V-19 Torrent Fighter (#7674)

This is one of my favorite ships from the Clone Wars, the V-19 Torrent. The set bigger than I thought it would be and scores high on "swoosh factor". It comes with one clone pilot, which by itself is going for anywhere from $12 - $30 on Bricklink.com. Not bad considering the whole set is $55 US.

A simple stop-motion animation showing how the cockpit slides open. One of these days I'll learn to turn off the flash so I don't give anyone a photo-induced seizure...


Close-up of the flick-fire missiles. I usually take them out, but the new ones don't fall out as easily as the old ones did so I figured they'd be safe to leave in. I have to admit, the launcher is pretty cool though...

The retractable landing gear tucks up as the wings fold out for flight, very interesting mechanics at work.

This is the little 'lock' to keep the wings from folding down while the Torrent is on the ground.

I had to 'borrow' this image from Lego.com because it's really difficult to take a picture of it in flight mode and not have my hand in the shot.

Jedi Starfighter & Hyperdrive Ring (#7661)

This one is just cool, Obiwan's Jedi starfighter and hyperdrive ring from Episode III. The only opportunity for improvement with this set is the hyperdrive ring needs to be a bit stronger, I just haven't figured out how to do it without making it look clunky.



The starfighter docks using a couple of technic axel pins that slide and lock into place. The blue wing flaps on either side fold up and down to complete the effect of being locked into the ring.


After I got this set, I retro-fit Anakin's yellow starfighter to dock with the ring as well. I thought about making a yellow and grey one to go with his color scheme, but I honestly don't know where I'd put it on the shelf.


I also built Obiwan's red starfighter to be compatible with the hyperdrive ring.

The set also comes with the exclusive Kit Fisto minifig. I would've included him in the photos, but he's currently on assignment in the Republic Gunship. The only modification I made to this one is replacing the flick missiles with the technic axels to hold the missiles in place where they belong. It's hard to be intimidating in a dog fight when you lose your missiles every time your ship tilts forward.

General Grievous Starfighter (#7656)

This is a pretty basic set, but should gain a little more popularity with the new Clone Wars series. If you have this one, you really need the Magna Guard Starfighter set (#7673) as a compliment.


One cool feature is the sliding cockpit, much better than the pry-off canopy on the V-Wing fighter or Obiwan's Episode II Jedi starfighter. The only (slight) drawback with the cockpit design is that it is intended for the Grievous minifig (go figure). Regular minifigs don't fit, so it's really hard to recreate the Episode III scene where Obiwan escapes in Grievous' starfighter.


Here's Grievous (doesn't come with a cape as he did in the set with his wheel bike). There are white arms available on Bricklink.com that have the 90 degree turn on the hands if anyone was interested in a better action pose...


The underside, with the lightsaber storage rack...


The two lasers on the front are moveable if you're concerned about giving Grievous better range of fire.