I’d been hoping to get my hands on this set before I knew it was coming out. Having seen the movie I knew Lego were going to have a treat in store regarding the various ships and I wasn’t disappointed. The set I wanted the most had to be Rey’s Landspeeder, but Poe’s X-Wing wasn’t far behind it, but at more than three times the price it didn’t look like I was going to be able to get my hands on it. Luckily for me, my family knows me well, and I got it as a birthday present back in September.
The set contains 717 pieces, including 3 minifigs and a BB8 model. I’d class BB8 as a minifig myself but Lego don’t so that’s fair enough I guess. The minifigs included are of course Poe Dameron himself, another Rebel pilot and Resistance Ground Crew. The details on the minifigs are excellent as you might expect. One thing I’ve not seen before is Poe’s head piece has a 2 faces on either side, different expressions you can use when you’ve the helmet on. The helmets are particularly well put together with a transparent visor and lots of little details. 
I do have one niggle with the BB8 model though. While the details are great the stud placement is awful. The stud on BB8’s head I can kind of understand even if it looks a bit rubbish, but having a stud extruded from the bottom of his wheel is ridiculous, really throws the lines of his form, having the stud inside the wheel would have been a much better choice. But since I leave BB8 in his slot in the X-Wing, it doesn’t matter too much.
The X-Wing itself comes with the ability to change the wing positions from single foil to the famous x-wing pattern as you would expect, it also comes with 4 torpedo launchers, 2 stud launchers, a retractable landing gear and accessible cockpit. It also comes with a few mince extras, a ladder for accessing the cockpit, a little hover sled for transporting crew, parts and ammunition to the X-Wing. While at first these might seem like relatively pointless additions to the set they have a nice charm to them, and they look great if you want to set up a little vignette.
Overall the quality is as you might expect, though the details aren’t as densely packed as they are in Rey’s Landspeeder but that’s not unexpected on a set so much bigger than it, and though the details aren’t as dense, they’re still there.
As I had hoped in my review of Rey’s Landspeeder the bags were numbered in sequence with the instructions and that definitely reduced the need to hunt for parts so much which is very welcome. As always instructions were clear and I was never left wondering what I had to do. building the main body and the nosecone was interesting, they did a decent job there, I particularly enjoyed the details in the engine and cockpit, and the way they put together the nose was very clever. The wings on the other hand were a bit on the tedious side but that’s to be expected as you have to essentially build the same part 4 times.
There are a few inaccuracies in this set: the wings overlap far too much, if I recall correctly, in the movie they barely overlap at all (which was one of my favourite features of the new x-wing design). The front landing gear is rudimentary at best and lacks the finesse I have come to expect from Lego and there was no real landing gear in the back at all, though that might be more a limitation of the material than anything else.
Apart from the inaccuracies, none of which are close to deal breakers, there are a few other issues that keep this set from a perfect score. The weak landing gear is one, but the bigger issue is with how the wings move. The wings are essentially loose, only held together by a few elastic bands, and when you turn a while the wings are forced open in a rather unpleasant manner. Again it really lacks the finesse I had expected. It certainly does the job, but I had hope for a more sophisticated solution to the problem, hopefully involving gears and such. Another issue is the wing engines, they look fantastic, but they’re not very well attached and feel a little loose and weak. The last small niggle I have is the slot BB8 has on the back of the X-Wing, I’m not sure of it’s the plate, or BB8 itself that’s the problem but I found that it was very loose and would be prone to falling out quite easily.
With all that said, this is still an excellent set, none of the issues come close to being deal breakers and the positives far outweigh the negatives. The set oozes charm and while not as faithful in it’s recreation as it could be it still has huge personality and really feel’s like Poe’s X-Wing, even with it’s flaws, it doesn’t disappoint. If you can swing the cash, I definitely recommend adding this set to your collection, or perhaps as a holiday gift for a loved one.
wyvernindustries.wordpress.com 