Kaijumeister

I’ve been thinking about how much the 18+ification of this theme has been evolving since the helmets first became a thing shortly followed by the dioramas. The system of bricks remains the same but the overall experience they’re offering is what differs (even if the build experience isn’t radically different than if you’d be buying one of the ‘standard’ sets). For the most part, the helmets / dioramas / midi-scale ships, whilst questionable from a value point of view, have mostly landed well. But I think examples like the Starship Collection Kylo Ren’s Shuttle really stretch things to a breaking point. The set itself is tiny, barely has any pieces (of which a great many go into building the stand anyway) or detail, yet is exorbitantly priced with a fancy black box, fancy instruction manual with a foreword by Lego Star Wars Lead etc. for what is ultimately an absurdly simple set. That’s not to say the model itself is bad, but there’s a lot of fancy fanfare over a simple build just because it’s marketed as part of the 18+ lineup. Again they’re selling the experience around the product more than the product itself in this case. Anyway, more than anything I would have hoped that with the increase in 18+ and buildable character sets, the now diminishing number of minifigure sets would have more care and quality put into them, but it hardly sounds like that’s the case which really bums me out. The Night Trooper BP looks awesome and I can’t wait to get it, it would be cool to get another zombie faceprint for the Death Troopers. At this point, we can probably expect Enoch to be part of the Ashoka Season 2 wave.

Lego: Best we can do is a Buildable Luthen Rael’s Wig.

I have no idea what the sales figures are for this theme, but it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy when the budget being low results in mediocre sets which results in poor sales which results in the budget being low. HP’s budget is extravagant in comparison with the number of new moulds and prints it gets every year, even for minor / obscure characters and almost negligible updates to existing ones. So the Galactus build looks awesome, but as expected countless shortcuts are taken with the minifigures because of course they would: - Reed should have had stretchy arms and the Doctor Strange hairpiece (it exists already!). Great faceprint though. - Johnny should have been in his flame-on mode rather than a generic blonde Peter Parker with flame pieces. - A new faceprint for Sue was sorely needed. I actually like Ben all things considered, however it would have been nice if the minifigure had more bulk to it. Moral of the story - always temper expectations for Marvel sets when you first hear about them. I support reusing face prints where they make sense, but it sucks when new actors enter the fold but Lego doesn’t make new faces for them in minifigure form.

They won’t. The selling point will be Bacara and the Marines, not the quality of the set itself. Does this mean that outside of the buildable characters and UCS sets, we aren’t getting any 1000+ piece sets this year? Again PPP isn’t everything but that’s atrocious, especially for the system scale sets

Yeah that Sherlock Holmes book nook looks excellent going by the sketch, can’t wait to see the LotR one now. Given that the Harry Potter one includes 2 minifigures and the Sherlock one also includes a handful, I wonder if we’ll get more than just Gandalf here? Perhaps either Aragorn or Boromir with Frodo? It would be awesome to get some sort of Nameless Things easter egg incorporated into the base of the build even if we don’t know what they look like.

I know right? It’s such a tease when they release official photos of select sets from the same wave, just reminds us the pictures of the other sets are ready to be revealed at some point. It’s been fairly slow news-wise I feel. The summer wave sounds quite strong going by the set names, hopefully not long to go until we get firmer details.

The Tower is a terrific set and I’m sorely tempted to get it, I love the sheer scale it exudes.

Appreciate the heads up Usually the flagship summer sets are the ones I get most excited about but it sounds like they dropped the ball quite hard this year. Previous years, we’ve had sets like the Scythe, AT-TE, Ghost, E-Wing vs. Fiend Fighter etc. where both the builds and figures are excellently done. None of the sets this year sound like they’ll remotely achieve the same standard, which is a shame. I still don’t know what on earth they were thinking planning in three buildable figures for August after already doing Grogu and Chopper. As others have already rightfully pointed out, the clone-mania would have been more palatable had it also been used as an opportunity to bring in new droid variants / Separatist commanders / Count Dooku etc.

