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No, the CTT was in other merchandise at the time, including the very popular Dorling Kindersley Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections book for Episode III. Lego was not the only company making merchandise of the CTT in 2005.

Not to mention that the CTT was in the Episode III cross sections book, and was reprinted in two editions of Complete Vehicles The only complaints about the Justifier's structural integrity were that the top wing flaps weren't secured on both ends, but the technic structure of the whole thing was sturdy.

I passed on pre-ordering the Siege Encampment in February because I didn't have the Lion Knights' Castle and the Medieval Town Square, but when I learned that the LKC and MTS were retiring this year I got an intense case of FOMO and bought them during the June double-points period for effective 10% discounts of $40 on the LKC and $23 on the MTS. Of course, that meant I had to have the Siege Encampment too. I took some time to copy the parts list from the PDF instructions into a Bricklink parts list and get price estimates for parting it together from Bricklink or Pick-a-Brick. Either way would cost $500-$700 if I didn't start with as many parts as I could pull from my bins, and I don't have an extensive collection of loose parts to begin with. So I told my wife about the Siege Encampment and said it was "the one that got away." I wasn't willing to pay the high resale prices on eBay and Bricklink, even though either would still be a more economical option than parting it together from Bricklink or Pick-a-Brick. But this evening I saw a copy listed on Bricklink for $280+$20 shipping, which is less than I've seen for any sold copy on eBay. It's still terribly horribly overpriced by parts count and weight compared to other large sets I own, but I suppose a 30% markup ($300 plus tax instead of $230 plus tax at pre-order) isn't too bad for a set like this, and the $70 markup is nearly covered by the $63 discounts on the LKC and MTS, if I pretend I bought those at full price earning no VIP points. (Of course, at the usual single VIP points it would have been equivalent to a $31 discount on those, which doesn't nearly cover the $70 markup ... I better not think too much about this, that way lies madness). Yay, it's not the "one that got away" after all; I don't have to add this to a growing list of white whales I'll never catch (principal among them the 10210 Imperial Flagship). ... I've been whaling a lot in the past week or two, actually. I was lucky enough to snag a used copy of the 76139 1989 Batmobile for RRP+tax, and a used copy of the 76052 Classic TV Series Batcave for under RRP. I didn't expect to ever find those for a reasonable price. Edit - looks like I just made Duke rank. Cool cool cool.

@Mandalorianknight, I laid it out in detail in this post from Monday, but I hadn't quite settled on the concept of a Moon bus yet. I think that with red tiles swapped for blue and a few small changes in cosmetic details, the new CTT could be a good neo-Classic Space Moon bus that would fit in well with the look of the 10497 Galaxy Explorer. There were several medium-sized Classic Space sets that were mostly gray, so it wouldn't be out of place among them. Picture this rolling across a gray Moonscape with lots of craters, delivering scientists and equipment from a spaceship at a landing pad to an excavation with a Kubrick/Clarke-style Monolith! Not that I'll ever build such a big scene, but that's what it suggests to me.

I still think it will make a nice moon bus for my army of white Classic Space astronauts, if I can get it without figures for maybe $60-$70. But if the build and value are this bad for the intended purpose, it's likely to warm shelves so hard I'll be lucky to find any used copies at any price. moon bus - Moon bus - MOON BUS!!!

I was looking at inflation-adjusted prices the other day, and the 6929 Starfleet Voyager and 924 Space Cruiser both have higher inflation-adjusted RRPs than the much-maligned Ahsoka's Jedi Interceptor, for a much lower weight of plastic and a lower minifig count. The price for Ahsoka's Jedi Interceptor is still awfully high, but I think probably Lego reached a low for inflation-adjusted price per part and price per gram in the mid-2010s and now prices are rising back to previous norms.

Mega has a pretty good GI Joe Skystriker. I bought it without the Mega figs, but it works great with Lego figs.

I guess the reason why the bottom of the hot rod snowspeeder is so deep and stubby at the front is to be a fairing for the speeder bike that's carried under the back. Without that payload, the next ESB snowspeeder should be more svelte, I hope.

I'm going to say something crazy here, but hear me out - In the past I've toyed with the idea of how the Clone Turbo Tank would fit in a Lego Space setting as a great big wheeled rover with fun suspension/steering, but 75413 is the first version of it that would really work in that setting. Previous versions of the CTT have used trans-brown tiles over light bluish gray plates to represent the windows at the front and the back, but this one uses new trans-dark blue plates and trans-blue tiles to have windows that actually let light through. It's got Space window colors like @danth likes so much. The brick-built wheels of the CTT remind me of the hubs of last year's Friends rover, and the whole body of the CTT is lower, smaller, and sleeker than previous versions. The gun turret on the top deck of the midsection has been shrunk down so much it looks like a satellite dish for communications, the blasters under the rear cockpit now look more like exhaust pipes than weapons, the big turret on the side of the midsection now looks like more comms or radiofrequency sensor gear, the mast-mounted observation post is now so clearly and irredeemably vulnerable that it must be another sensor or antenna or, if an observation post, one that was never intended for any combat situations. The main hold of the CTT, which has always been sparsely and skeletally furnished in previous versions, not great for carrying cargo and pretty awful for carrying troops, is now comfortably furnished to hold five seated troopers and could easily hold six or seven. The sand blue, trans-dark blue, and tiled surfaces really shift the aesthetic away from the heavily-studded armored Republic gray look, more towards a sleeker Space gray look. So, yeah - the 75413 Republic Juggernaut is a pretty bad Clone Turbo Tank, but it's a pretty good large Space rover. If I can get it half price without minifigs, I'll load it up with a bunch of white Classics and with a CS'24 crew and see which looks better. I'm not warming up to the Force Burner Snowspeeder yet, but I'll probably grab the windscreen on PaB or Bricklink and see if inspiration strikes for something Blacktron.

