TeddytheSpoon

I'd love a v-wing as well, but these days it seems like almost every set is main character-related or at least has one in the set, and aside from Omega I'm not sure who they could shoe-horn in there.

The prices were all great, even by LEGO's standards and especially so given these are essentially MOCs. I've got a pre-authorised payment showing up on my bank account, even though I got an error message after doing the payment which I assumed meant I missed out. I'm guessing this will just go away in a day or two without charging me? I don't want to throw my toys out the pram towards customer service out of entitlement, but I did really like that boat... EDIT: never mind, I did get it! The email confirmation came through literally a minute after I posted this. So, yay! It does lead me to think they may have been slightly pessimstic on the demand for this. 4 out of 5 projects have reached the allocation with two more well on their way, less than 4 hours into the 42 day window. Will be interesting to see if that changes for the next round.

Ugh. Tried to get the fishing boat, but between me clicking the link and filling out the payment details the European allocation had gone, so I think I missed out. More than a bit peeved.

As my uni tutor used to say, to assume makes an... er... donkey out of 'u' and 'me'! Having just read the Trexler review I'm impressed with how much they've managed to pack into such a little set, especially since there's space inside for all the minifigures that come with the set which is not always a given! I'm still not crazy about the patchwork colour scheme but this might be my day-one buy.

*nods in ironic agreement* For the gunship I had always assumed it was a September release rather than August since UCS sets always seem to release out of phase with the main waves. The question then becomes when the AT-AT (?) will be released, and I would guess sometime in November in time for the holiday season.

This is something I never understood - most LEGO waves are in June, and yet Star Wars (and I think Marvel until recently) are the only ones to release two months later (or at least I believe so - someone correct me if not). Is there a reason for this such as the licensers' requirements? It would surely be cheaper and easier from a marketing POV to have everything release at once, even if it makes Star Wars less 'special'.

I'm also left feeling a bit cold by the cruiser, I was expecting to like it more after the first pic we saw. Part of me wonders if the designers only got limited reference of the ship from the show and filled in gaps with the Arquitens, as it is something of a hybrid.

Is that in a different interview then? Because the one you linked said 'Disney don't want us to use the name'. Nothing on why. So it isn't a case of theory and 'reality', at least on the evidence that I've seen, it's a case of two different sets of, yes, conjecture. I will point out as well that the Bad Batch had an episode about the Zygerian slavers, so Disney are hardly avoiding the topic.

This 'evidence' only tells us that Disney asked for the name change. The whole slave thing is a storm in a teacup whipped up by conjecture, including in that very article. Personally I think @jdubbs suggestion of a name that's more Google-able is far more sensible.

The Trexler has gone up in my estimations from the latest pics - that might be the first set I pick up. I'm torn on the light cruiser - some of the proportions are a bit off, but it is still a pretty nice-looking set... Just not sure I could put my money somewhere else. The whole Slave I name thing will only be an issue if its name changes in the show, IMO. What it's called in marketing material is neither here nor there, and in fairness most other LEGO ships aren't called by their name (Soulless One, Night Buzzard, The Executor, even the Tantive IV at one point). If it does become an issue for the Mouse they should just change the canon pronunciation. "oh it was always meant to be pronounced 'slah-vay', didn't you know?"

Yeah, I'm not surprised it was the cruiser. Besides it's the sort of thing that will have been planned weeks, if not months in advance, and you can't really plan for leaks. Disappointing, sure, but not surprising.

Called it. What a weird reveal though - this whole LEGO Con is certainly, er, an experience.

Tips & Bricks did an interview with some of the Super Heroes designers where they mentioned that the limit with arm printing is mainly the machines - arm printing is mostly done in a separate machine to the moulding. They went on to say that they do have all-in-one machines that replace the older ones when they reach the end of their lives, so it does sound like they want it to become the norm.

My reasoning for the aftermarket price argument is that generally, kids aren't looking for LEGO on places like Bricklink or eBay. Especially for the really expensive stuff (AT-OT, the latest gunship, the Ghost), the demand that inflates the prices so much is mainly coming from adult (presumably) collectors. In that sense, I can see how a product marketed at children wouldn't take aftermarket prices into account, at least not to a great degree.

