Sabre-aN

Good point, there's certainly no denying that they'll be more costly than the single colour parts. Though then again we did get 4 dual-moulded stormtrooper helmets cheaply in 75262. I suppose if helmets in general are already complicated / expensive parts anyway, perhaps the upgrade to dual moulding isn't considered as much of an issue as it would be for arms. Pretty sure the cheeks are already light grey rather than dark grey, the colour value there more closely matches the light grey bits on the torso, and not the dark grey bits. So I took a little liberty and changed it to white instead, for the full 'traditional' look:

Yeah this is more or less my own opinion on the hips - plain white hips, whilst more accurate than simply plain black hips based on a view of the real thing from the front, just don't seem to translate as well because then it looks like it's missing that black contrast that you otherwise see one the real thing. Similar sort of issue with the blue arms. There is the little bit of black they've added to the legs to try and represent the undersuit, but this only works if both legs are at the same angle. I think that the Airborne Trooper doesn't look as bad for this reason - his buckle printing and kama break up the white a bit. I would also say though that the white hips also then make the troopers look a little worse from the back, as can be seen in the turnaround vids for these sets - more of the undersuit is visible on the real thing from that angle, yet with a white belt piece there's no black whatsoever on the trooper's lower half from the rear. I think the latest Scout Troopers also have this as an issue, they only look decent from the front because all the black on their legs and hips is printed & it's only on the front. Does anyone know if Lego have ever explained why they seem to avoid dual moulded arms / legs on Star Wars minifgs? Dual moulded arms would look great on the Ahsoka Trooper: I always guessed it was perhaps because the quality of said minifig parts didn't meet the same quality standards required for premium Star Wars figs, based on my limited experience with collectible minifigs. Shame that, as far as I know, Lego haven't made dual moulded blue upper/white lower arms like this yet, they've only done them with red or yellow lower parts, so we can't even make this mod this ourselves.

Arm printing for Vader is a nice surprise! I imagine he'll be in high demand on Bricklink. Doesn't make the new final duel worth buying to me personally but I'm more of a "semi-retired" army builder so I'm not exactly in the market for a big playset like that. I would like the fig though! Funny how the Royal Guards still have that same torso print they've had for decades, normally Lego would have fiddled with it plenty of times by now. I actually think the AAT looks a little worse now that there are high res pictures and we can see it in detail. The turnaround video on Lego.com of it also does it no favours, from the side the cannon really does look ridiculously long, and the rear looks awful - is it so hard to do something like on the 2009 one and have at least the appearance of a sloped rear hatch, even if it doesn't open, & then have some small side slopes at the back of the 'skirt' for stability, instead of the ugly flat protusion in the centre? As it is the rear of this new one reminds me of the original 2000 AAT. I do quite like the way they've done the 2 consoles for the driver though, it's simple but nice. The Airborne Trooper's kama does indeed seem to be dark gray rather than light gray like the previous one, nice to have a new variant for that - I think I'll have to Bricklink a few. The printed hips & legs are quite interesting, they've printed the buckle for the kama onto the hips and they've printed the straps that go from it to the kama onto the legs at the very top, you can just about see them. Weird how detailed they've made him, and yet they couldn't get the jet trooper's legs right or inclue the dot on the 'i' of the 501st chests pieces. Worth noting from the turnaround vids that the 501st and 332nd troopers don't have any blue on the back of their torsos, which matches the TCW 501st but not the movie 501st who had the back 'console' coloured in blue. Also now that we have official images of all the new clones I whipped up a quick comparison so I could see what they would look like with black hips and/or coloured arms like they used to have, might also be of use to someone else: I think I'm just not a fan of how plain some of them look as standard, especially the 332nd Ahsoka Trooper, without blue arms to represent the blue shoulder armour they have it just doesn't look right to me. I'm still miffed about the jet trooper's legs being standard 501st ones too, and the shaded in cheeks on the 501st and 332nd helmets are still a bit annoying. But otherwise I'm warming to the design - I was only planning on picking up one of the 501st sets for sentimental reasons but I think I might pick up 2 or 3 now, bricklink some 332nd, and then swap out the arms and hips to make a nice little mini-army, even if they're not quite what I would have ideally wanted.

The Kashyyyk Droids are actually AAT Drivers as seen in the Clone Wars, you can tell by the head print as it's an excellent match (in particular you see them prominently in S01E01 'Ambush', but they appear on occasion in other episodes, though sometimes standard battle droid or even pilots are seen driving AATs instead) so their inclusion makes sense - it's actually their previous appearances named as Kashyyyk droids that didn't make sense. I do think that the 2013 Phase 2 Rex helmet looks a little odd due to its small 'mouth' print, but it's actually pretty accurate to Rex in TCW as in that the mouth part of his helmet is smaller & further down the helmet compared to the standard P2 troopers. They just made it a little too small imo, but I don't mind it too much. Still, with Rex being the main clone trooper character and being so prominent in season 7, I think it's a mistake not to re-release him whilst Clone Wars is still fresh in people's minds. -edit- Bah beaten to it! I always wondered if they were thinking of these old figures from 2006 when initially deciding on what figures to include in those sets, but got them mixed up with the AAT driver design during the design process.

