Vectormatic

As Dr Jones said, you can remove a layer of plates from the socket to drop the droid a bit, you can also drop the socket bottom one plate be removing the round plate on the bottom and just having the boat stud keep it together on the bottom, this wont disturb the bottom profile, you might need a few plates for the attachment to the wing though, add another plate/tile on top of the wing and the droid will look 1 full brick lower. Another option i was considering is getting the droid body from C1-10p (chopper from rebels), it is singificantly shorter then the standard astromech body, the downside is that out of the socket it will be blindingly obvious that you pulled a trick

Other themes such as Technic, city etc.. doent seem to be too affected price wise though, SW has gotten a serious price hike after Disney got involved

I say bricklink from scratch, just take the inventory for 75038 and change all the yellow parts to black, get a few imperial emblems, and take it from there. The reason i bought this set over bricklinking a red version was that some part in 75038 are quite rare in dark red, but they arent in black, so chances are bricklinking from scratch will be cheaper then getting either set and modding it after the fact. You will need different minifigs anyway, and the stickers from either set wont work on a blacked out version

Thanks! The black interceptor is the same design as the yellow one, with some minor mods to the bottom and a color change, it is a work in progress though, this new interceptor has given me some new ideas about the wings, which i want to work into both of them, originally i thought i would mod the new red one entirely to the old design, but the old design has its flaws as well. EDIT: i also did a black version of the first V-wing, so Tarkin could fly along with Vader, but it looked pretty bad/boring, and im not a big fan of V-wings as it is, so that one ended up getting scrapped for parts again.

Thanks! After comparing this set to my modded 75038 some more, im liking Obi's interceptor quite a bit, the wings are definitely sleeker and thinner, and while they extend less far in front, they are actually longer, and cover more of the back of the craft (which i hadnt noticed about the old one until now) The droid socket will always be a problem with this craft, Lucas just made an impossible design, just check out this pic: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Vader's_green_Eta-2_Actis-class_interceptor?file=Darth%20Vader%27s%20green%20Eta-2.png

Wow, looks like i picked quite the controversial set for my first review I agree with all you guys saying it is too expensive, and there are too many stickers, and perhaps i did rate it a bit high, but at the end of the day it is still a solid build, and the color scheme does wonders for the craft imho. Ill be modifying it, like any AFOL should, but that goes for nearly every set i buy these days. EDIT: as for the droid socket, i really agree that R4 is up too high, but on the other hand, the smaller bulge on the underside is a plus. Looking at some pictures from various sources, ive gotten to the point where i think the Movie Eta-2 utilizes TARDIS technology, if you check out this pic: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Obi-Wan_Kenobi's_blue_Eta-2_Actis-class_interceptor?file=ObiWanBlueEta2-ROTS.png We should be seeing a bulge underneath the craft to fit the droid's legs, since various R2 pics teach us that its side legs are roughly 1.5x the dome diameter in length, which just doesnt fit in this pic. My guess is they originally designed the Eta-2 to have a built-in astromech like earlier Jedi starfighter revisions, but then needed to fit a full droid to get R2 involved in the rescue of palpatine in the opening sequence of Ep III, they then didnt want to ruin the sleek look of the craft, and decided to use a plot hole to hide the bottom half of the droid Now back to the bricks, i dont think there is any way to make both the top and bottom of the droid area look right without going for a simple stick-on droid head, which again, isnt movie accurate

