Kaijumeister

Yeah I’m not terribly excited for what we know of next year’s System lineup so far. - It’s great that Ahsoka’s Eta-2 introduces a new cockpit piece, but Anakin being his late TCW variant is kind of ‘eh’. Canonically makes sense but I wouldn’t have minded Lego playing loose so we could’ve gotten Anakin from the earlier Clone Wars seasons. - Somewhat apathetic on Plo’s Delta-7 and the ARC-170, but I’m sure both sets will sell well. Just praying we actually get a completely redesigned mould for Plo’s head. - U-Wing and Night Trooper Battle Pack are a big yes, provided the former isn’t just a one-seater like the T-6 and the latter doesn’t omit Enoch. Hoping the summer wave gives us some big winners.

Is a Hobbiton set really necessary? Knock a couple of hundred dollars / pounds off and just make a mahoosive set of Bag-End, that would’ve been much better. The overall minifigure potential isn’t the greatest to be honest, unless they reintroduce a young Bilbo variant along with Thorin’s company too. Overall, I’m glad more LotR sets are on the way, even if it’s only for those with wallets and physical space grander than the depths of Khazad-dûm. It seems the door is shut on Lego at least trying to make this theme a little bit more accessible. Above all though, we really need a new hair / hat mould for Gandalf. The minifigure just doesn’t look right.

Hyped for the Night Trooper Battle Pack if it’s true, if it’s on the same level as this year’s Mandalorian vs Imperial Commando set, I’ll be very happy. Haven’t seen anyone bring it up but Landino confirmed the Anakin figure in Ahsoka’s Eta-2 is based on the later Clone Wars seasons. It’s still disappointing unless they finally deign to make a new hairpiece for Anakin or something.

Seconded, this would be the perfect opportunity to reintroduce the Death Trooper (still has one of the best minifigure helmets ever made IMO), and we’ve seen from this year that Lego aren’t afraid of creating new moulds for a battle pack, so Enoch would be perfect too.

He’s confirmed Plo Koon’s JSF is indeed coming, awesome! So it looks like there’ll be a wave between April and June with a few system sets at least.

IMO helmets / dioramas / buildable characters / midi-scale ships etc. were fine when they occupied a few slots at most (like earlier this decade). They were a nice and novel departure from the usual system sets precisely because Lego didn’t push them down our throats en masse. Now that they take more and more precedence year after year, I completely agree that they’re a complete turnoff, personally. For me, system sets that have some cool minifigures will always trump buidables. It’s not even the presence of buildables that’s the issue, but the sheer volume. Especially as I get the sinking feeling these are indeed eating up slots that would have normally gone towards normal playsets. For what it’s worth, I think the continuing popularity of Lego Star Wars will rest with getting sets that are colourful and offer interesting builds, and being able to balance these with the more ‘iconic’ and evergreen vehicles that frankly aren’t the most visually interesting anymore.

I was looking at some images of TCW Anakin between Season 6 and Season 7 and whilst the latter is basically just his RotS appearance, the former is only different because of the hair looking a little shorter, the robes being a slightly different colour, and him wearing a glove on his left hand. Really hoping this means ‘Clone Wars Anakin’ actually being his Season 1-2 armour. If that’s the case, I’d love to see Season 1-2 Obi-Wan in a summer set. It’d be great to get a shorter montral piece for young Ahsoka but I’m doubtful that’ll happen. Very happy to hear a new cockpit piece is being used though, it only took 20 years! Hyped for the U-Wing, but I’ll remain dubious on Plo’s JSF as none of the big name leakers have confirmed it thus far. Fingers crossed the summer wave list gets out soon!

