my dark age and assumed stuff like the UCS X-wing and Y-wing wouldn't be remade (at least for some time). Had I known Lego was going to release the 10240 a year after I got the 9493, I would have skipped 9493 entirely. I have the UCS Shuttle and B-Wing, so will probably skip any system scale remakes of them (like the 75050). 5. I would rather have something that looks cool (and accurate) over something with play features, as all my sets get put on a display shelf as soon as they are put together. 6. I don't plan on getting remakes, unless they are light years better than the version I have. This hasn't been an issue for me so far, since I only starting buying Lego SW a few years ago. Given the above, the new summer wave is going to absolutely demolish my bank account. The AT-AT, snowspeeder, jedi scout fighter, star destroyer, and sandcrawler all fit my rules.