Hello fellow star wars fans! This is my first review, pictures were done with a cell phone on my desk while building, so please excuse me for not delivering the AAA grade reviews of some others on the forum Now that we've done some expectation management, lets talk about why i got this set. Last year i got really interested in Jedi Interceptors, partially due to this set being announced. I didnt quite like the old 75038 set with Anakin included (i was never a big fan of him), so i elected to build my own blacked out version for Darth Vader (which appears in the Tarkin and Rise of Darth Vader Novels, at least the first is official Disney Canon). Then more details surfaced about this set, and i wasnt happy. There were quite a few changes in the wings, mostly for the worse in my opinion. Then when i saw the price had been raised €5 in my country compared to the previous version, i set my mind to making another Eta-2 from scratch, this time for Obi Wan. But after a few evenings of frustrating myself on bricklink i came to the conclusion that bricklinking a red version of 75038 would end up costing me quite a lot more then this set, and be quite difficult. Some of the main culprit were the 3x8 wedge plates in dark red, only 2 of these were available in my country, yet the 75135 set included them. So i figured, ill buy the set, that way ill get the official minifigs, stickered flags, and some usefull parts should i decide to still go the 75038 route. Anyway, enough yacking, here we go! Name: 75135 Obi Wan's Jedi Interceptor Theme: LEGO System / Licensed / Star Wars / Episode III Year: 2016 Pieces: 215 Minifigs: 2 minifigures Price: GBP 19.99, EURO 29.99 (EURO 34.99 in the netherlands) Resources: http://brickset.com/sets/75135-1/Obi-Wan-s-Jedi-Interceptor The instruction booklet, nothing special here really, but a nice shot of our favorite Jedi in action The ever dreaded sticker sheet, quite a lot for a 215 piece set, but 75% of the surface area will go onto the radiator panels The components are spread over three bags, notice how bags 1 and 3 are numbered like we are used to, but bag 2 has a different style print. I personally havent seen this style before Time to get stuck in! Obi Wan and the other contents of bag 1, Obi is looking a bit worried! Worried Obi Wan, and even more worried Obi Wan, we will see later on why Obi Wan is so worried. Overall it is a very nice minifig, dual sided head, leg printing etc. The headset print on both his head prints makes for a very convincing pilot look, but limits the use of this particular fig for setting up other scenes, wouldnt want to have Obi Wan distracted by his headset while slicing battle droids in half now would we? Random shot of the instructions, they are your typical 201x type lego instructions really, again, nothing special. Obi Wan with the result of bag 1, a cockpit and four spare pieces, among which a spare lightsaber. Notice the new engine design. I quite like the new technic design for attaching the engines and cockpit cover, but the engines themselves look like a step back compared to the previous interceptor On to bag 2! R4 surveying the parts for one of the wings, quite a lot of nice dark red in here! And we have a finished wing, along with a spare cheeseslope, small republic logo and lightsaber hilt/blaster barrel. The wings gave me mixed feelings, some parts are better, some parts are worse compared to 75038, but i was positively surprised compared to my rather negative expectations On to bag 3! Bag three has no more minifigs, just parts for a wing, and blaster bolts. This was an interesting point in the build, both wings are identical in setup (unlike 75038), but rather then a droid seat, this wing has a blank insert to fill the gap, the insert is secured to the bottom exactly the same way as the droid socket on the other side. Switching the droid to the other side, making a no-droid or even two-droid interceptor is quite trivial with this design, and i like it! Wing 2 finished, spare parts are a red cheeseslope (pictured), and another black lightsaber hilt (not pictured, BAD photographer!) Obi Wan with his finished interceptor, it is a fine looking ship, but he is still looking worried, why would that be? (also, check out all those tasty spare parts!) Uh oh... "Where do they expect me to put my lightsaber in this thing?" Now we find out what Obi Wan was worried about. Contrary to Anakin's model, the assembly droids forgot to put a lightsaber storage in Obi Wan's craft. The instruction manual even has you put Obi Wan in like this, lightsaber raised and at the ready to slice his cockpit window and vent all air into space! Also notice the lack of controls or dashboard, another step backwards in my opinion "Hmm, this will have to do, but those droids will get a piece of my mind when i get this fighter back to the factory" The lightsaber beam fits into an empty slot behind Obi Wan's seat, but he has to hold the hilt himself, leaving one less hand for the controls. What controls you ask? I dont know.. Notice the cool scratchmarks next to the cockpit denoting how many droid fighters Obi has bagged in this little puppy, looks like he is quite the ace, despite hating flying. Cockpit closed, Obi ready to go! Conclusion: Overal im positively surprised by this set, the build is nice and interesting, and quite different from its predecessor. These differences result in some improvements (the wings feel thinner and sleeker, the droid socket and blank on the other side arent as big), but also quite a number of regressions. The stickered grey wedges on the inside edge of the wings, the inward angle of the leading wing edge, the bulges next to the cockpit, the depth of the droid socket and the engine design all feel like a step back compared to Anakin's Interceptor. The bottom of the cockpit feel slightly sleeker then the old version, but the front view now has a rather ugly studded technic 1x4 brick rather then a boat hull piece. I will certainly be taking a close look at this design to perfect my own Eta-2 design, but this set itself will also undergo quite some modification before im happy with it. To the less critical star wars fan, this is an excellent set, the Dark Red is nice and vibrant, the stickers on the wings and radiator panels add a good bit of details, which would have been impossible without stickers (on the radiators anyway), so while im not a fan of stickers, they do add a lot in this set. It also brings us our favorite Jedi, Obi Wan, and his trusty Sidekick R4-P17, in what is arguably the sexiest Eta-2 in the Jedi fleet. Verdict Time! Playability: 9/10, extremely swooshable, radiator panels open, and the missile launcher are cool features, one point deduction for the missing lightsaber storage Design: 7/10, It looks good, but is a regression in many ways on the old Interceptor, the symmetric wings are a cool part of the build though. I also dislike the reliance on stickers for the grey bits on the wingtips, it seems lazy compared to the old brick-built design Price: 6/10 Too high, €35 for 215 parts is crazy, especially considering the old version was €30 (which is passable for a set this size) Overall: 7.6/10 A cool swooshable interceptor, left down by its price and the comparison to its older brother, but a better choice then bricklinking a red Eta-2 (right now), and a good base for mods Bonus picture of Obi Wan and Vader flying side by side! Any tips and criticism for future reviews are welcome, and if a mod could add a poll, i'd be very grateful!