I’ve been meaning to do a count of how many new minifigure moulds we’ve been getting every year, but it definitely seems like it’s decreasing on average. We’ve got some good ones this year for Malak, Nien, and some of the Mandalorian Season 3 stuff which is great, but I still remember years like 2018 which were absolutely packed to the brim with new minifigure elements - albeit that was largely because of TLJ and Solo. For me, the reduction in cloth goods is more annoying than printed detail for the most part, and I’m not even referring to kamas. I feel like the LSW team are increasingly adopting a policy of ‘if a character has a backpack and cape, we aren’t giving them a cape’. It happened with Mando, Gideon, and now even Boba Fett. Really sucks and I’m sure their reasoning is along the lines of capes becoming worn out if they get bunched up next to jet pack pieces, but surely there is a workaround for this sort of thing. Shortcuts with minifigure accuracy that alters their profile also annoy me quite a bit, but I think I may be overreacting. Small things like not giving the Praetorian Guards shoulder armour, Cal a poncho, Ezra a more accurate hairpiece etc. are all things where the LSW could have done better (especially as certain moulds already exist!), but simply chose not to. Anyway complaints aside, I hope we’re in for some good stuff next summer once the deluge of buildables is out of the way. I wish Lego could at least do a better job of balancing these with system sets, even if it means sprinkling buildable things throughout multiple waves and allocating some space to more traditional sets just so there’s something for everyone. It’s really distasteful to leave system sets on the sidelines and dedicate entire waves, much less an entire half of the year, to sets with barely any minifigure presence.

Here I am just hoping that we eventually get some less obscenely priced UCS / MBS sets in the future that are still relatively scaled to minifigures like the Cantina / Cloud City / Slave I etc. They really hit the sweet spot of being good ‘premium’ sets that offered a good build experience without requiring their own dedicated shelves to display for the most part. Kinda sucks that as things stand, the ‘bigger’ UCS sets currently tend to be the minifigure-scaled ones and the ‘smaller’ sets are the oversized ships like the X-Wing and TIEs. I do hope Lego finds a middle ground for this soon. Shoutout to Jang for his articulate and reasonable takes on these sets. He continues to be my favourite Lego YouTuber by a mile.

Childish_landino_chronicles also posted a story on it, source is hellothererex. Solid lineup of figures but would’ve been nice to get a Jedi like Plo Koon in there.

You will take your buildable Mandalorian’s™️ Right Pauldron™️ and you will like it. Agree though. Outside of the Eta-2 and ARC-170 my interest in this theme is essentially going into hibernation until next summer. As for the Sail Barge, it honestly looks like a perfect model to me but I’ve never been a massive fan of the vehicle itself. As a setpiece and scene within RotJ though, I’ve always loved it. Personally, I would’ve preferred this to be one of the flagship summer sets just to pair it with the Desert Skiff to make for a nice display without taking up too much space, but the build looks great. Minifigures-wise, the ones we are getting look awesome although I’m not a fan of Bib reusing his inaccurate TBoBF piece, however I feel like we should’ve gotten far more figures with a set this expensive. I still think the LSW team really fumbled the ball by not including at least one generic alien with the Desert Skiff set as it is.

A new mould? In Lego Marvel? Kidding, although it’s shocking to think the cape piece is the only new minifigure-related mould we got out of this theme this year. I’m still a little salty they didn’t bother to bring back Star-Lord’s helmet. The Endgame set sounds cool for the most part, I do agree the helmeted look for Thanos would be awesome. Still hoping that one day we get an Iron Man and Captain America with arm printing and dual-moulded legs. Cap especially needs it.

I know I’m making a big deal out of something really trivial, but blacking out the cockpit windows on the TIE Bomber and TIE Fighter is really weird to me. I get with larger ships it’s not always possible to add transparent canopies to see the pilots inside, but for single-pilot ships it’s just odd, even if it’s only to achieve a better rounded effect with the front of the TIE Bomber and Fighter. Part of the charm with smaller craft is seeing the little minifigure pilot at the controls behind the cockpit window. As much as the ISD is a really well designed set, part of me does still wonder just how awesome a Death Star playset could’ve been, especially if Lego had taken some lessons learned from the Yavin IV playset. That said I do appreciate the smaller playsets we have been getting like the Peridea and Mandalorian Bunker sets, and hope we get more stuff like that in the future. The Bunker one still amazes me as not only is the build itself quite solid and coherent, but we get a bunch of new helmet moulds and characters in it at a relatively low price.

Received my Great Deku Tree yesterday, still in disbelief we're getting Lego Breath of the Wild! Probably won't build it for a few months but definitely one of my favourite sets of the year going by reviews and photos. I'd love to see coverage of Tears of the Kingdom in the future.

