CallumPears

(Bit of a messy ramble- was more organised but then I kept adding stuff as I saw more pictures. Also the page refreshed so I had to retype some things a few times haha) When I first saw the box art for the AT-ST I thought it looked pretty good. Then I saw the back... Also the top hatch doesn't open; you have to lift up the whole roof. There are definitely aspects of it I prefer over the Rogue One set, but overall the 2009 Battle of Endor version still reigns supreme. And the speeder bike is of course awful. Both Wicket and Yoda have the mid legs. I reckon this is purely LEGO being greedy. Whatever machine they have making the smart torsos is probably set up to put the standard hips in them, and it's cheaper for them to just put the mid legs onto the existing torso/hips than it would be to make a version with the short legs. Aside from those legs, is smart Obi-Wan in the Cantina the first new design to be made as a smart figure? We've never had him with dark brown legs to represent the robes before, and I'd love to get a regular version since doing that worked really well with the AotC Obi-Wan in his starfighter (as it hides the colour-matching issues we usually have when they print the robes on different-coloured legs). I guess Greedo or Dagobah Luke could have slightly different details but difficult to see for now. Also R2's spinning head of course but that's a little different. (Edit: just seen the clearer pictures and Greedo does indeed have some different details- most notably the hip printing) Also curious whether Chewbacca and Wicket's heads will be removable or if their added thickness means the smart features had to be extended into them somehow. Also curious whether they have the ugly logo on the back (I still don't understand the point of that on the other smart figs anyway). I like the printed tile on the Gonk droid in the landspeeder, but I might mod the build a little bit. Nice Jawa too- I wonder if the same one will be used in the Sandcrawler- and I like the hut. Having Greedo but no Han, and Obi-Wan but no Ponda/Evazan, in the Cantina is just funny. We get 2 halves of 2 separate interactions. Looks like the booth where Han shoots Greedo doesn't even have a place to put the smart brick anyway. And yay! Another thing on the list of LEGO inaccuracies. As I've mentioned in the past, the Sandtroopers have been missing the grey squares on the back of the helmet since 2019 (as are the Artillery Trooper and Night Troopers)- a very annoying inconsistency (and more proof that the "consistency" argument they sometimes use is absolute rubbish). Now they've messed up a detail on the Sandtrooper torso which they'd been getting correct across 3 different versions of the print since 2012. The abdomen is supposed to have unique panel details on Sandtroopers and this was done correctly on the designs made in 2012, 2014, and 2018. But nope! The new one uses the Rogue One/Disney+ Stormtrooper design, as all of the Stormie variants have been using since 2022. And he doesn't have a backpack (granted, we see some Sandtroopers in ANH without their backpacks but would've been nice to get one, though tbh I've not been a fan of the modern backpack builds anyway with that awful transparent bracket piece).

We got him in the 2018 starfighter and that one still holds up as a decent figure but it's not in the proper dark blue/red colour scheme and doesn't have arm printing. Hopefully this new one will. Seen some people on R*ddit saying that the Imperial Shuttle is actually a Razor Crest- anyone else got more info on that from a reliable source? (This one is said to be set 75447, and the rumour with the Shuttle didn't give numbers as far as I know so maybe we get both?) Also some mention of a Boba Fett set of some kind? (75455)

Woah woah woah hold the phone is Lego Doing A Thing??? Smart sets don't look quite as bad as I was expecting but not exactly good either. The Vader's TIE is that awkward middle ground where it's clearly not a normal set (what's with those gaps around the windscreen especially?) but looks almost passable, so I definitely agree with previous concerns about it pushing back whenever we next see a "proper" version of it.

Dang, was hoping it'd be the white one since that's surely the focus for army-builders. At least if you do what I do and get the GCC 2014-style replacement helmets it doesn't really matter so much. As with half of the figures being Death Troopers in the battle pack, it's kinda crazy that the standard plain white Night Trooper is the one which is the most difficult to get in large quantities.

