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Thanks for forwarding this on. By all accounts this is still a badly conceived set. The minifigs are great - new hood head-piece on Han there too - but it looks like the designers were building an Ice Planet playset rather than Star Wars. Still, there's enough parts here for MOCers to work with in creating their own version I'm sure. Don't you know? Taun Tauns go bananas for bananas! Sadly yes, that is a "play feature"... *sigh*... I remember the old Kenner playsey with collapsing arches/walkways. Now THAT was a play feature! You're not the only one who feels this way! EB should run a contest to design Echo Base using the same number of parts. I bet we'd see damn-sight better creations than this.

Your character can be made up of whichever parts you like but should also look like a character that could believably come from the Harry Potter universe, i.e. no clonetrooper torso, etc. Look throught eh character records - you'll see an example or two there.

My votes go to... 2 points - (5) Cryostasis by Darkblane. Love the display/diorama! The lineup is really nice too. 1 point - (14) Eurobricks Collectable Minifigures Series 1 by Oky Wan Kenobi. Great lineup - favourites for me are the Fly and the Hippy! Good luck everyone.

Hard decision but my votes go to... 2 points - (33) Mad Scientist Entry by Skafte. Superb, inventive diorama. 1 point - (21) Mad Scientist Entry by Darkblane. Very Lovecraftian - like this a lot! Best of luck everyone!

I'm willing to forgive the inaccuracies on this, it's still a really nice model. It's mega expensive though; LEGO should have included the full line up of bounty hunters and - bloody hell! - used printed elements all the way. That said, I'll be looking for ways/means to get this cheaper, otherwise it's unlikely to become part of my collection. I'd also love to see that comparison. After close examintaion I'm inclined to think yours would be slightly heavier. In fact, seeing as LEGO's version weighs just under 8 pounds (3.5kg), is it possible for you to weigh yours?

I know where you're coming from but this would seem to come down to budget - always a caveat for our beloved LEGO designers - and, as mentioned above, a degree of playability. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the model. Seeing it that bit more accurate would substantially hike the price even more and I shudder to think what this will cost alone! For anyone disatisfied with the accuracy, crack out your box of dark bley and get working... I'm sure you could mod this to perfection, cavegod. I'm very pleased about this. Makes him feel more unique. I'd put money on it being a print. For the serious investment this'll cost though, it would've been nice to see 4-LOM and Zuckuss. I reckon so. And let's face it 16+ doesn't mean to say it's not going to be played with. I'd have Vader warning "No disintegrations..." and this bad boy jumping to Hyperspace soon as it was built...

Superb work guys, very atmospheric and evocative. Water effect is very cleverly done and looks fantastic. Would love to see this in real life... not likely unfortunately!

I love my 'Falcon 4504 and hadn't planned on investing in this... but after reading the review it's got my nerd-gland twitching! Nice design that can be improved with tiny mods, great line-up of minifigs. I know! It's my birthday on July 24th... why doesn't everyone on Eurobricks chip in and buy me this?! Yes? Yes? No? Oh well, worth a try... Excellent review Future, thanks for sharing.

No font get's a point across like 'Impact'.

Looks like you can't have your cake and eat it! Surely it's still a surprise seeing what's revealed ahead of release? Reading upcoming set lists, feeling the building hype in the threads, seeing the first pictures and thinking "AWESOMES!" or 'Meh, disppointment...' or "Sweet they've included her!" it's all still news and all still unexpected, it's just you're receiving the information in a different way - reading it way before you see it on a shelves. For example, I was taken aback when I saw the new Hoth set - okay it's not available for a while but hell, it completely wasn't what I'd thought it would be on many levels... certainly suprised me! We love sneaky pics and talking about what's coming around the corner... and Eurobricks is the best platform for this. Not visiting the frontpage is the only sure-fire way of avoiding spoiler news. Otherwise, you'll just have to ride the waves, baby!

Great character, Masked Builder - don't be deterred by a couple of losses!

Ta for the review. A great evolution of this fighter, looks many times better than the original: overall shape, cockpit/canopy, etc. I personally like the new Geonosian; despite his longer, plain neck, his colour and head are far more accurate. He'll look even better with a pair of wings methinks! Would love a battlepack with these guys. Ki-Adi Mundi... the new molds look great, torso printing good, but bloody 'ell - his face. He looks like he's high on crack or something - with his wide eyed, thousand yard stare into infinity. The actual Clone Wars series' characters don't look that bad. They need to let another artist adapt that look to LEGO; Quinlan Vos is another dreadful example. Wonder what'd make a good replacement for dear ol' Ki-Adi? Overall it's not a bad set - ridiculously expensive compared to other themes as with all SW - I may see if I can get my hands on it for cheap. Thanks again for the review!

