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Personally, my involvement with Lego has been shifting away from the licensed sets. There’s lots to love there, but the increased costs have been getting to me in a way no amount of chanting “new molds!” or “exclusive minis!” seems to calm. Buying and assembling an expensive licensed set has been akin to eating a can of cake frosting to myself: I greatly enjoy it while it’s happening, but afterward, I reflect on what I’ve done and feel a mixture of embarrassment, shame, and remorse. Anyway, after skipping a majority of the 2010 and 2011 Star Wars lines, I’ve been impressed with some of the 2012 offerings, and have bought two mid-size sets, the first being the Anakin's Jedi Interceptor (9494). Will this assuage me or antagonize my growing issues with the licensed lines? Set#: 9497 Name: Republic Striker-class Starfighter Theme: Star Wars Year: 2012 Pieces: 376 Minifigs: 3; Satele Shan, T7-01, Republic Trooper Price: ￥4,770 MSP: £39.99 / US$44.99 Peeron Brickset Bricklink The box To start with, we have the box image, which looks fine. The ship, on the surface, makes me think of an X-Wing. I haven’t played The Old Republic, though I did play the original Knights of the Old Republic game, and from what I understand it’s a thousand years before the trilogies, or something like that. The look is classic Star Wars, lots of panels and greebles. It looked nice on the shelf, but it was the back of the box that got me to buy it. The display of the main action feature, the folding wings, just made it look cool to me. I was weighing out the price, compared to the size of the box, and how big the ship might be. The boxes have gotten a little smaller, but the ship seemed to have certain amount of heft to it. Three figures. The Pieces Three bags, no stickers, a number of printed parts. I’ll point them out as they come up. Now, these figures are, overall, lackluster. The human characters are printed front and back, and the female has a two sided head, but they aren’t characters most people will know, and aren’t particularly distinctive. I imagine if you are MOC’ing some sci-fi or post-apocalyptic something or other, they would be very welcome. But nothing very special. The robot on the other hand is BRICK-BUILT! That is a printed panel on the front, and the two lids on its head are printed discs. Artoo never got respect like this. I was very pleased to see this. The robot also has a little stabilizer wheel in back to keep him upright. Nice! The now standard angry face on back. I’d like to see two variations on smirks and smiles sometime. The Build Bag one builds the base of the ship. Lots of plate layering, plus the lovely printed slopes of the nose. The cockpit will turn out to be one of the nicer ones I’ve seen, and begins here, with a black printed panel, and pivot joint put in. Bag two adds the wings. Again, lots of plate layering. There are very few bricks in this. In fact, there aren’t any true bricks, only slopes. The Finished Product This is the finished ship at rest, wings forward. I think this looks great on its own, and could be a winning starfighter design. As it is, it reminds me of a cross between an A-wing and a Clone Wars era starfighter. I think you can really see that with the overhead silhouette. The plated under-belly. Besides being a gaudy color of red, it has the secrets of the ship’s transforming action. Here we see two points. The first is the white gun-looking thing. It’s on a stiff pivot piece. The wing is lightly clipped to the body here, just to the right of the gun’s pivot piece, a black clip holding a red bar. At the back, a similar clip that can grasp the wing is located on the tail. There is white clip that can hold the red bar. And so it does. But the guns are rather hard to aim like this. So, they are brought to face forward, in line with the flick-fire missiles. At the back is the classic lightsaber holder, a midoclorian-embedded clip capable of holding pure energy, hidden away with an orange flap. The cockpit is a little deep. The steering column is dropped in vertically, and the handle juts out toward the pilot. I thought this was really well done. The finished ship is really most comparable to the X-wing (mine being the 2006 version), or maybe the ARC fighter, though I haven’t held that one to compare it. So, it’s a little simpler, having just one wing, it’s got a very classic shape to it, it’s very satisfying. So that’s the Striker Starfighter, a solid, smart-looking piece of Star Wars ephemera. Unfortunately, it's hard to track down in game images of this ship, and this is the one I think it is: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Talon-class_Republic_starfighter There seems to be a little difference in design, but I really wasn't so concerned with accuracy with this set. The Final Verdict Design: 9/10 I like the original design of the ship, I guess. And the Lego version of it does it justice. At a certain point, I was worried that there was too much bright red, but it ends up being the base base of the ship and is covered with the burgundy plating, which I find really attractive. The moving wings aren't overly strong, but they're not so heavy that it makes a difference, and are stable. The design economizes its use of pieces, and is all the smarter for it ("It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"). The droid is very smartly conceived as well. I don't know what it would take for me to give the set a perfect ten, but maybe it's difficult to award to a set of this size, which will never overwhelm. Build: 7/10 It's nothing new. There is cleverness in the cockpit, in the wings, and in the layering overall, and it wasn't dull. But there was nowhere where I said "wow!" Playability: 7/10 When your box needs to show a picture explaining "Figures not included," there is a weakness in the playability. This is meant to be paired with the Fury Class Interceptor, as a pair of ships and enemies. And the mini-figs in that set look substantially more interesting, so I can see why they were put on the box. Having a generic Republic Trooper instead of something more connected to a narrative was a weakness in my opinion. The ship is swooshy and easily transformable, so that is the bulk of the points here. Minifigures: 6/10 The two humans are pretty generic, even with a double blue lightsaber. Honestly, I'm fine with that. As much as I love zany mini-figs, I'm happy to have a set where I'm paying for the ship, and not the figures. The droid is nice, and I can see that inspiring a new style of Star Wars droids. Price: 9/10 This set seems like a great value. The other SW set I bought recently, the Jedi Interceptor was the same price, for a set that seemed a fair bit slighter. And I don't care that it came with Nute Gunray, since he is just a variation on a figure released in 2009 (therefore not a new mold) and 85% of that ship was the same design as the one from 2006. In comparison, with this set, we're getting more ship, a fresh design, some new (if unexceptional figures) at a solid price. If this was just a generic space series (is. Space Marines), it would cost 20% less, but in terms of the "premium brand price" Lego has been bending people over and having their way with, this is a satisfying cost. (I'm also looking forward to picking up Saesee Tiin's Starfighter, which is a similarly reasonable price. Let's hear it for D-list Star Wars sets sold at reasonable prices!) Overall: 9/10 Keeping in mind, I'm not buying this to play Star Wars with, and I have massive Ziploc bags full of mini-figs stored in little sealed bags, and a room overflowing with Lego doodads... This ship has a lot of what I got into Lego Star Wars for in the first place (cool space ships) at a solid price. The second set out of my dark age was the Rogue Shadow, a similarly unknown expanded universe set, and still a favorite of mine. I'm able to enjoy it separate from any frustration I may have as an adult watching Clone Wars stuff meant "for kids." It's just a good ship. If you're into this really depends on which way you come at the Star Wars Lego sets. Though I'm first and foremost an Original Trilogy fan, I am somewhat of a sci-fi fan, and like seeing well designed worlds and technology. While this set is reminicent of some Star Wars sets, unless you're an avid gamer, this set will have no direct connection for you. (And myself, even though I played The Force Unleashed through to the end, I developed no affection for the Rogue Shadow during its 15 second cut scenes every hour of gameplay.) It's a solid sci-fi starfighter, and that's good enough for me

