10198 Tantive IV Review

[findyourfix]

Hi Everyone,

I'm not much of a poster here, but I noticed 10198 has no review. I finished assembling the set recently, and thought I'd share what I thought. For a 10000 series set, its not bad at all. Keep in mind it is clearly intended for play, and not quite as incredible of the UCS Blockade Runner. The build was straightfoward and not difficult. The usual semi-repetitive build aspects of SW shipbuilding came into play, but wasn't too bad. The set is swooshable without parts flying off, and has easy to access figure areas. Heres a list of some pros and cons for you all:

PRO:
Build is pretty easy, and had plenty of faithful detail
New CPT Antilles figure has a two-face design, pretty funny
New style R2-D2 is a plus
Plenty of good elements for MOCing

CON:
No landing gear or stand, has to be balanced of bottom turrets
Overall scaling is a bit weird, but not so much that it throws off the look of the set.
Not a lot of minifig area in comparison to sets like the Republic Cruiser
Underside of ship lacks the details of the topside

WHAT IF:
Alternate blue parts were included for Ep III, incl Bail Organa???

All in all a good build. For OT nuts, it is a definite must have, and has plenty of room for modification to make it more accurate. Thanks for reading!

[DestructiveDelirium]

Your review is kinda short. But you said the important things we need to hear, which is good.
As for me, I'm still considering getting this set or not. It's definatly a nice set, but the price range ($200 Canadian) is abit steep for me. We'll see what happens.

[slicer87]

Since I just got this set for Christmas I want to point out that the cockpit pieces are printed, no stickers anywere in this set.

[kelano28]

I thought the set was wonderful, good somewhat-bricky build and lots of nice parts.

However, my upper cockpit pieces (clear with printing) look very transparent and have slight discoloration. This makes the set's overall look suffer for me, but maybe I just got a bad pair?

Do other people's cockpit parts match nicely with the bottom?

[MrCRskater]

Just finished putting this together myself, and I have to say I'm rather disappointed.

1) It's about the same size as the Republic Cruiser, but includes another 500 pieces, which (to me) means that a lot of the build is rather exhausting and uninteresting.
2)They sort of designed it as a playset with a few play features, but parts of the completed model are kinda fragile, so you get the worst of both worlds. The play features ultimately lead to compromised details, and the fragility of the final product prohibits taking advantage of most of the play features.
3) Some of the infrastructure is not adequately "dressed up", in my opinion, so in some ways the model looks a little unfinished.
4) As far as the details go, some of the details are quite good, some are grossly characterized to accommodate play features or the "system" scale (i.e. some things are "cartoony"),and a few are absent entirely.
5) No landing gear or display stand? This thing is just waiting to tip over and pop a few pieces (or, God-forbid, fall off the shelf and crash into A LOT of pieces. . .).
6) There straight-up is a hole in the top-side fuselage, just in front of the forward turret. WTF?!

I had a similar issue with the cockpit shells, too. The transparent top-shells do not match the color of the white bottom shells on mine, either. I think this is just due to the fact that the printed transparent plastic cannot possibly be as white as the white plastic (unless you primed and painted with true model paint). There are also a few holes or "skylights" in one of my transparent pieces, too. Some people had an issue with them being scratched right out of the box, but I think the ones I got just weren't printed well.

[ThatGuyWithTheBricks]

1) More pieces=More for the money
2) I found it to be very strong, except for the top removable part
3) How so?
4) How is it "cartoony"?
5) Yeah, but I found it to be adequately stable on flat surfaces.
6) I don't think they could've made the top cockpit shells come up any other way.

Yeah, the cockpit shells are discolored. One of the few problems with this great set.

[MrCRskater]

1) In my opinion, with 500 more pieces it should have been a larger model than the Republic Cruiser
2) Mostly I'm displeased with the section connecting the "playset" interior to the escape pods and engine assembly (section with the fins). There are some aspects of the fuselage (exterior of the "playset") and the engine assembly that are a little loosey-goosey, such as the angled panels (over the fuselage) and the connection of the hubs to the engine.
3) Again, the mid-section (w/ fins that houses the little service cart) falls short here. A lot of the infrastructure (i.e. technic beams) is fully exposed from here back into the engine assembly and is unsightly and looks unfinished in my opinion.
4) My initial impression was that the gun turrets on the widened part of the fuselage were much too large and looked "cartoony." After looking at some source photos, I suppose those are fairly accurate. Still, many of the proportions are off, but it is a system-scale model so I won't gripe about that.
5) It's fairly stable, yes. My point is that I wished they had included a display stand of some kind, an addition that a) would have made it look A LOT better on display, and b) would not have been difficult to work in with all of that technic infrastructure staring you in the face near the aft of the ship.
6) This is LEGO, there are countless other ways they could have engineered an opening cockpit without sacrificing some integrity of the model.

[ThatGuyWithTheBricks]

1) More pieces in a smaller set means it's more "solid". With the VRAC, most of the top of the ship literally swings up, which in my opinion is pretty dumb.
2) I found the engine to be fine, unless you drop it or something.
3) You can't see it when you look from the top, and I think that's what Lego meant for people to do (i.e. the bottom isn't very decorated).
4) The fate that most Lego starships suffer.
5) Unfortunately,it looks like Lego isn't doing that anymore.
6) From their design, they would of had to put 4 1x4 whit tiles in a row, which would be stupid.

I think that this one of the best sets, far better than the VRAC, not just because of the clones *shudders*, but because it's a lot less "bricky", and a lot more smooth.