This is a set that I had been looking for on Lego and Amazon for a month now, knowing it was coming out November 14th, I didn't want to take a chance that I would miss it. Of course on November 13th I started building Legos and completely lost track of time and when I finally realized what time it was it was sold out on Lego. But luckily, thanks to a link I found here on Brickset, I managed to grab a copy off of Amazon! So the question of course is, does it live up to expectations?

Let me just say that this my first ever micro-scale build, or should that be nano-scale. So I really didn't know what to expect. I also didn't ever take a peak at the instructions prior to opening the box as I hoped to get the set and didn't want to spoil the surprise. I must say, that I was pleasantly surprised by this set and thoroughly enjoyed building it. Now let's dive into the review.

The Box

As this is a limited edition collectible set, the box is actually a fairly important part of it, and I was very pleased with the box. It is designed like a Lego Ideas box which I love, although like the Ideas boxes, it is just slightly too small to hold the built model. The front of the box says "special limited edition" in small letters at the top and features the 40th anniversary and SDCC logos in the bottom right corner. The picture is an artist rendition of the set and makes it appear to be chrome, which is misleading as it is just light gray, so a bit of a letdown, but a solid gray picture would not have looked very appealing. Yet, you can see an actual photograph of the set on the back. Around the sides and on the back it has banners saying this is set is for comic con, while the bottom side features the 40th anniversary logo and the top side shows the "actual size" picture, more on that later in the review.

When you open the box you will find what is without a doubt the most memorable quote from the entire Star Wars saga about the Nebulon B, when Wedge Antilles said "They're heading for the medical frigate!" That's right, such a memorable quote that I have no recollection of it ever being said! On the inside of the box there is also an architectural style drawing of a portion of the set. It is certainly the type of box you would hope to get from a special set like this.

Instructions

The instructions are a perfectly bound 103 page book. The cover, and back cover are appealing but nothing too special. The best part is that the back cover simply has a nice background with the Lego and Star Wars logos on it and a Rebel logo watermark behind them. I'm really glad they did this and didn't instead include a childish looking ad for Legos, something they easily could have done as this is not a 18+ set (it's 9+ in case you're wondering). Other than that, the instructions are standard, no special pages at the start to introduce the set, and nothing other than the parts catalog at the back.

Parts

If there is one thing that is disappointing about this set, it would be the part selection. Yes, there were several parts I've never seen before, but the problem was they are all small. I wouldn't be surprised if over half the parts were the size of a single stud. Perhaps this is something that I should have expected at this scale, but without any experience building at this scale it caught by surprise. As a result, what appeared to be a very generously priced set, actually seemed to be a bit overpriced once I opened it up.

The Build

The build was rather interesting and surprisingly considering the long bridge and the strange shapes at either end, it didn't use any technic, not a single brick. Yet, the bridge which is just four layers of plates (including some SNOT) seems as solid as any large construction with a technic base or frame. What this ship relies upon entirely is a clever use of SNOT to give the ship stability in all directions, and it does a tremendous job, the structure of the set is solid as a rock. As I built it it would take several steps before I would be able to figure out what exactly I was building, and I really enjoyed this bit of mystery. The building process was completely unlike any Star Wars set I had ever built.

With that said, of course much of this build was the greebling, and given that much of it is a single stud in size, if you are a perfectionist, you will find this build infuriating. The greebling is also the part of the ship that can sometimes be very easy to knock off. But because I tried my hardest to get things on straight, I'd say this build took me about an hour and a half.

The base actually gets built after you finish most of the ship and is built sideways. Like in Bespin Duel, the 40th Anniversary logo is sadly a sticker. After completing the base you add on the non-90 degree bits to the front of the ship as well as the last bit of greebling. I imagine the logic behind this is that once standing up, it would be easier to attach this stuff without any of it breaking off.

It is after you build the base that one of the little things you attach to the bottom of the bridge is a small 6 brick build which to me appeared to be some sort of cannon and didn't really make sense. But this where I return to the box and that "actual size" picture which happens to be of this little build as there are no minifigures. In that picture you can see that what I thought were two blasters, are actually angled in towards each other and it was perfectly clear that this was a 6-brick representation of the Millennium Falcon! Seeing how it docks underneath the bridge actually makes perfect sense and was a very nice surprise. I actually feel as if the instructions did a poor job displaying this build as I interpreted the two parts sticking out to be parallel to each other which makes them look like a pair of blasters and not the fastest ship in the galaxy.

Overall

The ship certainly does look amazingly accurate. Yes, it is monolithic in light gray, yet has some dark gray highlights and the smallest amount of dark tan and brown imaginable. The ship is also surprisingly swooshable, probably much more so than the actual ship as you can easily hold it by the bridge. As I mentioned, it is solid, you just need to be careful not to knock off any greebling, which shouldn't be a problem if you hold it by the bridge.

The ship is decently sized, but of course would look foolishly small next to any other Lego set, or absurdly big next to the Death Star. Despite its swooshablity, it really is just a display piece and has very little play value. Obviously it isn't a set that is very easy to obtain, but I imagine, aside from the 40th anniversary sticker, would be fairly cheap to piece together on Bricklink. So unless you are hoping for an eventual UCS set of this ship, I do recommend trying to build this, especially if you would like to have all the ships in the Star Wars universe. I don't recommend however paying inflated prices on the second hand market for this set as all you are really getting then is a sticker, the box, and the instructions. Quite honestly, if this had been a normal set, and not a special release, I would say that $30 would have been a fair price for it. As it is, I feel fortunate to have been able to get something that few others have been able to get, so the $40 seem well justified. However, I feel that Bespin Duel was by far the better of the two limited edition sets that became available to the general public in this strange year. That set felt more like it should have been a regular release, while I can see this set being limited, it is certainly a very unique set and not the type of set that I expect to ever see again.