I like the 616 far better. I've read Ultimates, and some of the X-Men and Spider-man stuff, but overall it lacks some of the character of the originals. The new Spider-Man seems pretty good, but I only read the first two issues. I suppose if I had read Ultimate books first, the 616 stuff would seem less original. As far as it being more "real", I can't see it. It's all super heroes punching stuff. I like it better when writers go with it and embrace it rather than try to make it plausible. For example, I greatly prefer X-Men First Class, with it's yellow-blue costumes to the 'realistic' ones in the earlier X-Men movies. I do like the first two Ultimates books though. The Bryan Hitch art was stunning, and the pacing solid, though I always feel a little embarrassed when I read that Captain America "This A doesn't stand for France" line. The Brubaker Captain America, including Bucky, is a lot better take on the character. So, I vote for 616

It's a beautiful set, and I'd really like to get it, between having a lot of mini-figs I've never had, old or new, as well as being from Jedi, a movie I loved as a kid. It really hits a lot of buttons for me. But the price is simply too high. It's ¥14,000 here, which is about $175 US. Even at $120, it's too steep. I worry about putting it together, then sitting back and looking at it and thinking it was way too much. Who knows though. I'll be in Canada in the summer, and if I can get it for ¥10,000 or so I'll be dearly tempted. That Bousch helmet is amazing. Thanks for the solid review!

