Magmafrost

The price of a 350 piece a-wing is concerning. Based on other star wars sets in that piece range, Australia will probably pay $60 to $70 for it, which for a ship that size is just unacceptable. Not a fan of the extra land vehicle crap they continue to insist on including to drive up the piece count either. Its a nice a-wing set, but there's no way I can justify buying it unless we see prices drop dramatically this year, even $50 would be a stretch for it. Everything about the skiff is awful, unless you're in to minifigs. Actually looking at a comparison of the vehicle from the film to the sets, all the lego skiffs are awful, but this one, despite being the most accurate, seems to look the worst. Maybe the pictures are just unflattering. And what's up with that sarlac? Great pieces for the beak, and its great to see more than two tentacles, but the base itself is just... why?

There's also the issue that it has stickers on it, which I didn't even consider before. And since they dont put stickers over multiple pieces any more, it has to be a SNOT design. And, as I pointed out earlier, trying to use the small inverted arches like that would result in a pretty delicate end product.

I disagree, there's a pretty piss poor selection of concave slope pieces, and all of them would lead to either the top fin being two studs wide, which would look ridiculous, or the thing falling apart if you breathe on it too hard, which obviously isnt super suitable for a children's toy (see TIE Crawler) I would've preferred the introduction of small concave bowed plates, similar to the convex ones we have (I really, desperately need those to exist), but short of introducing those, they really couldn't do any better.

It also isn't about to retire in the US, and was stocked in normal retail stores in the US. We were talking about its situation in Australia Hey, at least you get to see them on shelves. At least there's the possibility of a discount. It could be worse. Lego outright refused to send stocks of them to retailers in Australia (source: http://jaysbrickblog.com/2016/08/22/australian-lego-retailer-exclusive-sets-2nd-half-of-2016/), its only available on the online store, where it was never discounted, was a monstrous $160, and is already retiring soon. Its literally cheaper to buy the set from the US on ebay.

Well, the TIE Advanced/A-wing being so horrifically overpriced and never once discounted probably didn't help. As for this idea that retailers are refusing to stock rebels sets, is there any official statement that suggests that being the case? Only three Rebels sets were outright not stocked in retailers (Azure angel, TIE/A-wing and Rex's AT-TE), and as far as I can find it was Lego that chose not to ship them here. I also doubt any manager of any store would be able to tell the difference between different subthemes of lego star wars.

Really not sold on that Thrawn face, its horrible. I mean, we've been waiting for... how long? since the start of lego star wars in 1999 at least, for a Thrawn minifig, and this is what we get? Come on TLG, you can do better than that. You could've done better than that in 1999... The Phantom itself actually looks really cool though, which I didn't expect, so I guess I'll buy it anyway. Yoda's Starfighter also looks a lot better than I expected, the prelims really badly didn't do that thing justice. Huge props to the designer on that one, that's a seriously hard design to do well.

I agree the cockpit's better, its everything behind the cockpit that I have a problem with. I prefer how the greebling on 7658 looks, although the glaring lack of brown is an obvious problem. I couldn't care less about the minifigs in either of the two, and while some people obviously do, its the build I dont like anyway, so they're irrelevant. But its the nacelles that really get to me. They're just so, so much worse. I get why Lego had to change the macaroni brick mold, but it really hurt y-wings. And that doesn't even come close to being an excuse for using stickers instead of brick-built greebling. Plus, the way 7658 was able to build the nacelles made for a really unique and interesting building experience

The friggin y-wing is worse than 7658. Come on Lego, that's two in a row! I was so excited for this thing, but its just so... underwhelming. I appreciate how deep-seated the astromech is, since they tend to be far too high, but that's really the only thing I can praise it on. They used stickers for the nacelles again, which just doesnt look as nice as greebled ones IMO. This is what the get for changing the macaroni brick mold... And of course, its just so small. I get that they cant really make a minifig scale y-wing, since that'd be a UCS sized set, but they dont have to go out of their way to get as far from that point as possible. On the up side, at least I'm only spending $40 this wave

I think you've got to consider that the fact that this happens every year without fail has got to mean that Lego is fully aware that it will happen. They cant possibly think that the images wont leak, they're fully aware that as soon as those pictures exist, they'll leak. So either they're just adamantly not acknowledging leaking, they're thicker than humanly possible, or they take leaking into account. Lego may not have released them in an official manner, but they knew perfectly well they'd get released.

George said a lot of thing, and many of those things contradict many other things

It was a major plot device in Tarkin that Vader's meditation chamber is just moved into whatever ship he's on. Of course, even the most recent lego ISD predates that book.

They have interesting pieces alright, but they rarely use them in interesting ways. K-2SO is the closest thing to an interesting build to come out of the system (and only because its mostly technic), but, as per usual, AFOLs have done some very cool things with them.

Anyone got any idea what Lego modeled that new helmet on? Or is it likely to be a design new to Rogue One?

Sadly it makes more sense because an uninformed customer is a profitable one. Its sad to think of TLG in that light, but that's just the way of the word. A consumer wont mind getting ripped off if they dont have enough information to conclude that they're being ripped off.

No, its a legal thing. They're legally required to put it there in the US and Canada, and they're not required to anywhere else. Although why they dont just put the piece count on it everywhere so they only have to print one design is beyond me.

The US requires all products containing multiple parts to list how many parts it contains, apparently

You can see the difference on the box art. So on the off chance the seller photographed the specific unit they're selling, it doesnt have to be a mystery. Also its not just Japan that doesn't print the piece count, printing the piece count is exclusive to NA

TRU Australia just started offering price matching, so I picked up the U-wing for Big W's current sale price of $88 (from $120). Same price they currently have the TIE striker for, lol (which I also picked up) Pretty good considering it only came out a month ago. Still not sure if I like it though. Also picked up K-2SO, the only constraction figure so far that's not just a simple skeleton with shells on it.

How is Yoda's Hut still up there? Why has that not been removed from the list!? Why is writing "false rumour" underneath it a better solution!?

Unless they just reissue red 5. TBH at this point I wouldn't put it past them.

Canada, US, same thing :p

Its such a shame that those giant white technic axles are so hard to get. I'd love to try and recreate this, but there are barely 8 of those axles on bricklink that'll ship to Australia.

In my experience, all retailer exclusives will be exclusive to that retailer in all countries where that retailer exists. Since TRU exists pretty much everywhere, TRU exclusives are TRU exclusives pretty much everywhere. Walmart exclusives are only walmart exclusives in the US, since walmart only exists in the US, but they might be exclusive to other stores in other countries, depending on what other stores are available. In general (with the exception of TRU), what's exclusive to where varies from country to country.

March releases aren't standard, that was a one time thing due to production problems. The March sets this year were supposed to release in January, and indeed did everywhere except the US and Australia (although Australia's just because lego arbitrarily delays all sets to us by up to two months, they do that on purpose). The September wave is a new thing, introduced last year, due to a new star war film releasing every november/december. It'll probably stop after the third anthology film, provided Disney stops there. The second UCS next year will probably come out at the end of september The Y-wing's price has been confirmed as $60 in the US. The missing sets are probably retailer exclusives, which never leak as early (at all?) They'll be released along side the rest int he January wave.

Not to mention it takes away all hope of ever seeing those sets for an even vaguely reasonable price. The TIE advanced and A-wing is literally cheaper to import from the US on ebay...