Set Review - Microfighters Snowspeeder 75074

I've always wondered about the intelligence of bright orange splashes on a white speeder, especially one that's supposed to hide in the snow from the enemy. Sure, if you go down, it would be easier to find you. But isn't that what radar is for? Or beacons? Or just follow the smoking fireball, right? If you have to eject, the orange jumpsuit would make you easy pickings for the enemy. Or a wampa.

The snowspeeder is a nice return to familiar territory. Star Wars. OT. Good times. (For a couple weeks here at least). I was pleasantly surprised by this build. Sure it's small. Sure maybe I don't have much exposure to the bigger sets. Sure maybe I don't have ROOM to build bigger sets. But I get some good exposure anyway.



What I liked:

The nose uses some wedges in a somewhat unique way to get that prong shape. I'm not used to voids in official builds. Unfortunately that has colored how I build MOCs as well. I try to fill every cubic LDU with ABS but usually end up with an ultra heavy display model. If it's for display I shouldn't be wasting all my bricks if it isn't even swooshable.

The blaster design is nice and solid with good greebling for such a tiny piece. The use of textured round bricks and technic pins makes it pop a bit.

The printed nose piece is the same one from the planet set snowspeeder. The price has come down a bit to a solid $1.50 now that the market has been saturated.

Technic gear racks for the rear grill.


What I didn't like:

Several minor points. First, the rear windshield seems like it should be a plate higher. It's even with the front which is correct, but it sits lower than the sides next to it and is way low on the pilot's back.

More clip plates on the back of this ship. What? Why?

Flick-fire missiles. *sigh*

The use of a dark tan 3L axle with stud in the back detracts a little from the overall look of the ship. Two better options come to mind. Either give me a couple of trans-orange 1x1 plates to cover it with (for booster flare) or use a newer 2L pin with axle. The 3L axle is used to go through two pin connections and then secures into an axle hole in the round 2x2 brick. This 2L pin-axle connection (or even the pin-2L axle) could have been done with a dark bley piece that would have blended better. The build sequence would have been a little different but not a problem.

Using a lever for the rear gun. It doesn't even go *pew-pew*. I used the extra lever to balance the greebs on each blaster and then took the pilot's handgun to use for the rear gun. Better.

I struck on a cool deal at Wally World. I bought 4 ships. Two were selling for $9.97, two were selling for $7.99. (another was selling for $7.77 but I had already bought it elsewhere). I got all four for $9 each. But wait, there's more! I used Ebates to earn 2% cash back on the purchase PLUS my Paypal credit card to earn another 1.5% cash back PLUS I used in-store pick up to avoid shipping fees on the $36 order. In total I got all four ships for $8.67 each which is like 13% off. If you're interested in swinging these kinds of deals for yourself, stay tuned for the release of my upcoming Seller's Guide ebook. You can even guide the writing by giving your input!

Set Review - Snowspeeder and Hoth 75009

I've been trying to stretch it out but I'm already on the second of 3 planet sets from series 4.  Continual thanks to varko.cz for their brilliant service on my previous order from them.  Ice planet Hoth is my eleventh planetish form.  I rather like the look of this planet.  It appears that the planet is completely covered in ice save for the at the equator where they might be some liquid water.  I'll bet it's (relatively) toasty there.

I'm immediately reminded of the original mini Star Wars series 10 years ago.  Well before we had to worry about the Clone Wars and the Disney factor, we had pure Star Wars.  And planetless minis.  Those sets had 2 mini vehicles and no minifigures.  The one with the snowspeeder also had an AT-ST.  An AT-AT would have been a little more accurate but that had it's turn in a single pack.  But the point of this paragraph was the comparison between this snowspeeder and the original mini snowspeeder.

My original mini is unfortunately packed away in my garage loft where only the mice and ants visit.  One of these days when I have space I want to pull all those minis down and play with them again.  But I do remember that snowspeeder being amazingly cute.  One of the stunning connections was the single bar (not singles bar) to which two clips attached; one from the wings and one from the body.  To me this was brilliant.  I would have expected a hinge plate.  Even to this day I have a hard time remembering to use the clip and bar as a solution for angled conundrums.

This snowspeeder has the same basic color scheme and is roughly twice as big.  The connection of the wings to the body uses a modified red headed stepchild between a pure hinge and the clip/bar system.  Two 1x2 plates, one with a closed end handle and the other with 2 clips give the wings their pitch.  Is this proof that even LEGO designers can't stand the click hinges?  This is not a new idea.  We also saw it on the Republic Assault Ship among others.  Unlike the Assault Ship though, the Snowspeeder has no stops to hold the wings at an angle.  You could lay them straight out or straight down.

In a rare instance, The LEGO Group biffed on one of the parts.  I received two white 6x3 wings left instead of a left and right wing.  The advantage of having a cache of parts and a store is that I can pull stuff out when need be.  I remembered selling some of the right winds recently.  Murphy's Law would dictate that I would have sold them all.  Murphy must have been on vacation because I was lucky to have not one, not two, but FIV- er, THREE of the parts in my inventory.  It's not worth bothering to have TLG send me a new one.

None of the snowspeeder parts are unique or rare save for the printed nose slope.  If you weren't able to get this set and want to piecemeal your own speeder together, that slope alone will cost you $2-4 depending on where you're willing to order from.

This is only the second planet series minifigure to NOT carry a blaster.  If you don't count R4-P17 who can't hold anything anyway.  Prior to this was Sebulba holding a wrench in his, um, paw.  This guy has binoculars.  It's a nice little departure but I would have liked to see a few of the other characters holding something slightly different.  Perhaps Lobot could have been carrying a cool drink or the Naboo pilot could have had a shrunken Gungan head.  Just a thought.

The set has 65+5 parts plus a minifig.  That's a little light on what would usually be a $9.99 set.  Maybe adding more parts to the speeder would have just looked funny.  But you won't get this set for $9.99 anyway.  You'll be spending around $25 to have it shipped from East Asia, maybe $20 from Europe if you're lucky.  It's hard for me to make a recommendation when you'd be laying down so much cash.  I expect only the hard core collectors will be the ones looking for it anyway.  If that's the case, you don't need my word for it.  You'll just go and get it.

And to those that have fought from Europe to Asia to Hoth, thank you for your service.