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As a countdown to the Force Awakens, I will be writing reviews on Star Wars LEGO sets this week. Full disclosure, I missed writing at least one review to meet my own schedule. So I have decided to punish myself and try to make a new review each day until the opening of Star Wars Episode VII. Hopefully they will be enjoyable for you and for me. I would like to finish out The Force Awakens lineup, but I've already built Rey's Speeder twice and parted out another one, so I have no interest in buying another one to open and build. I have little interest in the Kylo Ren's Shuttle because it's ugly, and I may or may not open a Millennium Falcon. So, unless something changes, TFA might not get full representation. Besides, I am super excited to get to the Shuttle Tyderium. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75101 Name: First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter Theme: Star Wars Parts: 517 Price: $69.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At $89.99 the price per piece works out to a bit over $.135 each. This seems to be on the high side of pricing for a licensed set. There are 4 minifigures most of which are currently unique to this set. This set is mainly a troop builder with 2 First Order TIE Pilots, 1 First Order Crew and 1 First Order Officer. The First Order Crew is also available in Kylo Ren's Shuttle. BOX CONTENTS Some people may wind up picking up a set that is open box or, want to verify the box contents before beginning a build. For this set, there are 4 numbered baggies, and a bag containing a sticker sheet, and an instruction book. There are 6 small stickers, but for some reason I only used 4 and cannot figure out where the 2 remaining ones go. I read the instructions 4 times. THE BUILD AND EXECUTION Bag 1 creates the basic shape of the hull of the TIE Fighter. There's a back to back crew area for 2 minifigures, which just happen to be in this bag. You've got 2 pilots, which is one more than you usually get with a TIE Fighter. The Control stick is built from a Battle Droid torso. I like that, it makes it seem more thought out than the really old school 1x2 decorated tile like we used to see. You can just see the ports of the spring loaded missile launchers. Bag 2 completes the body of the TIE Starfighter. It has 3 hatches and I'm not sure if that thing sticking up is a cannon or an antenna. It's probably a cannon because it's attached to a technic pin that would allow it to swing forward. The red bricks and pieces create the stripe that I am going to assume is for the Special forces. It's pretty striking on this all black vehicle. The white at the ends of the "arms" is kind of jarring, and I hoped that it would not be visible in the final build. I do like the looks of this, very properly TIE Fightery. The First Order Crew that pops up in this bag is sort of plain, except his ridiculous looking helmet. I have to do something different here, because the build instructions require it. Bags 3 and 4 are the same. The instructions show both bags in the requirements, and at the end just have the "X2" notation. You probably guessed it, each bag contains a wing. The only difference between the 2 bags is that one has a minifigure, and the other has the spring missile projectiles. I'm going to let you in on a little secret here. I haven't built many TIE Fighters. Most of them have very flimsy wings. To me that says everything about the TIE fighter, but does not endear them to me. These wings seem pretty stable. It's got some significant layering , which gives me confidence that it's not going to crumble while it's on display. I've read that the wing design is very similar to the UCS TIE Fighter. There's this part used in the build of the wings that I don't think I have ever seen before. Bricklink seems to indicate that it's a rare piece. It's only available in a handful of sets so, once you've built the wings, of course, you put them together with the body. The opening hatch on top is what allows you to put the pilots inside, the front and rear hatchesjust pretty much allow you to see them. There were a surprisingly mall number of extra pieces. It's an indication of the limited number of small pieces in this set. You do end up with 2 extra roller skates from the wing greeblies, so our First Order Crew or Officer could use them. I don't recommend them for the TIE Pilots, because there's no room to skate in the cockpit. I also include the brick separator, because I have so many of these now, and they are not a part of the build. REACTION I like the build. It definitely came across beautifully in the finished product. It was not complicated, but on the other hand, it's also not a box like the older TIE Fighters used to be. I liked the way that they decorated the wings. I have a horrible memory of how the 7146 was decorated, and am just as pleased not to go back to it. When all is said and done, this is a nice set, a little pricey on the 3P score. 