7 replies to this topic

[Cyrem]

9492 TIE Fighter
Review by Cyrem

Photo
 

Review
  For my first LEGO review ever, i'm choosing the TIE Fighter I bought today.

I picked the set up for $34 bucks, but sells for around $89 retail here. The box is quite large-ish for the amount of LEGO you get inside, there is quite a bit of space... but then, I do like this box quite a lot. The set comes with some 413 pieces, which is a nice amount. The set comes with 4 minifigs: Death Star Trooper, Tie Fighter Pilot, Imperial Officer and R5-J2.

While R5-J2 had the pleasure of seeing Darth Vader, we won't be seeing him today.

The set comes in three bags. One for the cockpit and one each for the wings. It also has two interesting 4x4 brick pieces to hold the wings(as shown below), I'm not sure if they are in any other sets... but it's the first set I've bought with them.



After a few minutes... I convinced myself to open the first bag instead of just looking at the box for eternity.

I was then obviously quick to make...The IMPERIAL ASTRO-DROID OFFICER!



Out of the three men, only the Death Star Trooper had a double sided head, which is fine considering I never really was a fan of heads with two faces.

Now let the building begin!

Starting on the cockpit it doesn't seem to be very detailed yet, however it's quite sturdy which is good considering it needs to hold the wings soon.



All felt nice and greyscale until this happened... Not sure why LEGO has decided to mix things up here considering you don't see these parts? Then there are these black rotatable pieces, which I don't see the point of because in the next picture I'm covering them over... Huh?



Things started getting pretty serious and all when finally we got a control panel for the ship... won't be long till we are fighting rebel scum.



And with that the cockpit was done. I spent about 30mins on it while writing this review so far, so not too bad. The cockpit itself is very sturdy and has two flick fire missiles underneath. I would however have appreciated a bit more detail in the cabin.



Now to get started on the wings.

At this point the wings are a little sketchy for strength.



The wing is now mostly finished... not bad, could be stronger though.



Well the problem is obvious, HOUSTON! WE NEED ANOTHER WING!... so I guess I'll need to repeat the process for the other wing.



So around 40 minutes later both wings are now done and all is assembled.



Rating
  Design: 7 / 10 (Weird spiny thing and colours that have no purpose?)
Quality: 9 / 10
Fun: 6 / 10 (Not really much you can do with it, no movable parts except cockpit window)
Price: 8 / 10 (The price I got it for was awesome... but $90 is just starting to get steep)

Overall
 A great set... but probably more of a looker and not so much a play set. Best of all, NO STICKERS! If only there was some place to put these other minifigs...

[Phoenyx]

It's probably cheaper for LEGO to produce those bold colors on inclosed structural parts than making them gray like everything else. I don't know how much (or how little) it saves, though.

As for the components on the insides of the wings, those are actually originally from a TIE Fighter model - specifically the original UCS TIE Interceptor. They pop up from time to time in the Star Wars line as well as a handful of other sets.

[Cyrem]

It's probably cheaper for LEGO to produce those bold colors on inclosed structural parts than making them gray like everything else. I don't know how much (or how little) it saves, though.

Thats what I was thinking, but I thought it would be cheaper to not use colours They could also have excess of certain colours from previous sets and use them in new sets to save a little.

[Phoenyx]

Thats what I was thinking, but I thought it would be cheaper to not use colours

Then you end up with a drab, uneven gray like this:

They could also have excess of certain colours from previous sets and use them in new sets to save a little.

Well, red and yellow Technic pieces are quite common.

[MCHover]

The construction of this TIE fighter is very similar to the TIE interceptor, that I have (6206), most significantly the way the cockpit is built. And those 4x4 bricks holds the wings in that one, too.

[Lair of Rockwhales]

I was then obviously quick to make...The IMPERIAL ASTRO-DROID OFFICER!

there's something vaguely terrifying about that, give him a lightsaber and it won't be vague

[Cyrem]

I was then obviously quick to make...The IMPERIAL ASTRO-DROID OFFICER!

there's something vaguely terrifying about that, give him a lightsaber and it won't be vague

Funny you mention that:

[Lair of Rockwhales]

I think it's his legs that make him especially menacing. His huge feet ready to stomp you. His head calculating how to kill you his AAAAA HE HAS A LIGHTSABER AAAA
oh yeah nice review too