"This is Echo base, do you copy?"

Lego continue to celebrate Star Wars' 30th anniversary with this limited edition kit of Echo Base from The Empire Strikes Back.
The kit features the main bay doors to Echo base, a computer station, repair bay, repair vehicle, Snowspeeder and a gun turret.
The doors are quite well done, even if the scale is about 10 times too small and have a neat little gear mechanism on ech side that allows you to roll them open along the tracks.
The repair bay and computer station are attached beind on hinged plates that swing right out along the playset doors or behind them. The repair bay is a yellow base attached to a turntable (on which the Snowspeeder can fit) and has a repair crane with moveable armature. The computer station features an opening display screen and a tool rack which has an ice axe and a drill with it.
The gun turret is excellent, with room for two figures inside and a mechanism identical to the ones on the Star Destroyer kit from 2006 which allow you to push a button on the side and small blue missiles fly out of the front.
The Snowspeeder is a great update of the OTC 4500 kit from 2004. Based on the same frame it has a completely hinged canopy (making it much easier to get Dak inside), a harpoon gun and tow cable on the back and removable engine panels on each wing which can be hoisted up by the crane when the ship is docked in the repair bay.
The kit is easy to build and can be done in 30 minutes.
The best thing about the set is the figures that come with it. You get Luke Skywalker and Dak Ralter to pilot the Snowspeeder, 2 Rebel Hoth Troopers, 2 Imperial Snowtroopers and for the first time, a Probot and K-3PO!
The troopers all come with blaster rifles and Luke comes with his trademark blue lightsabre. A great kit, a fun one for kids and a must have for collectors - especially for the K-3PO.
A Lego shop exclusive for £40 at a store near you!

"Qui-Gon told me to stay in this cockpit so that's what I'm gonna do!"

Lego continue their 30th anniversary releases with this fantastic updated version on the Naboo N-1 Starfighter and Vulture Droid.
Originally released in the 1999-2000 run, this kit gives two models which are far superior to their predecessors.
The N-1 measures a good 36cm long with decals to provide detailing over the correct scale body. There is a firing missile in the lower hull which is launched with a trigger mechanism. The missile launcher is the same type that's in the Slave 1 kit from last year.
There is a droid compartment for an astromech unit, R2-D2 comes with the kit, and the bottom of the compartment opens to allow egress.
There is a landing plaform with ladder for the N-1.
The Vulture Droid is well constructed with loads of articulation that allow for the wings to be split open for flight, to launch the missiles inside (to be flicked with your fingers to fire), but best of all, to transform into the walking version. The head is very manoeuvreable to allow for loads of poses. It's 14 cm long in fighter mode and 14-16 cm high in droid mode depending on where you pose the head.
You get three figures with the kit, Anakin Skywalker, R2-D2 and a Naboo Pilot. You also get a pilot's flight helmet with moveable goggoles too. Due to Anakin's legs being the type that are given to small characters, he cannot sit in the N-1.
Construction time is about 30 minutes and this kit is a must have for any Star Wars Lego collection.

"Don't do it Anakin!"

Hasbro kick off their first releases of 2008's Complete Saga collection with a wave of figures from Episode 3: Revenge Of The Sith. The first figure in the line is #01 Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mustafar Duel.
This figure is one of the best Obi-Wan figures to date.
Hasbro have gone a stage further with figure creation this year and have added extra joints and movements to their figures for even greater poseability.
Obi-Wan has head (rotational and vertical), shoulder (rotational and abductional), elbow (rotational and vertical), wrist (rotational), torso (rotational and vertical), hip (rotational and abductional), knee (rotational and vertical) and ankle (rotational and vertical) joints giving him a massive 26 movements of articulation. This makes it a great figure for those Mustafar duel dioramas, especially for those who purchased the Mustafar Final Duel playset in 2005.
He comes armed with his trusty blue lightsabre and there is a personalised figure stand which is the same design that we had in the 2006 The Saga Collection line.
An excellent figure and a must have for any collection.

Top Cards

Nice! You get two in one, ideal for any Star Wars Card collectors and you can play with them too. Recommended.

