VK-318

Oh, there will be more than six episodes? Great! It would be kind of depressing for us Imps to get whipped 4 out of 6 times. Well, soldiers, back to the drawing board. Forward the freebuilds! For the Empire!

Going all the way back to the original question, asking to get the set back is not rude. You don't want to deceive this friend, though, because sooner or later the truth will come out and make things mighty uncomfortable. And even if you only want the set to sell it, I wouldn't worry too much about his deciding to sell it himself once he learns the price. If it were me, I think I would give the set back anyway, reasoning that it originally belonged to you and you had done the work to find the sale opportunity, so the profits really belonged to you; keeping the set and selling it myself would feel like stealing from you.

Nom Carver's ISD builds are definitely a good source for techniques. You might also look at the Star Destroyer bridge used by Brickdoctor and others at the beginning of the Shadows of Nar Eurbrikka contest posts (Core Rules, Introduction and Discussion, and Episodes I, II, III, and IV only so far). These are all physical builds, so that parts to build them do exist. Bricklink will be a great tool to find acquire the parts you need, because bricklink stores collectively sell virtually every LEGO element every made, including a number of part/color combinations LEGO never released as part of any sets.

Really impressive design. Personally, I think making the landing platform and Senator Organa's speeder both a bit bigger would be nice. If you're really looking for a challenge, you could try fixing the stairs by elevating the current ground floor one level and putting some of the rooms used for the Jedi Trials (referenced in Wookiepedia from Expanded Universe material) or the briefing, meditation, or war room underneath the original ground level.

Actually, it isn't an abbreviation; U.S. military operation names are sometimes all-caps, hence the appearance of an abbreviation. Nosecone refers to the fact that this is the first operation in the overall mission, and the nosecone of a rocket is the very front ... This would provide an operation whose name is pertinent, but not a giveaway. I thought I had put that in the narrative, but I see I didn't. Might edit the narrative later to fix that. Thanks, guys! (And thanks to the rest of you whom I didn't want to fill up the page by quoting.)

H'm ... LegoFjotten is starring in an impressive number of builds here, and all more or less at the same time ... Have you Rebels been cloning again?

Those white stripes are light fixtures, as far as I can tell. There are no overhead fixtures in any Imperial facility I've ever seen in the movies or elsewhere, and those stripes do glow.

Well, there's a grating open in the floor in front of the cells. Maybe someone was working on a repair here, and those boxes are for parts, tools, scanners, or something else to be used in the repair? You have a good point, though. There is a certain tendency to add boxes to any and all available Imperial floorspace, though I notice the Rebel sites, like Hoth, and neutral sites, like Bespin, don't have that kind of clutter. I wonder why that is.

Yo, rogueang. Ever heard of Baron Soontir Fel or Grand Admiral Thrawn? We do too have a conscience! Dapper-D2, I think BEAVeR is a TIE Fighter pilot, not an AT-AT pilot; at least, that's what the cockpit-view shot (#3) seems to indicate. Way to go, BEAVeR. I especially admire the rock face and sandhills; that sort of randomness is very difficult to get right, especially with virtual bricks.

Great build, MstrOfPppts! We're counting on your build to win this sector ... I love the greebling, and I don't know if anyone else noticed the red & green lights over the closed blast doors, but that's one of my favorite clever details. I wish I knew how you did it! I agree concerning the posing; this build reminds me of some of those cliffhanger moments in movies, when you know something's going to happen, and soon, and you're hanging on the edge of your seat waiting for it. From a more practical standpoint, a passive-looking build with the minifigures in non-fighting attitudes make the rest of the build a lot easier to see; violent minifigs do draw attention from the inanimate portions of the build.

Um ... about the close-quarters thing? I just didn't have enough tiles to make it any bigger. Thanks, LucasLaughing!

