BrickPrick

Yes, as far as i can tell, i prefer his May the Fourth promo figure as well. And i don't think they would base just a single figure on Andor for the UCS Death Star. Just Episode IV, VI and Rogue One. Yeah, it would have been a close call if they included Cal's poncho. But in this scenario i gotta give the edge to Gerrera. His dual colored cape is spectacular and the detailed printing is very much to my liking.

Yep. And to top it all off... They released that exact superior C-3PO as a key chain for 6€! What can i tell you, it was already embarrassing to skip over his inclusion in the $500 UCS Sail Barge. And now it's even more embarrassing in the $1000 UCS Death Star. Twice the greed, double the money, if you will. I mean, downgrading UCS figures for their much cheaper system scale equivalents is one thing... But not keep on giving them in much more expensive UCS sets is straight up unacceptable. On a happier note... Where are you, Saw Gerrera? You're here! You're not having to show up in any more Star Wars properties before Lego finally decides to give you a much deserved official minifigure! You're here! You're right here, and you're ready to fight! Honestly, what a magnificent minifigure. In my opinion, the best 25th anniversary figure bar none. That's four down now, up to two more to go! Screw you young Leia, though, i've got no plans for you.

That is one wonderfully meaty wishlist, man. Mine would be basically yours... just without the TROS additions. Although not new characters, i'm very glad about finally having Plo Koon plus at long last getting a solid Jango Fett and Asajj Ventress in the near future, while always taking more troops. Also very much looking forward to Lama Su. And, of course, my profile picture, also known as TBOBF Cad Bane will be a terrific treat to kick off the new year. Everything else, figures from the CTT & MTT, is much further away for me, though. Don't know yet where the U-Wing will fit in. My wishlist of never before done characters would be heavily based on the PT. So i definitely share your picks of Shmi Skywalker and Boss Nass. In addition... how about Dexter Jettster? Wouldn't say no to some Separatist leaders like Wat Tambor either. On the imperial side of things i wanna add some long overdue Purge Troopers to the Incinerator ones. In terms of much needed modern makeovers, i mostly have to think about Zam Wesell and Count Dooku. The former came out around 1984 or something. What do you think about Yularen sharing the same hair piece as Tarkin? I think that's an odd choice on Lego's part. Easy enough to fix as well, but still... The lack of dual moulded legs for the Lego Star Wars theme is a tale as old as time. So even though that still sucks, more so in a set of this magnitude, i never expected Lego to give them some, which keeps my disappointment in check. What i can't fathom, however, is the ongoing lack of skirt pieces for both Palps and his Royal Guard. They are fully cloaked characters and their design would greatly benefit from having them. I mean, they even got the alternative piece from the Rivendell set in order for them to sit down properly. Why not make use of those? It might have been too soon for the Final Duel Diorama... but two year later?

Yeah, i truly do not know what went wrong there. I agree, it's a soulless husk of what could have been or still be some decent looking box art. Not that i mind a more minimalistic approach. Like, i don't need tons of explosions and special effects in order to find something astehtically pleasing... especially for something that is meant to be a display model. Less can definitely be more there. But starring at a black void with just a little bit of colouring on there ain't gonna cut it for me. Honestly, doesn't need to, since i don't have interest of getting any 18+ sets anyways. But yeah, like you said, considering it has to help cutting costs, that might be a good thing in the bigger picture. Depends on how or if Lego uses those actual savings, i guess. Ha, this is actually how i like to describe the Star Wars franchise as a whole. It comes across as this vast universe filled with so many different characters, locations and stories to tell, but upon taking a closer look you may find that it's actually rather limited. Yep, i don't see a problem with this format by design, just take issues with the rapid pace Lego is launching these things. This would have been fine in the last decade or so when we got like north of 60 sets per year, but nowadays all that it does is killing much more valuable system scale set slots. Curious what the other two most wanted minifigures of yours are? If i had to take an uneducated guess, i'd say they are Babu Frik and Lama Su. I second this. Well, you can't spell Lego without an L, so it kinda checks out. After all, this set is only retail for a thousand bucks. What did you expect Lego to do... applying some much needed logic in favor of their consumers paying them a premium? Oh boy, i can already tell you are going to have a field day with this one. Too easy...