Agreed on the hoping well see it this year As mostly a racing/car interested technic fan, otherwise the €30 go kart will be the biggest set this year to catch my interest..

Didnt see the movie yet, so i dont know if the FO survives TFA, but i expect it to happen eventually, the trade federation MTT was only in Ep I and we had like 3 of those brown monstrosities.

That is a cool little car, the wheels look a tad big, but overall very very good, and im a sucker for octan liveries (my ongoing 42039 project also added in a lot of red for a proper Octan livery)

Very nice! I still think the cockpit area is a bit too bulbous compared to the real thing, but my memory might be off I agree with Hold0511, ill be making my second Eta-2 tonight, and after that i might build a couple of Delta-7s

Love it! Id gladly buy a 41999 if i ever had the chance for a reasonable price, and this matches that model, but with much better bodywork! Is it stable in the corners though? Id expect it to tumble over rather easily with the weight of the battery up so high

Good test! I might be seeing things, but i feel like after the first few depresses on the glass-stand, the suspension is sitting ever so slightly lower then it would by the weight of the car itself, maybe just one or two degrees, your thoughts? Anyway, i need to check out this technique myself, even if a few axles end up getting twisted, its not like those are rare or expensive, so as long as it leads to a durable design, its all good.

Thanks for the clip Sariel! The model though... i like the idea of a top fuel dragster more then the A-model funny car, but the execution has some distinct B-model-ness about it, and the parts left over....

Cool video! these studs will indeed make a big difference for tank builder! I wonder what kind of effect putting two studs on each track link would have, but given that these studs only appear in the fortrex right now, prices will probably be a little bit too crazy to do something like that for any reasonably sized track Here's to hoping lego put these in enough sets that BL prices end up being reasonable for these things.

Going by memory there are some changes in the LDD shots from the 75038 build besides color though, its not a straight re-color. But yeah, part unavailability make it a pointless design (at least for now) Thanks! my Vader Eta-2 is based heavily on 75038 (recolor, removed the missile shooters and filled in the bulb on the bottom on the non-droid socket side), and i was interest in the 135 cockpit, i just orderd one (and looked at pictures, and from my point of view the 135 cockpit is simpler, partially in a bad way. The 038 at least had some colored padding etc.. giving it a real finished interior feel, rather then a minifig sitting between a few bricks, so i suspect ill be changing the cockpit on the 135 as well. I love that moc, but im not a huge fan of SNOT wings, as the edges end up looking rather blunt, so its not a path i want to go down myself I will definitely be fine tuning my designs though, the hard part will be keeping my Eta-2s in sync (cant have differently built versions of the same craft) along with parts

I just ordered a 75135 Obi wan Jedi Interceptor I really wanted an Obi interceptor, i missed out on the yellow Ani one on purpose, and built a black Vader Interceptor based on that design instead. I was initially disappointed with the new Obi design, and the price hike as well, but ive been trying to work out a way to bricklink a red colorshifted 75038 instead, and it would be just as expensive, if not more, then buying the 75135 and modifying it to suit my taste, and this way i get the right minifigs and stickers as well So tonight ill have to finish my F40 build, because tomorrow its Jedi Interceptor time!