Totally agree, the Zelda set alone made this one of the best years for me as well! I think this theme as a whole has been strong since 2021 - I know people were more or less happy with the 2020 summer lineup (not to mention in all fairness it was the swan song of the beefy January waves), but I feel like that was a transitionary period between LEGO Star Wars concluding its coverage of the Sequel Trilogy and gearing up for covering the Disney+ shows / Clone Wars etc. the following year and beyond.

I know it’s very much an apples and oranges thing, but from the standpoint of Lego sets as toys above all else for kids and if we take these toys at face value, Star Wars sets simply don’t compare to Ninjago. Ninjago sets are often much more colourful, well designed, and have a plethora of interesting minifigures and new weapon moulds year after year by virtue of being Lego’s own IP and not being beholden to the same scrutiny by the company’s bean counters the way Star Wars is. I thought 2024 was a decent year for LSW (although I’d argue the March and June mini-waves were better than the summer wave), but the Dragons Rising sets blow them out of the water. That’s not to say this theme is inferior, but most if not all of us are drawn to these sets because of our love for the source material, as is the case for any licensed theme really. Only 2 weeks to go until Rebuild the Galaxy, can’t wait! I’m so happy they’ll be releasing all the episodes at once, a miniseries like this is the perfect way to celebrate the theme’s 25th anniversary.

Today's haul: - 75385 Jedi Bob's Starfighter - 75385 Ahsoka Tano's Duel on Peridea - 75396 Desert Skiff and Sarlacc Pitt - (Non-SW) 76286 The Milano and 77092 Great Deku Tree Was considering the ISD but the half-baked nature of the Cal figure has really put me off so I'll rest my hopes on a Stinger Mantis based on Jedi: Survivor next year (which technically still maintains the sanctity of the Anniversary Cal figure being based on Fallen: Order - a game we'll never get sets for).

I stand corrected! I wonder how likely it is for Lego to play ‘catch up’ with things people have been asking for next summer (granted, that is an endless list). With this being the calm before the storm of the Mando film / Filoni’s Heir to the Empire film etc. in the coming years it’d be a great time to revisit the Mandalorian Seasons 1 and 2 if only to put out things like Cobb’s Speeder Bike and Gideon’s Outland TIE. Although of course I’d love nothing more than a Stinger Mantis and something with Enoch and more Night Troopers in it too. I agree with the sentiment that children aren’t as oblivious to detail as people may assume - however, nor are they also excessively pedantic. With the direction this theme is going in with higher prices and more shortcuts, I don’t necessarily think the ‘this is just a children’s toy’ can be completely reconciled with that. You can apply the same argument to media too, how many objectively incredible films and TV shows are made with kids in mind yet have universal appeal? The ones that don’t underestimate their audience.

I always found it odd that Lego went through the trouble of resurrecting the 212th Airborne Trooper helmet mould in 2020 for Grievous’ Starfighter and proceeded to only ever reuse it for the 2022 Fighter Tank. I was certain at the time they were intending to use it for Purge Troopers. Cynically I think this increased emphasis on buildables is just a way for Lego to squeeze out some more profit without having to use any budget for new prints / moulds etc. outside of a few recoloured parts. Wouldn’t be the most far fetched thing to argue that the minifigure-based vehicle and location sets are the heart and soul of this theme, though.

Just voicing my frustration is all, I agree the kart builds look beyond perfect though. Hopefully we’ll see more small sets in the vein of Yoshi’s bike as I can see myself picking those up for sure.

If it helps, the reviews do show that the instructions for the set ‘branch off’ past a certain point depending on what version you want to build, however they both share the same base build up to an extent. It looks like the spare pieces that are left over after building the OoT version significantly outnumber what you’re left with when building the BotW version. I’m really happy to see how good this set is (price aside) going by these reviews. I got into the series after BotW so my attachment to OoT is minimal, but I’m still glad to see that Link’s house is its own build that can be kept even if one wants to display the BotW Deku Tree.

