BrickPrick

Oh, i see. I never fully watched that ARC in question. Now i know it obviously would have made much sense. Actually a huge missed opportunity to not put him in, then. @Skiffle Lego will release construction based sets next year. They will include both bricks and minifigures. Some will even be based on licensed themes. But please... you better keep it top secret. Don't wanna come across more important and serious than i actually am.

I don't think a fitting set inclusion for him would be problematic at all. Yoda or Anakin Vs. Dooku, both as a smaller play scale set or Diorama would be the no-brainer options. Other than that, the Geonosis Arena in any capacity that we never got. Or simply a bigger Separatist ship like the Invisible Hand. Save to say, a main character not appearing anywhere for twelve years, is becoming a glaring omission. One that Lego needs to fix in the foreseeable future. Ha, i thought this would be the AFOL/dad/husband kinda math. Oh no, it's not exclusively made for kids, that would be the Young Jedi stuff. It's just something a younger audience could enjoy as well as TCW. I'm just annoyed seemingly everything else (including Young Jedi) gets something, while Tales of Jedi/Empire/Underworld got completely swept under the carpet. Adding to the current conversation, it would have been a good opportunity to do a Yaddle Vs. Dooku set, killing two birds with one stone. Okay, maybe not that crazy of an inclusion, but suffice to say that set desperately needed a third figure. Besides Lego gotta be Lego, i just can not fathom these inconstancies when it comes to minifigure line-ups.

Or just adding some obscure characters to standard or even popular sets. Like who is to say it needs to be a niche product all around? Yes. The sheer number of individual sub-themes combined with all these additional formats makes striking a good balance rather difficult nowadays. I'm not even against RTG sets per se, just biased in regards to replacing regular releases. When you see the aforementioned aspects killing system scale slots at a rapid pace and then you get those goofy versions of characters or ships that have been a while since their last original release, it doesn't feel right to me. Of course, all other people who already own at least one, say, OT themed Falcon might welcome this change. Always depends on which side you stand on. It isn't. I don't know why some people seem to be so allergic to this obscurity. Star Wars takes place in an obscure galaxy filled to the brim with obscure characters. It's like THE franchise where one character is named Padok'Draba'Takat Sap'De'Rekti Nik'Linke'Ti' Ki'Bef'Nik'NeSevef'Li'Kek (if i'm not able to say this ten times fast i don't even bother to get out of bed) and the other is named Timm. It's a universe where one character looks like your worst nightmare, while the another appears to be a generic human you could meet at Walmart. It's where even the most irrelevant individuel with two seconds of screentime gets tons of background stories on Wookiepedia. While some tend to shun this obscurity, i like to embrace it. And this can extend to some Lego Star Wars minifigs as well. And yes, i am aware that Lego can't and therefore won't see it this way. I kinda don't like your post. It just makes too much sense and doesn't fit my selfish narrative. What about the Tales of the Jedi show which also was intended for kids to watch and got zero coverage? You see where this is going... All things considered, now more than ever, you will never make everyone happy. This is the logical consequence in all of this. Every so often these debates aren't about being right or wrong, but personal preferences.

I swear by the maker, don't they dare to do this... The last Bongo released in 2012 and thus is long overdue for a modern makeover. Plus it actually provides a good opportunity to finally include a Boss Nass minifigure. They better don't waste such a spot for even more RTG mumbo jambo, aka Star Wars glorified what if series. No offence, i had a fun time watching it, it's just a painful reminder what sub-theme gets sets and what doesn't. And when it then wastes ships which would have been perfectly fine as regular releases (looking at you Dark Falcon) it gets worse.

Make no mistake, a Star Wars CMF will probably never happen, much less so one themed after an Episode. I actually wanted to post more remakes, but there have been so many since i did mine, it would have felt like copy/paste, so i went for some CMF ideas. One way or the other, it's pretty fun to predict or speculate about these things. Except when you are Lego and claim characters like Cal Kestis, Fives and Nien Numb would have been difficult to put in standard sets. But yeah, the 30th anniversary would obviously be another possibilty to some of these missing prequel characters as well. I just wish Lego would give us PT sets more regularly between those anniversaries. It's quite tiresome when you have to rely on a single year and next to nothing happens. TPM kinda suffers as it's anniversary always overlaps with the birthday of the Lego Star Wars theme.

