The vast, frozen terrain; the iconic AT-AT attack on the Rebel base; the David vs Goliath battle with the Snowspeeders; the curiosity of the Rebels losing - these all combine to make Hoth one of the most popular Star Wars themes. And though there are a whole host of sets already in this theme I think this is a real winner!

(Just for your reference, I'll be mainly comparing this set to:
"Hoth Rebel Base" Snowspeeder and Probe Droid (7666)
"Hoth Wampa Cave" Snowspeeder (8089)
"AT-AT Walker" Dish Gun (8129)
"Echo Base" trench, Tautaun and Web Gun (7749)
- all of which it fits beautifully alongside!
as well as parts of "Hoth Echo Base" (7879).
I hope mostly just referring to set numbers helps the readability and doesn't confuse anyone.)

It's made up of a number of parts, I'll begin with...

...the Snowspeeder. There have been quite a few Snowspeeders before, but the version in 7666 was the first of the really good incarnations. That though is quite a large and rare set, and the other set it came in was the Wampa cave (8089) so neither of them lend themselves well to army building. This version very much builds on those last two versions but makes a number of very much needed improvements. (Improvements I'd actually made myself in modifying 8089!)

The three biggest flaws of the 8089 speeder were the harpoon gun on the back looking dreadful, the figures sitting too high for the cockpit to shut because of the hinge pieces that intruded into where they sat, and the mystifying lack of smooth pieces on the bottom to let it slide/glide. These have all been fixed very well. The harpoon gun is now a combination of a larger gun and binoculars, making it look just right. The hinges are completely different, allowing them to fit into the side wall and not come in to the cockpit at all. And there are some very nice new pieces on the underside to allow the ship to glide - should we call them SNOB pieces (Studs Not On Bottom) perhaps?
Unfortunately the the pilot's screen is still strangely low (and is a new design with a yellow hue), but the strange lack of anything for the gunner to be looking at is fixed with a nice screen showing the legs of an AT-AT. The gunner's screen comes courtesy of a clever redesign to the cockpit hinge (using two of the new 1x2 plates with 1x2 studs on the side) that is also an improvement, allowing the cockpit to hinge beyond vertical, and giving a much stronger connection - the old one was forever coming off.

Overall the speeder is truly excellent with all of the strengths of the last two versions, and all of their weaknesses very well fixed. My only gripe is that it's got dull 7666 grey trim - I'll be modifying that to the more exciting 8089 orange for sure. (Oh, and the Technic on the winch sticks out strangely - a couple of bush pieces and another gear make it nicely symmetrical as always.)

The next thing to mention just has to be the minifigures - they're so good!
Luke is a complete redesign apart from his helmet (already good enough from 8129 and 9493), but even that is slightly weathered. His expression is quite aggressive and it's nice to have a Luke with his visor down on the other side of his head, and that's more than just an orange glaze too with the angles around the edges represented. But it's the torso and legs that I really love. We've never had a properly good version yet, as the last upgrade with back printing was strangely see-through. This one's a real treat! It's still got the see-through white bits, but it's also really detailed, nicely unsymmetrical on the back, and has fantastic detailing on the legs, with even a little printing on the hips being a belt buckle! He does seem a bit odd with white hands, but maybe my memory of the film isn't so good.
General Rieekan is also a real treat. I don't know if his hair is new or not, and his face looks suspiciously like Admiral Piett's from the Super Star Destroyer, but either way it's a great combination. And his torso printing is really, really good front and back. I like that he has the option of a hat too.
The Rebel Troopers are just what you'd expect, they're not a redesign, but the printing seems thicker somehow. They both have nice long barrelled blasters, and one of them has quite a nice growl going on!
And I wasn't expecting much from the Snowtroopers, but they've surprised me too! Their printing has been updated to be much sharper and detailed, and as with all Imperial troopers nowadays they have faces. I'm not much of a fan of that, I don't like the whole prequel clone thing much, but I don't ever have to see them so it's not a problem - and it's good if you do like them of course!

The other main part of the set is the really great trench and dish gun.
The trench is nicely hinged so it can be arranged however you need it, and has a really fearsome looking mounted gun on the one side. I think this looks great and is indicative of the heavy-duty feel of this set, compared to somewhat weedy recent offerings! There's also a sensor array, a box (with a sausage in it?!), and clips to hold the blasters when not in use and a shovel and pick for further trench digging.
The dish gun array is by far the largest version yet, making 8129's decent version look small, and putting the laughable little things on 7879 and the 2013 advent calendar to shame. It's a magnificent piece of hardware and I don't even mind the flick-fire part. The seat and screen down to the side are a really nice touch as well, with an always-welcome tactical screen sticker, binoculars, an antenna (nice use of a fencing sword!) and even a mug!

