If you’ve been following the Jay’s Brick Blog Facebook page, you’ve probably seen me making jokes at the expense of the latest Star Wars “UCS” set – 75098 Assault on Hoth.
UPDATE: I’ve reviewed the set. It’s not pretty. Check it out here.
Well this morning, the listing for the set went up on LEGO.com, revealing the Australian price and release date for Assault on Hoth. The set will be released online on 30 April 2016 and will cost Australians a whopping $400!
In the US, Assault on Hoth will be priced at US$250, which is the same price as the Ewok Village.
When the pictures of the set were officially revealed during the New York Toy Fair, I kinda went meh, mostly because I’m not a hardcore Star Wars fan so this really didn’t appeal to me at all.
The fan revolt is purely justified in my opinion as this set is quite rubbish and is kind of an insult to LEGO Star Wars fans, who IMHO, already overpay for most of the LEGO sets that they collect.
You’ve probably seen memes like these shared all over social media and they’re purely justified because Assault on Hoth is simply a large (and messy) collection of existing Hoth sets and doesn’t bring much to the table except maybe the Ion Cannon and the Battery, which for all intents and purposes don’t scream “spend $400 on me”.
That said, for new LEGO fans who have missed out on previous Hoth sets, I guess this set is a good way to catch up but again, the set just doesn’t look visually appealing at all.
75098 – Assault on Hoth™Here’s an icy February Designer Video.Announcing 75098 Assault on Hoth™!Available starting April 30th on shop.LEGO.com or in LEGO® Stores.
Posted by LEGO Shop on Saturday, 13 February 2016
Just watch the designer video, even the designers (one of whom designed the amazing UCS Slave 1) were struggling to look excited as they showed us around the set.
One of the major blunders LEGO made with this set was slapping the once hallowed Ultimate Collector’s Series (UCS) logo on it. A set being designated a UCS set used to mean something – you could reasonably expect a mostly adult build, with fantastic displayability, scale and most importantly, created the overall experience that cannot be replicated in a regular LEGO playset.
I think the entire outrage surrounding Assault on Hoth could be mitigated if they had done away with the UCS logo and just label it for what it is – a giant Hoth playset.
I honestly can’t remember there being a time where LEGO fans have been this pissed off and it’ll be fascinating to see how badly this set performs in the market. The outrage of LEGO Star Wars fans online is good and all, but the strongest way to send feedback to LEGO would be to simply not buy this set and let them languish on toy shelves.
At AU$400 (and $250 in the US), I really don’t see this set flying off the shelves and am even predicting a premature retirement for this set.
I for one am glad that I am not a LEGO Star Wars fan. It must suck being blatantly taken for a ride like this. It’s nice to get this off my chest, I’ve been stewing on this mini-rant for a few days now and finally have a good reason to put it down into words.
I’ll leave you with a joke that I shared on Facebook the other day.
What do you call a LEGO set with 2144 parts, zero originality and yet another Snowspeeder?
A rip Hoth! ?
My favourite part of the designer video was when they were talking about the watchtower.
“This bit wasn’t actually in the film, but it was in one of the other films, so we thought we’d just stick it in here for the sake of it.”
You could tell that they were grasping at straws throughout the entire video :S
Something doesn’t sit well with me about a set where all the parts sit separate from one another…not even a big base plate to unify everything here though could justify this price tag.
I’m a hardcore Star Wars fan on a tight budget, and my assault on Hoth set looks as follows – 2x Microfighters Snow Speeder + 2x Microfighters AT-AT = perfection! 😛
Brilliant. I’m also on a tight budget and this is one reason microfighters are a huge love of mine. I too have two snow speeders and two AT-ATs. I love posing the AT-ATs like they are rearing horses!
I regret not stocking up on Microfighters! Kept delaying and they just disappeared off shelves!
I love being on a tight budget. Having a limited budget means you have to be very selective with the sets you buy!
Your comment just made me realise something, a microfighter-scale Assault on Hoth would be pretty cool and easy to build!
Yeah, totally agree. Being 13 and not having an allowance makes you very selective.
I look back to when I first started working and had a really limited budget for LEGO. I used to buy like… only one set a month? This was way back in 2009/2010 but looking back, nearly all the sets that I bought then are now considered Modern Classics.
Think this will be in all the chain store toy sales in June/July for $299. If you were to try and buy the Hoth sets now you would have for spend $400-$500 anyway.
