The dark side of the brick

A final bit of catching up with blogging: the last set I deconstructed back in November was the Ewok Village ( 10236 ) from 2013.  This is counted as a UCS set but would now fit much better in the Master Builder series (along with the still lamentable Assault on Hoth), given that it features large numbers of minifigs and a scene with lots of detail. This one comes with 16 minifigs and plenty of play features, including may favourite which is the roasting spit for Han.  I also love the drum kits and the swinging logs for crushing AT-STs.  Plenty of catapults and, places to hide and slides for Ewoks (though not all of them work brilliantly).   I'd have kept this one constructed but I really needed the space back.  All in all, it's a really nice set, but doesn't naturally sit within what I would define as the UCS sets.

Another belated post - back in early December, I took apart both of the UCS Y-wings: 10134 which I've owned from new since 2004 and 75181 from 2018. Back in 2004, I remember being slightly disappointed with the Y-wing: it was my second Lego Star Wars set after the incomparable 10030 and it didn't quite measure up in terms of scale and scope.  However, revisiting it now, I think it really holds up and delivers tons of detail for its part count.  The only bit that I still hate is threading all of the short bits of tubing onto the white 12l axles.   75181 is, of course, better detailed and takes advantage of 14 years of new Lego parts.  That said, I'd be hard pressed now to separate them in terms of which I like the best.

Well, it had to be bought.  Back in early December, the Lego courier delivered the biggest set of 2021 - and indeed the second biggest Lego Star Wars set in terms of number of pieces.  The enormous 75313 UCS AT-AT.   What to say about this?  As always, with the UCS sets, it knocks the spots off every previous version of the vehicle in question.  Size - check.  Detail - all there.  Build factor - excellent. Sense of awe - off the scale!  New pieces - several.   I was at the end of a long year of work and trying to sort myself out for a much-rescheduled vacation so while I did pretty much drop all other Lego activity and start on this, it still took me 5 days to finish it.  At no point was the build really repetitive - even the legs weren't too bad.  And when you got to the two sides, there was the occasional greebling difference to keep you on your toes.  Though I was able to do large chunks from memory. Here's a phot...

As a Star Wars Lego nut, something that has bothered me for some time is the inconsistency between what is and isn't a UCS set.  There are various lists out there such as this one at Brickset and a fairly comprehensive review at Brickipedia .  The series launched back in 2000 with 7181 (Tie Interceptor) and 7191 (the excellent X-wing) and broadly speaking, around 2 a year have followed, though with some breaks. The problem is that Lego has been pretty inconsistent over the years, by including large playsets such as Assault on Hoth, Cloud City and Ewok Village but not Betrayal at Cloud City or the Cantina.  And why is the 2012 R2-D2 a UCS set but the near identical 2021 re-release not?  And how on earth did the Tie Fighter Collection get to be classed as UCS?   In 2011, Lego tried to be definitive by producing a UCS promotional poster.  However, this includes sets that had previously not been labelled UCS and didn't give any greater clarity as to the l...

I'm about to start deconstruction of my collection of Imperial shuttles.  I'm sad about this because the UCS shuttle ( 10212 ) is one of my all-time favourite Lego sets.  However, it is very big and it was taking up space where I wanted to put my new collection of storage boxes, so it'll have to go. The imperial shuttle recurs quite regularly throughout the Lego catalogue.  Apart from the simply enormous UCS set, there are, I think 4 minifig-sized play sets: 7166 from way back in 2001 7264 from 2005, which is basically a copy of 7166 (with the new colours) and more minifigs 75094 from 2015 and 75302 from earlier this year. Here's a photo of 3 of them (Imperial Inspection was on the floor): Of these, I have a soft spot for the 2001 original but would go for 75094 if I had to pick one - the most bricks, the best play features and the biggest at this size.  There are no less than 5 mini sets, though for some reason I could only find 4 of these.  4494 from way back ...

