Supersonic

Battle on Scarif is weird. Location sets are usually overpriced (see Takodana and Jakku), but this time even the minifigs aren't that great - yes, all are technically exclusive, but the only one that is really different from other versions is Jyn, and it's still $50 for four minifigs and an extremely boring build. Meanwhile the Y-Wing has three exclusive minifigs (including the exclusive Moroff mold), a stormtrooper, an exclusive droid and a beautiful build for only $10 more. I also don't think the Y-Wing is that similar to the last one - the 2012 version had an almost rectangular cockpit section which I always thought was completely off. They seem to have fixed the shape and upped the greebling on the entire thing as well, and the price is pretty good.

There's tons of stuff there that will never be released at this point - the Watto, the UT-AT, the Clone Wars AAT variants, that weird yellow Naboo ship from TCW...I think the picture is from 2012 or earlier.

$30 sets are either a good vehicle with one or two figs, or a good minifig selection with unremarkable build; it's almost never both. Duel of the Fates has three main characters from Episode I, all of which were somewhat hard to get unless you bought all the mid-sized sets in the last years, and getting this many Jedi/Sith in a set this size is probably a first. Darth Maul alone is currently worth half that set's price on BL! They could release that set with no bricks whatsoever and it wouldn't be too shabby. Yoda's Starfighter strikes me as, above all else, a weird choice - TCW ended years ago, the starfighter only featured in episodes that weren't seen by a large audience, and it's hardly good looking on its own.

Correct, as seen here: Interestingly, those pictures (final quality) included the Resistance Transport and the exclusive Spider Droid, but not the Ep. 7 battle packs and Battle on Takodana. Anyway, compared to the last years, we are somewhat behind schedule. We'd usually have some pictures that aren't prelim by now.

Those sets make very little sense - the Death Gang set has zero potential to be that expensive, the Quadjumper is barely in the movie, two more OT battlepacks seems very weird... Also, the summer wave usually has at least one 100+ dollar set.

The only set we've never seen much of by now is the Tie Striker, but the rest is featured beautifully (especially the U-Wing).

That's great news! I expect that those would be Clone Wars or PT - Clones usually sell well, and with TFA + Rogue One + Battlefront battle packs available, everything else is well covered.

It matters for minifigs though - sets like Duel of the Fates depend on those, so we can't really judge it without knowing if Obi-Wan as a hairpiece, and if Darth Maul still has that stupid grin. As far as the actual builds go I agree - can't remember any set that changed drastically between prelim and final in the last years. (If anything, some lost minifigs in the process.) I really don't get why people still use the price/piece ratio. It's outrageously unreliable especially for sets with large amounts of technic pins, and often reflects the size of an actual model very inaccurately. Case in point - the FO Snowspeeder is a 444 piece set yet nobody in their right mind would expect the Y-Wing to be priced the same. Additionally, it's easy to compare the Y-Wing with the last one - the 2012 version had 450 pieces with 3 minifigures and sold for 50. Since 2012, prices have increased across the board, so paying 60 bucks for a new version with two figs more five years later seems completely fair.

That's actually pretty great - with the prices for X-Wing and TIE fighters going up recently I would have assumed a $70 price tag for the Y-Wing for sure. It also looks larger than the last two versions, and including five minifigs (at least two of them exclusive, I guess) really sweetens the deal. 50 for the bunker battle means it's this year's Takodana - overpriced scenery set, but still the cheapest way to get the main characters. Shame that it will keep shore troopers extremely expensive.

I feel like the Rogue One sets we know about are priced very fairly (a set the size of Krennic's shuttle for 90 is not something we see often), much unlike TFA where they milked the hype with very steep prices. That being said, the last two location sets we got (Jakku and Takodana) were extremely expensive, so who knows where this might end up. Definitely nice to get more Shore Troopers somewhere, and thank God it's not another X-Wing! Do we have confirmation that there are only 2 battle packs this year? The set numbers definitely make it look like that.

We had a Resistance X-Wing Microfighter in January. It's hard to believe they would add another normal X-Wing plus another Microfighter X-Wing to the three we already have right now...Y-Wings would just make much more sense.