Hmm I’m not so sure we’ll get that deep a discount. Maybe when they go on clearance because of poor sales…
How disappointing…. I’ve been hearing rumors of a UCS Hoth set for months now and, assuming it’d be epic, I’ve been setting aside $$ to purchase it. Even as a HUGE Star Wars fan and collector, I don’t think I’ll be buying this set. I own three Hoth sets and most of the components in this set are exact (or watered down in the case of the Wampa cave) replicas of sets I own. I guess the bright side is that now I have $250 extra dollars to spend on Legos! 🙂
Hurray! You know that LEGO have messed up when even huge Star Wars fans aren’t interested in sets.
If you had the chance to redesign this set, how would you salvage it?
I’d focus on the base. Most of the Hoth sets contain exterior elements: snowspeeders, AT-ATs, creatures, battle scenes… There was the 2011 Hoth Echo Base, but it crammed a bunch of interior details into a small space. The base would be cohesive; not the jumble of components that make up this set. And for display value, there’d be a super detailed front face of blast doors and surrounding snow structure.
Ah interesting. Now that you mention it, a properly constructed tank where Luke was suspended in (sorry for not knowing the name!) would be pretty neat.
Bacta tank! That would be super cool. Trans-green ‘glass’ perhaps?
That’s the one! I was pretty shocked that they didn’t include it in the set as it was one of the more memorable scenes from the start of Empire.
Look at the bright side, if you missed all the prior sets you (Which I did) can get this one. You get all the sets, plus an ion cannon and a battery.
Still doesn’t mean I’m buying it. (Not enough Galactic Empire stuff for my tastes)
True.. And hopefully get it at a clearance sale!
OK, time to queue icy puns. As a rabid SW, UCS and Hoth fan, I concur…it’s a blatant rip “Hoth”. The reaction on enthusiast forums has been bordering on “grab your pitchforks”. The $400 price tag is just a further insult. I thought exactly the same thing when I saw the designer video. Selling Hoth sets to SW fans should not come across as trying to sell ice to Eskimos! I don’t think it helped that they essentially previewed the entire set 6 months ago in the lego mini-movie and the community heaved a collective ” let’s hope there’s more to it than that!”. Dissapointment is a dish best served cold apparently. I know I’m just a whiny AFOL and this set is marketed to kids who can afford to go into store and drop a ‘cool’ $400…right? Fortunately I have my own Hoth MOC so I feel no ‘need’ to purchase this. This was such a missed opportunity.
Haha that’s brilliant! Great use of the selling ice to Eskimo line!
I don’t think that you’re a whiny AFOL as the bad press is quite rightly justified in this case.
You know if they included some white base plates, and maybe 500 more white pieces that maybe… Just maybe the price would be slightly justified.
Heck, I would’ve rather they omit some of the unnecessary parts like the Wampa Cave, battery and tauntaun feeding station and give us an AT-AT instead and this would’ve been better received.
SO LAME! Im a Star Wars fan and have two old Hoth sets and haven’t bought any others since then…that was years ago. They dont give anything new and this price just makes me feel better about the $$$ im dropping on the Ghostbusters HQ and the Classic Batman (which im delaying on in case that classic Mr Freeze minifig pops up on the online store).
As a minifigure collector, I can see that the price is probably being jacked up by the new print faces and bodies…there are some pretty individual figs in there…but ill be getting those of minifig sellers and ebay from the US, seeing as they are more likely to buy the set at a cheaper price.
That inflation is just ridiculous!
Great choice, the GBHQ and Batcave definitely seem like better purchases.
I just feel bad for SW fans to be hit by this. It just feels like a wasted slot for UCS releases.
I’m not so sure about the minifigs… They seem pretty generic outside of one or two of them. No Leia is a another surprising omission.
I’m also worried that this signals a new price floor for UCS sets..
“Join me, Luke, and we can make all the fans pay 400$+ for this set.”
“NOOOOOOO! No, no, no, nooooo!”
Well, there’s the situation in a classic quote. Yay! ?
“And I thought they smell bad on the outside!”
Ba-dum tish 🙂
This just feels like 5 or 6 $30 sets bundled for $400. Compare this to the Ghostbuster Firehouse – no comparison! If a non-vehicle set is UCS, it needs to be a big, complicated, awesome building/set.
As it is, it seems UCS stands for Unbelievable Credit Stress now.
ditto
That’s a really great point, it does make the GBHQ look so much more appealing. No comparison at all.
Totally agree, the Ewok Village is grand and impressive looking and is way more worthy of a UCS tag