A belated congrats to America's biggest pirate

Strange. It's standard Flickr and shows up on different platforms for me http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7082/7258411050_59b97c13c2_b.jpg

Doing some illustrations today, and this was the best of them. Working on another strip, just a matter of keeping focus

I won't be taking part in this, but I hope you guys all have a great time with this. Play hard and have fun

Nice! It's good to see you gave full feedback and everyone had fun. Mafia seems to be a strong meme on forums, and it's cool to see the LEGO version of it to be extra appealing.

Manual

I didn't follow the game too closely, just here and there, but day three was an interesting one. I could tell you were scum because of the claim against you, obviously, but that defense, plus the fact the votes were split meant you were likely scum. I didn't see the other scum jump out at me, but it's likely they all voted to protect you, and if you had been lynched, the town would have had a roadmap to the rest of you. Let me check: Day three Aladdin/palathadric: 5 (Kadabra, JaseTJ, LEGOman273, Alex the Great, Piratedave84) Red Riding Hood/Kadabra: 2 (palathadric, RPGer) Snow White/LEGOman273: 3 (Chromeknight, Jackjonespaw, Dakar A) Non-voters: 1 (Donut) Yup. If Donut or Dakar had had a little more experience, scum would have been totally pegged by that voting tally. You risked it there, and it paid off since your numbers were close. It was a risky venture though

If a person in the hot seat has only a defense that doesn't make sense, it really doesn't work as a defense. So I wouldn't lynch you for making a mistake, but it would make me feel a lot more confident about going through with it. In that case, I would have pounced on you for that claim. It's important to have a believable defense as a scumbag Next time, next time...

Basically, it seems like you don't understand the roles, even now. There is no scum cop. A cop tells who is town and who isn't town. The scum already know who is who, so the role would be useless to them. From there, you have flavor cops and role cops, which can be useful to scum, and you had a role cop. So, a proper argument against Riding Hood might be that it was a false claim done by scum since they were so close to winning, so even when you turned out town (according to your scummy lie), it would be too late (though I don't know that your numbers were there at that point). But claiming that she was the scum cop made no sense. The roles were even laid out for you all by Sandy somewhere at the start, so it was basically an impossible claim, and just looked like a scum flail to me. It's a real challenge keeping a plausible, consistent story as scum, and that one was at least not plausible. So, my advice in future games is to get a grasp on the variety of roles that might pop up. You can read the conclusion of most games to see what roles were chosen. There are a bunch which always appear, some that often appear, and then random ones hosts throw in to keep people on their toes, though those are usually best kept to a minimum. And the ones that don't work usually get abandoned. If you play a full game, you probably won't know much in advance. Here's a start on what you were mixing up here: http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Cop http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Flavor_Cop http://wiki.mafiascum.net/index.php?title=Role_Cop

Oops. That makes even more sense, since Chromeknight totally scummed up the Witchbreed game like a pro No

Sandy, that was a conceptually well thought out game, with the game being told as a story Your photos were the best I've seen you do yet, really vivid colors. From the players, I saw two big mistakes. One was a over-abundance of confidence. When you're lynching in the early days, you really can't be sure, and projecting the idea that you're 100% certain with your lynch can be off-putting to other townies, especially when those lynches are wrong. So, I think it is better be more cautionary in the early days. It also makes it more believable when real 100% confirmed scum readings come in. The second one was the non-lynch of Aladdin. It is really telling when you can't get a lynch to go through. Scum are happy to lynch townies, so when a townie is up for lynch, there is no problem getting them lynched (see days one and two). When some people all of a sudden are afraid to lynch (especially on a claimed scum reading ), that should set off alarm bells in the other townies. And when you have 48 hours to vote, someone should catch that. For a lot of townies, it was their first game, so lesson learned. And one more, Aladdin mixed up the cop and the role cop roles, claiming Hood was the scum cop. That was a total mess up and give away, and the town let it slide Good job to Scubacarrot You were a surviving winner in both your games, and it was through your effort, and not because you coasted. Nice!