I'm a Lego designer believer at this point. I believe they mess up some specific details and tend to troll us on purpose. There is just no rational reasoning for me to think otherwise. I mean, the only thing i can think of is when they haven't had early access to Disney/Lucasfilm concept art or something, but that's another matter entirely. As you can only play the cards you've been dealt with beforehand. This obviously clearly ain't the case for the clones when you've got everything you need at your disposal for at least two decades. So seeing them getting the most simple of detailing wrong is ridiculous in my eyes. Why they would actually do that, like just to spark some controversies, i don't know. The most positive publicity comes from their LAN, whosebmembers won't necessarily call them out for all these inaccuracies. Like not even close to the level as people like you do. You know, that's funny... Before i got to the second part of your posting, i was thinking about Thrawn too. First they messed up his imperial rank Insignia, while printing the right amount of code cylinders. Then they were doing it vice versa. I know they were probably different designers, but things like this make me genuinely question their sanity. There's seriously almost always something with Lego. Oh, for the maker's sake... Talking about making the Lego Star Wars universe as wide as the ocean and as deep as a puddle. I don't wanna say it out loud, but as far as box branding goes, Hasbro's Black Series, which Lego clearly took inspiration from, does it better. About anniversaries... We had this conversation numerous times already. If you keep doing it every time you can, it doesn't feel special anymore. Can't have everything, blah blah. But would it kill them to put some logo on the box for every property they portray in the years of their respective celebration; how about some actual consistency? Speaking of minifigure details, a new Princess Leia torso has been leaked for the upcoming Death Star. Don't know if it's more screen accurate or not, but she now has five belt buckles instead of three.

Well, something tells me that even without all these specialized moulds, Lego wouldn't do those alternative builds anymore. Not for big licensed themes, that is. That's seemingly just not how they operate anymore. More than ever, they want you to invest lots of money to constantly buy new sets, not investing too much time rebuilding already bought ones. Might be completely wrong on this one, but this is how it feels like to me. The key pillar of the actual building experience is not a top priority for Lego anymore.

Typically used to 18+ sets having no design on the packaging at all, while many play scale sets are actually pretty appealing and nice to look at. That being said, now that i can see it in person, what on earth were they thinking when they made the box art for Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator? It's so depressingly devoid of any natural colouring and lacks an interesting background... it looks like a vampire sucked the life of this thing dry and then some. Basing it off the very first shots when the ship flies into orbit on Tatooine would have been the better call. Still curious how Lego messed it up this badly. Maybe they didn't bother to make something better beyond what we got due to the set's limited availability as a Lego shop exclusive. That way, it can be considered advantageous not everybody gets to see this design debacle at any given shop. Or not, because then they would have put more effort into designing it. But thanks for reminding me that TPM got an awesome anniversary logo, while ROTS, arguably the most popular prequel flick, got nothing. It always comes back to clones, ain't it? Clones are the key to all of this much? Like ROTS sets getting TCW branding means you can't print ROTS logos on the box?

Yep, i just saw this alternative build is possible straight out of the box, no extra parts needed... that's even better. And of course, even though the focus on the building experience ain't that big anymore, Lego as a hobby still gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. On a level of ever present backwards compatibility and flexibility that other toys simply can't match. I remember how Lego was actually advertising vastly different, non-canonical builds on their instruction manuals... good times.

This honestly looks great! The biggest design flaw is obviously the thick nose, which doesn't fit the sleek elegant aesthetics of the ship at all. And i wouldn't say this compromise was worth the (admittedly cool) play feature. Unless i screwed up something in the building process, i never intentionally modified any of my sets, but i might look into this. Thanks for sharing. First, the set needs to arrive here; Lego's taking it's sweet time with shipping.

Given the enormous leap in piece count, considerably bigger than the last one. But probably not 1:1 in relation to that. My initial prediction was that you build one big grey blob for either ANH and ROTJ looks. So you can enclose the whole thing for display or take off/fold down the panels to play around with mixing and matching modules based on different scenes of Episode IV and VI. This would explain all these extra parts, while the whole model is obviously not getting too much bigger than the 2016 one. I think so? As to how dynamic these negotiations can be, like whether or not major retailers can have them for every order during a single set's lifespan, i don't know. To clarify, i don't say that sales have no effect on Lego's price policies whatsoever. They probably can. But not in the way some people are hoping for. I think they are overestimating the immediate impact it has on Lego. Whether or not Lego sells 80 MTT's for full price or 100 for like 20% off doesn't matter to them. They are getting their money one way or the other.

Yes, that's correctly. Yep, i see so many people who obviously don't know how this things is working at all. They urge people to wait for some sales to send Lego a message, yet this doesn't significantly affect their profit margins. It can only hurts them if major retailers stopped or reduced the amount of sets they order from Lego. That's why i said it's their responsibility as well. Patiently awaiting more Death Star plans. This thing might be one for the ages... for better or for worse.

