Alpha Draconis

both sets are too expensive for what they are. Especially if you live in a small EU country where the Snubfighter is not 35€ but 38€... Bricklinking the figs for sure, the rest is a pass

bummer, I really hoped they wouldn't do that. Now that we know what the May 4th UCS set is we can probably make a (slightly more) educated guess as to what the May 4th promo will be. I really hope they stick to the last year's format where it had some connection with the UCS set My prediction: something to do with the rebel hangar or Home 1 - I think someone here already took a similar guess

I'm beginning to turn around my opinion on the new UCS X-wing. I own the 2013 version (was my first UCS set, now that I think about it) and would really like to see a new and improved version and potentially buy it. As long as R2's top half is correctly scaled to the model - I'm assuming it is since only Luke is the rumoured minifing - then it's already an improvement in my opinion. Oh, and the omission of stickers. If there are no stickers then it's a buy for me Hopefully this also means that UCS TIE Interceptor/Bomber aren't too far away now too

If we're talking about 650$ set in September - highly unlikely. The last UCS Slave 1 was pretty close to correct scale, had 1996 pieces and was priced at 200$. Given the inflation, sure, you could bump the price to 250 or even 300$ but not much more in my opinion. Also, piece count is way higher for September D2C so Slave 1 would have to either be really massive, over the correct scale or would be a part of something else in the set, which I think is highly unlikely. In my honest non-expert opinion, if the Slave 1 would be a UCS set this year it would be the one releasing on May the 4th (closer in price to the last one), but I don't believe that will be the case either

What about UCS Nebulon B? It is a set TLG have been thinking of doing, so they should have had a good prototype for at least 3 years sitting around and it did place in 2nd in the fan vote with Gunship already being released... Pure speculation on my end

I feel like the waiting suspense itself inherently increases people's expectations somewhat. I know it does for me at least. So I advise we all keep our expectations in check and not expect too much, that way the potential emotional roller-coaster is less intense and you get to save some of your nerves

TLG will want some peoples heads served on a plate for this leak. Unless they intentionally leaked this so they would gauge consumer reaction and get a more realistic input on what people are willing to pay for these sets... but I'm probably playing a devil's advocate too much. Track record doesn't show this kind of behaviour from them at all and it would be wild to go all-out on leaks of such a scale all of the sudden. Jabba's sail barge looks... nothing special just a scaled-up model. Was the focus group only shown these pictures? If I was a part of it I'd have a hard time deciding on putting a price tag on the barge as it's all tiled-up and I can't see the guts of it

That's where I learned of it as well

Max Rebo minifig seems to be back in production. I can only see 1 scenario in which he'd be included: something to do with Jabba's sail barge. Now, whether that will be it's own set or maybe a part of the May the 4th GWP (maybe a part of the sail barge with Max in it) I'm not sure. Could be something else entirely. Glad he's back though, I don't have him yet and I'm not willing to shell out so much money for him on 2nd hand market

Great review! I too have display cases for the same UCS models (horizontal one for Falcon and one with no background for AT-AT) from iDisplayIt + a few other smaller cases from them as well A few notes from someone who's had these cases for about 2 years now: dusting of the cases must still be performed on a regular basis - once per week works for me (the cases seem to attract dust to some degree, because it doesn't only stick on the top but to the sides as well) latex gloves work the best for me when assembling/handling/dusting display cases because I absolutely detest seeing fingerprints on the cases. After a while you get used to a slightly different feeling as well(this is especially true when assembling/disassembling the cases) unfortunately over time dust will come into the interior of the case. It has happened with every case from iDisplayIt I have. This is especially apparent in the corners of the display cases where 3 sides usually meet and there are some small gaps which enable dust to slowly seep through this isn't a big issue as the dust sticks to the inner wall of the display case and it doesn't start accumulating on the model inside (at least in my experience). The simplest solution is to just wipe the dust in the corners once it becomes apparent - lift the case, flip it upside-down and wipe the inside of the corners, then put it back and you should be good for some time you can also disassemble the case and store it like that if you wish - as confirmed to me by iDisplayIt when I ran out of room to display both UCS sets (I can only display one and right now, Falcon is completely dissembled as well as it's display case). They do recommend you wrap it in some protective bubble wrap when storing it like that though one smaller thing to note - if you have a brand new display case and you spend a lot of time in the same room as the case is in and the room also isn't the biggest, the display case will have a plastic-y smell for the first week or so, so you will have to endure it. Not a big issue in my opinion and the smell also completely disappears after about a week.