Yeah I really want some smaller Bespin stuff. The 2017 Carbon Freezing Chamber was great (wish it included Lando though!) and getting the various iconic scenes as smaller sets (e.g. a Tantive Hallway -style set for when they're escaping the city) or a Yavin style one (which could capture the essential stuff while being more accessible than the 2018 MBS set) would be amazing. Time to huff the rhydo hopium and pray that Vader's TIE is a regular set I guess

*seethes in british* More good quality images, for the rest of the January sets. Bane does indeed have arm printing, and looks brilliant. (Also somehow his face looks more realistic than the one they actually had in The Book of Boba Fett?) Cobb having grey hair is a choice I wasn't expecting at first (though we knew it from the previous leaks) but it actually doesn't look bad; I guess it made me realise Timothy Olyphant is older than I thought lol. Maybe could've used some dark tan print in his beard. Also Cobb Vanth's helmet is the closest we've got so far to having an official RotJ Boba Fett helmet (just with some extra wear marks from the Sarlacc). Hopefully they make that Boba soon- I'm still very annoyed about them putting the ESB one in the skiff last year. Shock Trooper mech, Mando speeder bike, and buildable Grogu are all whatever. The mech in particular is a weird choice since you can get the full battle pack with the shock trooper and 3 other clones discounted on Amazon right now for not much more than the mech will cost with just the single trooper. As others have said previously I hope we get more sets the size of the speeder, but based on more exciting source material. The Clone vs Mando battle pack is a bit of a disappointment. The builds are... ok. Random fence and inaccurate speeder but we've definitely had worse in the past. The figures all have good torso and leg prints (if you don't mind the proportions of the animated clone torsos) but the helmets on all 4 of them are pretty bad. The same 332nd ones as we've had before with the big white gaps around the fin (this annoys me more than the holes- GCC can print around the fin just fine with no gaps) and the Mando helmets do indeed have silver visors which I was hoping were just early unfinished batches or something- baffling decision to have it as the final design.

Happy to report that I went to a physical Lego shop and they had the Sith Infiltrator Also grabbed a C-3PO keychain to do the leg switch (wish they did the leg in silver instead of grey, but it's still an upgrade) since that was also reduced. The sad part? The 327th pack at full price was on a shelf labelled "top ten bestsellers" clone slop will be the death of us

Sales in the UK are nothing too exciting so far except for the Sith Infiltrator. Annoyingly the sale prices seem to have not kicked in until about 5 minutes after midnight, so my sitting waiting at 11:59 was pointless and in the time it took for me to do the 200->1000 points thing the sales had activated and the Infiltrator was already out of stock (I want it for the Saw Gerrera figure and nothing else since I already have 2 of the older sets of it) Probably the biggest surprise to me is no discount on the Imperial/Rebel super battle pack.

Huh, the duel on Peridea set is now out of stock in the UK. It's been fully available until today, and never went on a discount. I was hoping it'd get something off for Black Friday but I guess people were still buying it :/ Tbh I only wanted the Thrawn figure so hopefully we get another set with him when S2 of Ahsoka comes out (with the correct number of code cylinders this time please). I was kinda hoping the set would sell poorly enough that they'd offload the figures in the magazines lol Meanwhile Amazon in the US has it at 40% off (it's basically a LEGO exclusive here in the UK, with only a very brief period of it being available in Smyths and the Disney store, though I only ever saw it online and never in person)

They're calling one of the few non-18+ sets a display piece? It is the first set to include an orange lightsaber, which a lot of people commented on when it released. Maybe they did indeed use AI to write this (hence the generic "desirable display piece" description) and it got confused when it was writing about the "exciting new thing" it had pulled from other people's reviews and went for the character's name instead of his weapon. Or maybe it's written by the same people who design the modern clone figures, given their proclivity for inaccuracy.

