So after my time with the Medical Frigate MOC I was pretty leery about picking up another MOC set, but the draw of the massive 6500+ piece Republic Cruiser was just too huge.

This was the largest set available from Lepin until this years Millennium Falcon was released, and due to the nature of the Lepin sets, and MOC in general, this was a big problem.

As you can see, this is a 10 ft dining room table. 6+ feet are covered in bricks. There was almost no room to build.

Clocking in at over 130 individual bags, it took over 2 hours just to open everything up and try to get some semblance of order.

I found having a pile of old containers on hand really help, all the smaller elements went into containers so I could have some extra room to breath.

With everything sorted it was time to dive into the massive manual.

The core of the ship went together like any other regular star wars ship, it is really well built and solid, and it would have to be as the ship itself is over 20lbs, so a good strong base is a must.

On top of this, much like the UCS Star Destroyer, the actual stand is built directly to the frame.

 

This is a bit of a mixed bag for me.

While I appreciate WHY this is done, it still tends to look less than attractive, especially if you set is up as high as eye level (like mine is)

Now, much like the Medical Frigate, this sets design leave a lot to be desired.

There is a pile of guesswork to be done.

First and foremost is the entire bottom of the ship.

Lepin left out how any of this was to be connected, the main under plate just hangs off the ship and rests on the surface it is on. It is suppose to be attached to the plate above it.

This took some real annoying rework as I was expecting this to be addressed in a later step, and was not, so now I had a near complete (and fragile build) that needed to be carefully tweaked to make it work.

So after an hour or so of messing around, and multiple curses later, the issues was fixed.

Next up, and the most atrocious of the entire build is the 4 massive panels on the ship.

Now they assembled just fine, but installation is completely impossible by the book.

#1, the magnets you get are about 1 million times more powerful than a Lego magnet. So the second you try to place them, the magnetic pull rips them right off the panels.

To add insult to injury, the placement of the magnets is completely wrong. so even if you manage to get them to not pull off the base, they leave the panels all skewed and looking pretty uneven.

I had to heavily rework the interior system to fix this, and there was no way it could be done without krazy glue.

Above Pic is a complete custom fix on my part, and had to be glued in to work properly.

Magnet elements 100% need to be glued to work.

It took me almost 4 hours and constant frustration with pieces falling off to fix this.

Lastly, the giant missing panel… This section pictured should have a cover to hide the gaping hole in the top of the ship.

This area is not included… No rhyme or reason.

From what I have read it used to included be back in the day, and suddenly it just stopped, it is no longer in the manual, and the bricks are just not there.

Luckily I have enough spares from other sets that I was able to swap out parts from elsewhere to steal what was needed for the exterior finish.

Instruction were found in the original MOC instruction book (which I highly recommend buying if you get this set)

So all in all, it is an amazing finished product, but it is such a nightmare to finish it is hard to say if it was worth it.

There is little worse than getting to the last mile in a set, and the finish is so terrible it negates all the good thoughts you have about a set.

That is where I am left with the Republic Cruiser.

While it is one of my fave ships in my collection, I am hard pressed to think positively about building it again if I had to.

If you are a die hard Star Wars fan, then it is a no brainer, as it does look damn great when built. But if will cost you some hair from the pulling, and it may go a bit grey too.

A 10/10 for the finished product, but a paltry 6/10 for the actual getting there.

One last thing, this is the pile of spare bits that were left, quite a bit considering a lot of folks claim they have no spares and are missing parts.

So I took a diversion from all my Lepin building to go back to my brick roots.

I picked up the USC Snow Speeder from Lego.com.

They had a pretty good deal at the time for bonus VIP points, so it made sense to jump in.

After coming off multiple Lepin MOC builds it was glorious to get a real Lego set with actually good instructions and no guess work.

This is actually a remake of one of my all time favorite ships, second only to the Millennium Falcon.

Lego has started to slowly reboot their most popular sets from 15 years ago, and it is a welcome surprise, as the used market for these sets can bee staggering, coming in at thousands of dollars often.

So to have a viable legit option to get some of these old sets again is welcomed.

This remake comes in at 1703 pieces, a whole 250 pieces larger than the 2003 model which had 1445 elements.

It has unfortunately been so long since I built the 2003 model it is hard to recall what is different.

The set itself is very well made, it is one of the more solid UCS builds out there, right up there with the UCS Slave 1 which is a tank.

That is the trade off with these “model” like sets, you oft sacrifice that amazing build quality Lego is known for in lieu of a set that looks like what it is trying to reproduce.

The new UCS Snowspeeder nails this balance to a T though.

With a solid construction, and the most accurate Lego reproduction of the ship yet.

The core of the build is pretty slick, it adds a mechanism that allows you to turn it and the wing flaps will raise and lower. This is just one of the details that makes Lego so cool.

They did not have to have a working module like this, but they tried to go above and beyond.

The guns on the wings are very ell detailed here, as well as the rear tail canon. Which coincidentally also employs a method in which it is moved by the internal control stick.

The cockpit design is beautiful as well, capturing the claustrophobic nature of what these ships entailed.

Control panels and display are clustered together nicely in the cramped quarters.

The build is not particularly challenging, very straight forward from start to finish.

Another nice little addition with the new UCS sets is giving you a mini figure or two to go along with the model, this helps tie it all to the world, even if they are not to scale.

This set comes with 2 generic snow speeder pilots.

All in all a great build and a solid recommendation for all Star Wars Lego fans.

A near perfect 9/10

 

 

 

So one of the coolest additions to Star Wars universe was the great little droid BB-8.

Roughly taking the place of R2-D2 in terms of cheeky droid banter, BB-8 and his personality won over fans instantly.

So when Lego announced they would be making a UCS BB-8 I was instantly sold.

On September 1st, Star Wars Force Friday II, BB-8 was released for pre-sale and he arrived early October as the actual release date was October 1st.

This set comes in at just over 1100 pieces, most of which are rather small, so there is a lot packed into this tiny little droid.

Lego had a challenge ahead of them, how do you make a round ball out of square parts.

Well with modern ingenuity and an amazing design team, they did a pretty great job.

The build itself added a few cool designs that they didn’t need to.

One of the best scenes in The Force Awakens with BB-8 is an exchange with Finn on the Millennium Falcon, where the cute little droid extends a arm with a lighter to give our wayward hero a thumbs up.

Well Lego managed to include a mechanism to extend an arm with a faux-flame.

It is a little kitschy, and it does not look 100% right, but it is a nice inclusion.

The core of the set is like most Technic sets, with a solid frame:

The unit itself is surrounded with 4 panels that make out the rounded appearance.

There is a second mechanism that allows the BB Units head to move around and rotate.

Both of these mechanisms are concealed under flat panels on adjacent sides.

Once complete, the BB unit sits on a black stand that is unique to this droid.

Additionally the set comes with a BB-8 Minifig that is just adorable.

Lego also did a good job of nailing the scale, when places next to R2-D2 they match up perfectly. BB is about 60% of the size of R2 and they go together perfectly on display.

All in all a great Star Wars set and a welcome addition to the collection.

A solid 8/10