Kaijumeister

Having watched Superman, it blows my mind that the best the Superheroes team could do this year is make another Tumbler, a Superman mech, and a quasi-UCS Batmobile on a 30 year old film. I mean, I get it. The risk averse mindset has been formulated from getting burned on tie-in sets for unpopular content in the past. But not even having a single tie-in set for Superman is astonishingly bad. Supes, Guy Gardner, Mr Terrific (standout character), Hawkgirl, Krypto, the Superman robots…so many characters that would make for phenomenal minifigures. Just sad. Even a single £50-£100 set would have gone a long way without breaking the bank for Lego. Even just doing the T-Craft would have made for the perfect vehicle-based set.

You’re not wrong, however it’s hard to swallow the pill that there’s only so much Lego can do to cover the different media when more and more set slots are getting clogged up by buildables and 18+ sets. That’s all. Along with the Dark Falcon, sure. The priciest / largest summer that isn’t a UCS / buildable figure is typically my metric. So, 2026 sets: - Small impulse sets that aren’t gimmicky are a much needed presence in LSW. Mando’s Tatooine speeder bike is a perfect albeit boring choice and it makes me wonder if a small AT-RT is on the cards for TMaG wave. - Nice to get Cobb and Cad, but again not terribly excited. I did really like the Paz vs. Gideon set so more sets at that price point are welcome. - Otherwise, yawn. ‘Boring and uninspired’ sums up my thoughts on the wave as a whole. Lovely to see buildable characters infesting 4+ sets now too. Not sure if a buildable BB-8 is more desirable than just getting an actual ST system set but that’s beating a dead horse.

I’m just profoundly salty that obscure vehicles continue to be made whilst the LSW team refuse to touch things like the Stinger Mantis and Purge Trooper Battle Pack with a 10 foot pole. For what it’s worth, I’m in the camp that a UT-AT is a little too obscure to focus a flagship summer set on (especially as its only representation in canon and Legends media is being blown up). But then again, Star Wars is the only theme where no matter how obscure something is, it’ll still be desirable to some extent (plus they made that gigantic Justifier a few years back). From next year onwards, my main hopes for the theme in addition to a reduced emphasis on buildable items is a return to form for flagship summer sets - not gutting the piece count and actually giving solid builds. The penny pinching with this theme this year has been more absurd than normal.

To be honest I think my standards when it comes to clone print accuracy are more lax than most. I do agree though that making errors like that when you’re literally working with the source material is bewildering to say the least. It’s a shame about the kamas too, they’re certainly aware of people being enthusiastic to bring them back but they’re clearly just refusing to do so at this point.

Double posting to prevent an essay post, but conversely I really like the MTT and V-19 having watched their reviews! The droid rack deployment mechanism on the MTT is phenomenally executed, we need more clever functions like that in Lego Star Wars. However, the rack can clearly accommodate one more slot for a droid on either side which at £140 is a significant oversight or shortcut. The V-19, despite the stubby proportions and lack of a wing mechanism looks to be a dense and swooshable build with close to perfect minifigures. Both sets are the highlight of the summer wave for me. @Kit Figsto Completely agree with your points, I think the problem is threefold: 1. There’s no longer much consistency to matching price points to appropriate vehicles based on their size and function. Larger vehicles should merit larger sets, however we now see that Lego are perfectly willing to significantly downscale vehicles just to fit a price point. A Slave I at a £60 price point just doesn’t work, but I can also understand not wanting to make a £140 set of it the same year its equivalent UCS is also released (however, that also begs the question why they thought it was so important to release both the same year to begin with). Amusingly, single person starfighters and vehicles that should be sleek and compact continue to be oversized (Jedi Starfighters, AT-RTs, BARC Speeders etc.). I would argue that even this year’s U-Wing, as decent as it has turned out, should at least have had a more fleshed out interior being a troop transport and all. 2. Even if large vehicles are allocated larger price points, it’s no longer a guarantee of being a good representation of the subject matter - see the Juggernaut. I will grant summer flagship sets tend to be at least decent most of the time, this year is the first time where the value for money is overwhelmingly bad. 3. With the dilution of system set quantities to accommodate fancy 18+ sets and buildable characters, there’s an unspoken expectation that what little system sets we do continue to get are the best they can possibly be within whatever constraints the designers have to work with. However we can see excessive shortcuts continue to be taken.