Well... yeah. But aren't test balloons part of the market research? It could still be a smaller test baloon (given the sub-theme) for the CTT, but a test baloon nonetheless. It would be less about "does it even sell well at all" and more like "does it still sell well or even better at this price point?". Again, does one thing need to rule out the other? I am aware this isn't a very risky move by Lego, because they know it's gonna be a sought after set regardless. How about a calculated risk? They just wanna know how far they can go. In this instance, it's more like several baby balloons instead of one big balloon. You gotta admit... being just shy of 20 cents pro piece is presenting an unprecedented case as far as Star Wars flagships go! Yes, this is very much true. Unless you buy discounted sets directly from Lego, they don't have to care at what price point you purchase something off of other retailers later on. Like you said, they already made their money (minus the supply fee). So that means everyone supporting such sets, no matter the cost, including myself, is part of the problem. Are you familiar with the story of the frog you put in the pot and increase the temperature at such a slow pace, the frog doesn't even notice it's getting cooked? And when it does, it's already too late. That's my metaphor for Lego and all their systematic price hikes they got in store for the consumers. And that's what i mean with "test balloons". Yes, that kinda pace. What archenemy? The Clone Extravaganza? I just know that he doesn't like the current Lego Star Wars direction very much. And that he may or may not want a baby with a fictional character called Dedra Meero. The OT has more interesting aspects, including various new minifigures, than the PT? Yeah, i don't know about that one. I wouldn't say the underrepresentation of the PT is deserved at all, though given the current climate, i don't think now is the right time to complain about it. Thank you for not pointing out fingers and name names in regards to the drastically downscaled Slave 1, which i still gonna get, that's very kind and observant of you.

Now we are getting somewhere. I do think it makes sense for Lego to have both the UCS and play scale model of the Slave 1 available on shelves at the same time. I just don't think they needed to be released just a mere three months from each other (not that i'm complaining) and i still doubt it got anything to do with the 20th anniversary of Episode III. It might be less about what already released in the last years and more like what they never made to this day. The PT is a true treasure trove in terms of varied ship designs.

Yeah... no. Other than the last part, that doesn't seem to make much sense. Considering 75243 is the best play scale Slave 1 ever made... yes. Imagine they do exactly that without releasing a TIE Avenger in the meantime... Now how funny would that be?

Yep, same here. I don't mind any downsized ships in the past couple of years, but the Slave 1 just hits different. Besides basically downgrading it's scale from big to medium, i still wonder why. Simply put, other ships might still work just fine with the new size, while the Slave 1 is... too much. And like you said we are used to so many other iterations which did the scale much more justice than the newest two versions. But yeah, at the end of the day, i have to go through with it for the usual discounts. Have been wanting a Jango Fett minifig for the longest time. I don't wanna rely on Lego to do a Microfighter anytime soon. Plus the inclusion of Lama Su makes the deal more attractive to me.

I don't think the extent of downsizing these two ships in particular is even remotely comparable. Slave 1 is supposed to be a big vehicle, so to scale it down to Starfighter size ain't gonna cut it. While the Imperial Star Destroyer is supposed to be large as well, the newest version is still fairly big. Smaller than the last one for sure, but unlike Slave 1 is not Midi-scale now. Yes, there is a considerable market for these sets. Only Lego needs to act accordingly to meet the demand again. I really hope you are right on this one. Getting two Battle Packs in one for the old price was actually an unusually great deal last year. But now paying much more (50% price increase in the US) for getting less (two B1s got chopped) the corporate greed is on full display again.

One step at a time. It's not been long ago Lego even made UCS prequel sets again. While there was Obi-Wan's Delta-7 Starfighter in 2010, they only really got started in 2021 with the UCS Gunship. Since then, you got another PT set every two years. So i think it just needs more time. Yes... period. I don't know if this is more sad or funny... just that it's true. This so much. You even got two possible options with Yoda and Yaddle to bring back Dooku at last. Of course, the ship already sailed on the latter. So it's down to one option. Actually, make it two again with a duel set between Anakin Vs. Count based on Episode III. Or even three possible sets because this could easily be part of the Diorama Collection as well. If only there was a fitting anniversary to commemorate all this right about now. And what do we get now in this price range? Looking at this year, another so-called "4+" set, an overpriced Jedi Starfighter and Super Battle Pack. It is. Even though it probably wouldn't be the exact price point anymore, the format needs to return. But why would they care to do some actual smaller sets, if they could just sell you even more clones in a bigger Battle Pack, which probably makes them much more money with less effort put into it?

