Flawless Cowboy

I wouldn’t say it’s less detailed at all, in fact the greebles per square inch are probably higher. The problem is that the interior is tiny by virtue of the smaller size of the ship, making it an inferior toy. It seems to me that LSW is really trying to cater to both kids with play features and adults with displayability with its recent play sets, and the “fun” of the sets suffer as a result, while at the same time not looking as refined as something like the 18+ midi scale ships. If this had a really cool interactive feature, I’d maybe get it, but as I already have the UCS ISD and this is a worse looking ISD, there’s nothing for me here. Meanwhile, kids are getting a far less entertaining toy.

I think when the front of the spring shooter is exposed and the rest is covered, as in the new ISD, it looks quite nice, like a laser cannon. But I don’t like it when the entire 1x4 piece is exposed, as in the mandalorian fang fighter. It looks clumsy and tacked-on.

The spring shooter is integrated flush with the underside of the wings and competes the “finish”, removing it would expose a literal hole in the wing. Plus, I like my sets stock. Yes, it is a hole, and it looks bad without anything plugged. That’s not hyperbole.

That just leaves a gaping hole and a glaring spring loaded shooter piece. The new ISD and the Sith Infiltrator show how brilliantly they can be incorporated into builds. But looking at it closer, the tie cockpit in the trailer is identical to the 2021 tie fighter. Similar to the dark Falcon, I don’t think the build in the trailer is the product we’ll be getting.

Ugh please don’t stick spring loaded shooters on the wings of the x-wing like an afterthought, I thought we were past this

The two are wildly out of scale, refer to the UCS set for a better idea. As to the studs of the boarding hallway, that’s just Lego design language. People are expecting too much out of the hallway set.

As per the modern norm, it’s the best looking version of the ship we’ve gotten at playscale, at the expense of play features. Previous ISDs had escape pods, working meditation chambers…this one has…what?

Yes but it would be given an “18+” treatment. The Cantina is head and shoulders above previous MBS sets in presentation because of its higher age rating and I’d be very much excited to see a modern rendition of the Death Star.

As an MBS I think it would look great

Good. Judging by Yavin, LSW is better off not botching location sets and sticking with ships

The shaping of the fuselage (something Lego got right in 1999 and never since in system scale) alone excites me, this has the potential of being the nicest looking x-wing second to the UCS, and the best minifigure compatible one we’ve ever gotten.

The red markings in both Carson’s and Luke’s ships have a grey interruption followed by another red line. In the Lego set, the interruption happens in front of the cockpit. Carson’s happens under the cockpit, while Luke’s happens closer to the nose. Also, the Lego set has the red stripe continuing under the cockpit, which doesn't match either Carson’s or Luke’s design, so I think we’re looking too deeply into this. The closest match I could find (red stripe interrupted by grey right in front of cockpit and then continued by red underneath the cockpit) was Biggs’, but again, I think we’re reading too much into this.

Hopefully all the blowback from the botch job last year means this year’s Death Star is an attractive set

LSW playset designers need to start copying the homework of Speed Champions designers. Same age rating and yet the difference is astounding, they’re on another level.

Hoping the reason we didn’t get this is the same reason we didn’t get 3PO, which is that we’ll get a full-length buildable figure to join the droid lineup

They could, at a fraction of the level of detail. Dioramas are works of art by comparison to play sets. There’s a charm in having a Lego-fied version of the thing you’re interested in. I only collect Lego because of nostalgia and because of the building process, I have no interest in other “high end” replicas or toys that are ready to display out of the box and offer no interactivity.

I love all the adult sub lines they’ve done so far but the helmets were cut short and the dioramas absolutely need another wave. The starship collection is off to a good start but I want to see some ships that won’t ever get the UCS treatment, now is their time to shine, the Invisible Hand was a great choice. If they were to cook up another sub line to replace dioramas, I’d love minifig-scale mini-UCS sets. The detail of a UCS set in smaller, more affordable vehicles like AT-STs or Jedi Starfighters which playsets don’t do justice by virtue of their target demographic.

There was no media prompting an AT-TE to release in 2022, and there was most certainly absolutely nothing to prompt Lego to release a niche rendition of the gunship in 2023. 2020 onwards has been a renaissance for clone sets, driven by fan demand, and that’s really the only impetus it needs. It takes 1-2 years for Lego to take feedback and manifest it into sets, we’ve definitely seen them doing that as of late. The at-te and gunship aren’t quite as iconic and deserving of evergreen status as an x-wing or falcon (which would still release without any media prompting), but they’re certainly in the tier below that, which is why the walker isn’t retiring until 2025 at the earliest, and why the gunship has received a UCS set and playset (which is underperforming due to its niche status and poor size).

With it retiring this year, I’d hope a new one in the classic color scheme is around the corner. Releasing a niche gunship after a ten year drought, and then releasing a classic gunship shortly after seems like a good opportunity for Lego to “double dip” the market. Much fewer people would be interested in the Coruscant variant if they already had their hands on an updated classic one.

You could pair the droids vs clones battle pack with virtually anything and its collective value would skyrocket because that’s how good of a deal it is for $30, it’s an outlier. The older gunships actually integrated side builds into the main vehicle in clever ways, and that felt very cool and worth the money. No speeder just sitting there next to the CGG will ever feel as neat as slotting a speeder or command post or bacta tank into the actual ship. “Smaller” doesn’t capture the bigger problems with the newer gunship, it’s just less fun to interact with. On top of looking worse in almost every single way compared to its decade-old counterpart.

Lego hears us loud and clear, they’ll be releasing a micro, all-red MTT that appears in three frames of a 2009 episode of TCW. Jokes aside, I do think they largely give fans what they want, but sometimes they fumble so hard with sets that are the equivalent of layups.

There’s plenty of people who just want vehicles to put their troops into. Half the appeal of clone gunships or MTTs is the fact that you’re supposed to be able to cram a whole bunch of figures into them. As of right now, there’s nowhere to put a droid army, and this droid carrier is an excellent vehicle serving this purpose. Yeah I just realized there’s no way they don’t downsize it like the Coruscant guard gunship. Or perhaps all the backlash to the latter caused them to reconsider which sets they undersize and which ones they oversize.

On Lego’s website the droid carrier is marketed as an “adult” set. Given the price threshold it only seems appropriate Would’ve made a better anniversary fig than half the lineup which could easily be shoehorned into clone (fives) or rebel (saw) sets. Zam only makes sense when paired with the chase scene, maybe a Jango slave 1 which they also haven’t done in decades

The brittle dark red has been very overstated, I just built mine last year and had zero problems, although my set was released in 2018, so possibly they fixed it by then. You can always get replacements from Lego. I don’t see them doing a new one anytime soon considering it retired only five-ish years ago, and there are far more deserving remakes in the ~$240 range.

The droid carrier would make for such an excellent $30 battlepack, I’m confused as to why it’s locked behind a GWP, it would sell like hotcakes and people would want multiples, unlike a deathstar or lars homestead which are good, single-unit sets. This was my first droid set as a kid, couldn’t afford an MTT. I want four of these. The only way this makes sense to me is if an MTT is right around the corner. Meanwhile that UCS Interceptor is dang good it’s making me reconsider getting the playset version.