Starting off on the positive side, the kart builds as well as the character builds look great. I especially love the idea of power ups being used with stud launchers! Now for the negative. Since 2020 as much as I’ve wanted minifigures, I’ve understood and accepted that this is the route Lego has chosen to take with this theme and that was fine. As of 2025 this theme will be in its 6th year, that’s over half a decade into its run, and Lego still refuse to touch minifigures. What really frustrates me is that Mario Kart of all things is about scale. The courses are huge, and the character roster even moreso. This should have been the subtheme to introduce minifigures because it just broadens the scope of what you can do - more karts, more characters, heck, maybe even full-on tracks as opposed to just more side builds. What’s the point of Lego tackling Mario Kart if the size of these models ends up being fairly close to alternative toys on the market? Rant over. But someone please tell me that Mario Kart of all things isn’t where doing things in minifigure scale would have made tons more sense.

With quite a few regulars from Rogue One such as K2 along with ships like the U-Wing being confirmed to feature in the show (going by D23 footage anyway), I don't think Lego will scoff at the opportunity to revisit Andor. I can definitely see a U-Wing being done next year that significantly improves upon the 2016 iteration, and heck even the Fondor may not completely be off the table - although I wouldn't be surprised if it gets significantly downsized like the T-6 just so it's a less risky move on Lego's end. As much as the cost and lack of more Corpos was an issue, I still maintain that Ambush on Ferrix is one of the best vehicle sets we've seen in this theme. Extremely sturdy, generous interior, and excellently done shaping. The ship may have been small, but it was dense and had a good heft to it. Even the speeder bike build was great. I'll still keep my hopes up for something from Jedi: Fallen Order or Survivor next year. Plenty of loopholes to circumvent the anniversary figure rule around characters that would never have been included in sets of their own otherwise. Also, extremely trivial nitpick but does anyone else here get annoyed by the over-reliance on using TLJ Luke's hairpiece for long-haired characters? It didn't work for Cassian and it doesn't work for Ezra. I don't know why Lego refuse to just recolour the Mad-Eye Moody hairpiece in black, it works so much better for long haired characters.

This is such a good point. How many critically acclaimed TV shows, regardless of genre, have the caveat that they get significantly better after Season 1? Too many to count. I honestly just wanted a small duel set with Qimir, Sol, and Jecki as they were the standout characters of the show (plus Episode 5 was universally well received). It’s a shame that’s looking unlikely now, but I’m still quite excited to see what’s on the cards for system scaled sets next summer as Andor will be the only piece of ‘new’ content releasing next year. We’ve already seen a lot of iconic OT ships / characters / scenes tackled this year, which significantly frees next year up for some interesting stuff.

I forgot who it was from Lucasfilm that said this (although I'd bet it was Doug Chiang) - what makes ships and characters so unique and recognisable above all is their silhouette. When it comes to printing inaccuracies, on a personal level I'm super lax about details like the number of code cylinders on an Imperial - however I do completely understand why it would bother people (but then again I'm one of the few that didn't really care about the burn marks on Anakin and Obi-Wan's robes in 2020, so yeah). Especially when LSW products are priced at such a premium despite the sheer number of shortcuts these sets often take. But when it comes to a minifigure's profile and silhouette, that's when things really begin to annoy me. Small things like not giving some characters backpacks to bulk them up, the omission of kamas, and more recently the omission of side capes for characters like Boba Fett especially just feel plain wrong. There's something really charming about when minifigures are paired with brickbuilt or cloth accessories and seeing a reduction in that as of late is quite sad. Heck, I'd argue that even Mando should include some sort of side cloth accessory even if he does wear his jetpack all the time. These are small things, yet because they affect a figure's silhouette I personally feel they're more annoying than printing inaccuracies. @ForgedInLego I agree about wanting to see more Milano-quality ships from this theme, however I also think it's a drawback of OT and OT-adjacent era vehicles that they just look a little boring on a surface level. Still iconic, still desirable, but in terms of colour and geometry we all know what to expect most of the time. I think a T-6 with a similar price-point and piece count to this year's Milano would actually be amazing, however unfortunately most ships that aren't from the Prequel Trilogy simply won't pop as much because of the source material. Plus Star Wars ships in general (outside of single-pilot fighters) are so absurdly oversized most of the time that translating them into a Lego set that's fun to play with whilst achieving a decent interior is seldom an easy task.