I don't get how the Rebel Frigate of all sets started this discussion - 110$ for a 900+ piece capital ship (that is also a store exclusive and has two exclusive minifigures) is better than average, definitely not worse than the pricing we've come to know over the last years. The Tydirium is underpriced. It's that simple - any set looks bad compared to such an obvious outlier. Compare the Frigate to the prices of any other recent set and it looks pretty decent - A-Wing vs TIE, both Resistance X-Wings, the new AT-TE all fare worse price-wise. Maybe people aren't that interested in the Frigate because it's a Rebels set, but objectively, it's fine.

What a shame, that would have been a nice May the 4th promo fig.

No way - the tank looks small enough for a 29,99 set while I highly doubt we'll ever see a TIE below 40-50 bucks - the Inquisitor's TIE Advanced was 40, the TIE Striker looks bigger. And unless the AT-ST is UCS-like in proportions and detail, it's a better guess for the 39,99 set. Of course, there could always be some small structures, side vehicles and additional minigures to raise a set in price - just look at the Flash Speeder and AAT from 2015.

The other summer exclusives tended to be really cheap though. 2014s MTT and 2013s Defender Class Cruiser all were at the same price for big vehicles, 900+ parts and several exclusive figures.

I think that's a different case - AFOLs will buy both Jedi Starfighters no matter when they are released, but as a pure toy for kids, most parents are not going to buy basically the same vehicle twice. There's no big advantage of releasing both at once. The AT-AT, on the other hand, is probably a big seller no matter when it's released. I'd guess having an AT-AT availabe would make more people buy the Hoth set, rather than the other way around.

Which would make sense, to be fair, as she is a much more important character in the story. She's only lacking a minifig because there is no obvious set to put her into - certainly not a Tusken Village set.

We already have the First Order TIE, the Inquisitor's TIE (although that one is going to be discontinued by October) and Darth Vader's TIE Advanced. No way there will be another TIE so soon. Maybe Rogue One lets the Empire have a cool non-TIE fighter design for once.

To be fair, An updated TIE bomber would be great - in fact, I hope that with the new canopy piece (which is pretty much perfect) we will get updated versions of all the TIEs still missing (Bomber, Interceptor, OT fighter).

The Eclipse is $30, making both of the Freemaker sets pretty good deals - no surprise given that they don't have the movie bonus like the TFA sets. The AT-TE might be the ugliest LSW set of all time, or at least a strong contender. Sure, it's supposed to look like that in the show, but it's still a bright, asymmetrical mess. No Ghost crew on there either - Zeb and Chopper are still one set exclusives, instead there's a Stormtrooper in there. The A-Wing stabilizers look a little off - doesn't look like the angle can be easily modded either. Still, the colors are gorgeous and Vader's Tie looks perfect (no surprise - the last two TIEs in 2015 were already very good).

X-Wings aren't white though. The original trilogy ones weren't and from all I've seen the TFA ones aren't either - they are very much light gray. In fact, I'm really happy that this one isn't white - all X-Wings released since the very first one were and I always thought it looked wrong. As someone who is also not too keen on the orange/black look of Poe's X-Wing, this one looks absolutely perfect - good value too with Lor, the flame trooper and the little build.

That's the least exclusive exclusive set I've ever seen. The Ion Cannon, the shield generator and the two droids are new, but everything else is just a rehash of the same old Hoth stuff they release every other year - the Tauntaun, the Wampa, the Snowspeeder, the trench, the two turrets, the snowtrooper gun and bike... Nice for somebody who wants to start with Hoth I guess, but the amount of new stuff is pretty disappointing. And of course the Snowspeeder design is 100% unchanged as well.

So, this might be the chance for TLG to finally release a Snowspeeder that doesn't use the Y-Wing cockpit piece. The current Lego Snowspeeder design is 12 years old and stupidly inaccurate...

Even the two X-Wings are nearly one year apart, and once Rogue One sets come out, the TFA sets will be gone pretty quickly (before January 2017 I guess) - so the two X-Wings won't spend too much time together on shelves. Two A-Wings released at the same time - zero chance. Isn't there usually a big (around 100ish) summer exclusive set? I wouldn't expect the Seventh Sister and Ahsoka in anything cheaper.

Fingers crossed for a Rebel Blockade Runner - although I guess the chances aren't great with three big sets already.