MaximillianRebo

Pretty much all of the initial 1978/79 classic space sets used the 3839a element somewhere in the build - all the spacecraft had them at the front, giving the impression of 'guns', but the same piece was used on rockets and radar in a way that implied antenna. For the Galaxy Commander I always considered that equipment on the front to be a detailed sensor array, largely because I saw the 4360 element as some sort of camcorder/telescope/imaging device, but now I see Bricklink lists it in part as a 'space gun' ...

Same in Aus. Retailed here for $160 but I've seen many stores with it on clearance for around $100 (equivalent to about $70 USD, but tax is included). We regularly get 20% off sales on all sets, but it's rare to see clearances like this, especially for the same set across multiple retailers. Guess it was a perfect storm of the set being overpriced to begin with, the source material getting a mixed reception, and differences between this set and the previous version of the palace.

Bought BD-1 and the Scythe, the two sets I wanted from this wave. BD-1 was a great build; working on the Scythe now, the first bag almost looks like a car chassis, interested to see how all the angles in the ship are achieved. Also found Dark Trooper Attack at 40% off retail. Wasn't high on my list of things to get, but at that price worth to pick up a copy.

Given Lego's aversion to doing anything religious, any themes/sets with reference to groups or figures like the Catholic Church/Joan of Arc, or events such as the Crusades would be an instant no. I don't know if there's any 'lore' behind Lego Castle but I can't imagine them ever wanting the existing knight factions to have any correlation to real life medieval kingdoms and the religious affiliations that go with that.

My thoughts on the wave: Slave 1 Microfighter: a solid if unsurprising pick, good to see it finally getting the microfighter treatment and will be interesting to see how the shape of the ship is done in this form. Continues the trend of being an easy way to pick up a popular character if you don't have them already from elsewhere. 501st Battlepack: As an OT fan clone legions aren't for me, but I'm happy for the people who get to add some variation to the large 501st armies they already have. It's a pity we seem to be getting only one battlepack per year now, would be nice to have either a complementary pack to this one or something from a different era. Either way, this'll never see the light of day in Aus TIE Bomber: Easily the set I'm most looking forward to, and possibly the only set I'll pick up from the wave. Not too fussed about what figures are included, I'm mostly here for the builds, so anything beyond a TIE pilot is a bonus. Helmets: Great that they are finally getting away from the OT, Rex and Cody will probably walk off the shelves. Having said that, I'm hoping that the unrevealed helmet is Boushh; that could be an interesting build. Mando S3: Wait and see what they end up being, personally I'm hoping they get away from every set needing to include Mando and/or Grogu (e.g. like the Marauder) Dioramas: I'm not a fan of these, personally I'd like to see more playsets in this wave and while this is only the second iteration of dioramas, there seems to be an emerging trend of these taking the place of location based playsets. Maybe making these locations as dioramas gives the designer more options, like the mechanism in the Trash Compactor, which will hopefully show up in the Speeder Bike set, or more terrain options for Yoda's Hut. I'm struggling to see what the Final Duel diorama can do that wasn't done two years ago though. Funnily enough the one diorama that I do like (but still didn't buy) is the Trench Run, because it did something that wouldn't otherwise be possible as a traditional location set. Overall a good balanced wave, the main omission being nothing (so far) from Andor. Given the show premieres next month, barring early leaks any potential new Andor set would be unlikely to spoil the show by the time official winter wave pics would be revealed, and if there's nothing Andor related until the next summer wave, that's a long time after the first season has ended. Either TLG is taking a wait and see approach, or they simply weren't given much advance material to work with apart from the set already available.

I'd have to go back and reread that interview but I thought it was more about a TIE Bomber being too expensive at the scale they were working in at the time. I guess it is niche - it has, what, less than 10 seconds of screen time in TESB? To be honest I mostly know it from growing up with the OT and playing a lot of X-Wing and TIE Fighter back in the day.

I think part of the reason TLG doesn't seem to be trying too hard with the TIE Bomber figs is that they think it will sell regardless of figure selection, and as one of the few OT vehicles that hasn't been seen in forever, they're probably correct. No need to put in a Dodonna to sweeten the deal on this one. While an Ozzel or Piett would be great, I'd like to see them go the 'conflict' route and throw in an ESB Han or Leia, preferably with breathing apparatus. But that's just a pipedream. Regarding the Gonk, I'd speculate that the designer had something leftover in their budget/piece count and used it for a Gonk droid because why not. Size wise the ship is almost certainly going to scale with last year's TIE. Any larger than that, especially at the scale of the Solo TIE, and the model becomes prohibitively expensive.

I think it's pretty obvious that 75344 (10€) is Wade's T-47 Airspeeder microfighter A couple of other (slightly more serious) predictions to add to sets already mentioned: Either 75349 or 75350 (70€) - Boushh helmet 75346 (35€) - Imperial V-Wing from Bad Batch (not sure if this should be a 30€ set but with prices being the way they are...) 75347 (65€) - Brick built Rancor vs Scorpenek Annihilator Droid (or perhaps this may be the 80€ set). A wild left field guess would be this set as 75345 (20€) as a two pack Microfighter

My thoughts as well. With all the new moulds for a set like Boba's Palace, I would have expected a moulded head if/when the Mythrol shows up. To my eyes the black jagged lines on each side of the face appear to suggest the webbed ears. If the leak is real it looks like they're going with a print only.