Just watched Solid Brix’s review of the Juggernaut, and I did not expect him to tear into it that much. In short: - Structural issues galore, I’m shocked how easy it is to break this when handling it. - The axle for the observation post has no stopper, so you can just pull the whole thing off when raising it. - The ridiculously small size is all the more apparent when minifigures are placed around it. Taking into account minifigures, weapons, stud shooter ammo, and the builds for the wheels, we’re looking at around 150 pieces or so for those. So that’s just over 660 pieces going into the main body of the tank itself. I can’t help but wonder why the parts budget for this set is this low, and how on earth the build passed Lego’s QC processes. Making the wheels brick built a huge misstep for this set and I wonder if they felt forced to do it because the main build is so small. Apples and oranges, but just take a look at this year’s Arctic Exploration Science Lab Truck (£99.99 and 1064 pieces) or last year’s Command Rover and Crane Loader (£59.99 and 758 pieces) from Lego City: large, wheeled builds with robust designs and sizeable interiors. They put the Juggernaut to absolute shame. On the positive side, Bacara and the Marines look fantastic and it’s nice they can all actually fit inside the build. But I don’t like the implication that just because more effort goes into minifigure moulds and prints that it’s somehow acceptable for the build itself to be this half baked. No longer planning to buy this even at discount. It’s quite disappointing, a Juggernaut with the exact same minifigure lineup but with a build quality / piece count / volume similar to the Dark Falcon or ISD would have made for a brilliant set.

To be fair I’m sure the mechanism should be doable without the pneumatic piece, but I haven’t MOC’d anything in years Overall my buy list for the summer is the V-19, MTT (once discounted), and Juggernaut (again once discounted). I still haven’t bought any sets this year but the Night Trooper Battle Pack, Plo’s Microfighter, U-Wing, and UCS Slave I are on my list too. Compared to previous years, it’s a (relatively) super light year for me with respect to Lego Star Wars purchases.

Completely agree, even if it wouldn’t have been ‘screen accurate’, including the General Skywalker variant in Ahsoka’s Eta-2 would have been awesome. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ahsoka’s Eta-2 was initially planned to be her Delta-7b from the earlier seasons (with a Clone Wars armour Anakin), but Jedi Bob’s Starfighter from last year changed that. I’m willing to bet that with the introduction of the P1 Clone Pilot this year, there will be something with another pilot and Anakin next year. And exactly. Most features right now consist of firing stud shooters or accessing the interior of a vehicle. Maybe I’m feeling this more strongly because I just built the Indiana Jones Golden Idol Temple diorama from 2023, and kept thinking to myself how cool it would be if Star Wars sets had ingenious functions of that calibre too.

What’s really irking me is not a single System set this year has even touched the 1000 piece mark yet 4 of the 5 buildable figures have. I know all the cases to be made for small parts inflation etc. but just imagine how good the CTT and MTT could have been if they had similar piece counts to last year’s ISD and Dark Falcon. Despite the chibi design, I quite like the V-19 Torrent. Explicitly labelling Obi-Wan as ‘General’ makes me hopeful there’s a General Anakin Skywalker minifigure coming next year. The lack of a wing mechanism sucks though. Star Wars System sets really lack innovative play functions these days.

So they’re actually not going to reveal the rest of the summer wave today it seems, shame!

Hilarious that they do this, guess they’re taking a page out of leakers’ books now. Brief thoughts, I think the overall shaping of the CTT is probably the best it’s ever been, and the minifigures despite the inaccuracies look sweet. The severe downsizing however for what should be a troop transport is beyond unacceptable (especially with the PPP!). A set priced at £140 has no excuse to offer this little and it makes me worry that the flagship summer sets, which should have both a sizeable build and good complement of figures, will offer less and less as the years go on. MTT looks great in my eyes, again should’ve been larger given the price but the build looks awesome and the assortment of characters and droids is nice too. The ’Force Burner’ Snowspeeder (not flying over snowy terrain on the box art ) is a cool idea. I can appreciate the new canopy piece and the minifigures look great. I think the snowspeeder itself looks a little blocky, but that’s mostly because of the bulky cockpit rather than the build itself. Between the Force Burner and V-19’s trans-yellow cockpit pieces, Classic Space fans are eating good. Hoping the remaining set reveals are imminent.

