CallumPears

Love it in general, there's just been a lot of bad stuff coming out recently (aside from Andor and a couple other things here and there).

Only includes R2; you have to get Anakin in the advent calendar 6 months later.

Whichever robes he's wearing, I just really hope he's not wearing a pilot headset. Non-CW Jedi Knight Anakin figures without the headset are surprisingly scarce (only 4 in total, one being the old light-up version and only 2 of the remaining 3 having a single non-dark-side face, and even those 2 have one dark side face so only one 'good' face each).

Agreed. Between the small number of sets overall, the many buildables/dioramas and now the RTG sets we're getting very few playsets these days (and that doesn't even touch on the lack of cheap sets like battle packs etc., or issues within the sets we do get like the eyes or inaccurate details on minifigures).

Most people I've heard who actually want the droid factory set (and that's already a small number) only care about Chopper so sales of that set are gonna plummet when this one is more widely known about. Also yeah obligatory buildables bad, system sets good. Please LEGO I am begging for you to 1) stop the coloured eyes and 2) cap the number of buildable sets so we can have more system ones (and just make more sets in general; even including the buildables we're getting fewer sets in total now than before).

Just seen the Salacious on Reddit and oof he looks bad. The eyes are of course terrible as expected but I also don't like how his mouth looks so... smooshed? Looks too flat and also too cartoony, similar to the issues I have with some of the modern LotR figures (seriously, compare Frodo, Merry and Pippin with their 2012 versions and the old ones are better in almost every way, aside from the dual-molded legs).

Just here to add to the dislike of the weird glowy eyes. Hated them in 2013 when they tried them on Stass Allie and my opinion of them has not improved at all over the past decade. I really can't see how anyone would think they look better than normal black eyes. (Or, in the case of Salacious and the Sith, a black pupil in a coloured iris)

Don't think so- pretty sure it was only available through LEGO themselves. It did go on sale eventually, but considering it was a sequel set that's not a guarantee that this new one will get a similar discount. I'd love a "Jabba's guards" pack, maybe a weequay, one of each type of nikto and a gamorrean. It'd be great to compliment the Barge/Skiff. I really hope they don't limit the length of the new set's run like they did with the Falcon one last year; it's not like it's tied to Christmas like that one was.

Agreed that it could've done with at least one more figure on either side (ideally a Shadow Stormtrooper to really match the original sets). Thinking about it, they could've done the Shadow Stormtrooper as the "higher ranking" figure on the Imperial side and Rebel Friend as the equivalent for the Rebel side.

The old Rebel and Stormtrooper battle packs were my first ever exposure to Star Wars at all (got both of them together as a Christmas gift from my uncle before I even saw the films) so I kinda feel obligated to get it. That said, I've got about 30 fleet troopers already (the old design but they still hold up) and can't stand the new stormtroopers. Might see if I can get just the builds (at least the Rebel speeder since the Imperial dropship does look a bit goofy), and maybe QK-KT but not sure on that; I would've preferred R2-KT or at least a better-executed QT. Also might try Bricklinking some of the chinstrapped heads to get some variety in my Rebel fleet troopers and Imperial Navy/Army troopers.

The prequel sets had a logo with Amidala on, and she didn't show up for a looong time (also a hooded pre-face-melt Palpatine which we technically never got). As for the rest of what you said, yeah I think you summed it up pretty nicely. The theme as a whole very much seems to be catering towards rich customers, whether kids or adults. Group 3 in your list still fit into that as most of us don't exactly have the funds to buy 50 Clone battle packs.

Yeah it was, and as an 8-year-old who didn't know Bricklink was a thing to get an extra pilot it kinda sucked (same goes for the 2013 gunship only having 1). Really hope we get all 3 pilots for the sake of kids today who will be in a similar situation, and if they do include a Jedi it's as an extra figure on the side.

