valentin

While the JSF is aesthetically pleasing, it's flaps are literally a nightmare to deploy. *wacko* I didn't get any of the spacecraft from ROTS, until the USBS came out... And that's what I bought instead, since it's RRP is SGD79.90, as compared to the JSF w/vulture droid at RRP of SGD45.90 Cool Review though. X-D

Thanks everyone. :-$ Glad that everyone enjoyed it.

Product: 7261 Clone Turbo Tank Theme: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith No of pieces: 801 Release Date: 3rd April 2005 RRP: SGD224.90/USD89.99 Availability: Lego Shop@Home, Toys 'R' Us (US & Europe), Bricksworld (SG) & local dept. stores. At 801 pieces... this set is raking in lots of baggies. And there's two baggies that had a smaller baggie within it that contains those tiny pieces. The completed set... Took me a couple of hours to build them up. One was unfamiliarity with the new types of bricks, and second, the colours of some of the bricks in the instructional booklets don't exactly match. That aside, this set is not just a turbo tank... It's one huge playset!! *sweet* There's just so much accessories and equipment. There's two vehicles, the tank and the speeder. There's seven mini-figs. And out of the blue, there's even a turret equipped with double turbolasers. I wonder where did that come from. X-O Anyway, let's take a look at those mini-figs first. *vader* From the republic, there's four troopers and mace windu. Since all 3 clone troopers have the same body, the clone commander above can just represent each of them. The clone commander comes with two blasters, but they look more like a pistol than a blaster. :doh: Still, the fact is these weapons are still better than that loud hailer. The aerial trooper comes with a long blaster that's just so much better looking. His jet-pack ain't movie-accurate, but that's alright. This design already looks like the actual one if seen from far. Barc trooper and speeder. Before I start on the above vehicle, take note that it has been slightly modified from the original. I modified the bottom with four pieces of those single stud, round pieces, to give the illusion of repulsers being active, that is to say, the craft is floating off the ground. The original one has it's bottom flushed with the ground. I took over 30min to build this. Lots of new pieces type in it. That said, this thing is a beauty. I wish it had been released by itself instead. The tiny Republic emblem is also visible on the engine chasis. Regarding the likeness of this speeder to the real one, all the major sections are there. The barc trooper's armour is in camo. colours, and he doesn't come with any personal weapons. There's two battle droids in this set, one comes with a blaster, the other a tripod. The tripod is probably used to represent the repeating laser cannon. It's design is really quite unique... *y* The turret really looks like those seen in EPIV: Empire Strike Back. Anyway, it's weird to have this turret in this set, since I don't recall any such detail in EPIII:ROTS. Port View Fore View Aft View Overhead View Finally, the vehicle in which this set is named after. :-D Firstly, it's movie-accurate. Second, it's actually smaller than mini-fig scale. Click on the below pic to do a comparison for the scale. The tank exterior comes with all the features and parts that the actual movie tank had. For example, Twin antipersonnel blaster cannons at the lower fore and aft areas of the tank. Medium antiperonnel laser cannon at the sides. Rapid-repeating heavy laser cannon at the top aft end. Heavy laser cannon turret at the top, centre of the tank The retractable observation post. The two ammunition loading hatches near the observation post. One thing though, they got the communication dish mixed up... It spots a laser end now. :-| The interior of the turbo tank. At this aft end, there's two seats and also two blasters. This is probably acting as the secondary troop bay. On this section, it shows two domes. Since, I have got no reference on this, I take take them to be storage tanks for fuel, or probably the fusion generator. The main cargo bay. On the packaging back, this is where the white turret can be stored. Last section of the tank features a jack. It moves up or down easily. Anyway, this section is the main control room or cockpit. The jack allows the motion of a mini-fig coming up ad out through the command hatch. The turbo tank comes with a unique steering system. Tilting the tank to left or right, will steer the tank right or left respectively. There's also a suspension system for the central wheels, and it works quite well. Anyway, the mechanisim and structure of the suspension and steering is as shown above. Overall, the tank is a 'rojak' of both system, non-system, and technic parts. The end result couldn't have been better. For it's price point, this set is either a hit or miss... and it's a hit. I wouldn't mind saving up to own one of these 'babies', if I were collecting ROTS lego sets. And with six mini-figs, and one LULS mini-fig, it's a riot. This set performs equally well, whether for play or for display. And the detailing on the tank is certainly an attractive factor. Since this is a ground vehicle, there's no "swoosh-able" factor. Maybe the speeder has it, but definitely not the tank... On the other hand... >:-) There's the battle factor!!! Rawr!!!! Kind of misery... but that's what they get for being part of the confederency... :-P Back on track, I mentioned system bricks because they are great for doing MOCs, since they are very general in appearance and not <insert that tiresome argument>. More seen in older sets... Non-system bricks, can be type unknown or <insert that tiresome argument>. The above pic shows some of them. Yup, I did got lost for a while amongst the bricks. X-D In conclusion, this set has its points and flaws... and the points definitely outweigh the flaws enough that the flaws are easily ignored. I got this set as a gift/prize from The Lego Group and they DHL it to me FOC. The thing is, I probably would have bought this set if I wasn't so focused on collecting flight-worthy star wars craft only, and only from the Original Trilogy. Anyway, now I have the urge/temptation to get the 7250 clone scout walker. :-/

I guess for lego starwars fans, this would indeed be a set worth getting for. Another thing would the internal construct of the cockpit, it's slightly different from any previous Tie releases. The difference would be the extra black "bar" brick that strengthens the cockpit opening/closing hatch immensely. I have done a review on this set for starwars fans in SG, it's here. All in all, I quite like this new Tie set as compared to the previous other Ties, probably because the hatch doesn't drop off as easily when I close or open it. :-D