I've taken a count of the sector builds. Builds are so close in sectors A, B, and D that the win in each of these will depend on which side gets the best-in-sector bonus. C is 2 E - 5 R and E is 5 E - 2 R, so winning them will depend on the best-in-sector bonus and/or the judges decision on which side gets the win in case of a tie. This gives us a 50% chance of a win, depending for the most part on where the best-in-sector points go. I don't know which side will get the bonus for Sector A, but I looking at the builds I suspect MstrOfPppts wins Sector B, LegoFjotten wins Sector C, Bob de Quatre wins Sector D (if he's eligible? If not, I have no idea who wins), and rogeang wins Sector E. This doesn't look good, folks ...

Operation NOSECONE is a complete success. For the Empire! http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=94617

It's always a good sign when my commanders take the time to find out what "enlisted specialist" means. I knew things were starting to look up when I got picked for Operation NOSECONE. First, some background. In the weeks and months following the Battle of Hoth, the Rebel Alliance launched a breakout attempt targeting the Imperial prison facility on the planet Sullust. Imperial resistance proved stronger than they had expected, and what had evidently been intended as a hit-and-run mission turned into a knock-down, drag-out battle for control of the facility. As Rebels flocked to the assault from the neighboring systems, the Avenger was posted to provide reinforcements for the beleaguered defenders. Our position was strong; an Imperial Star Destroyer carries enough troops to subjugate most star systems, and while we would not have access to our vehicular weapons platforms, we would still have the rebels heavily outnumbered. The difficulty would be communications; specifically maintaining contact with the Avenger and coordinating our efforts with her fleet and the forces acting outside the prison. For that, we would need a secure communication channel. The prison was quite old, and a communications encryption module had been installed in a hidden bunker in a small, sandy valley on the surface, far from known lava flows, to communicate with the outside and (via secure cables) with the prison underground. The Rebels had seized that module, and the first step in Captain Erdbeereis and Commander Brickdoctor's plan to retake the prison was to regain control of this communications facility. Since it had been retrofitted on the surface of the planet, there was no entrance from the rest of the base; we would have to get in by the main surface entrance of the small, shielded bunker. My job was simple. I was supposed to open the door. A few well-placed directional charges, set off at same time, took down the door without giving the Rebels inside the slightest notice of what was going on outside until the door came apart. One of the Rebels was knocked back by the force of the explosion, and all of them were caught completely by surprise as we burst in. Our captain burst in, and I was right behind him. This was fortunate, because the Rebels had posted a guard just inside the door, to the right. He was a little quicker to react than his companions, and as I entered the bunker the barrel of his weapon was rising quickly. There was no time to aim and shoot. I shoved myself in front of him and struck the Rebel with the butt of my pistol, and he fell without a sound. Finally, the Rebels began to react, but by this time most of us were already inside. The rebels fought bravely ... ... but two of their number had already fallen, and by now they were hopelessly outnumbered. In a few seconds, it was all over. Suddenly, I heard rapid footsteps behind me. We all whirled around to see the man whom I had clubbed sprinting out of the open door and across the sand. In the heat of battle there had of course been no time to be sure that he was dead. In a firefight, one does not waste shots on people who aren't pointing their weapons at you. We fired at the Rebel, but he quickly disappeared behind the rocks and escaped. It didn't matter. We had accomplished our objective, and the Empire would settle accounts with him later. We cleared away the bodies and the damaged droid and propped the door up again, held up as a barricade by the two heavy fuel cylinders that fed the bunker's backup power supply beneath our feet. The final tally was: one stormtrooper dead, six alive and uninjured; one Rebel escaped and five dead. With the station thus secure, the engineering specialists who formed part of our team began transmitting the first signals from our newly-recaptured facility. "Come in Base One, come in Avenger, this is Communications Station 109-E. Mission accomplished."

Good one! One small issue, though. What kind of Imperial base has railings on the bridges?

Does it count as a fair episode build if it's based on one of ours? Nice one, Ninja Nin, I see an interesting subplot coming. Now you and Nom Carver need to come up with the freebuilds to explain how you escape!