I thought it was the same as well at first. Plus the AotC figure would have the headset printed on which wouldn’t work for the standalone TCW figure.

Obi-Wan is definitely one of the best minifigures of the theme this year. Love the new sassy / bemusement at Anakin’s weekly war crime faceprint too. Shame we’ll have to wait until next year (at a minimum) to get a Clone Wars Anakin with a similar level of detail, but I hope he’s on the cards. I personally would have preferred to get that version this year over his later Clone Wars look that we got with Ahsoka’s Eta-2 (even if the inclusion of the latter obviously makes more sense). Fingers crossed we get official images of the summer wave over the next week. Lego sure love taking their time with reveals.

I’m quite glad to see a LAN member site finally call this out. Hopefully the LSW team course correct sooner rather than later. They raise a good point about the dilution of having too many sublines too. Having both mechs and micro fighters seems redundant (especially with there only being one of each in 2025). And was there truly a need for five buildable characters this year? Are they truly that popular?

It’s interesting to ponder that if Lego did decide to cover Superman this year for a true DC renaissance, how good would the sets have been? The (fantastic) trailers so have have shown us the minifigure and set potential are as expansive as they can be for a film, so many cool characters, scenes, and locations that would’ve translated amazingly into Lego. But all the same, we’ve seen how half-baked Marvel has been as of late (although this summer is certainly a step in the right direction), would DC have been similar? It’s a shame we’ll never know. The reluctance to cover the film is somewhat understandable given how the DCEU’s films have flopped in the past, but not covering the DCU’s first film with even a single tie-in set just seems like wasted potential.

I haven’t watched the anime or Netflix show yet, but these sets look pretty great regardless! Solid looking builds, an abundance of cool minifigures and new moulds, fantastic packaging art, I love it when Lego throws their all into new themes like this.

You raise a great point here. Other themes like Ninjago and Harry Potter (arguably even Marvel, if you consider sets like the Benatar and Milano) that start appealing to older demographics without venturing into UCS-esque labelling territory still build upon the core concept of system sets, just with increased complexity and size. Star Wars still refuses to explore that area of not quite UCS, but still a step beyond the usual system sets. I feel like more than most themes, the ‘mature’ Star Wars sets try too hard to make older consumers forget they’re buying Lego. I wouldn’t mind seeing sets a little pricier than the £160 price point if it meant getting builds on par with the Dark Bounty, Hogwarts Main Tower etc. Outside of the Slave I which is a UCS set anyway, none of the Star Wars builds this year are anywhere near as impressive as some of the Ninjago and Harry Potter stuff. But at the same time, I’d also appreciate getting £160 sets that don’t feel like they have £100 worth of value at best. Like you said, the downsizing of sets feels ruthless. Nemik’s Manifesto needs a chapter for The Role of @CloneCommando99 in the Galactic Struggle for a TIE Avenger Set. Hats off to you, sir.

Wading into the downscaled vehicles discussion, what’s funny to me is that the approach initially made so much sense. Single-seater fighters like the X-Wing and TIE Fighter shouldn’t be exorbitantly expensive and oversized, and what we got in 2021 was a great compromise in that area. I’m still hoping that 2027’s 50th anniversary of ANH gives us the definitive system scaled versions of the X-Wing and TIE, last year’s X-Wing with the sloped fuselage was a big improvement in getting us closer to that. Anyway, when the downscaled approach begins spilling over to ships that are known for their size and ability to accommodate multiple pilots and crew (T6 and Slave I to name a few examples), that’s when the approach fails for me. Any ship that should hold at least 2 figures but can’t is for all intents and purposes a glorified microfighter. Then what ends up happening is year after year, larger vehicles that should get larger builds get increasingly downsized (and starting this year, even large vehicles like the MTT and CTT that are allocated flagship price points are still undersized!), and yet single pilot vehicles like Ahsoka’s Eta-2 keep increasing in price anyway. Jedi Starfighters are tiny, I understand the tactile considerations for allowing smaller hands to whoosh these ships around, but my point still stands. It’s a shame because for many collectors, the Lego iteration of a vehicle or scene is their ‘definitive’ collectible of that subject. So when severe compromises are made it can be a bummer. Anyway, briefly commenting on the summer set pictures - the CTT and MTT do look awesome despite the absurd PPPs. I still don’t think investing in a few new moulds should be grounds for decimating the piece counts for these sets when they should be large with sizeable interiors (CTT especially), but it is what it is. The V-19 looks awesome and that Obi-Wan figure is fantastic. I’m so glad they’ve invested in a P1 pilot helmet mould too! Really hope this means a TCW Anakin and P1 Rex are on the cards next year. The buildable Wicket is an absolute waste of a slot, especially with Grogu, Chopper, the B1, and K2 already being on shelves.

