I was browsing the online catalog over at LEGO Shop@Home, and saw the new Vikings Chess Set. This isn’t anything new for LEGO seeing as to how they had a Knights Kingdom set last year that sold like gangbusters. Now, I’ve seen home-made LEGO chess sets of various themes, I don’t have a link for it but the Ninja Castle one was particularly nice. I’ve often fantasized about making a LEGO Star Wars set myself, but always debated back and forth about a couple of things. The events and characters of the films made it impossible to create the perfect chess set. Starting with the pawns, it’s a no-brainer to use Stormtroopers for the Empire side, but there isn’t an equivalent minifig for the Alliance. Rebel Fleet Trooper immediately comes to mind, but that is a minifig that LEGO has yet to make. You could argue that the Hoth Trooper could be used, but at that point you are surely looking at using Snowtroopers for the Empire side and then basing the set on The Empire Strikes Back. Moving up to the rook piece, this has traditionally been represented by something that resembles a part of a castle. The closest thing I can come up with was using droids since they are in a way both constructed by humans and are non-organic. For the knights, well duh, Jedi knights for the alliance and Darth Maul and Darth Vader for the Empire. Bishops could be represented by Bounty Hunters and Smugglers. Mara Jade and Princess Leia (or Queen Amidala if that’s your cup of tea) would be the Queens with Yoda and Emperor Palpatine finishing off the list as Kings.
There are a million configurations for a Star Wars Chess set and it seems the easiest cast would be the Pawns with the Queens being the most difficult. I’ve had a configuration where Luke and Vader were the Queens, but who do you cast for the Knights?
Clearly I’ve thought about this way too much. In any case, if LEGO were to somehow create a Star Wars themed chess set, would you buy it? I doubt they’d be able to come up with a cast of characters that would make everyone take not and exclaim “They got it just right!”, so then the other point of contention would be price. I’m guessing for most people the answer would be Yes, so I’ve thrown in a couple of different options for that depending on how fat your wallet might be.