My hope is the Turbo Tank and MTT still have some surprises in store beyond the Marines, Bacara, Bly, Ki-Adi, and Aayla I’m very curious to see how the V-19’s minifigures will be handled. Will we get a new P1 helmet? Arm printing and all for Kenobi? Curved lightsabers for Ventress? It has the potential to be a massive hit of a set if the minifigures are done justice. I missed out on getting Obi-Wan in his TCW armour as a kid so I’m praying no shortcuts have been taken for this much anticipated update.

I snorted reading this Unfortunately I do think the increased volume of buildables is here to stay. Celebration was fun, can’t say the queues were great in principle but they were an excellent opportunity to meet lots of great people. The Lego booth had the logo and RotS Brickheadz sets in stock early, but not the U-Wing and Chopper as expected. I’ll reiterate the logo is a fantastic build, but still seems pointless. I echo everyone’s desire to see a TIE Avenger next year (was lucky enough to get into the Andor panel and they screened the first episode of Season 2, loved it!). However, I strongly think Lego deliberately chose to make K2 rather than the Avenger because heaven forbid we don’t have more sculptures clogging up this theme. I would love to be proven wrong. I’m very excited for what was announced and hope Lego has the sense to at least try and cover some of it in playset form moving forward. The lack of any Jedi sets still really irks me. Given how slow this year has been in terms of content, I would have hoped Lego would have used it as an opportunity to catch up on sets / material people have been asking for rather than commit to the clone bit entirely. Also, welcome @BrickPrick! Glad to have you on board, we have a great bunch on this forum

I find it genuinely frustrating that the Lego Star Wars team look at this stuff and think ‘nah, let’s do more buildable figures instead.’ The May wave is cool and all, but again only one playscale set. Yaay.

Some U-Wing footage in this Special Look video

That's quite an impressive GWP! And as 'Battle Pack' builds go, the ship isn't too shabby either. This might just push me over the edge to order the UCS Slave I - unless we learn any details about the playscape one that warrants going for the smaller version instead. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what hairpiece Jango and the Clone Cadets are using, then it hit me that it's T'Challa's hairpiece. Looks pretty good on them! The composition of the GWP is honestly one of the better Battle Pack ideas we've seen in a while. I'd love to see this sort of thought go into BPs moving forward - as much as we're all rightfully sick of clone saturation (or at least, we will be after this summer), I do think a sub-200 piece BP with a small, accurately scaled AT-RT and BARC Speeder would kill. Oversized vehicle builds just to bump up the price without necessarily improving playability just hits the point of diminishing returns eventually. As for the in-hand U-Wing photos, my only contention is the lack of a proper interior (although I notice the way the side doors are built up uses transparent pieces for the 'windows', which is quite nice) which is honestly unacceptable for a ship that's intended to be a transport. I also vehemently dislike when minifigures practically have to lie down in cockpits but that's easily modded. But for what the ship is, I'm still a fan.

Kylo’s helmet looks decent, however the reliance on stickers to provide the bulk of its texturing does detract from it a little. Shuttle looks nice too, would be been awesome if it had extendable wings. As great as it is to see ST representation like this, nothing would’ve beaten a system set. I’m not a Brickheadz fan but that Grievous looks brilliant. Reaffirms my opinion that Brickheadz are the most interesting when the characters aren’t human. @CloneCommando99 a Reaper would be awesome. My personal bias makes me partial to wanting one based on Fallen Order just to get some Inquisitor and Purge Trooper figures.

Random thought, but I’m quite liking 2025’s trend of £60 / $70 starfighter sets that include 3 desirable minifigures (and droids where appropriate). First the ARC-170, then the U-Wing, and finally the V-19 this summer. The Clone Wars Obi-Wan really needs arm printing (hopefully a new hair piece too although that’s extremely unlikely and not really necessary I guess). I’d love to get a Clone Wars Anakin along with a Phase 1 Rex at some point. Personally wish the MTT would’ve included those two.

Very impressed with the interior and functionality they’ve packed into the Slave I, they even built in the sliding seismic charge doors!

Check out the back of box picture on Brickset, you can see it there Yet another example of lifetstyle photos and product renders not lining up. Edit: @squiz18 beat me to it, thanks bud. I agree about the new Mark IV print being close to pointless. It’ll make a handful of Hall of Armour completionists happy but I find it frustrating that they’re willing to allocate new prints for Iron Man variants that all look the same from a distance but can’t do it for some of the more distinctive suits like the Mark 42.

