Our little boys were lucky enough to get this wonderful lego set from Father Xmas this year. What a hit it's been!
A few details about the set:
This is the Mon Calamari Star Cruiser Home One where the Rebel Alliance are planning their attack on the Death Star. The set contains a command centre and briefing room, a launch and repair hangar, a fantastic Green Squadron A-Wing starfighter and 6 minifigures: Admiral Ackbar; Rebel leader Mon Mothma; General Lando Calrissian; General Madine; a Mon Calamari officer and a Green Squadron A-wing pilot.
I'm sure that this set would satisfy the most fervent Lego Star Wars fan as it has tons of detail and features. I'm neither a Star Wars or a Lego expert, unfortunately, but I've been very impressed with what it has to offer, (from a mum's perspective!). The briefing room, for example, has lovely touches such as a Death Star "hologram" and the facility to rotate Admiral Ackbar's command chair. The A-Wing fighter is a really good size and has the all-important flick firing missiles, and also has a removable engine that can be taken out, fixed and replaced in the repair hangar. This, I found, was a lovely touch that has provided lots of play appeal. From our perspective, though, by far and away the coolest thing about this set are the levers and gears that allow you to manoeuvre spacecraft within the hangar - you can bring them in, rotate them and send them back out again which makes it very real for a little boy! It also wasn't long before they realised that all you had to do was fix a small square block to the bottom of any ship and then it, too, could land and get serviced in the hangar - a great feature from the Rebels' point of view because since then we've been churning out all sorts of odd-looking Rebel ships at a huge rate of knots! I'm sure we have Darth Vader quaking in his boots!!
I know that this set isn't cheap, but if you're after a Lego set with staying power and lots of potential for imaginative play then it's a hard one to beat for a Star Wars fan. It takes quite a lot of time and commitment to build, (it's got 789 pieces!), but you end up with quite a sizeable playset which measures 43x23cm, and so far it's proved quite sturdy during play. Overall I would highly recommend it!