LEGO Star Wars 7930: Bounty Hunter Assault

First off, I'm going to hold my hand up and say that Star Wars has never been something on my radar. I've no idea if these characters are important, who they are or what they do. I've never gone into pant-wetting excitement about the films (which aren't so great, once you get past the whizz-bang of the special effects - even on the original trilogy), but I do understand how they changed cinema and how the universe has built up a strong, loyal and devoted fanbase. I've always had my eye on the Lego Star Wars stuff, because it is impressive stuff, but it's always a little out of my price range. And I already have a Transformers habit. Anyway, I plumped for this set, because Tesco were doing 20% off (sorry Amazon) and because its a box full of bounty hunters. Bounty hunters are cool,yes?

The three mini figures proper that come with the set- Aurra Sing, Embo and Sugi - are great little characters. Embo in particularly is an incredibly detailed and bad-ass looking fella, with his big saucer hat and crossbow. Aurra Sing impresses being something of a day-glo goth cutie...with twin pistols, and they are ably backed up by the slightly butch looking Mo Harris-alike Sugi. They have an Assassin droid, but frankly, he's a bit of an after thought and little more than a collection of pipecleaners with a lava lamp on top. The droids always look a bit rubbish at this scale, and I don't honestly know if I could build something better at that size (blimey, listen to me, like I'm such a master builder).

The ship itself suprised me with how long it took to put together. There's not actually a lot too it, but like a lot of space type sets, there's a bundle of small parts that go into making this up. The end result is a very sleek and impressive looking craft. A really bruiser of a craft. Not quite as hefty as Slave I, but with enough nods to that design to make you wonder if the bounty hunters of the Star Wars universe aren't unionised or something. Or at least by their craft from the same manufacturer. Pulling back on the tail makes the turbines rotate through 90 degrees so that the craft can 'land' and support itself. This also reveals a little box of special shiny cargo (no idea). The cab of the craft features a jail cell (a bit cramped and uncomfortable looking, I must say) and a second storey where the pilot sits. The two side panels swing out so you can access both pilot and prisoner. These move on a couple of very nicley engineered and smooth joints. By comparrison, the rather loose roof canopy is something of an 'oh, its really floppy' moment. It would have been a little better to have those tighter ratchety clips here instead of something so loose, particularly as the roof also houses further weapons storage. A small point of criticism, but when everything else has been so nicely engineered, its worth noting. The only other fault I can find is that there's only room for one mini-figure in the cockpit, but I'm supposing it's just a single manned craft this and the others are just hanging about for...stuff. Well, killing and betrayal for the sake of shiny things, I should imagine.

I'm really quite pleased with the set. A nice bunch of minifigures with bags of character and a superb spacecraft with some clever design. Probably not worth buying for the full rrp, though, despite how good it is. And it is really, really, really good.

I bought this for my son for his 9th birthday. Over the years he has had many boxes of lego and used to need help making the items. Now he gets the instructions out himself and I am amazed at how he confidently builds the models with no trouble at all. Very easy for him to follow. Nice to see a 9 year old concentrate and engrossed in something that is actually teaching them a skill. This one has many features that he loves, when you twist the engines the gun on top of the ship slides forward. It has an opening cockpit and sliding doors that reveal the prison in which to put your figures. He also liked the colour green as many other ships are 'boring grey'. Hours of fun then spent flying the thing around and play-acting battles with other ships because this one is an enemy craft. All in all extremely pleased with purchase, not least because it was reduced!

My 7 year old son is really into Clone Wars, and was delighted to get this set for his birthday. He was particularly pleased to get the bounty hunters, and a few hours were spent playing with the minifigs in his battle before the ship was actually built! They really are very detailed, with Aura Sing's hair causing much amusement.

The build did require some adult supervision, and once built it looked smaller than we thought it would. However, it's a good "one hand ship" (important when being chased by a Jedi Starfighter, for example, in the other hand) and the minifigs slide in and out of the cockpit OK. The prison is good, but a little tricky to get to. The mechanism for tilting the engines between flying and landing is a little loose, and can have a tendency to "flop" to landing mode when flying.

It's those little things which make it four stars, but the minifigs were the best bit of this set by a long way!