I agree that you don't necessarily need to spend an excessive amount of money in order to be a Lego YouTuber out there. Though all these big hauls, getting rare minifigures for thousands of bucks, i would consider common ground by now. Just like putting big armies on some baseplates became a cult at this point, rather than a MandR thing on it's own.

Well, other than getting the occasional Lego shop exclusive, we always order from that tiny little company called Amazon. So i think this multi-billion corporation can afford buying their stock from the other one. And also take some hits, when they still sell bucket loads of Lego through their gigantic range, regardless of good the sales are. They don't even pretend a set has to be a shelf warmer in order to get a good discount. In my country, you basically get ~27% off even for the popular stuff during the launch window, so what gives. Besides, it's obviously also the retailer's responsibility to know what's best for their business, which sub-themes and kinds of sets work out for them and which does not. If some retailers keep on ordering specific sets that they typically can't get rid off, they are hurting themselves. Like you alluded to in your last sentence, people will buy things they like for the price they think is right. I know that makes everyone part of the problem of ever increasing price policies, but sometimes preventing impulse buys by being patient, like voting with your wallet, is the best thing you can do. Yeah, that would definitely come down to never for me as well. Lego almost always just discounts some sets that are either performing pretty poorly and/or about to retire. And these are usually the formats i have no interest in. So despite knowing it would make a real difference, there is no point of waiting for sales that will never happen. Let alone on the level you would want or need them to. And yeah, if more people tend to get discounted sets later on, rather than paying full price at launch, i'm sure Lego would notice the decline of the demand and might link it to their pricing strategy. But as Lego, of course, still fully receives their cash up front, they probably wouldn't care. Unless the retailers stand up for themselves, i doubt it's gonna change things in the long run. Yep, i basically got gifted nothing but Lego Star Wars on my birthdays for quite some time now and that's not about to change anytime soon. I'm hoping for the Galactic Marine's inclusion in a magazine as well. Even if the new price for that thing sucks megablocks. Yet considering how many troopers we got, i'm fairly confident the 327th will show up in there, too. Same. Although the officall Lego deals will vary by region, from what i can tell, they are still usually very limited everywhere. Lego is clearly doing the bare minimum in that regard. Suffice to say, it's not a reliable source at all if you wanna save some money.

Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator. A set surely known for it's fair share of problems. But whether or not these issues suffice to stop you from getting it always depends on if you already own any ship's version or not. I don't, so i see no other option. Besides, I don't wanna complain about Lego for ever so rarely releasing any TPM sets these days, while also ignoring the only play scale set we actually got for it's 25th anniversary.

My Lego Star Wars 2025 set plans are as follows: Jango's Slave 1 and the 327th Battle Pack, both preferably this year, for like 25/30% off. Same goes for the U-Wing and V-19 Torrent for next year. As well as the MTT for ~40% off, while the CTT can be no less than 50% off. Still undecided on the upcoming calendar.

Because some people can't deal with other (polarizing) people that are spitting out truth bombs about things they like or love. They are personally offended by it. I am on Reddit every now and then for the leaks. But i don't read a whole lot of comments. Was actually referring to the postings written here on Eurobricks, where i didn't see anything that even remotely comes close to "hate". Yeah, i think i am on the same page as you are. And that's exactly how i perceived your posting. You criticized this one statement he is very eager to emphasize, not the person behind it. That's a fairly big difference. Neither was i. All these "you are X so you have to be Y" claims usually don't sit right with me. They are awful quick to judgement and come across as cheap, drive-by postings to me. If i was to "hate" anyone for a simple disagreement, i would probably "hate" everyone in here at some point. Or to be more precisely, every person on the planet. That ain't hate. It's individuality. It's only natural. I always find it funny when he calls Lego out for that and usually see the justification to do so. If you make such a cocky motto for your multi-billion company, aspire to be held to the best quality standard, claiming only that is good enough, you have to measured by that. I also just think some people are a little annoyed because he can sound like a broken record at times. This ongoing rambling about every tiny little clone detail might be tiresome in the grand scheme of things. Constantly hearing "clones still have this but i don't like that, or they don't have that but i want it"... yeah, we get it. Even though he often has a point, it might be the repetition of the rants that can spark some criticism. Like, i will forever agree that printed waist capes look abysmal, and yes, it's worth pointing out when you showcase the minifigures. Yet i think it's a little bit excessive to give us the extented edition of explaining on why it sucks so bad every single time.