I always wondered how close the collaboration between Lego and Travellers Tales was when making all these Lego installments. I mean, all those never been made minifigures that are playable in the Skywalker Saga look so damn good... when they eventually do release, i would want to look just like that. And if they actually used to do do real figures for prototyping, it's even more of a shame we only got Blue Milk Farmboy Luke for the Polybag.

I don't know about this. While this would actually add up quite well with the development cycle of the game, the official description is referring to an "unreleased Zam Wesell minifigure". This sound more like the physical product to me. One thing does not have to rule out the other. Lego knows the market, yes. They obviously know a Clone Turbo Tank will be a popular choice for people out there. But how would an even higher price point affect those sales? Can they get away with it just fine? They won't know unless they try! That's where the test ballon comes into play. Like they also knew after nearly two decades the X-Wing is one of their evergreen sets that is always supposed to sit on shelves. Yet that didn't stop them to suddenly crank up the price by 20 Euros... Bada bing, bada boom, test ballon. Well yeah, just jumping from one extreme (clone craziness) to another (OT overload) would obviously not help matters much in the grand scheme of things. To give some context, my original comment was in response to folks who wished upon more OT sets. I was basically saying if Lego keeps the current pace in which they release TCW sets, the OT resurgence has to happen sooner or later. But i didn't take into account the possible scenario of releasing much more Separatist sets. I'd love some more PT sets as well. It has to be a possibility to release some outside of anniversaries (where you still get fairly few) every now and then. Like i said earlier, not everything around the PT has to based on Clones. How many people, who think this year to be the worst in Lego Star Wars history (although that was before the big leaks) would be more satisfied with that, i don't know.

To be clear, do not mistake my attempt to even remotely explain this price point for any justification whatsoever. There is just no justification for this. It's one of those test balloons for the fanboys. How far are they willing to go in order to get what they want? In this case, i want what they want... but not at any cost. On another note, i took the Clone Extravaganza for this year as a possible sign for things to stop rather soon and getting more balance again... Well, i gotta add, that's if Lego doesn't do many PT based or TCW Separatist sets.

It's kinda telling for Lego that you have to hope a print is just hidden due to a possible light reflection or because of low resolution image quality. The preliminary image showed nothing in this regard and i wouldn't bet any penny on some slugs being included at all.

It shows that Lego is willing to do some Episode II sets outside of anniversaries again... or at all. So chances are at least not as low as they used to be. Plus they actually cancelled a Zam Wesell minifigure in 2020. I could get a good custom Zam minifigure in a few weeks for a somewhat reasonable price, but i'm holding out hope Lego will release the long overdue Bounty Hunter Pursuit remake in the coming years.

Ha, no worries, from my point of view, you didn't. And even if you did, i can be quite headstrong and stubborn in conversations as well, so i can take it. All's well that ends well, i say. Regarding Lego's direction of downscaling, i still don't mind it for the most part. If it does add up to me, i actually prefer many shrunken down models in terms of their overall scale, while i think past ships iterations just got way too big. However, in Slave 1's scenario, it doesn't add up to me. Maybe if i got the 2021 model instead of the superior 20th anniversary version i would be alright about it. But pairing it with the latter, won't be a match made in heaven for display. Will be much better suited to combine it with Obi-Wans Delta-7, so that's what i'm gonna do.