The last elements are:
A Tauntaun - the same as in other sets but with a different colour saddle - always good to have.
A Probe Droid - a much better effort than the only previous version in 7666, better proportioned overall.
A Web Gun - virtually identical to the one in 7749, mainly because that version was excellent (the 7879 version was just in slightly different colours), and again good to have more of.
And last in my list, because they were never in the films so I never like seeing them, a Hoth Speeder Bike. Yep, I admit it, I'm a purist so I'll never accept these no matter how good they are. And that prejudice aside this is a nice speeder bike, just a white version of the 2012 Endor battle pack, and at last with a round smooth piece on the bottom so it slides - why it took Lego until 2012 to start putting those on I'll never understand!

One very minor point to do with the build is the two pretty small instruction booklets for a three bag build - I'm not sure why they didn't just print one bigger one. The bags show how small they are in that the Snowspeeder doesn't fit in one and has its second wing in bag two. The booklet is the same size as the A-Wing booklet, so surely the solution for a bigger set is simply a bigger booklet, not a second one. Hey ho, it hardly matters but it did seem odd to me!

The only other thing to mention is the price. I'm disappointed yet again that the UK prices are just the US prices in pounds, not dollars; it makes the other Jan 2013 wave ridiculously expensive for what it is. But thankfully this set is the exception! It's actually pretty good value at £40, under 10p per piece, and that's with a pretty whopping six minifigures, as well as a Tauntaun and a probe droid! But the best thing is how many previously available elements are now available in an accessible format:
- the decent snowspeeder hasn't been in anything you might want more than one of before.
- the little tactical area fits well with (or substitutes nicely for) the more expensive 7879.
- the probe droid has long needed a refresh, and 7666 is quite hard to get hold of anyway.
- the web gun and Tauntaun were both in 7749 and 7879, but 7749 has been discontinued for a while now, and 7879 is that set you wouldn't buy two of (maybe not even one!).

Pros

• An excellent Snowspeeder with all the previous kinks worked out
• Really great dish gun, trench and tactical area
• Superb minifigures - Luke's excellent, Rieekan's great, and the others are all good too!
• So many great elements that haven't been available in a medium-priced set before/for a while

Cons

• Why grey trim on the Snowspeeder? 8089's orange would have been better
• That speeder bike! It's actually good, but I'll always put it on this side coz it wan't in the films!

This is an absolutely superb set in every way. I can't get over just how well all of the previous issues with the Snowspeeder have been fixed and improved; I love the Rebel trench and massive dish gun; all the extras (except the bike - sorry! I'm a snob!) are great to have together; the figures are just so good (I want to upgrade all my previous Rebel pilots with this body!); and it's all surprisingly good value. I'd expect this to fly off the shelves, it's a must have for any Lego Star Wars lover's collection, and those that army build will need 4 or 5!

Building experience

Pretty fun to build, didn't take as long as I expected.

Figures

8 figures (6 + the tauntaun and the probe droid) is a lot for a fifty dollar set.

Pilot Luke is the only figure in this set to have a double face, which is fine. He has pretty good leg and torso printing, and even a back print. I give him a rating of 8/10. The two snow troopers have the nice helmet + backpack mold and an ok torso print, 7/10. The two rebel Hoth troopers are identical except for the face, the white backpack is really nice, 7/10. The general Rieekan figure is the only version of him we got so far, looks good and I'm glad they put him in this set, 7/10. The probe droid is definitely better than any version of it that came out before this one, 7/10. The tauntaun of course looks amazing, you can even take the horns and saddle off, 8/10.

Playabilty

You can obviously have the figures fight, which is great, you can swoosh the snowspeeder around, have a character ride the tauntaun, you get the picture. Sadly stud shooters and spring-loaded shooters were introduced the year after this set was released, so we don't get any here.

Parts

There are quite a few rare ones in this set, for example the turret controlling screen, the main part of the snow trooper speeder or the grey containers.

Value for money

Nothing special but decent.

Overall rating

Great set, had lots of fun with it back in the day, seventy dollars (which is what it goes for new now) is still not a horrible price, one of the best 2013 sets in my opinion.

Let's start with the good news: this is a great set. Unfortunately most of the parts that make up the set have been seen before...

Box/Instructions

What can you say about the box? The front shows all the contents with Yoda in the top corner and a line up of minifigs at the bottom. The back of the box shows all the contents again but from a slightly different angle as well as the usual highlights of play options.
Two instruction booklets, one covering two bags, the second book covering bag 3.

Parts

Three bags of parts with the first bag strangely containing two-thirds of the Snowspeeder. There's a nice parts selection with a few unexpected finds. Dark red grille tiles for example, a clear minifig cup and a hot dog. There are some new brackets, 6 guns, lots of white plates of course and a selection of light grey and dark grey parts. Unfortunately there also a good few stickers.

Minifigures

I'm not enough of a Star Wars fanatic to tell you how accurate the prints are but it's a decent selection; 2 Snow troopers, 2 Rebel troopers, General Rieekan and Luke Skywalker in pilot gear. According to Bricklink all but one of the Rebels are unique to this set.

