Review: 75361 Spider Tank

Spider tank, spider tank, friendly neighbourhood, spider tank…

Sounds like Peter Parkers go to vehicle when he needs some heavy firepower

I've never seen this set in my LEGO store or Target and it's not listed as Retail-Limited. Am I the only one not seeing this?

I dislike the use of the limb element for the claw arms. I understand its use in legs that are weight bearing, but I see no reason those little arms couldn't use some sort of articulated joint there instead.

@yellowcastle said:
"I've never seen this set in my LEGO store or Target and it's not listed as Retail-Limited. Am I the only one not seeing this?"

its not out until august

@yellowcastle said:
"I've never seen this set in my LEGO store or Target and it's not listed as Retail-Limited. Am I the only one not seeing this?"

releases August 1: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/spider-tank-75361

Random and probably obvious prediction: Ten (10) years from now, that Darksaber blade will have appeared in a number of non-SW sets, with the majority of those sets using it for propeller blades.

Star Wars really needs to do better about informing LEGO, in my opinion. The cyborg character isn’t particularly plot significant, nor is it a twist character or cameo, I mean, it’s not like it’s General Grievous returned from the dead or something. There’s no reason as to why LEGO could not be informed about the character, and honestly I just find it disappointing, and I think it could definitely hurt sales.

I know when I was young, a particularly cool character, usually an alien or the like that looked unique, was always a big draw to me when deciding what sets I wanted (luckily, I feel as if I got good sets out of minifig-hunting as well, and it was always exciting to find out the set was incredibly solid when I only asked my parents for it because of a specific character!). Personally, I feel as if the set is at a disadvantage, it’s got limited screen time and it loses the one fight it’s in (kids don’t like that very much), and Bo and Din are in other sets, with Din being a very saturated character at this point. For double the price, you can get two medium-large ships, with the same characters. The cyborg is what’s unique about this vehicle, but he’s not even here, there isn’t even a print of his eye, because LEGO presumably thought the tank was a droid.

I’m interested in the set still, at a discount, because I like the tank design, but I’m sure many will pick it up for the saber and characters, as it’s half as cheap as the TIE/in and Fang Fighter. Sometimes I feel bad because I feel as if LEGO has become too collector focused, and it’s caused the sets to be less substantial for kids, as collectors are honestly even easier to pander to.

This is a bit of a weird set. It got announced quite early with a long time until release, and I think that is clearly an issue as the review does point out. This has happened before (it happens with action figures too, but with LEGO it's a little less excusable), and I feel like it's the sort of set which would have made a great playset for £50 if it had a small diorama like the cage Din is held in, and perhaps a way to hold Din under the Spider Tank, but given the limited information we assume the designer had, we have an expensive set with only minor correlation to the events of the episode.

Personally I feel like there are other scenes and events in the show which would make better sets than this, and any merits this set may have had when it was announced seem to have been lost given the long time between announcement and release.

@KingTyrannos said:
"There’s no reason as to why LEGO could not be informed about the character, and honestly I just find it disappointing, and I think it could definitely hurt sales."

Yep, everybody loses in this scenario. I get that Disney have bigger concerns than Lego sets when it comes to IP secrecy, but all parties would benefit from this set having a unique cyborg piloting this unique vehicle. It's still a good set, but could have been a great one.

Having not watched any of the Star Wars TV shows and therefore knowing nothing about the subject matter, I do think this is one of the coolest-looking Star Wars sets in recent years. Feels like something out of a sci-fi anime or video game.

Needs a Nick Cage Superman.

This is from a very poor episode of a very poor season and it's not even that accurate so the only thing here worthwhile to get is the Bo-Katan figure. Guess I'll bricklink her.

I thought it was already out, weird. It makes me wonder why the set was anounced already whilst the Mandalorian S3 episodes were still coming out (I believe it was right after this actually debuted in the show itself). Why do that and then wait nearly half a year to actually release it?
And even based on old concept art by the looks of it btw. If you're going to be late, why be early with the reveal? Is the hype built that way worth it that much?

And yeah, I kind of like the set for the tank itself, but certainly not at that price. It doesn't help that it's the usual near-monochrome of Star Wars sets. It makes it more 'sci-fi' looking, sure. But I wonder what it could have looked like in shades of brown. Probably far more memorable (as a set).

Oh, and that Bo-Katan hairpiece is a nice surprise.

The execution of mechs by Lego itself has been lackluster for a decade now. Why do they constantly feel the need to limit articulation in such drastic ways? With a simple set like the 2007 AT-ST you could just remove 4 plates and have functioning and movie accurate joints to actually put its legs in a walking pose. Since then every AT-ST had absolutely static Technic beam constructions that if posed differently make the model fall over immediately. This one is the exact same but worse because the smaller size would have made it easy to include functioning joints and the excessive price for the small size of the model makes their absence insulting.

Actually, this reminds me of 75013 Umbaran Mobile Heavy Cannon, which was the same price a decade ago. The HMC had four minifigs to this set's two plus Grogu, but this set has 33 more pieces, and they're a similar size. To me the price is reasonable.

I really like it. I think it’s perfect for anyone wanting to make spider mechs for a cyberpunk style city.

@Jackthenipper said:
"Spider tank, spider tank, friendly neighbourhood, spider tank…
"

Can he swing from a thread? No he can't. He's a tank. Watch out! Here comes the Spider-Tank!

Honestly, this just looks like the Spider Tank from Ghost in the Shell to me ??

@ComfySofa said:
" @KingTyrannos said:
"There’s no reason as to why LEGO could not be informed about the character, and honestly I just find it disappointing, and I think it could definitely hurt sales."

Yep, everybody loses in this scenario. I get that Disney have bigger concerns than Lego sets when it comes to IP secrecy, but all parties would benefit from this set having a unique cyborg piloting this unique vehicle. It's still a good set, but could have been a great one."

I definitely agree with you guys, and CapnRex. But, you can't be too hard on either of them (Lego or Disney) without having more indepth knowledge about the design and production process.

Studios and toy designs are under pressure to make cool stuff within budget and on schedule. Decisions about plot and design can easily result in the toy designs being inaccurate. It's definitely not in either company's best interest. Thus, I can excuse ths sort of thing a lot easier than I can bad minifig prnting, for example. Moreover, the inherent nature of Lego allows us to modify the design.

Hopefully, the companies will minimize inaccuracies. Nevertheless, I'm happy to have this set because it is so different... but, att a 20-50% discount. The set is cool, but the figs are largely redundant.