I think that's exactly what they are and have been to Lego the last five years... glorified clone color palette swaps. So i don't get why they suddenly change up their established formula. I looked up some reference material before making my "bizarre criticism" and what can i say... The difference seems not that great? Personally, not enough to do the colour swap. Let's actually try a bit more bizarre. Are the Phase 1 and Phase 2 armor designs supposed to look identical going from the source material? I'm going out on a limb here and say... no, they are not meant to look exactly the same. Did Lego care and made them different from each other? No, they did not. They opted for a unified design. This is consistency to me. So now deciding to do something different again, just because it might be more accurate to the on-screen appearance, doesn't make any sense to me. Just go through with it until you redesign clones again in 2034 or something. Oh. I get it now. There has been a misunderstanding on my end. You see, i really thought there was this conscious choice from Lego to differentiate regular troops from specialized ones. For example, the 212th Clone Trooper from 2014 got orange arms, while for the 2022 one Lego changed it up to white. I thought this was a clear move to distinguish him from Cody. But in reality it got nothing to do with that, it's actually a situative thing. Well, you can learn something new every day. Thanks for clearing that up. Now i know how you must have felt when reading my name wrong all this time. Haha, but i think i have found a neat bit of irony in there. You guys are saying the 327th Troopers having yellow arms is justified and in line with Lego's previous design decisions. Because of a thick yellow stripe on their arms. My question: isn't Bly supposed to have a thick stripe on his torso as well? If so, where is it? I see a yellow belt but no stripe. This is what contributed to my confusion in this scenario. They both look too similar! Not Captain Vaughn "special helmet" similar, but close. Discuss.

Yeah, his video reminded me of that. Otherwise i'm not sure i get your posting right. The way i understand it, you make it sound like i disagree with you, but i'm not? Like you are saying it's not inconsistent design on Lego's part. Well, i did speak about ruining or damaging the consistency they established in this decade. Since 2020, like you mentioned, standard troops got white arms and named characters or special units got coloured arms. Going by that logic, the 327th Trooper would have needed the former instead of the latter. This inconsistency bothers me a bit. Or are you saying the 327th Trooper getting yellow arms is not an inconsistency due to slightly different design? Well, if one stripe is enough to fully colour the arm, instead of differentiating it more to the named Commander, so be it. I just prefer and got used to the the separation between the two. In other words: what is the "it's not inconsistent design" part you are referring to? Lego doing clone redesigns since 2020? Or the 327th Trooper getting yellow arms now? I first thought the former, but now think it's the latter. There are far too many buildable characters releasing at a steady pace for them to perform that poorly. I would imagine droids and cute characters sell rather well, while uncanny monstrosities like Chewie are just shelf warmers. The moment 75372 got fully leaked, i knew it would sell like hot cakes and Lego would heavily capitalize on this the next chance they get. And lo and behold... you pay much more and get a little less the following year. Couldn't have people getting two Battle Packs for the old price point (2x15) any longer. You get two of those expensive new helmet moulds. The tradeoff is the scale of the set itself. Nobody can tell me if this set included regular, slightly redesigned Kashyyyk Troopers with no new moulds, this Turbo Tank wouldn't have been substantially bigger. It absolutely would have been than what we've got. And that's despite Lego's love with downscaling stuff. Still wondering when will be my first time with missing pieces in a Lego set. No matter how often i thought this was the case, every single time it showed up somewhere. Either i confused two similar looking pieces, it was still in one of the bags, or hidden under other pieces... got trolled by family members etc.

Thank you. Hey, if you don't mind me asking, do you actually have a Colemon Trebor minifigure in your collection? That's true. As much as anyone can criticize Lego's design decisions, they definitely have their clever ways. They obviously know putting this exklusive minifig in there will boost the set sales tremendously. Because i don't think many kids will care about a strange looking character named Lama Su... if they even recognize it. They care about Jango Fett who looks like another Mando and the action the Slave 1 can provide. It's obviously going to be a MBS Attack on Kamio set based on TCW season 3.

That's neat. And since those kinda accessories usually get spares, i'd say the likelihood for this one is also quite high. What i noticed as well is the 327th Troopers having yellow arms, instead of just Bly, ruins or damages any consistency they established in this decade of bringing back clones in a unified armor design. Standard Troopers got white arms, the specialized unit or leader got colored arms. Obviously not terribly accurate (neither is giving them colored arms to be fair) to the source material, but that's what they rolled with. So just why change it now, Lego?