I'm all in. UCS MTT would be epic! And it's also hopefully less than 10 years away

Up until this point, I consider every 90th anniversary set (normal or GWP, which I think this Bionicle one is also supposed to be) a true homage and/or a genuine upgrade of the original set - I really like them all, even though I'm not attached to some of the themes. This one is a sloppily done homage attempt at best in my opinion. Also, for anyone saying that we should be grateful we even got anything and this is a gift with purchase anyway, I disagree completely. The difference in quality and, most importantly - (misplaced) design effort - between the rest of the 90th anniversary lineup and this set is obvious. As for the GWP argument - this is just a fancy name TLG uses to call these sets. At their core, they are incentives to buy, not gifts, meaning consumers should be compelled to buy more products to qualify for this set. Therefore this incentives should be so good that they drive the sales up. And this set will drive the sales up, make no illusions, but we could do so much better, and someone at TLG knows it but still decides to pick the low effort instead. If you do a random recolour of the Tahu in this set, remove the lava sword and other accessories, this could easily be presented as one of the builds in a Creator 3 in 1 set. It doesn't feel distinct, which it should. I feel like it's going to be hard to do a proper remake of these sets without bringing back constraction in some capacity. Sorry for the rant, I'll stop now.

I know this is a promotional set, I also knew that they wouldn't be bringing back constraction parts just for this GWP and I also know this is probably the best the designers could do to emulate the original pieces... but I'm still disappointed. Probably the biggest offenders to me are the masks which I know are probably crazy hard to replicate with normal pieces and with GWP designer budget. I don't have an idea of how to improve the set but the eye test says to me: this ain't it chief. On the other hand I'm glad we're getting something Bionicle related and this is probably the only Bionicle set that we'll be getting for a while. I'm also going to get it, I'm not gonna pretend otherwise but TLG seriously needs to bring Bionicle into the roster of themes that got proper set remakes. Even if it's only 1 set but done with a bigger design budget.

hold on a minute - a full re-release? Though only a rumour I can say that this would win me over any subscription the come up with (well, not any subscription but my tolerance would be higher in this case). Although I feel like just straight re-releases may become lacklustre after a while and would need to be balanced with something else to win over younger audiences at least. Interesting prospect though

With recent rumours that there'll be another GWP featuring an old theme (Blacktron) could we perhaps understand this as TLG further testing the waters with older themes that could potentially lead to resurgence of fully-fledged sets available to purchase in the future not tied to any special events but as it's own line? Now the new Icons line would make a bit more sense Or I'm maybe looking into this too deeply and it's simply a few concepts that they had in the backlog for 90th anniversary that they still want to push out and it's nothing more than that

Yeah the canister was more my wishful thinking anyway but it'd be cool if the actually went bricks-to-the-wall and did it. Although I can imagine they wish to continue to use, now standard, black boxes Combining into Tahu Nuva would be my dream come true but the proportions of the model still look off to me compared to the original model. Sure, the feet were large on OG model but this leak presents Tahu as having big red boots that go half way up his shin. The more I look at this leak the more I hope it's fake or at least a really early model. Although the box style makes me think its fake

If this leak is true than I may've expected too much. Why is the hand so small and the feet so big? Something feels off

I'd like to think otherwise but realistically, I think this seems the best reason why they probably made Bionicle GWP Anyhow, at least something to quench my Bionicle nostalgia! I'm really interested in how they'll approach it. I'd love if they used as much original pieces as possible but I think it'll be brick built for the most part. A straight re-release isn't an option I'd say. This isn't a reason to be disappointed yet, let's wait and see how it looks like Also, will there be a canister instead of a classic cardboard box? Bionicle was as much of a set as the packaging it came in - it'd be really cool to pay homage to that

Kind of late to the party but I also think this castle moves the ante up for the theme (as it should have for the occasion). I'm very pleased with how it turned out and I'll be getting it even with no real attachments or nostalgia for the theme. I've been saving 100€ discount on lego.com and I think I now know what I'll use it on I'd love to see builds with similar modern approach as this set but on smaller scale. Bring back the castle theme in full!

I take it that the 2 new Brickheadz are sold separately due to different brickheadz numbers (174, 175)? Edit: my bad, just saw the box. I'm not much of an expert on brickheadz to the numbers threw me off

Both leaked sets (Inquisitor ship & Kenobi starfighter) look really good, I'll definitely buy them asap On a related note - I really hope that the white circle with age and piece count is not a part of the new box art, It takes away from the otherwise very cool box art and SW box template

I'm really liking what I'm seeing with this Forestmen GWP - it is both modernised with concurrent parts yet retains the overall nostalgic design. I can't wait to see the Galaxy explorer!

Am I understanding this right - the forestmen hideout will be GWP for this set?

Great news! Although I think we'll only get a description of the set rather than any pictures but still, we'll have something to base our expectations on!

just a potential heads-up for anyone wanting to secure the set beforehand via a physical Lego store - I went to my local Lego store a couple of days ago and asked if these's any possibility of being put on a waiting list for the set when it comes out (I remember this was the case for Titanic and UCS AT-AT) but the answer was negative. I know this used to be a practice because when I usually inquired about larger sets before release (even when only rumoured) the store employees always offered me the possibility of waiting list but this time it was different I'm not sure what the practice is in other countries but I thought this was something worth sharing