Looks like Australia is getting an interesting deal- you get the midi scale Falcon, buildable Wicket, and the Star Wars Logo when you buy the Death Star. Presumably they've seen people displaying the Falcon in the DS hangar bay, and presumably they're struggling to sell the latter 2 so are palming them off as a GWP to boost Death Star sales

Didn't it already go on sale in the US? I thought it was one of the sets that had the 40% discount a few weeks ago Edit: ok yeah it was and still is (but is out of stock online now). I remembered being very jealous when I saw it lol

Finally got a couple of the new 2025 sets through some auction wins on eBay. Bought the MTT with just the B1 droids for £40 and the ARC-170 complete with all the figures for £26 (both of them used with the stickers applied but fortunately the sellers were reasonably competent at that, and I might put in a request for the replacement canopies+stickers for the ARC anyway). Very happy with them both for the prices I paid but certainly would've never got them for the full amount. I do also have the 2007 MTT and 2010 ARC-170 so the downsizing is clear and I definitely prefer the bigger MTT, but the newer ARC-170 actually feels a lot more stable and swooshable at the smaller size (I was always a little annoyed with the droopiness of the wings on the old one when I was younger). Also I was happy to get the MTT without the figures since I already have the 2017 Aayla, 30 of the 2012 Commando Droids, and wasn't interested in Bly. The figures in the ARC-170 are great, though as I mentioned back when it first came out I do wish they'd made the legs grey (since making them white with a grey print is equivalent to giving AT-ST drivers black legs with a grey print which I think we can all agree would look ridiculous- dual moulding would obviously be the best solution but I can understand why they didn't) and given them an alternate facial expression (they do that for all the Rebel pilots and did it for the 2015 ARC-170 pilot- not a big issue really since most of the face is covered by the helmet anyway but it's just something we had before and don't have now).

Where you seeing that? I'm in the UK and hadn't heard about it. I'm still waiting for them to put Peridea at 40% off like they did in the US so I can finally get Thrawn (and also the Rebel Speeder vs Imperial Dropship). Hopefully that'll happen on Black Friday.

It's certainly been a thing in all the sets I've bought since I started noticing it a couple of years ago (most recent for me would be the Kamino Training GWP). I've been keeping the new pistols separate and replacing them with the older ones since I have a huge bag of spares from imperial officers and pilots who I don't usually keep with the blasters. Could be a Europe vs America thing maybe?

I hate when they use that soft plastic for hand-held accessories. They immediately get scratched and sometimes barely fit into a figure's hand at all (I usually put a regular bar piece in the figure's hand first to stretch it a bit so that the softer part will fit in better). Various sword designs, the bow and arrow, the fancy LotR spears, those old DC-17 pistols... And recently they've switched out some parts which used to be made of hard plastic for the crappy soft stuff. The modern small pistols we're talking about now? They were hard plastic but as of 2023 (I think the first set was the 501st Specialists pack) they are soft. The macrobinoculars? Introduced all the way back in 1999 with hard plastic, but since 2024 (I think it was the bigger clones vs droids pack, though I didn't buy many sets in 2023/2024 so might've been earlier) those are soft now too. Idk if it's cheaper or something but it just feels like such an unnecessary downgrade in terms of both durability and usability (since they get scratched easier and are harder to put in a figure's hand).

This is me with Clones at the moment. I'd love a world where, e.g., Bly and the Galactic Marines are good figures, but they aren't (no cloth kamas, inaccurate prints, dodgy prints, etc.) and I wish that they'd just not made them at all because now the clock is reset for when they'll next make them (and hopefully next time they'll actually be good), similar to the worries that the Fart Brick™️ might ruin the upcoming TIE Advanced.

Also as far as I'm aware that speeder was never seen with the red colour scheme. Even in TCW season 5 we see Maul's troops using them and they still have the blue colour scheme (as in the set from 2013). I get that making up vehicles is just something they do for battle packs (see the yellow AT-RT for the 327th and blue ISP for the 322nd), but it is kinda annoying when there is a perfectly good canon design they could've used. And yeah as I've said before this pack should've been 4 Mandalorians. Everyone has enough 332nd troopers by now, and if you somehow don't then they're probably the cheapest figures to get on the aftermarket. That battle pack was on clearance everywhere. Is Mando's N-1 becoming the new Luke's landspeeder? In the span of 4 years we'll have had the main playset, the microfighter, the 4+ set, and now a UCS.