13.5 cents per piece just makes it too expensive, probably by at least $10 for the set, maybe by as much as $20. The minifigures are great, army builders to a man. Not a single named character to make you feel weird about buying multiples for a scene. They each have new headgear, obviously the pilots have the same one. I think that the design for the Officer's hat and the Crew are dumb looking, but that's not LEGO's fault. FINAL THOUGHTS TIE Fighters are the most common vehicle in the Empire. Strangely, this is the most common set from the Force Awakens line. Along with all of the product shipped to regular stores like Target, Walmart and Toys R Us, Costcos received large pallets of this set. When all of the other TFA sets sold out from LEGO Shop at Home on Black Friday/Cyber Monday this set still remained. I doubt there's less demand for this set. I think that the early discounts at Costco and Black Friday sales at Walmart and Target are going to be the price that drive this set. It's going to be hard to look at this set with MSRP so far above average and get excited about it. The regular buyers, mom and dad and Timmy are likely to pick up a copy when necessary. I foresee it having a discount on Amazon for most of its life. The 9492 performed pretty well after retirement, even though this set was coming along to replace it. The long term value of this set depends upon the reception of the new film. If people like the film, they'll probably want to accumulate these later on. It's actually about perfect for the size, so I doubt that they will make an updated version. Probably any future version of the First Order TIE Fighter will just be a repackage of this, which would seriously limit its growth potential. If I had to make a guess though, the next Sequel Trilogy movie will have a different TIE Fighter design featured to sell new toys, so we'll probably see a new TIE interceptor, Advanced or something like that. There's probably going to be a few years before the inevitable reissue. (in the week leading up to the new film's release, and 10 days before Christmas, it is sold out from Amazon and already over $90 including shipping. Don't underestimate the power of a new movie) Buy it on Amazon

As a countdown to the Force Awakens, I will be writing reviews on Star Wars LEGO sets this week. Today, we are going to be looking at a set that I have opened a fair number of previously. I have only built it once before, but at the time I felt like that was enough. Luckily I had a couple that I bought on discount to fill in on a day when I wanted to bang out a quick set and a quick review. I made an "artistic" decision with this set to portray the minifigures involved as building the set. Hopefully it's more amusing than annoying. REVIEW: SET DETAILS Set #: 75078 Name: Imperial Troop Transport Theme: Star Wars Parts: 141 Price: $12.99 Before we get to the build, let’s talk value. At $12.99 the price per piece works out to a bit over $.09 each. This seems to be on the low side of pricing for a licensed set. There are 4 minifigures all of which are Stormtroopers. The Stormtroopers have 2 different expressions, frowning, and very unhappy. The frowning ones are exclusive to this set. BOX CONTENTS Some people may wind up picking up a set that is open box or, want to verify the box contents before beginning a build. For this set, there are 2 unnumbered baggies, a 2x12 Light Bluish Gray Plate, and an instruction book. THE BUILD AND EXECUTION So, here we go, No numbered bags, time to open them up and dump them in a pile. I dislike this method of building larger sets, but on smaller sets, I guess it's fine. It looks like I have a helper to put this together. Maybe he has some friends who can help. Now I was just thinking of a conversation in Clerks where Randall says "You think the average stormtrooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing and White uniforms." Well, let's hope these guys are better at making their own crafts than installing plumbing. The basic size of the vehicle is very small. There's no driver's compartment, and the shape is moderately reminiscent of the Kenner toy that they show based their design on. The front and rear have some interesting shapes. Nothing is terribly complex with this build. Honestly if I weren't taking pictures of Stormtroopers building it, the review would be very short. The crew area is 4 slots on the outside. It has 2 flick missiles on top in a rotating turret. There were 4 extra pieces. Actually, that's kind of a relief, I get a little tired of seeing all of the extra studs. Speaking of Extra studs, there are 4 in the box in the center of the vehicle. I did not include them in the extra parts because the instruction book indicates that's where they belong. REACTION Back before this set was released, I was excited. The version in Rebels and the original Kenner version indicate a nice midsized vehicle, probably in the $20-$30 range. I understand that LEGO makes a small, inconsequential thing for their battlepacks, but this was never the thing that I wanted. It's ugly, it's short, it's squat and cannot hold the proper number of characters. Plus, I hate the stud shooter guns. The minifigures are great, army builders to a man. Basic Stormtroopers without odd decorations that you never see on screen are awesome. That's probably why I have opened like a half dozen of these sets. I just need to give them real blasters. FINAL THOUGHTS Troop Builder packs have limited growth potential. They're cheap to begin with. The figures are usually commonly available in other places, and at the price point, they are easy impulse buys, so are massively produced. All of that said, Basic OT Stormtroopers are always going to be needed and popular. I could see the Episode VII toys eclipsing these for a while in popularity, but when Rogue One comes out, people will want their classic troopers. I would never stock up on these for resale at MSRP, but if you can get them at a discount go for it. They don't take up a lot of room. I foresee moderate gains post EOL. Something we probably won't see with the PT/CW/EU battlepacks. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think a Stormtrooper should be black or have red on him. The customers that you will be looking for in future just want to build a scene, the bricks will be nice to try to MOC a better Troop Transport with, but the 4 Stormies will be what drives the sale of this set. Go buy it on Amazon