Bellicose

This was my most-anticipated kit from this wave, I'm guessing because I found the overall shape and colors to be pretty intriguing and much different from the usual Star Wars bley. After having assembled mine, it's alright, but there's a few choices made in design that leave me scratching my head... One is the cockpit area - specifically the canopy/overhead hatch. It uses the same hatch cover plate as the AAT and Separatist Shuttle, but unlike those two the opening hinge doesn't use any detents, and is a straight pivot with no resistance - so the door just flops around. Also there's two decks built into the cockpit area, but the lower deck doesn't seem to be tall enough to do anything with figures down there - unless you jam them in on their back/belly. Second are the engine assemblies - the engines pivot for landing, but the pivot point is well forward of the balance point so even with the engines pivoted forward (and the sliding block jammed and locked forward) they still sag down, exhaust-heavy. Also the pivot point has a small 1x3 technic piece, that I don't understand why was used - only one slot was used. Further forward there's two slots for technic pins, and there's a socket hole on the engine cowls that could have been used to connect to those technic plates - and having a second connection might have helped with the engine pivot sag. Too tired to do pictures to illustrate what I'm saying, I'll do it tmrw. Overall I'm happy, but there were some missed opportunities here.