Seeing reviews of the Book Nook, my opinion on it isn’t as favourable as it used to be. Seeing it compared against the Sherlock Holmes one and pictures of the HP one just highlights how bare this is. My main concern when it comes to scenes or properties that are highly requested like this is the amount of effort that goes into their corresponding sets seems low as a result. Again, we get the 18+ black box branding and fancy formatting within the instruction manual, only for the set itself to be so lacklustre. A £110 pricepoint allocated towards a playscale set of even a full diorama would have worked so much better here.

Replace a reused Obi-Wan with a Season 1 Anakin and I can definitely see something like this happening. No way there’re not reusing that P1 Pilot and Anakin in his Clone Wars armour has been a highly requested minfiigure for ages now. But I agree with all of you. The P1 Pilot helmet looks perfect and even seeing the new Galactic Marine torso and helmet, despite me being apathetic to that particular trooper legion, is getting me quite excited for the summer wave. My expectations for Obi-Wan in the V-19 are quite high. I sincerely hope he has arm printing and perhaps an updated hairpiece.

My main hope is that the already abysmal ratio of buildables to play scale sets doesn’t continue to tip in favour of the former next year. They’re eating up way too many slots. As much as a playscale Zeta-class Shuttle or a UCS U-Wing would be the perfect way to coincide with Rogue One’s 10 year mark next year (avoiding the term ‘anniversary’ as we’re getting so many of those now), I can easily see an overpriced midi-scale Zeta Shuttle being all we get.

Even getting a single £20-30 set for Superman would’ve been something. It’s quite sad seeing that Lego aren’t taking a chance on this film given how great it’s looking but are perfectly willing to dedicate a £90 slot towards Batman Forever of all films. The Batman Forever Batmobile build looks incredible though. I didn’t grow up with the film and am not the biggest fan of that Batmobile design, but no doubt it’s incredibly well made.

I know I’m trivialising the matter a little, but the thing with fairly popular wishlist items within the fan community is that people in general aren’t demanding entire waves or even copious sets dedicated towards the properties they like, they just want some coverage (buildable characters etc. notwithstanding). E.g. whilst not getting more Bad Batch sets is a shame, the Havoc Marauder set was still great because you get the main hero ship along with the whole team. Similarly with Skeleton Crew it only got one set with the full cast, but that felt like enough. I won’t go into Mando or Ahsoka because they both got excellent coverage. But yeah. Even getting a Stinger Mantis with the main crew and a Purge Trooper / some villain characters would be enough to satisfy most people (such as myself ). Similarly getting the Fondor and TIE Avenger would satisfy most Andor fans. The LSW fanbase is far too diverse to get an idea of what everyone wants, but there’s no denying that certain ships and characters are requested often enough that the demand is certainly there for some sets to be worth making. I wonder if we’ll get anything fresh and unique with the Mandalorian and Grogu sets. We’ve gotten some fantastic Mando coverage since 2021 which makes me wonder if the new film sets will raise the bar somehow.

I was rewatching the final arc of Andor and realised the U-Wing box art background of Yavin and Yavin IV seems to be directly pulled from S2 E11! Disney+ timestamp 22:10. That’s pretty cool.

It’s such an easy thing to do, you don’t even need new moulds for it! Plus the combination of black / red / purple makes the Purge Troopers so visually distinct. It’s a shame Lego refuse to touch the Jedi games.