[REVIEW]: 7915 Imperial V-Wing

[hatcher]

SET: Imperial V-Wing
NUMBER: 7195
Indexed

THEME: Star Wars
YEAR: 2010
PIECES: 139
MINIFIGS: 2
MSRP: $19.99 (USD) $29.99 (CDN)

As requested, here is the review of my prize for the February reviews contest. This set has some very nice features, and, in my opinion, a serious epic fail. More on that later. On to the review.

First, the front of the box. The box is extremely thin, like many of the recent boxes.

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The back of the box shows some of the other sets in this wave, as well as the play features of the set. The wings rotate and you are shown how the droid is is put in place, BY TAKING OFF HIS HEAD????? WTH?

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The contents of the box: two non-numbered bags, the instruction book, 1 loose piece, and the dreaded sticker sheet. (BOOOOOOO!) I did not put on the stickers.

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The cover of the instruction book.

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And a random page from the instructions. Instructions are numbered, and include the call outs of the parts needed to complete each step.

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The pieces spread out. Of particular interest to me is the new windscreen. I do not recall seeing that style before, although it may be available in other lines.

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The minifigures. The minifigures in this set are the number 1 and number 2 reason to buy this set. They are outstanding. You get an Imperial Pilot, and Silver R2 unit! The pilot is a complete redesign, and the helmet has a facial opening. The eyes are printed on the head, not the helmet. And the R2 unit looks fantastic in silver, although I found that my particular one has very loose leg connections. Is that just me, or have others noticed that as well?

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The back of the minifigures shows that the pilot torso has printing on the back, but the droid does not.

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Here is a shot of the pilot with helmet off. I absolutely love the face on this figure. It looks so cool!

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And the droid again. Silver looks great on an R2 unit.

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On to the build. The base of the ship.

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The pilot seating area in progress. If you look carefully at the large gray brick behind the seat, you will notice that it is sticking out over the edge. This seems like a mistake, but it does serve a purpose.

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The technique pieces here are used to rotate the wings.

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The shape of the ship starts to, pardon the pun, take shape.

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The nose of the ship is nearly done.

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The windscreen, and the engines are now on. The ship at this stage reminds me of a Colonial Viper from Battlestar Galactica.

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The wings ready to be attached, as well as the extra pieces included in the set. The wings are an interesting design. When attached, they rotate from the down (landing) position) to the up (flight) position) and the move to create the V shape.

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And now we come to the epic fail of this set. There is no place for the droid, you have to remove the head and stick it on the ship, just like in the original V-Wing set. That is just wrong, wrong, wrong. I mean, you don't have to take the pilots legs off to put him in the ship! I know that making a socket for the droid would be next to impossible, but why include the body at all? OK, rant over. The ship is complete, the pilot and droid are in place and ready for take off.

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This shot came out a bit blurry, but it shows the wings in flight mode, and you can see the pilot in the cockpit.

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Final thoughts. The wheel mechanism that turns the wings is very nice, and ship has a nice look to it. The minifigures are as mentioned, awesome. The set, like all other Star Wars sets is over priced, but what are you going to do? My biggest problem, besides the droid head fail, is that I do not remember seeing this set in any movie, TV episode, or video game. If I blinked and missed it, I guess it wouldn't be the first time, but regardless. My point is, I can't see kids running down the LEGO aisle screaming "Mommy, mommy, PLEASE get me the Imperial V-Wing, its my favorite ship!"

I give it a 6/10.

Hope this review was helpful to you.

[slacker]

Thanks for the review. I have to admit that I only got this set for the new minifig. I didn't get a chance to put it together yet but have to say that half a droid on the craft is just wrong. But I think they did the same thing with Obi's UCS starfighter. New trend that is not popular with fans.

[vynsane]

But I think they did the same thing with Obi's UCS starfighter. New trend that is not popular with fans.

To be fair, the original Delta-7 Aethersprite Jedi Starfighter didn't have an astromech socket - the astromech internals were hard-wired to the craft, and the head was attached to the outer hull. This is not, however, the case with the V-Wing... the set/design is apparently just too small for a fully-qualified astromech socket.

[confuzzledapples]

The back of the box shows some of the other sets in this wave, as well as the play features of the set. The wings rotate and you are shown how the droid is is put in place, BY TAKING OFF HIS HEAD????? WTH?

And now we come to the epic fail of this set. There is no place for the droid, you have to remove the head and stick it on the ship, just like in the original V-Wing set. That is just wrong, wrong, wrong. I mean, you don't have to take the pilots legs off to put him in the ship! I know that making a socket for the droid would be next to impossible, but why include the body at all? OK, rant over. The ship is complete, the pilot and droid are in place and ready for take off.

Final thoughts. The wheel mechanism that turns the wings is very nice, and ship has a nice look to it. The minifigures are as mentioned, awesome. The set, like all other Star Wars sets is over priced, but what are you going to do? My biggest problem, besides the droid head fail, is that I do not remember seeing this set in any movie, TV episode, or video game. If I blinked and missed it, I guess it wouldn't be the first time, but regardless. My point is, I can't see kids running down the LEGO aisle screaming "Mommy, mommy, PLEASE get me the Imperial V-Wing, its my favorite ship!"

I give it a 6/10.

Hope this review was helpful to you.

Well, the body is included so you can have options for display or play. Would you prefer to not have the full droid minifigure? Not really epic fail rather than Lego attempting to give buyers options. The ship actually looks fine without the droid head in there. The set itself seems to appear in video games and books: Refer to Wookiepedia. It appears in the lego games.

[hatcher]

Well, the body is included so you can have options for display or play. Would you prefer to not have the full droid minifigure? Not really epic fail rather than Lego attempting to give buyers options. The ship actually looks fine without the droid head in there. The set itself seems to appear in video games and books: Refer to Wookiepedia. It appears in the lego games.

I stand by my review. Maybe its not an "epic fail" but in my opinion if I have to take the minifigure apart to put it in the ship, its a bad design. They should have either designed the ship so you can put the entire droid in, or not include a body. Thats my opinion, others may not agree with me, and thats ok. Oh, and the entire Star Wars theme is rediculously overpriced again this year, but everyone already knew that. :)