Raskolnikov

I don't think they do that just for the sake of it. But they might do it if they have a build that uses 1x1s anyway. Each bag tends to have a limited number of parts. So if a section of a build needs a 1x2 plate and another part of the build needs a 2x2 plate, or something, they may use three 1x2 plates, to keep the total number of different parts low. I think that works out as being more economical for them, however they produce the sets. One would think that as builds get more detailed, which requires the inclusion of the smaller pieces in each bag, there'd be more opportunities for these kinds of situations to arise.

I did not know that. Looked it up, and you're right. It's the exact helmet from the Millennium Falcon scene. It even has those vaguely phallic designs on it. Thanks for pointing that out! I also don't think this belongs in the rumors thread -- I don't see why it would. The T-16 has been out for a while. Also, you know, I don't mean to nitpick the mods because I think this is overall a great site but I think there's too many strict rules regarding new threads anyway. I think it makes the forums less vibrant and organic to condense everything into large threads as opposed to letting small threads start, gather a few comments, and fade away. It may also be why everyone seems to use the rumors thread as a "general discussion" thread. And every few pages someone posts "hey, isn't this supposed to be a rumors thread?" And that pattern repeats ad infinitum.

I have been accumulating quite a few Imperials, so I recently lined them up in parade formations and took a couple pictures: http://imgur.com/a/9W2Dl I know I'm not alone in doing this. How many of the rest of you have your stormies all lined up in neat little rows?

I plan to come back later and soak up all the details but my initial impression is that it looks great. I've been meaning to make something like this myself for ages -- got like 3 cantina sets gathering dust. It just seems like such a good idea to fill a cantina with all kinds of Lego aliens and characters.

I'm liking the look of that Nebulon B. Can't wait to see it finished. I'm currently working on an Imperial Star Destroyer. The goal is to make a larger, better looking, more durable, and more "playable" Star Destroyer than the UCS version. Mine will be 50+ inches long, which makes it significantly larger than the UCS. It also will have more than triple the piece count and will be several times heavier. Currently, I think I've finally got the kinks worked out of the support structure (it's about the sixth version of the support structure, at this point -- it's been challenging), which is partially complete. The top panels/deck are somewhat complete as well. Instead of using magnets or hinges, each panel slides into place on long slide rails, then locks into place. The goal is for the panels to be both secure and easily removable. I think I have most of the pieces I need, but I expect I'll be working on it for another two months or so. Six 75055 Star Destroyers have been purchased and scraped for parts, so far, and there's been about a dozen bricklink orders (I don't formally plan things out ahead of time, so the project has gradually changed and grown in scale). This will easily be my largest and best MOC to date.

I bought a Sith Fury Class Interceptor, intending to build it and eventually use it for parts, but it's just too pretty. It's like 850 pieces, all squeezed into something about the size of a TIE Fighter, so it's a really interesting and detailed build. The way the back "wings" open up is particularly neat.

I agree completely on the Assault Carrier. I love the fact that we're getting a new Imperial capital ship, and it's easily what I'm looking forward to most out of this wave. I may mod the interior and ditch the carry handle. If you do that, it'll have a fine interior. I also may ditch the TIEs as I don't like it when there's something like that explicitly highlights how the ship is not to scale with other sets. I.e., the Ghost is not to scale with an X-wing, but you can put them next to each other and not think about that. The TIEs are like a neon sign that says "not to scale." But still, excited about it overall.

I think the design of the UCS TIE Fighter is fine -- I just won't be buying it because I don't like sets that are in slightly-bigger-than-minifigure-scale. I think LEGO has made a concerted effort to make some designs "look LEGO." In other words, they have chosen to have some blockiness over using larger pieces with curves. They have chosen to expose studs, at times. A lot of people like that. If they had used larger pieces with curves to cover the blockiness, people would complain about that too. They'd say that back in their day, you had to build with bricks and not use all these specialized pieces. Seems like people complain either way... I also am a bit curious about what's "shameful" about the Slave 1, which seems to have been a very popular and well received set. I thought it was reasonably priced, and I was particularly pleased that it came in minifigure scale.

I like what you've done with the interior. I have the 75059, and I've been meaning to add some interior detail. The 75059 is quite spacious and well organized on the inside. That makes it easy to play with but it just isn't very movie accurate. It should be claustrophobic and filled with tubes and bits of broken technology.

I'm probably going to pick up the Gozanti (cause I like big ships), the Final Duel, and the Tyderium. I'll probably scrap the Final Duel playset but I want the Vader and Emperor minifigures. I don't care what anyone says, I think the new Vader helmet is a VAST improvement. It looks more accurate, and it makes him taller than other minifigures. The current version looks ridiculous standing next to a stormtrooper. I'll probably modify the Tyderium and make it a sentinel class shuttle, or something, since I have the UCS. I'm just sort of curious as to how it's made.

Great job! Photos are high quality, and I like the overall size (the Vader's TIE set is a bit small) as well as the greebling on the interior of the solar panels (I've seen other people do that as well, using those hinge pieces, and I lifted that idea for my TIE Bomber). If I had to critique, I'd suggest switching to all black hinges where the solar panels bend inwards and changing out the light bluish gray bars for flat pieces on the edges of the solar panels, sort of like the TIE Fighter. I know there's no easy way for them to snap into place and they can flop around but it does improve the aesthetics.