The Vader one has just started showing up in the UK, with Sabine advertised in the back for next month

Same, I'm not a big fan of non-system sets in general and this just feels like yet another wasted slot. I hope it's Oddball's ship for 2 reasons: he's a named clone (with lines in RotS) who we've never got (we got Jag back in 2010, and he's pretty cheap so it'd be easy for anyone to get him on BL, even just his helmet to put on a modern pilot body) and also his copilot wears the same helmet as Jag so we'd basically get them both in the same set anyway.

Found the magazine with the Vader tin in the wild in the UK... for £6.99 🤯 All of them were the rectangular tin and I was hoping for the one shaped like Vader's helmet so gonna see if I can find that somewhere else. Back page confirms that Sabine is next!

Personally I'd be fine with them just being civillians- need more of those for Mos Eisley and so on. My issue is when they did some of the Freemakers they made some nice looking outfits... then slapped a big ugly hand logo on them (particularly the tan jacket Rowan figure). Same as how in some castle sets they make nice looking medieval armour designs then slap a cartoony logo on them, really limits the reusability. I'm not so bothered about it in the castle sets (ok maybe a little bothered since I like repurposing castle stuff for LotR) but in the SW ones it can be pretty annoying. The one in the droid builder was also QT, not R2-KT.

Yeah my thoughts as well. The pink they used is too... pink? The "real" droid has a much more muted and reddish shade, and a lot more white areas too.

My thoughts as well, especially when we're already getting all those other "buildables" rather than system sets, which as we've seen on the past couple of pages a lot of us already aren't too thrilled about.

According to the guy who posted it on Reddit the Clone is in the issue after Sabine so we'll get her first Edit: Done some looking through YouTube videos and you're right- the Clone is advertised as the next issue after Vader. Weird. I saw somewhere that Spain isn't getting the Vader one so maybe Sabine is just for them instead? That'd really suck if true though.

Someone edited the Ezra, Hera and Ahsoka figures to have normal eyes and wow they look so much better. Wish LEGO scrapped the coloured eyes back in 2013 when they were first experimenting with them. https://x.com/ahsokasconvor/status/1810037256222314763?s=46

Glad to see I'm not the only one annoyed at the increase non-system-scale sets over the past couple of years. I like midi-scale ships since most of those wouldn't be able to be done for a reasonable price otherwise (though I still feel like they cost too much for what you get), but all of the buildable characters, droids, helmets and especially brickheadz feel like pointless "filler" sets to me. Combine that with the ever-increasing prices and we don't really have many good value system-scale sets at all these days. Crazy how we used to get 4 battle packs, multiple microfighters and a few ~£20 sets every year. Now we're lucky to get a single battle pack, and even then they aren't the cheap impulse-buys that they used to be (yes inflation is a thing but not this much).

Same, fond memories of getting it for my birthday in 2011. Mine's also got very wobbly wings and is a bit sun tanned so think it's due an update. Hopefully the new one has much stronger wings.

I would assume (and hope for) the same style we got in the 2010 set and 2015 microfighter, with a head in the new clone skin tone that has the visor printed on. Fingers crossed that it's based on the battle over Coruscant and we finally get Oddball (and if it is Oddball's ship then we'd effectively also get a Jag figure since Oddball's copilot has the same helmet as Jag).

While I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to that as a design choice, I kinda hope they don't so I can keep some consistency with the pilots I already have. I also hope they don't so that we instead get a new head in the modern clone skin tone with the visor printed on- I'd definitely Bricklink a bunch of those heads to replace my old ones. They probably won't tbh as they also use the helmet mould for V-wing pilots which don't have the same visor. Granted, they'd probably need to bring back the old mould or make a new one but I imagine they'd want to keep it versatile.

When I first saw the leaked pictures I really liked the Sarlacc build being larger and having the teeth pointing in the correct direction (the last 2 had the teeth going straight up for some reason). After seeing Solid Brix's review, I like it a lot less. The tentacle-moving feature is super lame (as he says in the review) but I also really dislike the shape of the pit. It should be basically a circle, and a squared-off one would've been acceptable given that it's LEGO, but what we've got here is a really stretched rectangular shape which looks awful to me.