Dang, that's good! *sigh* This isn't shaping up well, guys ...

Not sure I like the way the hole-in-the-wall looks. If it was an explosion hole, used to gain entry to the station, you might want to add some debris and probably destroy one of the comm stations. If it's just a cutaway so that you can see into the build, you might want to use cheese slopes and tiles to cover those exposed studs. Otherwise, I like it! The offset floor tiles are a nice touch, especially that one with the Imperial insignia on it. Wish I had a few of those.

Um ... I hate to break this to you, Goatm An 461, but Hoth is actually open to the Rebels, not us. I notified Brickdoctor of that about a month ago, and he said he was going to update it ... sometime. But since he hasn't gotten to it yet, my guess is that this is a legal freebuild and can be scored; still, I'm not the expert on SoNE rules. About the build? Pretty good! I love that hose assembly in the cockpit. The ship does look pretty imposing, from the front anyway. And the the sloping and sculpting of the snow is great. But why is an Imperial fighter colored white and red? After the Clone Wars, the Empire painted all their Venators and Acclamators gray, and while some of their craft are white (landing craft, for instance), they don't use red except in connection with certain classes of important Imperial officials and elite troops. To me, this ship looks a bit more like a captured Rebel fighter. And those exhaust manifolds are a bit odd. I don't remember seeing any Star Wars weapons with curved barrels before ... But still, great. The posing of the minifigures is excellent without being elaborate, and the scene is well built. I suppose that, given some considerations I can't discuss here ( ) we can forgive the use of so much white in this freebuild.

Just came back to check on this forum today and was astonished to discover that someone had actually read all the way to the end of that epic-trilogy-sized post! I have a question for the administrators. Lego Digital Designer has torsos and usable helmets only for the Imperial Snowtroopers and TIE Pilots and the Rebel Pilots. There are, for instance, no good approximations of the Stormtrooper uniform, and the helmet is not paintable, even in Extended mode, in a way that resembles the actual helmet. Anyone know of a good way to get around this? If not, is a stormtrooper with an all-white helmet and uniform a problem? Just a general concern, I guess. I brought it up here because some episodes, according to Brickdoctor's posts in the Introduction & Discussion thread, were going to be required LDD builds, and having nearly all the ground forces of both sides potentially knocked out of the fight by the limits of LDD seemed like an issue for the feedback thread.

Yes, you are correct. It doesn't matter what day it is where you are; as long the 17th of April is still going on somewhere, you are not late. This was discussed a couple of times in the previous episodes, I believe; there was a discussion about what was the last place on earth to experience a given date. I think it was Episode III, because there was a boatload of Imperial players who were having technical difficulties and trying to get a little more time to upload their episode build pictures.

Not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean that people are going to start loosing track of their XP? I know I haven't: I haven't gotten any yet. If you mean the judges/administrators might loose track of them, aren't they being updated by Brickdoctor when judging happens? I suppose that could be a place where they would disappear, but I'm still a bit confused.

I PM'd Brickdoctor about this a little while back. We can still build on Tatooine, since it is defined as neutral/lawless. We cannot build on Hoth; that is held by the Rebels since Episode III. Brickdoctor is procrastinating about fixing the Core Rules to reflect that ...

Um... by the way, 1 month and 1 day without judging ... If anybody could give Brickdoctor (I know that's not his name anymore, but it like it better the old way ) or the judges (if you know who they are ... ) a little reminder?

Hm ... I suppose I wasn't very clear when I mentioned that I would like this figure to be my avatar in the player index. Sorry. Anyway, I would like this image: ... to be my avatar in the player index. (Mostly Irrellevent Note: I have a fleshie head with the same face that may make appearances on my sig-fig's shoulders at a later date. I intend to use the different color heads as necessary to coordinate with other minifigs in the build so that I don't have some yellows and some fleshies in the same build.)