Sometimes, its not about being in charge, or having all of the action. Sometimes its just about hanging around, waiting for something to happen, or to be sent off on some errand. At least, that’s how it sometimes appears to bewhen you are living the life of a Scout Trooper, the subject of the latest LEGO® Star Wars Helmet.
I recently took a look at the forthcoming 73504 Darth Vader Helmet sculpture, the latest from the LEGO Star Wars team. With over 840 pieces, that set has the highest part count of any of the helmets currently available. The LEGO Star Wars helmet other set due for release in April, 73505 Scout Trooper with 471 parts, has the current lowest.
Thanks to the AFOL Engagement team, I received a prerelease copy of this set for review purposes – it will be hard to avoid comparisions with the Vader helmet.
The set comes in the ‘standard’ helmet box, with its instruction manual, 5 bags of elements and a sticker sheet. As we already mentioned, the set has significantly fewer elements than Vader’s helmet, and as such the instruction manual is almost half as thick.
Let’s take a look at the build.
Bags 1 &2
Unlike the Vader helmet, which started with building the base, in this set we start with the lower part of the head. We have a significant number of SNOT bricks – 2x1x 1 2/3 with 4 studs on the side, as well as the 1×1 equivalent, amd many white plates. there are also a few tiles and arches that will enhance the feel of the helmet.
Our model starts off looking a little like an abstract sculpture: is it a flying bull? a spaceship? Before long, we are adding the layers of NSOT elements, to allow panel like attachements to the top, back and sides.
Once we have layered up sufficiently, we add in the goggles of our trooper. The shape is achieved through the use of 1×4 curved slopes, to form the top curve. There is some elegant SNOT work in the lower half, which uses 2×1 bows to form the outer edges, curving in at the bottom. I wonder if this is a case where the scale of the model was influenced by the curve of these elements. Unfortunately, it does make the scale slightly smaller than that used for other helmets released over the last year or so.
We build up a series of arches,I presume representing vents in the back of the helmet and apply stickers to these. This privided the more rounded aspect of the back of the helmet. Staggering the arches certainly enhances the roundess of the helmet.
Bags 3&4
Bag 3 contains the elements required for the stand, to support the helmet. Construction is pretty well identical to thatthe stands of the other Star Wars Helmets.
After putting the helmet on the stand, bag 4 sees us add detail to the front of the helmet, including the mouth and nose detail. We then go on to build up panels which make up the cheeks of the helmet. The detail at the bottom of the goggles is achieved through building up some slopes in front of the lower aspect of the goggles. some small stiers are used here to add futher venting to the helmet. They are relatively simple to place, and not too onerous to align.
The side panels on the face tuck in to nicely align with the vents/speaker over the mouth and nose.
Bag 5
In our final bag, we build the panels that go over each side of the head, including the ear pieces, as well as the ‘blinker shades’
It is quite a change to have so many curved elements available in this bag – both for the ear pieces, and to make a gentle curve between the top and sides of the helmet. Again, we have more stickers to apply over the ear pieces, with different stickers going on the left and right.
These stickers are a little more annoying to apply, as it becomes easy for one or two of theme to fall out of line, as you can see on the side view of the finished helmet.
In conclusion
I really like the final presentation of this model: the use of studs is not quite as intense as it is with the Vader helmet, thanks to the use of plates with studs only along the edges in some places. It captures the overall shape of the Scout Trooper’s helmet quite well: the important lines on the helmet are there, including other smaller markings around the side, and vents in the helmet.
The construction of this helmet was more straight forward than that of Darth Vader – the build was a lot faster, and did not leave me with much of the sense of ‘What’s going on here?’
The final model, however hits the mark nicely. The scout trooper’s face is distinctive, and while the actual mask might have a few more gentle curves, these are probably outside the scope of what is currently possible within the LEGO System at present. If you are looking for a challenging build, this is not going to be the one for you. If you are returning to LEGO after a period of time, your interest piqued by these new helmets, you might prefer to start with this one, before moving on to 75305, Darth Vader’s Helmet.
If you are reading this, statistically, you are probably already looking at contemporary LEGO sets and building techniques. If you are looking for a set to help a Star Wars fan return to LEGO, after a ten year absence, this might be the one.
I give this set four out of five arbitrary praise units. I appreciated the build, and enjoy the final result, but it is not as challenging as many other sets aimed at the 18+ market.
The set will be on sale at the end of April, but is already available for preorder in North America and Europe.
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What do you think of the Scout Trooper helmet? Something that you can leave be? Or something you already made room for on the shelf?
Why dont you leave your comments below, and until next time,
Play Well!
This one looks fantastic. The only concern I have is the size, from pictures Brickset put up of all five Star Wars helmets to date this one looks noticeably smaller in size when sitting next to the others. Will be interesting to see the comparison in person once I’ve got the set and built it. Really like these helmets, while they are not very challenging, they are a nice easy build that doesn’t take too long and look great when finished, which when you have physical limitations is sometimes a really nice thing, to be able to build something in one or two sessions of building and have it look great when you are done is fantastic! Thanks for the review, very much appreciated 🙂
The Vader helmet is quite a challenging build compared to this one.
I think it is an example of specific elements determining the final scale- in this case, the curve on the goggles.
Thank-you for the reply and information, makes me more eager to build them 🙂