That Airborne Trooper in Grievous's Starfighter is 'interesting' - the helmet print looks to be identical to the realistic 2014 one complete with the little light grey weathering marks, but his torso and legs are re-done in the new animated style, despite the airborne trooper never appearing in animated form. They'll have done it so that he vaguely matches the other animated style troopers being released in this wave, so it looks like this new style may be here to stay for all clones rather than animated ones and we can sadly say goodbye to the 2014 style, but in that case why not make him a standard 212th in the new style instead? We actually saw them in numbers in TCW season 7, and would fit just as well in that set. Presumably the cost of setting up a new print design for a standard 212th trooper's helmet in the new style is greater than the cost of the additional kama / skirt piece that the airborne uses, otherwise it seems almost random. Would be insteresting to get a better look at that piece, it looks like it's dark grey which would be a new colour for that cloth piece (if it's the same design of cloth, appears to be). Looks like the 501st jet trooper still has the standard 501st leg design too, which is inaccurate - I'm getting the feeling these new clones haven't had as much attention to detail put in as the previous ones, despite the addition of foot printing. The AAT isn't the worst, the turret looks pretty good, but the body is quite a bit too small to my eye. The front of the hull where the driver is doesn't look quite right to me either. Ah well, I'll just stick with my 2009 versions, though I might pick one up for Ahsoka (and the 332nd Trooper's helmet) as I imagine they'll be in high demand separate on Bricklink. Shame about her headband print though, I'd hoped they'd fix that after they did the same with the rebels version, but apparently not. I do need a proper Ahsoka fig though so I'll overlook it. I'm surprised we didn't get a Captain Rex in this wave, to match the new style troopers - with how different these new style troopers are compared to the last 2013 TCW style Rex I suspect they won't look very good next to each other. Think I might just put the 332nd Trooper's helmet on a 2013 501st, that should work, and I'd only want one or two anyway.

I've long been a bit of an army builder and have kept an eye on these Eurobricks upcoming set discussion threads every now and then (so thanks to all who have made them happen!), but this new announcement has finally made me want to chip in my 2 cents - maybe the view of a usually silent fan will be interesting. I've got...mixed feelings on this one. I actually rather like the BARC and the AT-RT, they're both still a bit oversized but for what they are they're nice. Shame about the fairly large number of stickers but that's been par for the course for many years now, and they look like they'll still look good without them, so that doesn't really bother me. I tend to replace parts to recolour my Republic vehicles to some degree anyway. Now I imagine most people are pleased that after all these years there's finally a good way to get a reasonable number of 501st troopers, and the figure selection itself is pretty much spot on for a 501st pack, but personally I can't help but feel disappointed in the print design of the figures themselves. After continuous releases over the years of clone trooper figures all based on the movie-style 2014 version as recently as Gree in last year's AT-AP, which all had spot-on printing, and also recent releases of clone wars figures with movie-style realistic printing such as the recent Anakin in 75214, I had figured they'd stick with that earlier movie style and just add the relevant 501st blue markings - after all, the current OT Stormtroopers still use the same torso and leg prints from 2014 as well, even when the helmet was changed. But evidently Lego felt compelled to switch to a completely brand new style of clone wars based printing, which you can tell by the 'squished' more angular upper chestplate and less detailed belt among other things, most likely to match season 7 coming out. Though the cynic in me wonders if it's also to try and coax anyone with a collection of old style troopers to start collecting all over again. I suppose the underlying question is, how many fans would have been unhappy if they'd just used the 2014 movie style print as a base? I realise this isn't an issue for everyone, as not everyone has a large number of older style clones, younger fans especially, and not everyone is bothered by style differences between side-by-side troopers, but for me this means I can't use these troopers in any meaningful way (even if I preferred this new style and did want to switch, I'd want matching gunners and pilots) - I had hoped to convert my 2014-style army to have 501st marked troopers as its officers if new 501st figs ever came out, but alas. This was probably the last chance for a 2014-style 501st figure I would think, unless one miraculously turns up in the upcoming UCS Gunship somehow. The other thing that bothers me is that the prints themselves seem a little off in terms of accuracy - in particular, on the torso inside the blue stripe, it should have an extra small white bar above the main one. The old 2013 clone wars style torso had this, but this new one looks to have simplified it and only has a single white bar. The Jet Trooper has more issues, as he has a blue block in the centre of his helmet between the visor and the frown which shouldn't be there (presumably copied from the standard 501st print accidentally), and he also has the same leg printing as the standard 501st with only a little blue at the base of the kneepad, whereas he should have a unique print with blue that covers the whole kneepad and more. The print on the top of his head is also a bit odd, with the blue markings being restricted to a narrow central section of the helmet which gives the side blue blocks a triangular shape rather than the more rectangular shape they should have - the 2017 Clone Gunner's print went further to the sides than this so in theory they already have the ability to print further around on this helmet mould, though perhaps not all at once. It's odd as previously with the 2014 style troopers the legion markings had been fantastically accurate, the 212th and 91st standing out in particular to me. To be fair though, the release for this set is still quite a way off - I don't know how long in advance these designs are usually finalised but perhaps some details of the prints may not be quite finished yet. To be honest the use of light grey to fully shade in the cheeks and the use of a plain white hip piece with no printing also comes across as looking odd to me, but this is likely because I'm so used to the old styles as the old black hip piece goes back to the very first trooper minifigs back when I was a kid. All in all, I may pick up one at some point for the sake of having an example of them - even if it's a little less accurate markings-wise I do prefer this new style to the 2013 Clone Wars 501st, but I still prefer the 2014 movie style to both. It does give new fans a chance to army build 501st which is great, and it's good to see people really looking forward to this set now that it's been officially revealed, but I'll probably always look at it and think of what could have been.