Wild that Iron Spider gets arm printing here but not the Endgame set, that bust is a genuinely great set, I might just get it. With the official images out, it’s nice that the Iron Man bust has those opening air brakes and shoulder missiles too, but the head really does throw everything off.

I think these busts are a great idea and certainly more interesting than just more buildable helmets. The Iron-Spider one looks like a solid effort IMO, although it seems backwards and lazy to simplify the extra arms on the minifigure when the one in the Endgame set had executed them perfectly - probably the one thing that set actually did well. The proportions for Iron Man’s helmet are completely off, however the torso build actually looks pretty great. I’m no skilled MOCor so it’s hard to comment on whether the awry proportions for Iron Man’s helmet are simply a result of the scale the designers were working with or not. All that said, they really need to stop pricing these sets as premium product when the budget is clearly so cutthroat for this theme compared to Harry Potter and Star Wars. Here’s hoping for a full breakdown of the summer sets soon.

Micro-builds can be nice Easter eggs but this just seems even more inconsequential. Although I love the idea of the Tantive IV being as big as an ISD Curious to see more pictures of the U-Wing. Given the older photo from March with the opening bay doors it seems like it can accommodate another 1-2 minifigures so at least K2 should be able to fit in there. It wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if we didn’t get a buildable K2 and that price point / piece count could have been used for a larger U-Wing, and then the existing U-Wing’s slot could have been used for a TIE Avenger instead. The minifigures for the U-Wing look fantastic too. I do wish they’d use the Lloyd Garmadon hairpiece for Cassian as it would be more accurate. Hopefully not long to go until we get full summer set descriptions!

The U-Wing looks excellent, the box art really makes it pop Chopper is a must-buy too, I have last year’s R2 and at this rate I might just pick up Threepio too. I’m still not a fan of how much buikdsbles are seemingly clogging up system slots, but there’s no denying they look great and at this point, comprise their own little subtheme. Jango’s helmet looks pretty decent, and as a build the logo is well executed although albeit completely pointless for me. With clearer images of Jango’s Slave I it looks like he’s getting an alternate hairpiece too! Glad to hear Bacara will be getting a new helmet too.

Oof, as April Fools jokes go that was cruel I would love it if we got one Indy set per year in the same format as 2023’s Temple of the Golden Idol.

Agreed! The black boxes may highlight the product more, but they’re also very soulless and corporate-looking. No doubt Lego are saving a lot of money not making proper box art for the 18+ sets. The Prisoner-with-Job 1 looks phenomenal, especially with the rounded profile and increased seating in the cockpit area. The Seismic Charge is also a fantastic touch. I’m curious to see how many people will hold off on getting this until getting an idea of what the playscale one will be like, however at this point I’m 80% sure I’ll be going for this. Also, I miss getting huge info dumps from Promobricks around this time of year Can’t wait for full set descriptions of the summer wave to see if any positive surprises are in store.

Gosh I hope this set is based on Tears of the Kingdom. I need minifigures from that game! I really hope it’s not a buildable object. It is sad to see Lego continue to lock Zelda behind large and pricey sets though. It’s certainly not a theme with predominantly adult fans the way LotR is.

Going by the known panel lineup for Celebration Japan, I think Lucasfilm have finally learned not to jump the gun too early in announcing projects when they don’t even have a basic script or story treatment outlined first. It is quite sad in a way because I remember how exciting the new film announcements were back during Celebration London. I still maintain that the Rey film’s basic premise (new Jedi Order) is what the ST should have been to begin with, but I’m still excited for whatever this new film will entail. I agree on your points around the MTT’s desirability. I don’t necessarily think the blue / grey CIS colour scheme is a drawback, but the lack of unique Separatist characters or droid variants certainly is. Speaking of Celebration Japan, I’m glad the Lego exclusive is just another tile like it was for London so people don’t miss out on something cooler. It would have been cool for the tile to have a Lego-fied print of the official Celebration artwork though. I’ll still pick it up when I’m there but it’s amusing that the May sets won’t be released for another few weeks.