A great, if easy, model

This really is a great model - if you don't like painting or gluing. It snaps together in about 20 minutes, but the end results are great - and is almost idiot proof.

Mine's looking good on my desk at work, and is a great talking point.

The Clone Wars animated series in a great card game

This is a great set of Star Wars Top Trumps cards, and it makes a perfect companion to the 3 seasons of animated Clone Wars adventures that are available on 2 DVDs. The cards feature images that use the same style of illustration as the cartoon series, and feature interesting mini-biographies for each card character, so they act as a helpful Dramatis Personae for the cartoons in addition to being a great card game.

There are two pointless but fun additional features of this set: the box glows in the dark, plus the cover/title card that you can see in this product's photo is reversible with an alternative"Dark Side" set of images.

I love this pack of cards! I hope a second set will be produced to tie in with next year's new 3D CGI Clone Wars series.

Stormtrooper!

A highly detailed figure of the cloned humans that were genetically engineered for combat.One of the most recognisable characters from the world of Star Wars,the Stormtroopers were key in the Emperor maintaining his control of the Galaxy.

This is one of the best Stormtrooper figures to be released,with many points of articulation allowing for a variety of poses.The helmet can be removed to show some scars on the left cheek.

The figure comes with an E-11 Blaster Rifle,the standard issue weapon of the Stormtrooper corps.A silver collectors coin is also included.

End this postage and packaging scam!

Okay - so, these boosters are great, 15 more cards for your collection. Not sure if I consider them worth the £2.99 street price, but that's just my opinion.

However, this insistance on charging a base £3 postage and packing fee for each 'toy' item is rediculous. It does not cost £3 to post a small pack of cards, and it certainly doesn't cost £30 to post 10 of them. There is no facility for a multiple item discount. It makes comparing prices with other outlets virtually impossible, unless you go through the entire checkout process.

Do not be fooled - £0.01 is *higher* than the retail cost when you add in £3 postage per pack. Before you confirm your purchase, check exactly how much postage you are being charged. If you buy directly from amazon.co.uk then that's different... but then, they don't sell boosters for £0.01, sadly.

Nice display piece, but little else.

The other figure in this line was the Alien Warrior, which is a superb figure with lots of detail, articulation and plenty of play value. This Hybrid however, seems to be lacking in most of these severely, and hardly compares to the Warrior at all.

To begin with, its posability and articulation points are absolutely minimal. There are ball-jointed shoulders (which are very limited in movement), swivel biceps (which doesn't really make any difference and just provides an ugly line in the sculpt), swivel wrists, hips and thighs (same as the biceps). The head is on a ball joint, the tail is bendable and a nice touch is the hinged jaws, which allows them to open a bit. This may seem like a lot, but you'll see that the figure was clearly supposed to only be positioned in one way, so most of these articulariotn points are only designed to help you achieve said pose after taking it out of the box. The torso and waist are sculpted at an angle as well, so even the rest of the figure was much more poseable, it would still only really fit one pose. Given all this, there's not much you can do with the hybrid other than display it and look at it; which works for a lot of people. There is definitely low play value.

This brings me to my next point. If all you want to do is look at it, this is a perfect figure . It is incredibly detailed from head to toe, and looks stunning. The only faults you'll notice off the bat are the cuts in the model for the swiveling biceps and thighs, but these aren't even that much of a problem. Close observation will reveal dozens of small details that make the figure quite superb visually (such as its transparent head-dome, a small inner-mouth lurking behind the jaws, and the individual dreadlocks lining its head). My particular figure had a poorly constructed left arm (the join is very loose and doesn't fit together very well), but this doesn't impact the look of the figure all that much. The sheer level of detail almost makes up for the fact that you can't do anything with your Hybrid other than look at it. This figure only gets 3/5 stars because while it looks very good, it fits the bill of a model or statue better than a figure.

As a final note, potential buyers should be aware that there are apparently two versions of this figure released side-by-side. For one, the mandibles around its mouth are closed, and for the other they are open. The open-mandible version looks infinitely better (as the closed ones look stupid and obscure its real mouth), but there seems to be no difference at all other than this.