So, the cockpit design on 75135 is better then in 75038? DAMN, now i pretty much will have to buy a 75135 anyway (and mod the wings to the old 38 design), and mod my custom darth vader eta-2 with the new cockpit design... Nice design by the way! im not a big fan of purple, but the Eta-2 is my favorite small fighter, and i love seeing improved lego versions! Ill agree with selling this is a bit questionable, i like the design, but it isnt far enough removed from any of the official designs to seriously warrant a purchase Stuff like those insane F1 cars, or the small UCS style SSD and such are a different thing entirely

The Ronin Mech has me stoked, considering that ninjago isnt plagued by licensing cost, a $40 mech should be friggin huge

One explanation ive read for this is that the factions in Rebels and ANH are different groups, which join forces somewhere before ROTJ, the ROTJ fleet is substantially bigger etc...

I stand corrected, forgot about that one And yeah, i dont see the spider droid selling well either, perhaps a few kids who think it looks cool and dont care about piece/$ or collectability yet, or a few seperatist army builders (considering its the only CIS set right now i think)

I had the old AT-AP, and it was by far the favorite part of my Clone army (before i sold it all, more of an OT guy these days, building two armies is too expensive :P) The new models looks quite a bit better then the old one as well, id buy it in a heartbeat if i were still into clone wars stuff.

We got a LOT of cheap sets in the H1 wave though, 6 MFs, 4 BPs, 4 €35 sets (carbon freezing chamber, hoth, obi's interceptor and droid escape) and the €45 spider droid IIRC Sabine has been seen flying an A-wing in a recent Rebels EP, so its not entirely out of the blue. That said, we've already had two sets with Sabine in it, and Hera is in the Ghost MF, so Ahsoka would make most sense if they want to entice minifig collectors a bit more.

Dutch S@H, the set is so ridiculous most shops dont even carry it, brickwatch (dutch lego pricewatch site) only has S@H selling it: http://www.brickwatch.net/nl/set/75096/Sith-Infiltrator.html Honestly, im fine with the €/piece ratio for every single theme, EXCEPT star wars, technic, city, speed champions etc.. all stay close enough to 0.10/piece for me to have no qualms about buying the sets i like, but then SW comes along... and pretty much all sets here are scarily close to 0.15/piece at list price, and the €5 price hike for the €30 sets only makes it worse, as firefox mentions, the obi interceptor is €35, up from €30 for anakins, and the model is objectively worse in nearly every aspect (the only way it is better is by being red and having obi wan rather then anakin, the construction, part count, likeness to the movie model etc.. are all worse, and it has more stickers as well) SW prices have gotten to the point where the only sets i buy at list price are BPs and MFs, anything larger then that needs a 20% discount at least for me to bother, luckily that isnt too hard to find usually, if you're patient Yup, the Obi interceptor has me pissed off as well, as i said above, worse model, less pieces, more stickers, less movie-like, only redeemed by not having anakin in it, yet a €5 price hike. I built a custom black darth vader interceptor last year based on the instructions for the yellow one, and i really want an obi version (either red or blue would be fine), but because lego screwed over the new model, im looking at €40-45 beginning with either the yellow or red model and bricklinking mods. If they'd just done a red version of the previous model without making it worse, i wouldve swallowed my objections and paid the extra €5, but this... yuck

Hardly, especially by SW standards. The 75096 sith infiltrator is $90 (or a staggering €110) for 662 bricks nor 75101 at $70 (or €75) for 517 bricks are far worse, at roughly $1.10 per brick the transport is arguably one of the most reasonable SW sets Id kill for even €1.10 per brick SW sets over here, the new Obi intercept is €35 in my country for 215 bricks, over my dead boddy that im paying that for that set.