Battle of Hoth (#75014)

Lego has released another Hoth set exclusive to Toys R Us. You get two snowtroopers (with faces), two Rebel troopers, a tauntaun, Imperial probe droid, pilot Luke, and the new Commander Rieekan.

Comes with everything you see here, batteries not included, some assembly required...

This could be your third tauntaun, depending on whether or not you were lucky enough to pick up the other sets (7749 & 7879 are the other two). The large blaster is pretty cool, swivels up and down as well as side to side.

This is the best version of the dish blaster so far, even if it is a flick-fire missile. Unfortunately, unless you want to fire straight ahead, there's nowhere for our little rebel friend to stand. Commander Rieekan has a nice little workstation there. Personally, I would've preferred something a little more sheltered, but I'm not about to tell him how to fight his battles.

If you've picked up any of the Hoth sets, there's a good chance you already have several of these white speeder bikes kicking around. The blaster cannon has been around a couple of times too. They may be repetitive, but you need something to give the Imperials a fighting chance.

And the new probe droid. Watch out, it may have a self-destruct built in. Our little probe droid has come a long way since the Hoth Rebel Base version (#7666).

Here's the fifth version of the snowspeeder. We'll play "spot the difference" later.

Side view...

Pilot Luke with an alternate expression...

Inside the cockpit...

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Do yourself a favor and replace the 2x2 flat tiles (shown on top) with a 1x2 plate and a flat 1x2 tile. This keeps your minifigs from getting thrown around in the cockpit.

So, here's the line-up of the different versions. I never had the first version (#7130), so you'll have to look that one up on your own. Very subtle differences between these versions, including the alternating orange and grey color schemes. The guns on 4500 aren't the original ones, at some point I swapped them out to match the others.

The harpoon guns on the back continue to evolve, I think this one has the most movie-accurate version of the group.

So, without trying to impart my bias on anyone else, let me say that I think this could've been done a bit differently. The probe droid, and possibly even the tauntaun, should've been part of the Wampa Cave set. It would've increased the price a bit, but still would've been worth it. Everything else, except the snowspeeder, could've been a set similar to 7749. For a $65 CDN set, I would like to have seen a bit more. And I really feel these Hoth sets should be modularized so they link up somehow.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of play value with this set, especially with the ground fortifications. I'm not complaining, just offering up some suggestions of how I would've handled things if I were in charge.

Now, when do we get the Ion Cannon and the Shield Generator sets??