Ah, right you are, just checked. I guess it makes sense that a pilot would have to work his way up the ranks to get assigned to an Interceptor.

Can anyone explain to me why I keep seeing new users with like 2 posts repeating other people's posts in threads? User Tris637 (who appears to be a real human) posted the quote, above. Then, user rsportseye (a new user with 2 posts, a name that looks like it was generated by a name generator, and no profile pic) posts the exact same thing, word for word. His only other post is like that as well. It's just copied from something someone else said. Is it some kind of bot or insidious marketing attempt to infiltrate the forums or something? The same pattern is repeated in this thread, where another but very similar new user did the same thing: http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=108078 Seems like something the mods should be aware of, so I submitted a report as well. As for the figures, love them, love the video as well. Since I have a MOC Interceptor and MOC Bomber, I may just steal your idea and make these guys my TIE pilots. The young guy pilots the Interceptor and the woman pilots the Bomber, right? Edit: Looks like the mods removed that post I was talking about. I'm still a little curious about why those posts occur and whether they're bots or something.

You need some bigger pictures, bro. But it does look quite good -- it translates the set into a much more accurate representation of the cantina.

Yeah, that'd be cool. I got a lot of white pieces in the set, though. If I ever try to do a more in-depth A-wing build, doing a gray one would be an interesting way to differentiate it from others that are out there, like Jerac's. I know the feeling. I think "hey, wouldn't it be cool to build ___," then I start thinking about it and ordering pieces. But actually sitting down and finishing something seems to elude me.

Yeah, I've been looking at that one. It's definitely a fantastic build -- really captures the shape and proportions in an accurate way. I'm tempted to try to reverse engineer it from the pictures but I think I'd rather move onto something else -- got lots of very incomplete projects and little time. This one only took a single night to build, so that's probably why it's one of the few things I've finished. I wasn't really setting out to make an A-wing, either, I just managed to pick up another A-wing set for like $15 (couldn't pass up the price) and figured I'd just make a blue version. I already had both the red and green. So I bought a few pieces that I thought I'd need (like the blue slopes), and when they came in the mail yesterday I tinkered with it, wondering what it'd look like if you angled the "wing" parts. I thought it came out good enough to share but -- at the same time -- I think I learned the lesson that there's no easy way to modify the set that would make it look drastically better. It still looks pretty similar, and I messed around with the angle on the "wings" for hours. So I think you're probably on the right track if you're planning to go "full Jerac" on your A-wing. Looking forward to it!

You bet! Anyway, here is a set of pictures -- or confusing "directions" -- that sort of show how it's made, if anyone's curious: http://imgur.com/a/1u5IM

Yeah, that makes it hard for anything to really be "to scale." It''s also why Lego cars tend to have one seat in the center for the driver -- two seats max. If they make a car that can actually fit 5 minifigures -- like any normal sedan -- it would seem to be 10 feet wide and like 40 feet long, assuming that a minifigure is about 6 feet tall. So we can't say that minifigure scale is exactly 1:45 scale or something -- the proportions will always be slightly cartoony.

Yeah, I can try to take some more pics when I get home. I thought that doing the angle would be easy but it ended up being quite difficult to figure out how to do it without leaving much of a gap. Hopefully if I post how I did it someone can show me a much easier way that I didn't think of. Edit: Actually, the last picture sort of shows how I did it. If you look closely, you can just see one of the 2x2 technic pieces with studs on top that that connects to pins on either side. It's connected to a pin to the right of it, where you can't see. To the left of that are gray pieces, which actually are clips. So the technic pin makes the connection pretty sturdy, and the clips prevent the "wings" from being able to move upwards. The "wings" also can't move downward because, as you can see, there are white angular plates below them, holding them in place. Overall, though, the difficulty of adding the angle -- and the fact that it doesn't change the outward appearance all that much -- is sort of making me want to just ditch all the long slopes used by the set version and try something entirely new to make the fighter wider. I can't make this one wider without ditching the large, white angled slopes in the front.

I tried to make a blue A-wing similar to Ralph McQuarrie's original concept art for the A-wing. Let me know what you think. I'd be interested in suggestions for how to improve it. Imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/dX5vR Above-mentioned concept art: http://www.igorstshirts.com/blog/conceptships/ralph_8.jpg

None of the sets are quite right -- even the UCS Slave 1 is a little off -- but the newest Tie Fighter, Y-Wing, X-wing, and Snowspeeder, all match up pretty well to that scale. The B-wing and A-wing are close enough, if slightly inaccurate. And, of course, UCS Falcon and Imperial Shuttle are pretty close, if you can afford those.

Each time this gets bumped I keep checking back to see if there's any news about instructions.

I think they're going back to a slightly less detailed Luke face, based on the Final Duel set images that have been released so far. Apart from that, I am wholeheartedly in the newer-is-generally-better-looking camp. I can't imagine paying $200 for that Cloud City Boba Fett when the new one looks fantastic.

This is great. Not only are there great photos with lots of comparisons but the writing is polished and interesting. You don't always get that with Lego reviews, so excellent work.

I sometimes like to pretend that the prequel trilogy never happened so I'm ok with Disney doing that as well.