Ultimate Collector Series

75355 UCS X-Wing Revealed: May 1 Release

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UCS X-Wing, ramblingbrick bedroom edition c.1978.

Now, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that with May the 4th less than a month away, we are starting to see new LEGO Star Wars sets officially revealed. Overnight, we got our first complete views of the third UCS X-Wing. (The first (7191) being released in 2000, the second (10240) in 2013. Now the X-wing has always been the iconic Star Fighter for me, ever since my first glimpse back in 1977. It was also the first Star Wars ship that I attempted to build to accomodate my action figures, back in the day.

However, I totally missed the previous versions of this ship: I just wasn’t really ready to make that sort of an investment at the time. Life has moved on, and I am glad that I can reconsider adding one to my collection, without investing excessively on the secondary market.

And so, here is 75355 X-Wing Starfighter, due for release on 1st of May for VIP Customers…

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Is This The Way? 75331 LEGO StarWars Ultimate Collector Series Razor Crest Revealed.

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When the first season of ‘The Mandalorian’ premiered on Disney Plus was launched 3 years ago, an icon was born. Well, several. And while ‘Baby Yoda’ was an instant hit, Din Djarin’s ship, the Razor Crest became part of the soul of the series, and many of us were shocked when…. But never mind: spoilers.

Today, the LEGO Group have revealed their latest UCS ship, and it’s a 6187 piece version of the Bounty Hunter’s transport ship. This version has a figure collection consistent with Series 1, episode 1: The Mandalorian, Grogu, the escapee Mythrol and the Ugnaut Kuill.

The 71 cm long set set goes on sale October 3rd to VIPs and October 7th to the rest of the world.

With a wingspan of 50cm, it is less wide than the UCS republic gunship of 2021, and as such is likely to fit onto a standard bench top with minimal overhang.

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Counting Down To 90 Years of Play Part 8: 2002-2011

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Welcome back as we count down to the 90th Anniversary of the LEGO Group on the 10th August 2022. When we last left off, we saw the LEGO Group expanding its portfolio and diversifying its playthemes. New Technologies were being embraced, as were new licensed themes. But in just a few years, the company might find itself in a bit of a pickle…

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75341: UCS Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder: Rambling Review

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Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder was the first personal vehicle that we were introduced to when Star Wars was first released in 1977. It truly embodied George Lucas’s notion of a ’used’ galaxy – where buildings and vehicles seen on screen had a few years or miles behind them, and were no longer in brand new condition. While the X-34 Landspeeder has been produced in several forms in the past, typically at Minifigure or microscale, it has often been at the expense of being able to brick build the fine details. By producing this set at a larger scale, many of these details are able to be demonstrated without resorting to stickers, except where necessary.

This latest addition to the Ultimate Collector Series has 1890 pieces and will be available from 1st of May, 2022. I was sent a prerelease copy by the LEGO Group for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

Without further ado, let’s take a look.

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75341 LEGO® Star Wars Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder Revealed

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As May the Fourth Approaches at what feels llike an ever glacial pace, it is time to see the official release images of the latest Ultimate Collector Series set: Set 75341 has 1890 pieces, comes with a Luke Skywalker minifigure, as well as a new exclusive C-3PO figure and will be priced at $319 AUD/$269.99 CAD/£174.99 GB/€199.99 EU/$199.99 US. It will be available exclusively from LEGO Stores.

Luke Skywalker, like any young adult around our world, values the freedoms that he has, despite the pressures from his Uncle Owen, and his X-34 Landspeeder is the key to those freedoms. While it allows him to go out to service the vaporators around the Lars’ moisture farm, it also gives Luke the chance to head over to Anchorhead, and catch up with his friends at Toschi’s Station.

This model is remarkably large, measuring 50cm longx 30 cm wide and 17cm high – significantly larger than any of the existing 6- 8 stud wide versions released over the years.

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75313 Ultimate Collectors Series AT-AT Officially Revealed. For Release: November 26 2021

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The AT-AT is one of those iconic vehicles from the original Star Wars Trilogy, serving up a drubbing to the Rebellion and helping this 12 year old come to terms with the fact the good guys would not always win.

This is the third ‘Major’ LEGO Star Wars release this year. The R2D2 sculpture was not, technically, a UCS set according to the LEGO Star Wars Team. We then saw the UCS Republic Gunship released in August, and no confirmed news about whether we would see another large set: either a UCS or Master Builders Series. This one looks like a UCS, but with 8 minifigures and some other Speeder bikes and an E-Web gun, this set appears to be making up for a lost time, after the last time the UCS range visited Hoth.

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75309 Ultimate Collector Series Republic Gunship [Hands On Review]

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When the Republic Gunship won the LEGO Ideas fan vote to determine an upcoming LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series set, I was a little disheartened. I was more of a Nebulon B frigate kind of a guy – this was the vessel where we saw our heroes gathering, healing and planning, after what had been a pretty dreadful time overall in Empire Strikes Back.

However, the size of the fan vote, and the proportion of that vote that was looking for the Republic Gunship (more than 30000 out of 50000 votes) certainly meant that the prequel trilogy and The Clone Wars was certainly meaning something to a lot of people. And then, in 2020, the world locked down, and my son sat me down, and we started watching The Clone Wars. By the time we finished, I had developed a new understanding of the both the prequel trilogy, as well as the importance of the gunship to the next generation of Star Wars Fans. And I probably became a little excited at the prospect of a large scale gunship to be released in LEGO form

The gunship is essentially a troop transport, as well as a low altitude assault vehicle. The contemporary analog would be akin to a Black Hawk helicopter. This version of the model is larger than minifigure scale – probably around one and a half to twice that scale, and provided the design team with an opportunity to increase the level of detail included in the build.

In this review, we will take a look at the build itself, and then consider the fact that the major virtue of this set is also possibly its biggest drawback.

Set 75309 will be released on the 1st of August 23, and has 3292 pieces. It has a RRP of RRP $349.99 / £329 / €349.99 / 579.99 AUD / 479.99 CAD.

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75309 LEGO® Star Wars: Ultimate Collector Series Republic Gunship Revealed.

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You’re going to need a bigger coffee table!

Over recent years, there has been a tendency for the LEGO Star Wars Ultimate collector series to be getting bigger and bigger.

The latest offering, the Republic Gunship is no exception. The model was chosen by a fan vote conducted on LEGO Ideas, and there was an unprecedented response, with over 50000 votes, of which around 30000 were for the Gunship. [Me, I was an Original Trilogy kind of a guy, but I have come to unterstand the role that the prequels are playing in the lives of the next generation, who have grown up watching those films as ‘Their’ Star Wars.]

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UCS A-Wing 75275 Announced In Time for May the Fourth

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Around the turn of the century, a new type of LEGO® set was released. Star Wars starfighter kits, designed for the AFOL to display, rather than to swoosh around the room. There were two released that year: 7181, TIE Interceptor, with 703 parts and the one we had all been waiting for: the 7191 X-Wing Starfighter was the largest Star Wars Set to have been released at the time.

TIE Interceptor and X-Wing UCS – images from Brickset.com

Twenty years have gone by and almost every major starfighter from the Rebellion and Empire has been represented.

Almost.

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