How is it that hate? It isn't. It's constructive criticism. One thing doesn't have ro rule out the other. Both things can be true at once. So i enjoy MandR's content for a whole while now. I appreciate the fact that he actually takes his time putting together some very good in depth-reviews. Instead of aspiring to be yet another early bird who rushes superficial stuff out for the extra clicks. Yet that doesn't mean i will agree with everything he says. In fact, i don't. And that's perfectly fine. Doesn't mean i hate the guy or anything in the slightest. The emphasis is on "seems". Because i think a person capable of rational thought won't see it that way. To me, it sounds like "you don't think everything was better in the good old age and therefore you must be a blind Lego fanboy." Whereas in reality it certainly isn't that black and white. At the very least, by thinking in extremes, ain't how some actual nuanced conversation can happen. But only a Sith deals in absolutes. To confuse a mere disagreement with "hate" is all the rage on the internet nowadays. As if you put strong words on the fridge as a joke or something. It just loses all meaning. So stupid.

Yep, only 35 figures to go! Yeah, i was primarily after the Thrawn minifigure, too. If we get very lucky, we might get him in a Lego Star Wars magazine later down the road. Even though the dual moulded legs would feel like a real premium inclusion, the Bespin Luke Skywalker showed us there are willing to sprinkle in the occasional highlight figure every now and then. And yes... This set basically just vanished so quickly in a lot of places. I don't think it did that bad commercially, so it's hard to comprehend the reasoning behind all of this. Does the set contain some special pieces which caused some production problems or something? In any case, i saw it on clearance on some Walmarts online with the price slashed like half off and expected these discounts for many more regions. Yeah that's right. We will almost guaranteed get another shot at this. But let's see what set that's gonna be. And not that unimportant either... at what cost. I can't believe you forget the best new piece of them all... Plo Koon's head! Yep, i agree. I knew the set would be very overpriced from the very beginning. Most Lego Star Wars are in my eyes. The question is just by how much. And this one just takes it to another level. So more than ever, i wanted to know if the set itself is at least good for what it is. And while i liked many design and some functionality aspects of it, i was super shocked when the first stability issues showed up and swore myself to never support this... not even for minifigure FOMO. But now that i see a bigger and better picture, i backpaddled a bit and returned to deep discount feeling. I know right... I generally don't get this "if X was released Y years ago, it would have been so much better" stance. This is when a heavy dose of nostalgia kicks in and blinds you. It clouds your judgement to such a degree that makes you only wanna see the positive aspects from yesteryear, while completely ignoring today's improvements and the fact that it actually wasn't all that well and superior in every way, like you are pretending it was. It ain't exactly a one way road. But i see this kind of thinking for both minifigures and sets everywhere in the Lego Star Wars community. It's like saying the OT is the best thing since sliced bread and the PT is hot garbage. But more realistically, i think both trilogies are closer to each other than what people used to say back in the day. It's good that you said "most important" and not "best". Yep, those assumptions are pretty amusing in hindsight, aren't they?

That's a mighty fine looking protocol droid. And would you look at that, the minifigure fully leaked from top to bottom, pretty lovely. Hopefully they can keep this pace up moving forward. Though i got a feeling the more prominent characters will continue to be revealed in a piece by piece fashion.

The better i think this thing through, the more i get to that impression too. While i stand by my opinion that Lego went too far with the downsizing, for what it is, the model is good. The proportions are very good. I like the trans blue pieces for the front and sand blue accents. The interior, for a set of it's size, is actually pretty decent as well. The terrible structural integrity is indeed not that terrible, you just gotta be more mindful where you grab it and where not. So now i'm moving more along the mindset that it's obviously extremely overpriced, more so than most other sets. And less question whether or not the set's got any redeeming qualities. I think for 50% off i'm gonna have a good time with it. This is why communication is key. If i had any children and know about the set's weak points, i would tell my kid in advance. And remind him or her about it whenever needed. Of course, like you said, the actual age factors in and can clearly make a difference. Okay, now i'm done... allegedly.

Last post about the Clone Turno Tank for the time being. Having just watched MandR's review of it, i kinda reached peak confusion now. Never have i ever seen such a polarising set that i still wanna get some day. From a design standpoint, there are many redeeming qualities to my liking. And the stability issues doesn't seem that dooming in this in-depth showcase. As the couple of spots where it can easily fall apart are places where it's never supposed to be picked up anyways. Problematic for some kids? Maybe. An actual adult? Unlikely. Driving it around, to me the most important playable aspect of the CTT, functions really well. So i think you can still have fun messing around with this thing. Back to deep discount mood for this set. It's just so weird that it appears to be designed and constructed by many people all with their own ideas.