The Great Work is nearly done - every Star Wars set that I intend to build is, in theory, now built!  I've managed to achieve this about on target - I was aiming for Saturday but missed it by 3 days because I took the wife away for the weekend (more important than Lego!). I do have a couple of missing pieces on the Cube Dudes that I discovered the other day and they are in the post.  But I have no sets left unbuilt and nothing remaining "in the boxes".  Rebrickable tells me that I therefore have 868 sets built up - something I'm going to have to verify over the coming days.   Sadly, I somehow managed to leave one of the more disappointing sets for (nearly) last: the "UCS" Assault on Hoth ( 75098 ).  Lots has been written about this set and I'm sure it's the reason that Lego introduced the "Master Builder" series to make a distinction between the true UCS sets and what are effectively very large playsets.   The AoH is not intrinsically a bad...

A big day in the Lego Star Wars collection... today I took delivery of the last of the UCS sets that I didn't previously own.  In fact, barring a couple of really rare minifigs (e.g. the chrome C-3PO), my collection is now as complete as I intend it to be! What came?  Vader's TIE Advanced ( 10175 ) arrived from Ebay.  I am not going to say how much I paid for this but it was definitely the most I've shelled out for a second hand set (though less than the most expensive ones you can buy from Lego today).  I rationalised it as ok because it was being sold by a charity so I've contributed to something useful. The set came really well packaged with box and instructions in good condition.  And the set itself is in really tip-top condition, albeit with 6 pieces in old light grey rather than new LBG (all replaced from spares) and a plate substitution (again sorted from spares).  And, while it was a bit dusty, I was able to clean as I built so it was a pretty pleas...

I have to say that it's taken me 24 hours to get around to writing this post.  The Death Star nearly killed me! Given it was a bank holiday weekend, I thought I'd get stuck into something big and picked the second-biggest set left in my to-build pile - the original Death Star playset ( 10188 ).  To be fair, the biggest set left is the more recent Death Star so it was 50:50!   This is labelled as an ultimate collector series model but I think it would belong better in the new "master builder" label.  Or indeed just as a giant playset.  I'll not bother describing what you get as anyone who is interested will already have looked up one of the many reviews or indeed built this themselves.  As such, I've just taken one photo to prove I've done it. Perhaps I'm just getting Lego fatigue but I didn't really enjoy this build.  A few thoughts: It's very repetitive.  Lots of reinforced plates and walls. I really didn't like the fact that a whole box c...

After a night out with friends (novelty!) I got back to building this morning with a near hangover.  A quarter done on Thursday, I finished off the 10129 UCS rebel snowspeeder - the original UCS version.  Another ebay purchase, this one came in absolutely immaculate condition, barring a bit of dirt.  Not a single scratch nor any noticeable yellowing!   Also, for 1450-odd bricks, this was a fairly quick build.  I made a few colour mistakes as I was going, which necessitated a bit of undoing and that no doubt cost me some time.  I also think I was a bit slow from the wine last night.  Here's the finished product: First impression is that this feels much more weighty than I remember the newer version being, though they appear to be almost identical sizes.  There are a lot of bricks in the cockpit section, and also in the engine cowls on the wings, which probably accounts for that.   It's also got a significant amount of detail and I t...

Back home and while I was away, a slow bricklink delivery from Hungary has provided the final pieces I need to complete the 10195 UCS Republic dropship with AT-OT.  I did most of the build a couple of weeks back so today was just adding in the missing bricks and filling in around them. The end result is huge and unarguably amazing.  The fact that you can lift both parts of the set with the upper handle (though it's a bit fiddly to thread the connector) is really cool.  There's loads of detail on both elements and some pretty rare parts to boot. Here are some photos of the two bits separately: It's quite possible that this is going into my top 10 favourite sets and the fact that I managed to do this for under £300 is also very pleasing.

Having finished the new R2 yesterday afternoon, I couldn't resist a bit more building in the evening so started on Death Star II ( 10143 ).  Today's build was therefore finishing it off and I'm satistied with a weekend of bricking that took me well over 5000 bricks - a pretty good pace and gets me back on target to finish all my building by the end of June. So the DSII... a bit of a beast.  The instruction book is only 100 or so pages but they are big pages and there is quite a bit of repetition, not least in the building of the two central bits of internal detail.  I've always felt that this was the limitation of the set - it was a shame that the upper and lower halves are identical and Lego could easily have done something a bit more creative. That said, being a bit simpler means it is quite easy to build and with an average of 25 pieces per lot, you don't have to go hunting around for the single small [hinge plate] you can't find too often.  My version is a r...

