200th Post Special : Lego Star Wars A-Wing Review

So last time my posts got up to the 100 mark I was mid-way through the siege of Gondor campaign and the orcs were attacking Minas Tirith.

This time around I wanted to do something different. It's been bugging me that I only have one post related to Lego...(atrocious right?) Also I need an X-wing in my life. But seeing as they cost at the upwards of £80, assuming you know somewhere good to buy it from, this is not such a plausible idea :(

The next best option was, of course, the A-wing (Feel free to disagree). So I went online, and bought myself an A-wing from Bricklink which came out to around £35 with postage. And so this post will be review of the product. 

This version of the product is the 75003, released in 2013, typical prices are from £35 to £70, however there are other editions available, such as: 

• 7134(released 2000) (TP £40-50)
• 6207(released 2006) (fighter doubles up as a pod-racer) (TP £30-60) 
• 75150 which is technically the latest edition (released 2016), This neglects the typical red colour scheme and includes Darth Vaders Tie-fighter so is much more expensive (TP £60-120)

What you get: Parts for Lego A-wing Fighter, three minifigures (A-wing pilot, Han Solo, Admiral Ackbar), stickers, instruction manual.

Assembly:
The instructions included are fairly straight forward, although sometimes tedious with each double page only including details of one or two brick additions, but such occurrences are rare and otherwise it does not get overly complicated nor simple otherwise.

This part of the instructions was in particular tedious, and could
have been done more efficiently.

It is worth noting that this kit is for 7-12 yo's so the more page-consuming parts of the assembly may actually be benefit a 7-12 yo in construction - but it's been a while since I was a 7-12 yo so I can't make any accurate conclusions here.

Less tedious instructions

Interestingly this item includes stickers for some of the bricks, which I feel adds a certain depth to the fighter. In terms of the minifigures, it was nice to see that the A-wing pilot had two interchangeable faces, one scared and the other serious (shown below).

Otherwise the parts included were designed very efficiently and fitted together quite snugly. 

Here is the completed kit:

Problems:
Choices of Minifigures - Why exactly is Han solo included? Admiral Ackbar is maybe a justifiable inclusion, but Han solo? 

Spare parts - This seems a little pedantic...but, I received 14 1x1 round plates (6 are spares), all from the three different parts of the construction kit when only 8 were actually part of the construction, personally 2 or 3 of these would have been sufficient.

Coffee machine/Water dispenser? - I'm not entirely sure if this is a coffee machine or a water dispenser or anything else, also the glowing green part of the stand doesn't help clarify things apart from suggest that it might be nuclear powered??? Otherwise it would seem so given that admiral Ackbar has a cup. But clarity is not really present here!

Blasters/cannons - The design of the missiles/blasters was relatively simplistic, yes they look like missiles, the attachment of they is okay to use but...there really isn't anything else to them. This isn't so much of an issue except that LEGO, I was expecting something a little less shoddy.

Improvements:
Choice of Minifigures - It perhaps might have been better to include a droid eg. one similar to C3-PO or R2-D2 and a small architecture (apart from a coffee machine/water dispenser?) that represents an A-wing docking station (for refueling or repairs?) instead of Han Solo and Admiral Ackbar.

Stickers - Yes they're great, but maybe this was a chance for 'customers' (For lack of a better word) to add some personal characteristics to the kit?
For example: numbers? different colour strips for the cockpit? Scratch marks/other battle damage?

Ranting over.

Ratings:
Creativity in design - 4.5
Quality of parts - 4
Value for money - 4 (at £35)
Problems - Minor

Overall 4.33/5

These ratings don't really don't show how good a kit this is, bearing in mind a perfect kit is 5/5, this falls slightly short of the mark. This isn't because it did anything major wrong in specific, just some of the little things were left out and it didn't do enough else right.

But otherwise, this kit has done itself justice, and worth a buy!

Until then

Fish