I imagined something would make it look like a good set... but not this soon. And certainly not the Turbo Tank, even though i grew more sceptical about it by the minute. What about the First Order AT-ST, though? I mean, all things considered, it's really tough to beat that miserable monstrosity. Pushing it's luck? Yes. Until i thought "they went too far in a few places". That's how i would describe the Turbo Tank debacle. Whether or not Lego will see it this way as well, as always depends on how many people will vote with their wallet. It's crazy. Every set you just listed is or was obviously pretty expensive, but quality-wise they are also at least two levels above the current Turbo Tank. When i was gifted the 2020 AT-AT and 2022 AT-TE, it felt good when i put it together and all, you know? I certainly won't feel the same way if i ever get to build the CTT, which is a terrible shame. Yeah, the MTT is clearly the better deal compared to the CTT and i won't be as hesitant to get it. But compared to most of the aforementioned sets, even that still feels overall lacking. And i can't help but wonder how much better the so called "Juggernaut" could have ended up, if they didn't do brick build wheels and instead used those pieces to beef up that Tank, make it much more sturdy and accessible via technic handle etc. Scale-wise, it could have easily been on the same level as the 2016 model and inflation adjusted, it would have made sense at this price point. But for what limited value they delivered, plus also falling apart when you sneeze, i deem it unacceptable. Yeah, i actually don't envy some of the Lego designers working with all these tight deadlines and making decisions based on that. And if you look at some of them, you can basically feel their frustration too. They sometimes give away their best "yeah, i know it sucks and i would want to make it better, but i am not allowed to do that, so believe me, i am just as unsatisfied as you are"-facial expression.

Well yeah, i could probably get it somewhere else. But i think i'm gonna pass on this one. Besides the plethora of 2025 sets of which i will get the majority next year, there are still a fair few 2024 sets i wanna get before they retire. If Lego was my only hobby... okay, sure thing. But alas, can't have everything, i guess. I see. Well, please let me know once you picked it up. Indeed... Let's hope this madness does at the very least just apply to the Super Battle Packs going forward and not extend to the regular ones. I know this very BP we were talking about got this hefty price increase, but seeing it go back to $20 for next year is somewhat encouraging right now. Nearly everything inside the Lego Star Wars cosmos looks like a better deal than the cursed Tiny Turbo Tank. And that is actually saying something. For instance, the Justifier, overpriced, obscure and otherwise flawed as it definitely was, was a behemoth of a set. It at least had this thing going for it. The CTT on the other hand... more focused on minifigure madness over the actual set than ever. I rarely, if ever, saw such a huge discrepancy.

Yeah, it's practically all but guaranteed at this point and i don't know why Lego hasn't already revealed this thing by now. Very solid picks. It's about time for a new General Lando minifigure. It also annoys the heck out of me that i own an Ackbar Trooper but not the man, the myth, the legend himself. I don't know why... But this very last bit got me pretty good. My body didn't know whether it should be laughing or coughing, so it was both. That's interesting. For whatever reasons, this particular set just stopped being available on Amazon DE, as if it was retired. I literally can't get it. That might be due to the aforementioned poor performance, but in this case it would typically end up being heavily discounted. You still don't got any decent discounts on that? By the maker... that was just insane. They really meant business back then. As i remember seeing the 27€ even made it into the german Lego catalogue. I think that might be where the source originated from. If Lego does a drastically downsized AT-AT for a hundred bucks, it will make the Turbo Tank look like an even worse deal than it already is. JUST WHY, LEGO? OF ALL THE SETS YOU COULD HAVE SCREWED UP... WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE THE TURBO TANK?! YOU LET SOME FANS WAIT UP TO NINE YEARS AND THIS IS THE BEST YOU HAVE IN STORE FOR US?! Will reserve capital letters only for short bursts of impulsive, emotional responses such as this.

Those are some good observations on your part. And i would appreciate more location based sets again. I will actually be disappointed if that doesn't happen. Because that means there won't be an actual TIE Avenger. Put every one of his postings in the instruction manual as if it was the creation of a UCS set. Also put his profile picture on the bricks breakdown. Heck, while you are at it, put this man's nickname on the front page. Lego could use some actual design anyways, so you would be killing two birds with one stone. While the chances of it happening are still ludicrously low, we now at least have a shot at this. I second this. A more steady flow of location based sets would be most welcome indeed. Since i only got four 2025 set so far, i gotta go with @Yperio_Bricks and @Darth_Bane13... It's Plo Koon's Jedi Starfighter Microfighter. While it's kinda difficult to compare this to different formats, for what it's worth, it delivers the best out of the box value.