My issue with the Rogue One AT-ST, apart from being very oversized, is that the face has those gaps at each side which just don't look good to me at all and the head as a whole looks very blocky, compared with the slimmer and more complete look of the 2009 one. It also has less posability in the legs (you can move them backwards but that isn't exactly what I'm looking for). Sure it's similar in that the 2009 one also can't really be held in a walking pose, but at least the legs can move a lot more on that older version. Also it was £45 here which didn't help my views on it at the time. Set descriptions are out for Cobb Vanth's speeder and Mando's speeder. I guess it confirms that the build for the Vanth vs Bane set is his podracer engine speeder bike from Mando season 2 ep1, and that there are no other figures in the set. It also mentions a Bantha milk carton- I wonder whether this will be a reuse from the Skywalker Saga Luke polybag or just an unprinted one like we saw in Obi-Wan's Hut a few years ago.

Yeah it's not so bad on here but e.g. on Reddit you'd think you committed a murder or something if you dare to point out that maybe, just maybe, the LEGO designers should *try* to make figures like Bly a bit more accurate. Yeah, the helmet holes were never an issue on P1 troopers because they're in the right place. The P2 ones are not (they're the right height for the old visor pieces, which in my opinion should've retired by now anyway, but wrong for the rangefinders, binocular visors, and any trooper who doesn't have accessories). CAC has the perfect system for helmet accessories which might not quite fit LEGO's requirements in terms of how strongly they clip onto the helmets but I'm sure there'd be a way to adapt them (e.g. maybe they could have small dimples in the temple dips on the helmet where the visor attaches, like the ones the LEGO motorcycle helmets have, rather than full-on holes).

75440- looks like it's the midi AT-AT (I was using the list on get cooped's instagram which just had the number and price- I guess that list is a little out of date by now)

I think I'll be getting the Bane vs Vanth set and the Mando vs 332nd pack... but both will need a good discount. I guess we don't know how good the value is going to be for the Bane set, but certainly with the battle pack I'm basically writing off 50% of the content as clones I don't care about since I already got 3 copies of the 332nd pack on clearance last year. Argos is currently running a 2 for £20 offer on the Night Troopers pack. Personally I only want one of those packs so am waiting to see if somewhere has a similar discount but for only one of them (or just get a used one on eBay), but if they did it for this Mando pack then I'd be tempted depending on the final quality of the figures and build (part of me is hoping the visors aren't finished on the Mandalorian figures since the previous leak of the helmet had even less print on it, but I'm not confident of that). What else is rumoured for January other than the buildable BB-8? Clone mech of some sort (we think Shock Trooper but I've seen people talking about Fives), the little Mando set which is a nice concept but I already have a dozen Din and Grogu figures, and a few others but I'm a little confused as the list I'm looking at has the ""smart"" TIE Advanced and X-wing listed as January but I thought those were for March. Edit: ok found another list and there's also something with Grogu (possibly a hut), a midi Venator which I might get on clearance like I did with the Invisible Hand, and another unknown set. Yeah not exactly a lot of competition for great minifigures as you said.

Jango Fett Open Seasons battle pack when? (Seriously I've wanted some of the designs from that comic in LEGO form for a looong time- Jaster Mereel in particular has some very nice red markings on his armour, as does Jango on Galidraan)

Yeah not loving the empty visors. They definitely don't look right, especially on the female one

Someone put the Maul Mandalorians vs 332nd troopers on Reddit and it got taken down within 5 minutes (post is still up but the images are gone) Even if we can't see them, I'm sad that this destroys the 1% of hope I had that the leakers were wrong about 332nd troopers being included. Edit: ok someone else has posted just the Mandalorians and they look pretty good. Not sure about the silver visors, but I'm glad it's one male and one female (helmets are switched in the photos), though as I mentioned above I wish it was a mix of 4 Mandos and no clones. I'm slightly disappointed about the male one being the same design as the ones we got in 2013 (I was hoping they'd use a design we hadn't already had), but at least it is updated now with leg printing.