Thanks again for organising the event! Great fun, great to meet all of you that I did and unfortunate that I couldn't stay a couple of days longer. Hope you all enjoyed your special tour of Windsor. Damn, that Tesco was hard to find... Will definately look into coming to Billund next year!

Great wrok Holodoc! see you tomorrow.

Er... a little underwhelming? There's so much about this set that doesn't make sense to me... I had to list 'em! Cons Medical bay, armoury and commoand centre all in one section? "Quit gargling kid, we're trying to plan here...!" Starfighter service gantry randomly stuck on top of said medicarmourommand centre. Why's it up there? Does this detach? Move? Confusing... Tiny Ion Cannon off to left side... surely they could have used the parts from generic dish/antennae array to make this better? In fact that could've been used for anything other than what it is? Random cannons on top of docking bays? Those are docking bays, right? (Oh, they might be stables.) No V-150 Ion Cannon (Unless that's what that is on the left side, hah!) No proper shield generator. Features content from the deleted scene with the C-3PO, the sign and the Wampa... but there's no Wampa. But hey, it isn't all bad! I thought I'd list the pluses too: Pros R-3PO. Nice. Will sit well with K-3PO. As ZO6 mentioned, this will probably work well with 7666. I'll likely heavily MOD/rebuild mine, if I buy it. Partially new Leia: hair/face. Great selection of parts. Hmmm... not so many pluses I guess. LEGO are very capable of producing awesome playsets. The original Cloud City is great. Battle of Endor is great. The bridge from Home One was like a slice out of the movie - superb. I liked 7666 Echo Base, despite many peoples reservations - everything that was included felt like it was taken from the movie. This feels thrown together, like an old Exploriens base or something (no offense Exploriens fans but this is supposed to be Star Wars!). Almost as if a designer dropped the original, super awesome Hoth base they built and then without reference material bobbled it back into this thing. Ach, I don't hate it. I'm just disappointed. Maybe as we see more photos and features it'll redeem itself. Not holding my breath though.

One sleep for me and I'll see you all bright and early tomorrow! Looking forward to it!

Thanks for the review! Great little addition to the Kingdoms line: new minifigs, new parts and animal and inexpensive too. I'm a big fan of this wee set - will definitely pick one up!

Nice, concise review 'fader. The new ewoks are great and the scout trooper remains a great minifigure. But to me this set is poorly conceived in that what you're essentially paying for is an expensive tree! It's a missed opportunity as this next Endor set could have been so much better. For example: want to do create a structure for the Ewoks? Make it an Ewok hut, make it modular so consumers can buy multiples and create their own Ewok village and build the play features around that. Surely that's the way to go? I think this will be a great boost for Ewok collections... but will end up mostly spare parts otherwise. Thanks for sharing!

In that case Q-Bots will be a must for anyone wanting to hit the rides. It's £10 - £15 (off or on peak) extra on the day but well worth it. We can talk it over when we meet up though, get it sorted when we get into the park. Speaking about getting to the park, what's the plan for getting from Sunningdale Park to LEGOland? Is the plan to use local transport? I'm driving down for the day, I'm happy to use my car as a form of transport to he park - can fit 3 extra.

Are we all planning to get Q-Bots on Thursday? I'm not sure how busy the park will be being a school day but they do save a lot of time instead of queueing for the rides. What do you think?

Address your loose gun issue in a jiffy! For a mega quick mod use your spare technic bush as a gun holder, placing it between the studs like so... ...and popping the gun in by it's handle. There'll then be enough space for it to face forward or tot he side without interfereing with the pilot. Simple yet effective!

Outstanding work! Quick! You must show us more! Nice studio set-up by the way...

Hey, Don't think this has been posted... it's an official LEGO built version of the Cars 2 trailer by AT-AT Day Afternoon creator Patrick Boiven. Awesome stuff, take a look (click image)... Love that explosion!

Another great review Dunjohn, I'll echo your praise and say that this set is absolutely fantastic! I picked this up the other day and wasn't disappointed - great minifigs, great parts and a really enjoyable make this well worth the money... and it's cheap. A highlight of the set for me has got to be the Brainsucker, so inspired and well conceived... it just makes me smile when I pop it over the bewdildered civilians head. Utter genius. Just thinking about it now I'm definately going to pick up another of these! Thanks for the review!

Nice review Dunjohn. I really like this new theme and this set looks like a great addition to the lineup. The saucer is really cool, very classic design (I also like that nod to the old UFO set) and the light effect looks awesome! Like you say, the ADU presence is token, but it's nice to have a minifg from each faction. The farmer is great too, superb printing on his torso and legs. Now all the ADU need is the Jet-Copter to intercept and shoot this bird out of the skies! Reminds me so much of UFO: Enemy Unknown on my Amiga... happy days! Thanks for sharing this with us.