The Force Burner Snowspeeder looks awful. Well, I appreciate the new windscreen, and the nose angles look marginally better than on the previous snowspeeder, but what we can see of the lower body is far too deep, and the rest of the wings haven't been updated. If this is what the next TESB snowspeeder will look like, I'll have to pass on that one too. The Jango Fett Slave I looks ok. I'm glad it has the seismic mine bomb dropping feature from the original. Is it just me or does the nose/upper body look slightly longer than on the 2021 Boba version? Regardless, this is a set to wait for at least a 20% discount on. The Separatist MTT has good brick-built coloring, but the shape has been flattened out on the sides, making the vehicle even more of a brick than it was before. I like the back panel of the box art where the droids are all just having a picnic or something. I'm probably the only one to say this, but I actually don't mind the new Clone Turbo Tank now that we can see the whole thing. It's smaller than the last one, but the steering/suspension looks like it has a lot of play, which is good for rolling across all sorts of tabletop obstacles, and the midsection looks like it holds as many troops as the most recent AT-TE and AT-AT just as comfortably. It's too bad it doesn't have room for an AT-RT, but the AT-TE didn't have room for one either. At the right price, this could be a real fun playset. Of course, it's at the wrong price. I hope I can get it half-price without figs and then backfill it with the cheapest clones I can find - probably some 501st.

Interesting. A 37 cm height puts it at a scale of 1:24, which is at the very upper end of minifig scale. Speed Champions sets are about 1:25, so the UCS AT-ST is perfectly scaled to step on your Speed Champions Formula 1 grid and make havoc. It's still quite a bit larger than the preferred 1:35 scale for minifig scale military aircraft builders, my preferred 1:38 for 1 stud = 1 foot, the 1:44 used by Sluban for their minifig scale military aircraft, or the 1:48 which is the very lowest end I've seen treated as minifig scale in AFOL builds.

The Ideas River Steamboat, of course.

It won't look like the Endurance, because the Endurance is a very different ship with a very different hull and rig. It will be black like the Endurance, because both ships have black hulls. Incidentally, it's Jabba's sail barge which is designed to have styling cues reminiscent of an old sailing galleon like the Black Pearl, not the other way around.

The rumor is 60 cm, which is about 24 inches.

Did you see the Bluebrixx ready room painting art set? I didn't end up getting that one, but the juxtaposition of those two builds reminds me of it.

I'm looking forward to the Black Pearl, but only so I can rebuild it in Royal Navy colors in Studio and get the ship that way.

I really doubt it's minifig playscale, and of course it's not minifig truescale. The 60 cm length sounds reasonable for the 3600 piece size.

A few years ago I built a Psiaki X-wing. The white parts that form the sides of the nose were rare to begin with, having come in only one or two Exo-Force sets, and almost all of the supply had already been used by other people for their Psiaki X-wings. I had to pay over $6 each for two of them. This summer I finished restoring an old Black Seas Barracuda and an old Cross Bone Clipper that I got the hulls for about six years ago. The old dark gray firing cannons for the two ships were about $5 each, the 40L string with studs for the Cross Bone Clipper was $7, and the replica sail for the Cross Bone Clipper (not an original sail) was $20 including shipping. One yellow part for the stern of the Black Seas Barracuda was $4 plus about $7 in shipping, so I added a $5 polybag to the order to keep myself from feeling like I was paying $11 for a single part.

That's no saving grace - it's easy to think of ideas to get desirable Star Wars characters and army builders in $10-$15 sets without resorting to mechs.

True!

Well, I mean, sure, yeah, we all expect a new Razor Crest set to tie in with the Mando movie. Lego would be stupid not to make one. But I see no reason to take your word for it happening when this is your first post on Eurobricks and you don't seem to be moving over from an established account on any other platform.

That's a fine little ship and a great way to use the old classic small hull parts. It's a real inspiration if I ever get around to buying some old small hulls myself. I particularly like the simple, yet intentional, furnishings in the aft cabin.

I've always said Lego is the best company in the world at competing with itself. So many interesting kits, can't get every one of them. But I do think it makes sense to release playscale and UCS versions of the same subject at the same time. It's not like they haven't done that many times before.

I didn't expect to have any interest in the One Piece sets, but the Going Merry will make a fine merchant ship for my Black Seas Barracuda to raid. I might even get it with a GWP instead of waiting a year or two for a 20% discount.

You mean the way Adventurers was an audition for Indiana Jones? In that case I'd prefer to keep the audition and pass on the license.