Renown

He appears once or twice in Echo Base prior to the evacuation. He was General Rieekan's second-in-command if memory serves.

Have now seen an official image of this character - my suspicions have been disproven. It looks like he actually wears a bit of each piece of uniform at the same time. Still have absolutely no recollection of him in the film. The theory that unknown torso belongs to the Conveyex gunner now has more credence in my mind.

Zal Dinnes' helmet is also on the way then, I take it?

Yeah, Blue Squadron, at the time of the Battle of Scarif, exceeded the general numbers in a squad and cobbled together whatever could be sourced. This included a number of Y-Wings, one of which Ritta flew. We didn't necessarily see any blue-marked Y-Wings during the Battle of Scarif in Rogue One, but then again we didn't see any of Jabba's henchmen escaping from the sail barge in its final moment before it exploded, but we know that happened in the canon regardless.

I was of the understanding that Ritta was a Y-Wing pilot.

Some excellent ideas there. Particularly like the Mimban battle pack, AT-DT, creature pit escape and TIE Brute with the first minifigures option.

In Legends, Gold Four was Lieutenant Lepira who flew with the astromech R5-F7 (a minifigure of which exists). Lepira used a generic red firebirds helmet. If you want to complete Gold Squadron, I think it's fair to use Lepira as he did appear in A New Hope in the briefing scene and has been identified by photograph. He has not yet been made officially canon, although his story in Legends in no way interferes with the timeline of the new canon, so I see no reason as to why he couldn't be considered Gold Four. The minifigure would be relatively simple to put together. Edit: just done some research - Lepira's only real backstory is that he learnt to fly in the Anoat system. Rather ironic is that the Anoat system is not only identified as being canonical, it's still identified as the star system in The Empire Strikes Back in which the Falcon is ejected in the Avenger's rubbish disposal and the Slave I slowly begins to give chase to it!

An interesting observation, one I didn't see myself. With this in mind, I don't think a generic Snowspeeder update would be out of the question within the next few waves, with, as Rob states, an updated canopy piece to accommodate the new helmets.

Something interesting regarding the dirty Imperial torso and its apparent lack of a rank insignia as per Beckett's Mimban torso. This is pure speculation. I suspect it may be an officer overcoat being worn fully wrapped around the body. Wookieepedia refers to a character named 'Korso' who assisted Beckett and his gang on Mimban and wore a number of disguises including swamp trooper armour, fleet trooper and an imperial officer greatcoat. I genuinely cannot remember the character being in the film, yet Wookieepedia seems to say that 'Korso' did appear in the film portrayed by John Tui. Please see here: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Korso Now, while that could just be entirely irrelevant and a case of me putting two and two together and getting twenty three, is it possible that this is another example of LEGO not having enough information and creating, for want of a better word, a relatively insignificant character rather than a more 'massable' one? The torso design doesn't seem to fit in anywhere, despite it literally having no other potential context than that of the muddy, swampy environment of Mimban.

To be quite honest, I think I'd be happy with any set that gave us a mudtrooper with goggles and breathing apparatus/mask moulded (or maybe dual-moulding would be required?) into the helmet. An AT-DT, however plausible it is, would undoubtedly sell well if it was complete (!) and had a good minifigure assortment. Thoroughly enjoyed the WW1 trench warfare atmosphere created in the scenes on Mimban.

Just two releases each year - oftentimes there are as many as four or five UCS sets available for purchase at any given moment. Right now for example there is the Faclon, the Death Star, Slave I, Snowspeeder, and Y-Wing.

I'm conscious of the fact that 2019 will be the 20th anniversary of LEGO Star Wars and fully anticipate a bit of 'fan service' so to speak to mark the occasion. For the two UCS sets, I am sincerely hoping that a remake of the Star Destroyer from the early 2000s will be one of them. It could either be an all-out detailed set that costs several hundred, or perhaps they could keep it at the ~200 mark and have it just be an upgrade of the system scale Star Destroyer from 2014. I suppose both options are viable, but I'd much prefer a more expensive but more detailed set. Regardless, an interior of some sort would be great, even if it would just be a bridge area somewhere in the main body of the ship. As for the other set, it would be nice to see a UCS AT-AT at long last, given how this iconic vehicle, despite its huge popularity, cultural significance and having been released several times in system scale, has never been given an official UCS rendition. As for the anniversary sets, considering we got a handful of them in 2009 for the 10th anniversary, I am not sure what to expect from LEGO. Would three UCS sets released in a year be plausible? I'd certainly be on board for that idea. A UCS Yavin 4 Rebel Base is long overdue and we know from the past that such an idea has been in the works before but unfortunately not made it to release. A UCS Jabba's Sail Barge would be nice given the sail barge is something of a 'holy grail' set for many collectors, although it may conflict with the Hasbro Sail Barge that is on its way. With regards to system scale anniversary sets, I'd like to see a TIE Interceptor or TIE Bomber, perhaps as an exclusive or limited edition run, given how both seem to be so heavily craved by fans. I guess it is anyone's guess what we will get, but there are my ideals.