It's probably been said elsewhere but Shuri's Sunbird looks like it wouldn't be hard to mod it into a Blacktron-esque fighter. There are satin trans light blue dishes but only in three sets so far. If this is the same colour hopefully it will bring down the Bricklink prices a bit.

Looks like only one weapons rack in the AC - a definite improvement on last year's. The holiday themed figures are fun - from both hemispheres this time! - and the micro builds look good. I wish they'd bring back the days of getting an Antoc Merrick or Cloud Car Pilot in the calendar though.

I don't (or at least try not to) get a set if my sole reason for buying it is 'just for the mifinigs'. I'm primarily here for the bricks and building experience, and especially in licensed sets many of the smaller sets drawcards are the named characters they contain, while the builds themselves are often lacklustre. Maybe I should get the sets as parts packs for mocs, but I prefer to design on Stud.io then order the parts through Bricklink. Sure it's more expensive per piece but I get just the parts I need rather than trays of unused pieces (especially as my mocs tend to stay built once they're complete).

For anyone wondering about the price in the photo above - it's for 10696 Medium Creative Brick Box. Just imagine a SW Brick Box, full of light bley, dark bley, black, white, reddish brown, light and dark tan, maybe some sand blue for good measure...

I find many MOCs in general tend to focus more on fancy building techniques (e.g. SNOT is superior to stacked plates) and a trend towards bigger=better and less on does the finished product achieve what it set out to do. In The Office set for example there is nothing ground breaking in terms of building technique, but they've managed to fit an impressive amount of detail into the set, especially at that scale, and it's an excellent representation of the source material. As you said, deciding what to leave out, or how to create the impression of detail when scale is a limiting factor, is a challenge in itself, and it's easy to overlook these parts of the creative process as opposed to a multi thousand piece build where space and scale aren't an issue and everything is on display to see.

I think there's a chance for the Mythrol's speeder to show up as a $30 set. There was a miniature build of it in last year's Advent Calendar, so it's at least on Lego's radar. Although, such a set would probably contain Mythrol and Cara Dune figs, so that might put a dampener on things.

I think anything associated with Studio Ghibli would be easily popular enough to sell well as it has broad appeal outside of just the Western/English speaking market. Possibly it's a licensing issue, personally I feel if a Ghibli model were to be produced it would be better to focus on just the one movie, instead of the multiple miniatures in the Ideas submission. Spirited Away would be the most likely choice, but a set of the Bath House from that movie would probably be seen by TLG as having too many similarities with the Ninjago line.

As someone whose modern sets are also mostly Star Wars, a solution I found when MOCing was to go outside of canon: Kenner toys, non-canon SW cartoons from the 80s and particularly KOTOR and The Old Republic video games contain a huge amount of vehicles and possibilities for MOCs that scratch that SW itch while still giving a creative outlet that isn't trying to re-invent the X-Wing. Sure it took a few extra steps to find that material that maybe a kid wouldn't take, as they are happy with building and swooshing their favourite trilogy ship, but with the right approach a license can be a great jumping off point for someone like me to recreate existing images in Lego form - and admittedly I just can't get an original concept to pop in just the same way as a MOC of an existing license.

I'm also not a lawyer, but this seems to be the key sentence: "Left unchallenged, such use by third-party entities could put our rights in the Minifigure at risk and could eventually result in the loss of our company’s exclusive rights." I'm wondering if there's been some recent changes to Danish/EU copyright laws or perhaps a case where a company lost or had their IP/patents significantly watered down because they allowed third parties unrestricted use of their own IP. Kind of like the IP law version of adverse possession. Again, not a lawyer, just spitballing to see where TLG is coming from with this. As far as I know the minifig design is still under patent while basic brick designs are not, which would explain why TLG is ok with logo printing on bricks but not on torsos.

As far as I know everything we get comes from China (or elsewhere abroad), which explains a lot about supply chain issues and the less than favourable exchange rate pricing. As for army building, if Reddit and IG are any indication (and maybe they're heavily skewed), seems like every time Lego releases a set with clones of any phase or legion (even non-canon as you said), everyone goes gaga for it. Whether intentional or not, by only occasionally releasing clone figs in sets TLG have created a scarcity that means every set that does drop is snapped up immediately (how many multiples of the AAT were bought to get Ahsoka troopers?) and covid/fuel related shortages have only exacerbated that.

To borrow from a well known space franchise, maybe the trans-yellow canopy pieces are made from 'transparent aluminum'

I think on top of stock being snapped up as soon as it's made available, we're in the middle of another supply shortage, this time caused by soaring fuel costs. There's other popular sets - that wouldn't be of interest to the army builders - that are proving difficult to get at the moment; at the moment once the initial run of a set sells out, it'll be some time before more hit the shelves.

That's a great design, especially the roundness of the lower cockpit and how the hatches fit snugly into place. At first I thought it was a P-Wing and then saw that the landing skids make the R!

If you go to the link below - Official Lego sets made in LDD - and scroll down about half way you can download the .lxf for 7668 Rebel Scout Speeder, open that file in Studio and you'll have the Rebel helmets with visors to add to your file. https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/41226-key-topic-official-lego-sets-made-in-ldd/&page=27

I thought the whole point of UCS sets is they are about the build rather than the figures, so unique variants of Mando and Grogu alone would make perfect sense and be a lot more preferable than putting often requested figs like Kuiil, Cobb, Mayfeld etc. behind a $500+ paywall.

Very nice job capturing all the angles of the ship at this small scale.