Droid gunships

First, a digression... Last night, I made the decision to stop trying to buy a complete set of the UCS republic dropship with AT-OT (10195).  I've been trying to buy the set for months but all versions rock in at £600+.  Given I'm not averse to a rebuild, I've decided to go for it and buy the parts.  I already had around a third of the necessary parts in my collection, including a couple of the rarer ones.  24 hours and 4 bricklink orders in, I'm down to the last 200 or so pieces, though that does include a few of the rarer bits.  I reckon I'm going to manage the whole thing for around £250, though it does depend on the cost of the printed dishes (I've got 4 of the 10 I need so far).  

So, that's taken up a fair bit of time today... but I've squeezed in a bit of time for a quick build after a much-needed haircut.  Today I pulled the 2019 droid gunship (75233) off the shelf.  I reckon this is one of the sets I've had unbuilt for the longest - at least a year - because I wasn't really looking forward to it.  I didn't particularly enjoy my experience with the original 2008 gunship (7678), partly because it was one of those second-hand sets which was missing some key (expensive) pieces when it arrived and partly because it is literally impossible to keep the bombs on the launch rails for more than about 20 seconds at a time.  

It was therefore with low expectations that I picked up this set, but it was with renewed faith that I finished it.  This version is properly sturdy, has nice launch mechanisms for the missiles, has lots of nice detail, some rare bricks and comes with some interesting minifigs (I was going to say that the two droids were unique but they're just otherwise in sets I'm still to build, which was why I didn't recognise them).

The build didn't take too long - just over 30 mins - but was generally enjoyable.  Here's a photo of the finished set:

So, a comparison to the 2008 version and also the 2014 version (75042)... they all share obvious similarities, being built around 4 of the 10x10 round corner bricks.  That said, the 2014 version is 2 studs wider, which in hindsight doesn't look quite right.  The 2008 version shows its age and, as I noted above, definitely isn't my favourite set.  Apart from the girth, however, I do quite like some of the detailing on the 2014 version - I prefer the "cockpit" on this set to the latest one.  


Here's a photo comparison of all three (they were all reasonably accessible):

All in all, I do prefer the latest version.



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