Is it likely that we will ever get a Slave Leia minifigure again in the future? The question has only just occurred to me, having dwelled on the controversy surrounding the Jabba's Palace set from a few years ago, and how much feminism has risen in the years since 75020 was released. I think the controversial Jabba's Palace set essentially rules out the chances of a re-release to the same sort of accuracy, maybe even at all, but I'm not so sure about a Leia figure in the same context. Thoughts?

Quite the opposite actually, but your comment is completely irrelevant nonetheless.

Very minor spoiler for Solo below, but relevant.

I have seen Solo this evening and enjoyed the film. I would like to see the following at some point in the future. Some spoilers below.

Superb work, really well done.

Picked up a second-hand Battle on Scarif from a friend to add to my existing one, and I've now combined them to create a little diorama. The same guy has also offered me a second-hand Imperial Hovertank with minifigures and an additional pair of Shoretroopers for a very fair price. Was too good to turn down.

Supposedly. I agree that the alteration of his character design will likely have influenced the lack of a minifigure. For the foreseeable future at least.

Disappointed to learn that we will not be getting one of the proper Mudtroopers in the summer wave of Solo sets, given what a great trooper design they are. Sincerely hope at least one is featured in a winter wave set, preferably a budget set like the rumoured trench playset with Chewie in handcuffs while the Solo merchandise is still widely available and also such an affordable set would not make amassing a significant number of Mudtroopers such a difficulty.

The Conveyex sounds promising. Just hope that the Rangetrooper minifigures live up to the good quality of other figures in recent years.

Is it plausible that, given the new rebel pilot helmet moulds, the likes of Dutch Vander from 75181 will eventually adopt this helmet mould given the set is still in production? It just seems a bit strange to be producing two different helmet moulds simultaneously, and it is a significantly different context to the different Imperial Stormtrooper helmets for Rebels and the Original Trilogy.

I am intrigued as to how 75215, 75217 and 75219 will incorporate the known Solo characters that are yet to be released in minifigure form. The leaked images suggest that Enfys Nest and Warwick Davis' character will be in 75215, and the recently surfaced image of 75219 seems to show Rio Durant is in with the Imperial Hauler. There is also the leaked Beckett figure which could theoretically feature in any of the three. At the moment we are yet to receive confirmation as to which sets the following characters will appear in, or if they will be featured in any of the three at all: Val, L3-37, Dryden Vos, and some Rangetroopers and Mudtroopers. It would seem logical to assume that the Rangetroopers will be featured in the Conveyex Heist set, but I struggle to see where Val and L3-37 will come into this wave. From what the trailers suggest, Dryden Vos in particular would not seem to fit into any of the known Solo sets coming. I'm also interested by that rumour of a small Mimban playset in which Chewbacca featured with handcuffs with an Imperial Officer and a Mudtrooper. One of the recent images to surface of 75220 depicts the RA-7 protocol droid with a muddy torso that was arguably misplaced on that figure - if 75215, 75217 and 75219 are assumed to focus on the scene(s) that take place on Vandor-1 - a snowy planet, while Mimban is swampy - during the Conveyex Heist, does this add weight to the possibility that this playset is on its way as well?

Regarding the new helmet designs for rebel pilots. I do like the idea, no matter how much of an inconvenience it is to dedicated pilot collectors like myself, and hope that Lego pursue it, more for the sake of continuity and development than anything else. I will miss the old helmet mould given they were in production for as long as Star Wars has been a licensed line by Lego, but progress had to come eventually. A lot of the negative comments I have seen regarding this new thing relate to the fact that people feel the need to start again from scratch. I feel that a lot of folk are forgetting that Lego have two waves ahead of this one (Winter 2018/2019 and Spring 2019) whereby they are more or less free to create sets without the merchandise race for a new Star Wars film, something we haven't seen in a few years now. I fully anticipate a number of helmet designs will be released on this new mould in these two waves so as to further bring them to the surface and make them more common. We may not be fortunate enough to get some of the more unique designs we have had in the past on the long-standing helmet mould, but give it a while and the majority of people will have moved forward. Overall, I think the new rebel pilot helmets are a good move.

Given the fact that it would appear Lego are now pursuing a new helmet mould for rebel pilots, I am hopeful that they will swiftly begin to update pilots. Individual faces now seem more plausible as well. Dak Ralter would be a good place to start given his helmet is worn by numerous pilots on both Yavin 4 and Hoth, and a new Wedges with some individualisation would be great.