That's the thing about your last part though: Was it "instead" of trading off they chose the worst outcome for every category... or "because" of the tradeoffs that have been made? I'd wager the latter. Today's tradeoff is there are just too many tradeoffs! Which leads to the worst outcome in every other regard, as you said. I think it depends on the quality bar we are using. Judging by Lego Star Wars standards, i'd say the TCW Obi-Wan is an exceptional minifigure. While many others are good, above average minifigs. If we are going beyond that, like what would be possible with limitless budget or what some customs can bring to the table, then yeah... i agree. Nothing there i would describe as exceptionally well executed. But going from that standard begs the question: How many exceptionally executed minifigure were there ever by Lego? While i don't care for the buildable characters at all, i have to agree on this one. The face, especially the eyes, actually seems decently build this time. How this is supposed to be worse than Psycho Chewie or Gremlin Yoda is beyond me. Yeah, just as expected another one of these egregiously overpriced sets. But one that can be considered good for what it is on it's own. That's why i will get it later on. Got no worries at all it will reach an appropriate price point. Like it took them two decades to even do a Kaminoan minifigure in the first place. So doing a repeat of the very first figure just three years after would have been a diabolical disaster.

This miserable meme machine monster concludes my daily silly game of asking Lego not to _____ the upcoming Turbo Tank. Will still want to get a better look at this set, but yeah... gonna be a deep, deep discount as expected. The downscaling is just too much for this one. Especially at this premium price. You make it 100 bucks and it suddenly looks like a solid offering. Or even 120 bucks because it's Lego Star Wars. But 160 bucks is as greedy as this thing is tiny. Yep, considering the both much lower piece count and price point compared to the 20th anniversary model, how anyone could have thought otherwise is beyond me. That's kinda admirable. It certainly won't be an easy pass for me. It more than ever seems like minifigures got a much bigger budget than the sets themselves. Which makes sense in the way that Lego wants to protect their precious minifigs at all costs. It's what it most differentiates from other market competitors, who catched up to (if not exeeded Lego) in terms of quality standards for building bricks. Yeah, the lack of variety across sub-themes is of course a problem in the long run. However, seeing so many new legions and clones released all at once and not an awful amount of them left at this point, it makes me confident that Lego is gonna change ship sooner rather than later. Like i would be shocked if they were to rinse and repeat this year for 2026. And yep... i count seven new head/helmet molds alone. In hindsight, really funny how for the longest time it was believed there would be next to no new pieces manufactured for this year. The thing is... Let's assume Lego didn't plan to release any more Andor sets for another follow-up wave like they didn't do for the first season. But now they changed their mind due to the critical acclaim and popularity of the second season. Considering sets often take multiple years from concept to creation, wouldn't it be too late for a hypothetical TIE Avenger in 2026? And if so, would they take the risk of releasing it 2027 anyways? Or does this not matter at all, since we know for a fact there have been exceptions of sets with rather short development cycles like the Mando Starfighter? I would like to hear your thoughts on this scenario. @Meaf Yes, save to say, this is a good time for any Lego Star Wars fan of the prequel era. I definitely agree about the remake relevancy for so many vehicles. And yeah, they went all-in on the minifigures this time around, so some sets suffered scale-wise because of that. Flagship sets are just not what they used to be anymore. But i still gotta appreciate the strides made forwards as far as minifigure qualities are concerned.

I know this has been the topic of an ongoing controversial debate on this forum. And i know this probably isn't gonna help your case either. But despite all that Clone Extravaganza, you at least gotta admit the upcoming summer wave features a lot of long overdue remakes. The last iterations of the MTT, Clone Turbo Tank, especially V-19 Torrent and Jango's Slave 1 all happened ages ago. You are free to disagree, dislike and disregard these sets due to PT/TCW fatigue, let alone buy anything at all, but you can still also acknowledge that aspect of it.

Dellow felegates. What? How can you do this? This is outrageous, it's unfair. How can you be a driving factor of your multi-billion economic environment and not be treated like a master costumer? That's... why i'm here. As you and the consumer share a symbiont circle, what happens to one of you, affects the other, you must understand this. Though you were right about one thing, beloved Billund billionaire bubble, the negotiations were short. Not just for the men. But the woman and children, too! They are like cash cows to you... and you exploited them like cash cows! Because these adult collector federation types are cowards and Republic credits are no good out here. You were the chosen company! It was said that you would destroy bad business design decisions, not join them. You were to bring balance to big flagship sets, not leave them in plastic pieces. You were my brother from another mother, Lego. I loved you. But i don't know you anymore! You are breaking my heart. You are going down a path i can't follow. Because of what you've done. What you plan to do. Sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me. Well, if it works... I knew this had to happen, so i came prepared, but by the love of the maker... The new Clone Turbo Tank looks totally TINY.