Star Wars Advent Calendar - Day 8

@PurpleDave

I just finished Home Alone, so I know how you feel. Going to have to sort all those extra parts now.

"I killed them, but not just the men, but the women, and the children too! They're like animals, so I slaughtered them like animals! I hate them!"-Anakin Skywalker-Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, 22 BBY.

A fine figure, but can we really not spare a couple of pieces and skip a weapons rack day?

So I read the novel “Obi-wan” earlier this year, and I’m still having trouble with the logic involved. *SPOILER WARNING* So human settlers (Grampa Lars included) go out killing Tuskens, and Obi-Wan stops them from doing this because it’s murder to kill Tuskens just for living their normal lives. Except their normal lives include razing settlements and killing/kidnapping the settlers they find. I’m having a hard time seeing how Tuskens murdering humans is natural, and humans murdering Tuskens is criminal.

@Celldweller:
The real issue was that I was building it at a show, which ran 10am-7pm that day. I didn’t get started until 10:30, but I still wanted to finish before we went home. For about the first half of the build, it was hard to tell if I’d have enough time, so digging through instructions to find one little part I may have missed was frustrating. Turns out I didn’t miss any, so I figure you got one extra the first time that part showed up (as is normal for numbered bags), but then when you start building the first set of curtains, you use enough that they probably didn’t want to chance the first extra having gotten lost, so you got a second spare. There’s also a pink flower that you only use once (I even checked the set inventory in the manual to be sure) but you get three of the pieces all in the same bag.

Ultimately, I opened the last bag at 6pm, with an hour to build the treehouse and a few bits of yard deco, so I was even able to take a half hour break to talk to a prospective new member before knocking out that last bag by 6:45. With time spent talking to the public, I got the whole thing done in under seven hours. The next part is going to be a bit more involved, though. I just picked up a second copy yesterday, which is going to feed the missing wings, some of the material necessary to turn it into a 64x64 square (so it’ll fit into the roadplate system for layouts), hopefully a better panel van, and a set of proper yellow minifigs. I’m hoping to be able to make the wings just lean against and nest around the stock model, so I don’t have to modify it at all. Then I can still show people what the official model looks like.

They need to have the 2015 Tusken Raider torso back in circulation again. Those have that cylindrical air filter unit or whatever it is near their collars and chests, and those are more commonly found in the Mandalorian TV show, on which this calendar is mostly based.

@PurpleDave said:
Ultimately, I opened the last bag at 6pm, with an hour to build the treehouse and a few bits of yard deco, so I was even able to take a half hour break to talk to a prospective new member before knocking out that last bag by 6:45. With time spent talking to the public, I got the whole thing done in under seven hours. The next part is going to be a bit more involved, though. I just picked up a second copy yesterday, which is going to feed the missing wings, some of the material necessary to turn it into a 64x64 square (so it’ll fit into the roadplate system for layouts), hopefully a better panel van, and a set of proper yellow minifigs. I’m hoping to be able to make the wings just lean against and nest around the stock model, so I don’t have to modify it at all. Then I can still show people what the official model looks like.]]

That'll be really cool to see. It probably took me about 9 hours because every bag I thought I missed a part, similar to your experience and I went back and looked over and over again. I found the instructions on the iPad really helpful vs the book as I could easily follow along without having the book fold back on me. I'm glad you found a 2nd set, I haven't been able to find one at all. For the price, I'm pretty happy (outside of how many stickers vs printed plates).

@StarWarzFan7777 said:
"They need to have the 2015 Tusken Raider torso back in circulation again. Those have that cylindrical air filter unit or whatever it is near their collars and chests, and those are more commonly found in the Mandalorian TV show, on which this calendar is mostly based."

I was wondering what looked wierd about this torso print, it's the missing breath filter! It's on just about every Tusken too. This is actually my first Tusken Raider though, so it's nice to finally get one! Still not sold on the molded head over the original printed one, but it does look fantastic! Is there a reason they can't just include accessories with the figures though? We're going to need a weapons rack...

Is there a reason

For Legacy fans, this could be A'Sharad Hett - a young Darth Krayt.

I still think this head piece looks super goofy. It just looks out of place and implies that under all the wrappings, a Lego tusken's head is shaped more like a human head than a minifig head.

More Tusken Raiders are always a welcome addition.

Curses, I opened the wrong slot (9th as opposed to the 8th). Sigh........

Finally SW has got another minifig! It's hard to compete with Marvel and HP with only a stormtrooper! In summary, the "winners" for each day so far:
Marvel: Iron Man (1), Black Widow (4) Spider-Man (7)
HP: Harry (2), Cake (5), Dudley (6)
SW: StormTrooper (3) Tusken Raider (8)
The only non-minifig winner, the cake, was chosen given it had a unique print and the only competition was a grill and targets.

@Celldweller:
When I first used a small part that I expected to trigger an extra, I would pick another copy ofthat part out and set it aside (if I was wrong, the pile was small and easy to pick through. As I finished each bag, I was dumping all the extra bits into a slide-lock bag. If I ran into a small part that I thought I’d used in a previous bag, I could simply poke through the growing pile of extra bits. A few times I did find a previous extra, but after the first one, I started to expect it under specific circumstances.

Keeping in mind that this is split into 24 numbered builds, they did actually state that you could build it like an Advent Calendar (except where you know ahead of time exactly what the next day holds in store). If you do this, early extras might have long disappeared by the time you get another batch of the same part, and for high-volume tiny parts, losing one can throw large sections of the build off (like the curtains).

But I think that’s the biggest pile of extras I’ve ended up with*. Of the 24 bag numbers, only two yielded zero extra parts. I haven’t counted my own pile, yet, but Bricklink’s inventory says I should have 123 extras, not counting the brick separator. I came up with 122, only having 2x pearl-gold 1x1 round plates w/ hollow studs (they show 3x extra).

*I thought it might only be the second most, due to buying a 1st Edition 10179. The bag sort in that was a mess, with about 80 _unnumbered_ bags. Bad enough, but then they had to complicate it for packing efficiency, and you’d get the same bag repeated 2-9 times. If they gave you 47 of one part, you might get nine copies each in a bag that repeated five times, and the remaining two would come in one of 2-3 bags that were used for remainders and small quantities. I don’t remember how extras were dealt with in that set, but Bricklink has 27 total listed in the inventory, ranging from 1-3 copies per part, so I’m guessing parts that got split up between multiple bags got to be extra per bag.

But wait! That’s only half the story! The set also uses a ton of 2x4 wedge plates in light-bley. The inventory says you get 23x Left and 24x Right. Right away, when I dumped out the bags of parts, I noticed that one bag only had 2x4 wedge plates, and decided to open that one last. As I got close to finishing the model, I had to open the bag to get out one pair of L/R 2x4 wedge plates, and the rest were extra. When I counted them, I found 22x Left and 23x Right. So I figure the messy bag sort left them short one pair, and rather than try to untie all that spaghetti, they just gave you an extra bag with the combined total that you’d need to build the entire set. So, if Bricklink’s count is to be believed, I ended up with 72pcs extra.

Someone wanna check on PurpleDave and Celldweller? I think they got comments mixed up with email.

"Despite his missing weapon, this Tusken Raider looks excellent and these are certainly worth collecting since they always appear in number onscreen!"
But they travel in single file to hide those numbers.

I only bought this one to get the Holiday Mando & Grogu. I think I'm going to be passing on these SW Advent Calendars in the future or only buying if I can get one on clearance. At least I bought mine at Costco at 25% off RRP. The vehicle micro builds mostly end up going in the spare parts bin so it's getting harder to justify the cost just for the minifigs.