It looks great, it's always good to see new players and new hosts! One thing I'd recommend in the future is knowing that the EB rules of mafia aren't the standard rules of mafia; they've evolved over time here, but you can feel free to change or tweak them as you see fit. For your first game hosting, it's fair to keep them as is though Good job!

Just to be clear about things, so you can consider it in your next game: I didn't ask Boywonder to PM me as a defense and drag me into the thread. Once he'd done that, I played it as best I could. Basically, it was a spotlight shone on only me and Tammo that first day. After that, as I was using that situation in a way that best benefited town, you, Murdock and Cecilie all tried to put a little pressure on me in thread. I explained to all three of you that I would share Boywonder's PMs later, and Murdock and Cecilie became my partners for the next few days of the game. It seems you are the odd one out in that situation. You drastically ramped up your pressure on me. My response to you, at first, was very polite and clear, and it wasn't acceptable to you. So, I don't know what I could have done differently to stay low-key, other than bow down at your feet. Seriously, I wrote in thread that I'd share Boywonder's PMs in due time, and two hours later you were complaining that I wasn't sharing them fast enough. He was already convicted, I wasn't defending him, but you needed it now now now!... Baffling stuff, but I don't see where I played it wrong or aggressively. You focused on me for the wrong reason and I tried to be polite about it for as long as I could. I really, really did. And then I gave up being polite. And know that I had a number of PMs asking what the deal with MetroiD was from different people. You had a thing with me, and it wasn't something others shared with you. So the inconsistency really seems to be with you My notion of low-key is definitely participating, but not trying to be a spokesman for town. Closer to the game Rick and Flitwick played, which is active, but not out front. Tammo actively tried to be the spokesman, and I just sort of fell into it, thanks to a special spotlight of my own

Thanks. I was really surprised to survive. I really had wanted to play a more low-key game, even before I got my role, but boywonder and MetroiD put an end to that pretty quickly. I wasn't looking for trouble, it just found me As for the family affiliation, I just ignored that as window dressing, since hosts should never ever hand out roles that way And for the record, the Nakayoshi were Cecilie, Murdock and me. When Cecilie went down, Rick and zakura came in. When Murdock and Zakura went down, Pie and Flitwick came in. So, I was never working alone. I have never been and never will be a cowboy!

Have a good one!

Many losing team players have passed Mafia School, and I think some players on the winning team have failed. The target of these games is to play for your team, not to win You should look through the conclusions of the past four School games to see how they were graded, and the lack of relation between winning and passing.

I decided to withdraw from hosting for the time being for personal reasons. The next game will be up when it's up

I just ignore the last 20 years of Marvel continuity, even when I read the stuff I like, like Brubaker's Captain America (which had lots of Black Widow!). Since the 90's, every woman in the Marvel universe has had DDD breasts, and it's embarrassing to read, which is one reason I don't read much of their stuff any more. If I cared for modern Marvel, I'd have to consider Wolverine and Spider-man as Avengers, which totally goes against their characters for most of their existence, though for Wolverine, maybe it's coming to half of their existence. Better to remember what made them all great, rather than sully them with the marketing which defines their existence now, at least for me. As for Scarlet Johanson, I think she's a decent actress, but this isn't an ideal role for her. I'd rather have seen a slender actress, like Kate Beckinsale, take the role from the start. Someone that looks like they can do back flips without messing their hair.

Yeah, I think she's a little too jiggly to master the character. I don't want to discriminate based on looks, but I doubt any EB members would accept me as a professional athlete in a film either. The voluptuous Johanson is not a great choice for a sleek, lithe spy like the Widow, and a seeming casting misfire right from the start.

There was a massive, deep article on the film on AICN this week. Not spoilery, just deep into the conception of the film. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/54653 In other news, I've learned that it won't be released in theaters until August in Japan, so it looks like the Internet will win yet again over the market, in my case.

Well, I can't express how much that warms the cockles of my tiny heart Honestly, it's great that you guys had a good time, and still look back fondly on that. I know some people considered it a trick, but I laid out as many bread crumbs as I could. Here's looking forward to more exciting games in the future