Star Wars Advent Calendar - Day 12

Here is today's ranking (in my opinion):
6. Star Wars
5. Spider-Man
4. City
3. Harry Potter
2. Disney
1. Friends

Wondering what tomorrow's build/fig might be, I always remember 2011 as the year that they returned to the main films for inspiration after three years of Clone Wars dominating the theme. That was also the year that they updated all of the old minifigs, right?

8096 is on my wanted list, but this is not how I was expecting to get it. Also, I couldn't figure out how the 1x2 tile was supposed to be attached; it too me a second to realize that it was supposed to be in a clip.

@jkb said:
"1. Fr A really good minidoll with a sad face (yeah, I dislike thinking of holiday preparations, too) (5+20=25)"

She doesn't look sad to me.

There’s been a lot of grey mini builds so far, hopefully we get some more colourful items these next few days

Neat build

@Blondie_Wan said:
"With regards to Star Wars, I always remember it as the year LEGO first began doing Star Wars Advent Calendars. Maybe they’ll find a way to represent the AC within the AC. :p"
LOL. That's actually a pretty reasonable guess, I can easily see a remake of one of the minibuilds or Minifigs from the first calendar happening tomorrow!

@ResIpsaLoquitur said:
"I'm noticing that a lot of my micro-builds with clip pieces are getting weak over time. They don't necessarily break, but the plastic does seem to widen and the clip no longer firmly keeps a piece in place, e.g., X-Wing s-foils in attack position.

I wonder how this holds up long term?"

The same thing will happen here.
Despite the clip apparently being redesigned to allow for this type of connection, and despite it appearing in sets semi-regularly, it still strains the piece and makes it lose clutch power over time. The clip holding the HUD on my 31039 wouldn't hold bars at all after a couple years, for example. I try not to leave tiles in clips for that reason, even in minifig hands. Not worth making a piece useless.

Great pick. I'm not sure if this vehicle had ever been done afterwards ever again. At least, I can't think of any regular set version. So it's a nice blast from the past.

By far the weakest day of the SW calendar... so far

Funny how we got an Advent build this year for a ship that has only been made once 14 years ago

@ResIpsaLoquitur said:
"I'm noticing that a lot of my micro-builds with clip pieces are getting weak over time. They don't necessarily break, but the plastic does seem to widen and the clip no longer firmly keeps a piece in place, e.g., X-Wing s-foils in attack position.

I wonder how this holds up long term?"

Guess it's not just me, then! I've been having this problem quite often, lately.

Kinda glad that they went with a lesser-known vehicle. Not sure if anyone else is annoyed that this model's wings can't fold up all the way like they do in Episode III, but I guess that can't be helped at this scale.

On another note, I can't help but think of the Embersteel Blade episode of The Freemaker Adventures when I see this ship.

@Rob42 said:
" @ResIpsaLoquitur said:
"I'm noticing that a lot of my micro-builds with clip pieces are getting weak over time. They don't necessarily break, but the plastic does seem to widen and the clip no longer firmly keeps a piece in place, e.g., X-Wing s-foils in attack position.

I wonder how this holds up long term?"

The same thing will happen here.
Despite the clip apparently being redesigned to allow for this type of connection, and despite it appearing in sets semi-regularly, it still strains the piece and makes it lose clutch power over time. The clip holding the HUD on my 31039 wouldn't hold bars at all after a couple years, for example. I try not to leave tiles in clips for that reason, even in minifig hands. Not worth making a piece useless."

This is awful for the number of microscale X-Wings I now own. Which, yes, are starting to lose clutch power and have saggy wings.

A once illegal building technique, back when tiles had no grooves.

Incidentally, I recently bought a job lot of really old LEGO on ebay and among the sets found a 4x8 plate - with groove! I never knew that there was a time when LEGO produced plates with grooves.

@AustinPowers said:
"A once illegal building technique, back when tiles had no grooves.

Incidentally, I recently bought a job lot of really old LEGO on ebay and among the sets found a 4x8 plate - with groove! I never knew that there was a time when LEGO produced plates with grooves. "

Der Kaiser has got his groove back!

Love that they finally did this set in AC. I don't love the clip job.

8096 is a good set. Underappreciated and underrepresented. We could do with a remake.

Ha, and I thought it was the Bad Batch shuttle. Mine also had an error on the instruction with the wrong direction corner plate

I love that the wings on this come together in the same way as the OG 8096 !

@Rob42:
In the past, clips were wildly varied in design. Every new element that featured a clip seemed to get a unique design. I do appreciate the fact that they’ve decided to standardize them, particularly since one of the major changes was to created semicircular tips that don’t bite into soft PE bars like some of the earlier designs can if you don’t get the part to pop into the pocket right away. I don’t like that they made the fingers of uniform thickness all the way to the base, nor the slender width of the base itself. Ideally, they should do one more redesign, widening the base a bit, and making the fingers thicker as they get closer to the base. This will help with long-term clutch strength.

Worse than weakening clutch is when these new clips just snap. I’ve had that happen with a few. One thing I’ve heard in that regard is that they’ve since changed the material used to mold clipped parts like this, with the hope that a more robust plastic won’t have an entire finger crack off. I switched some of my MOCs from the Type III to Type IV vertical clip plate specifically because the Type III got weaker over time, only to have the Type IV parts fracture, which is certainly not an improvement in the long term.

@CapnRex101 "After all, it is much easier to translate subjects with which everyone is familiar to a tiny LEGO model, as iconic vehicles are simply easier to recognise."
What, like day 7's loot box from a 20 year-old computer game?

This one seemed pretty recognisable to me.

@DoonsterBuildsLego:
The minikit is 0% like a loot box. It contains nothing. It generates no random effects. Every mission contains ten. Once you find and collect one, it creases to appear in your saved game. Once you find and collect all ten for a specific mission, you unlock a predetermined item or ability, which is the exact same item or ability that every other person playing that mission will unlock for collecting the same ten minikits. And if you go back to the Toy Fair coverage from the beginning of the year, I guarantee the minikit was the main topic of discussion for this year’s SWAC.