When trolling the rebrickable site a year or so ago, I stumbled upon the plans for 2 amazing MOCs, the Colonial Viper, and the Cylon Raider.
I immediately knew I had to have them, and promptly bought the instructions from the creator.
I dumped the part list into brick link, and came to find I would have to spend about 600 per ship to complete the builds. Not too shabby, but at the time I just didn’t have the capital to put on them.
So fast forward to spring 2019 and low and behold, the Chinese block-off community decided to make the Colonial Viper, and for a paltry $200 none the less, this immediately went to the top of my list, and I for the first time in Lepin history, pre-ordered it.
Now this was a mistake.
I was too damn excited, and jumped on the promise of coming next month. (This was Feb 2019)
4 long months passed, and after delays and more delays due to the bust of Lepin, I was getting pretty skeptical if this would even happen.
Well finally after long last, the end of June arrived and so did my shiny new ship.
I immediately tore into it, to find for the first time, there was not instructions. Now luckily I had actually purchased them the year before, but I would be pretty pissed if I had to shell out another $50 for instructions that in the beginning, were not conveyed that I had to buy.
I cracked all the bags open and dove in.
It became very quickly apparent that sadly the color match on the bricks were all over the place. The reds do not all match, nor do the whites.
All in all it does not matter too much, when it is on a shelf 9 ft away from my desk chair, I cant see a difference at all.
The build itself was moderately challenging. Nothing crazy for a MOC build, but there was a difference in color choice for the interior unseen bricks that was not mentioned, this lead to some searching for nothing as the bricks I needed were different.
This is a real shortcoming in the MOC block-off community. They seriously need to supply a part substitution list.
There are really only 2 major short falls in this set. One I am pissed off about, as it was never rectified by the seller (Jeremy @ Whatsapp)
The cockpit itself is 100% wrong.
The glass provided is completely incorrect, and the cost of a replacement on Bricklink is $20 or more.
When I brought it to his attention, he straight up told me they would not be able to provide a replacement:
Second, and this was a doozy.
The way the engines are constructed have to be the single handed stupidest think I have ever seen in a MOC.
You have to precariously place all the surrounding bricks, then shove a rubber tire into the middle, in such a precise way that if it is off by a couple mm, then it will not connect to the ship itself.
It took me close to an hour just to get a rough idea of how to do it, and probably 2 hours to make it would at all.
Essentially you make a Circle out of tank tracks, then you wedge a dish into the tire, which is an extremely tight fit, and does not fit evenly, then insert the small ring holding 8 tiny grates.
Here is a mini album of the process:
It was TERRIBLE.
Beyond those 2 major issue though, there was very little to report.
The build otherwise is very straight forward, it sits on the stand nicely, and looks fantastic on the shelf.
A good starter build for budding MOC folks, (short of the engines) and over all a rather non-frustrating build.
A 8/10 for finished presentation, and a must have for BSG fans.
The Compulsive Canadian Gamer 