Friday night and back to the Lego... today I finished off the Tantive IV aka Blockade Runner ( 10019 ) from way back in 2001, which arrived courtesy yesterday of an ebay deal.  I've learned to set my expectations low for older sets on ebay and this one was clearly a rebuild as it was missing instructions and box.  However, that helped with the price and what I ended up with was a set in pretty much perfect condition - barely even any dust and minimal yellowing!   To be fair, the stickers are new replacements but everything else is colour perfect so whoever got this must have picked up a near-complete bargain and then finished it off.  It took me about 2.5 hours to build - less time than I expected.  It's clearly a set of its time but has some really nice design features.  It is also massive.  I was expecting it to be bigger than the other two more recent versions of this ship but not quite so much bigger.   And here's a comparison to the...

May the fourth be with you!   I did a bit of googling at lunchtime and found out about the new LSW set release rumours but others have covered that much better than I can so no more here.  On to today's build then... I thought I'd get one of the new sets out and went for the near-UCS Imperial Probe Droid ( 75306 ).  This is something of an overlooked icon from the original series - there have been a number of small versions but it's taken 20+ years to get to a full-scale edition.  I guess it's only with some of the latest bricks that this can be done so well - and to be fair it is very movie-accurate. First impressions are the box which is fast becoming a standard size and withe the minimalist "adult-oriented" all-black styling.  Opened up, you get the instructions, stickers, 6 normal bags and two small bags of various pearl dark grey crank shafts and the like.  It feels quite light - bags 4 and 5 in particular feel very insubstantial!   Bag ...

Continuing my Sith theme, last night's build was the UCS Darth Maul bust ( 10018 ).  This was a second hand purchase from Ebay but after looking for a while, I found someone who was selling what was clearly a rebuild but with all of the correct parts, including the very rare black quarter cylinders.   In the end, what arrived came in a bin bag (!!! - though the most expensive parts had been separated into plastic bags) and was missing all of the 4x10 bricks.  The quality of the bricks was wildly varying - clearly this had been put together from mostly second-hand bricklink orders.  I ended up replacing some of the worst of the bricks from my spares and a couple of bricklink orders (I needed to buy the missing 4x10 bricks).  I may well start replacing some of the worst of the remaining ones over time but that will be a long-term project... along with replacing some of the yellowed parts on my second hand R2-D2. So, after cleaning and sorting, the bricks fill...

Today's build is possibly the set that started me off as a proper collector again.  Shortly after I rebuilt the 2007 UCS Falcon, I got a silly idea to start collecting the rest of the UCS sets.  The B-Wing ( 10227 ) had literally just been withdrawn by Lego and I got a brand new copy off Ebay for RRP+postage, which was a pretty good deal.   I rebuilt this a few years ago so this makes the third time I've built it up and it never fails to impress.  I've got all of the minifig-sized playsets and these vary in the level of detail but, like all of the best UCS sets, this one goes to the next level.  For one thing, it's absolutely enormous - it's 66cm (26in) long.  As always, the level of detailing is high and there are some unusual parts in there.   I spread the build over two nights, though a long single session would have finished it.  There's quite a bit of symmetrical repetition in the build but somehow I didn't mind it too much.  T...

My first Ebay purchase of 2021 was a big one... the original UCS set.  From all the way back in 2000 (I was somewhere between masters and doctorate at the time and therefore far too poor to contemplate such frivolities as Lego UCS), is the X-wing Fighter ( 7191 ).  Weighing in at 1298 parts, this, for the time, was a BIG set.   The copy I've managed to get my hands on (I'm not disclosing price, but it wasn't one of my better deals!) came with a slightly tatty box, pretty nicely kept instructions and (mostly) great quality pieces with absolutely no yellowing.  The stickers were all still attached and even better, only a few of the pieces were dusty.  Cleaning was therefore done during build, which took my two sessions.   Here's the finished beauty: A few things: It's very sturdy, apart from the wings which are not brilliantly attached The wings are mostly symmetrical but each of the four lasers is slightly different At rest, with the foils in fligh...