Bricklink also lists the droid as a minifigure. While you might call it a character (and even at that I'll argue) it certainly isn't a minifigure. The TaunTaun isn't a minifig either but I thought I'd mention it anyway. It's only the third set it appears in and it's the newer version with the flexible tail.

I've two problems with the minifigs. First the Snow troopers. They come with printed heads, but the eyes don't sit behind the eye slits in their headgear. Second the second Snowspeeder pilot. Huh, what second pilot, you only mentioned Luke? Exactly...

The build

Bag one contains two thirds of the Snowspeeder, the right wing comes from bag 2, along with the droid, web gun and speeder bike. Bag 3 then contains the parts for the trench and battery.

It's a fun build thanks to all the different elements that make up the set. The star of the show is the snowspeeder. If you have previous sets with snowspeeders you'll get a strong sense of deja-vu; it's almost the same as the one from 8089 Hoth Wampa Cave. The wings are identical except for a grille tile and the construction of the body is mainly the same. The canopy hinge is different and it's got inverted tiles underneath but that's about it.

On to the second bag for more deja-vu. A white Speeder bike. Isn't that... yes, an exact copy of the one from 7879 Hoth Echo Base, which itself is a white version of the same design from 7956 Ewok attack.

The droid is mostly the same as the one in 7666 Hoth Rebel Base, just with two 4x4 round plates added. Finally a web gun. Yes, you guessed it, the same as 7749 Echo Base and 7879 Hoth Echo Base.

Bag three then builds the trench and the battery. The trench is very minimalist. It's got nice white hinge bricks, a clever big gun from only a handful of pieces and a hotdog sausage in a bin. The battery is nicely done; a big blaster with a posable viewfinder and a command post for the general. The musketeer sword for the antenna is a nice use for that part. Not sure why there's a clear mug sitting there.

The completed model

As mentioned above, the completed model looks good but very familiar; the Snow speeder, Speeder bike and Probe Droid are all (nearly) identical to previous sets. That doesn't take away from the fact that this is an excellent set with many elements and characters to play with. Personally I would like Lego to stop producing white speeder bikes because they don't feature in the movie. I'd rather have a gunman in the Snowspeeder and a bit more body to the trench.

Summary

Lego designers can't have spent much time on this set, deciding to recycle successful designs from the past. That may be the reason that this set has a much more reasonable price than most Star Wars sets. If you don't have a Snowspeeder yet then this is a must-have. If you already have the one from the Wampa cave or the Rebel base, well, can you really have too many Snowspeeders?

I would recommend this set to anyone who has the slightest interest in Star Wars. It's a great start for a Hoth display for adults and a set packed full of play options for children.

Set Name: Battle of Hoth
Set #: 75014
Theme: Star Wars
Pieces: 426
Minifigures: 6 (General Rieekan, Luke Skywalker, Hoth Rebel Trooper x2, Snowtrooper x2)
Year of Release: 2013
Price: 64.99 CAD


INTRODUCTION

Hello Eurobricks! Today durring the «rush for Christmas» at Toy’s R Us, I’ve found and purchased the 75014 Battle of Hoth, and I decided to bringing you a review of this set (My first one!).


BOX

The 2013 boxes are dark and green and I’m love it! It was a big sept beyound 2012 an older boxes concerns the graphic design.

At the front of the box, we see the content of this set, and the minifigs.


Close up on the minifigs...


Top of the box show us the actual size of the General Rieekan with his cap.


Back of the box


After carefully opening the box, good suprise the box is almost full!


CONTENTS

Inside, we are greeted by 3 big empty bags of parts, a bag for the tauntaun, 2 instruction manuals, and a stickers sheet.


Close up on the stickers sheet...


On this stickers sheet; 9 stickers in total, 8 for the snowspeeder; control screens (pilot and harpon), engines and outside decals.
The other one for the control screen of General Rieekan desk.


INSTRUCTIONS

The front of the 2 manuals shows us the front of the box.


The first pages of the first one show us a new "don't open all bags" visual, and a "how to use the Brickseparator" with a QR code for an how-to I supposed (I haven’t try it). After that, we have the bag repartition.



Bags repartition.


Here, the pages showing the brick list.




THE BUILD

In the first bag, we get to build Luke new minifigure, and the Snowspeeder;



One step of construction:


Under the ship, we have that type of parts... (First time I see that!)


The snowspeeder finished:


Harpoon improvement


Other Minifigs:


Nice printed heads for Snowtroopers

General Rieekan in the bag n°3



The probe droid:


The Echo base trench:




Overall of the set


Spare parts...



RATINGS

Functions:
Not too many but the flick-fire is well placed in the canon and the trench offer a good playability. 8/10

Parts:
Nothing too exciting, but the General Rieekan fig. 8/10

Price:
At $64.99 CAD for 426 parts it's not very good. But it's a Star Wars set... 5/10

Accuracy:
The best Snowspeeder, probe droid and canon yet. 9/10

Overall:
Buy for complete your Hoth setting... 8/10