This is frankly unbelievable. I'm amazed that it only took a month to build! Although of all the impressive things about it, my favourite might be the trick of flex tube with metal wire through it to hold the shape. I'll be making a note of that technique for sure! Great work - where is it going to be displayed/exhibited?

Realistically either one of the Mando sets or the mystery 75369. No-one has said it won't be the UCS AT-AT, but I doubt we would see that before the gunship based on the release schedule we have (and because UCS sets don't tend to get a reveal beyond a few weeks AFAIK). Personally my money is on the cruiser - wasn't last year's AT-AT revealed early, or am I making that up? Brickset have a review up of the Gauntlet starfighter as well, with some more pictures. It seems like another mod-heavy set - gaps around the cockpit, a few inaccuracies compared to the screen, and - inexplicably - no landing gear. Where has this sudden vendetta against retractable landing gear come from?!

Perhaps this is just me being pessimistic but I can't see him showing up unless he becomes the big bad of the show, which I also don't see happening. With all the live action shows coming out soon I would sort of expect the Bad Batch to go on the back burner since it's animated and doesn't have the same legacy that TCW does, at least not yet, which in my mind makes it less appealing to TLG beyond the heroes of the show.

I'd argue that even accuracy isn't an objective measure, as the medium of LEGO is so limiting that anything 'accurate' is almost inevitably going to have to compromise somewhere, much like the debate around whether minifigure scale should be based around the height or width of figs. In some cases accuracy could even depend on which bit of source material is used. One of my pet peeves - and this isn't directed at anyone on here - is how the word objective has seemingly lost all its meaning thanks to arguments on the internet. Anyway, good points well made.

I find Omega's absence more annoying than the helmets, in all honesty, although I'm remarkably unmoved by both. It's still a decent set and, crucially, a good toy. I think the LEGO =/= Hasbro argument has some merit, but only because the scales are so different. There's only so much you can do with helmets that fit comfortably within a cubic inch, and the cost of adding or subtracting more details at that size (molded, not printed) is far greater than it would be for a the mold for a Hasbro action figure, for instance. The helmets are all clearly different shapes in the show, but shrink that down to minifigure size and the physical changes are much harder to represent. Besides, LEGO has already been increasing headgear sizes recently, presumably precisely to fit more detail in (Vader, the stormtroopers, Tech and the short-lived dual-molded rebel pilot helmet all spring to mind), and that hasn't exactly been universally popular... The removal of the fin is a valid gripe (albeit a small one - kids aren't gonna disappointed with a subtly different helmet) since it's a relatively minor change to the mold, although I don't know how noticeable a change it would be compared to the P2 helmet. I think we had a similar discussion about the P1 clone pilot helmet, but the fin on the P1 helmets is far more prominent so would be more worthwhile IMO. Has anyone done a custom where they've removed the fin from the P2 helmet? It would be interesting to see the comparison. What I will say on arm printing is that it's now three waves in a row where figures have had some pretty sweet arms. Are we starting to see it become more commonplace?

Better pics of Bo doing the rounds now - they're coming thick and fast. I can see what they were going for with the hair but it doesn't do it for me. The rest of the fig looks great though.

That's not a bad call - completely forgot that was supposed to be coming. Any chance that's what the mystery 75369 is? I don't collect Brickheadz so can't remember if their numbering follows the Star Wars sequence or not.

Paz looks fantastic. I think the eye holes are printed too low on the Armourer's helmet though, it makes it look like she has a bit of a fivehead.

Well... Yep, this honestly would not surprise me in the slightest

I'm not sure it would be stupid, we still haven't had a leaked release for it as far as I know. For all we know it could be coming in September with the AT-AT in like November, in which case it would probably be revealed around the last week of August. UCS sets are rarely revealed or even leaked more than two or three weeks in advance.

If not the as-yet-unknown 75369, I'd say either the forge or Gideon's cruiser.