[REVIEW]: 9492 Tie Fighter

[hatcher]

Set Name:Tie Fighter
Set Number: 9492
Theme: Star Wars
Year: 2012
Pieces: 413
Minifigures:4
MSRP: $69.99 (CDN) $54.99 (USD)

Description from Shop@Home:
Scour the stars for Rebel forces in the TIE Fighter!

Hunt down the Rebels in the iconic TIE Fighter! Equipped with dual flick missiles and opening cockpit, this instantly recognizable and hugely popular starship of the Imperial fleet returns to battle the Rebel Alliance once again! Includes 4 minifigures: TIE Fighter Pilot, Imperial Officer, Death Star Trooper and R5-J2 Droid.

Includes 4 minifigures: TIE Fighter Pilot, Imperial Officer, new Death Star Trooper and R5-J2 Droid
Features TIE Fighter and 1 blaster
TIE Fighter features opening cockpit and dual flick missiles
Battle the 9493 X-wing Starfighter!
TIE Fighter measures over 9” (23cm) tall and 6” (17cm) wide


link: http://shop.lego.com/en-US/TIE-Fighter-9492

The Star Wars licence has been a licence to print money for LEGO, so its no wonder that it is now into its 13th year. During that time, the Tie Fighter, the Empire's one man attack ship of choice, has been released many times over, in various sizes and scales and in just about all its many configurations (Tie Interceptor, Tie Bomber, Tie Defender, Vader's Tie Advanced). So is this years version, the 9492, worth getting? Well, this is the first time since 2005 that the standard Tie Fighter has been available in mini figure scale (that version came with a Darth Vader with light up lightsaber) and previous to that, it was 2001, so in terms of availability, it has been a long time. For those of us who were collecting back then, and have either of those, should you upgrade to this version?

First up, we have the front of the box. We see the Tie Fighter with the Death Star in the back. Right off the bat, you can see that this version is more faithful to the actual colour scheme of a Tie Fighter. You also see that this version comes with 4 mini figures, unlike the two previous versions, that only came with 2 (a pilot and a stormtrooper in 2001, and a pilot and Vader in the 2005 version).

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The back of the box shows a few of the play features of the Tie, and some shots of the mini figures in action.

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Inside the box, we have 3 numbered bags, a single instruction manual, and NO stickers!

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The cover of the instruction book (sorry about the flash) looks very similar to the front of the box.

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A random shot of the intructions. I like instructions that show what parts I'll need to complete that step by the number. While they aren't vital, they are a huge time saver and help prevent missing of steps.

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Contents of bag #1. This bag contains the parts for the cockpit of the Tie Fighter, and the mini figures.

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The mini figures. This set contains 4, which is unusual for a Tie Fighter. You get from left to right, a Tie Pilot, R5-J2 (droid), Death Star Trooper and Imperial Officer. The Tie Pilot and Imperial Officer are available in other sets, R5 and the Death Star Trooper are new in this set. While all the figures are nice, and I love the new head shape for R5, I can only assume that R5 and the Death Star Trooper are only included to justify the price of this set, and they are not needed as they don't really have anything to do with the Tie Fighter. And even the Imperial officer is unnecessary in my mind, he could have been replaced with an Imperial Technician, or a Stormtrooper. But it is obvious that LEGO has figured out that the best way to attact sales to its very pricey Star Wars sets is to include cool new figures.

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Here we see the pilot without helmet, and the other 3 from the back. The Death Star Trooper has two faces, one with visor down.

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On to the build. If you own either of the earlier Ties, or any of the Tie variants, the cockpit build should be familiar to you.

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At this stage we start to see some variation in the build, with the studs on the front.

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Nearly finished. The new construction technique for the front is now showing.

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And the completed cockpit with extra parts to the side.

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The contents of bag #3. Bag #4 contains identical parts as these two bags are used to make the two wings. This is the part of the build that is the huge departure from previous incarnations of the Tie Fighter.

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Here is an early stage. The wings are built in two halves, and then joined together. Since the two wings are identical, I only will be showing the construction of one.

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A part I have never encountered before. Interesting possibilities exist here.

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The wing halves are taking shape now.

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The two halves are now joined together. The new wings are bigger then the older models.

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In this shot, we see the beginning of a grey "frame" for lack of a better word, that will surround the outside of each wing. This makes the Wing more sturdy.

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The outer frame completed.

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And the spokes attached. The wing is very nice and nearly complete.

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The two wings complete with extra parts in the center, one wing from the front, the other from the back. (And yes, I know they aren't really the wings, I'm just calling them that for simplicity.)

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And the completed model with figures. The finished ship does look very nice. So how does it compare with the other two? Well, the first thing I noticed was the stability. The original Tie's kind of wobbled, since the wings are only attached at two very small parts, they didn't sit very nicely. And while this one still has that problem, it didn't seem as pronounced as it did on earlier models. Perhaps this will worsen over time, I don't know. This versions wings are larger, so it looks bigger then its predecessors.

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Final thoughts. I'm a Star Wars man through and through, so when I was able to snag this from Barnes and Noble earlier this year on a nice sale that brought it down to under the 10 cents per piece ratio I grabbed it. It is a very nice model, and if you love Star Wars, and have secret sympathies for the Empire, then I would say buy it. As mentioned, it is pricey, but it does have a better price per piece ratio then a lot of the other currently available Star Wars sets.

Ratings:

Minifigures 5/5 (Even though I think some of them are only included to justify the price hike)
Parts 3/5 Not to many new or interesting parts, so if you only want if for parts, wait for a good sale or clearance.
Play Value 4/5 Its swooshable, but other then putting the pilot in and out and a couple of flick fires, it doesn't do much.
Price 3/5 (Canadian pricing) 4/5 (American) As usual, too expensive to recommend buying at full price. Wait for a sale.

Overall score 4/5

[legohunter]

Nice review. Thanks.

Did you find this tie fighter too big for 8017 Darth Vader's TIE Fighter if putting them next to each other? Or, was this designed as in the same ratio to Vader's Tie Fighter?

[hatcher]

Good question. The new Tie is the same width as 8017 Vader's Tie. Vader's Tie is much shorter then the new Tie and as such, looks kind of small when set right beside it. If I had to guess, I'd say that Vader's Tie was made to match up with the older Tie model scales. Hope that helps

[lego the hutt]

Nice review and good pictures.

I have to say this set was screaming for a remake.

The blue color on the old one was horrible. I'm much happier with this set for a number of reasons...the greatest one being the color scheme.

I voted excellent. Not that it is the most detailed set or fun build ever, but I do like the way the wings are put together.
You build the edge of the wing separately with hinged pieces. This is what ends up supporting the weight of the model and this is why it is more stable. I also like the round tube like pieces that connect on the face of the wing to give you the gray star type detail. They are a much better option than flat tiles or plates simply attached to the face of the wing.

It is the most classic ship of the empire that every star wars fan has to have in their collection. Compared to the blue Tie Fighter this set is a vast improvement.

[SpaceNinjaDino]

This is a tons better than the original TIE Fighter especially with dumping the blue. I would like to imagine how well they could do a mini TIE Fighter remake where they bring it up to the mini TIE Interceptor quality. With the mini TIE Bomber coming out, I'm really excited for that and live with just replacing the blue in the current mini TIE Fighters.

[iccarus]

I agree on the extra minifigures being there to just drive up the price a little. I was impressed with the finished model, but it suffers from the same problem as most ships...there's really not a whole lot to do with them after they're built.

[AussieLEGOLover]

Thanks for a great review!

Agree with you on the minifigs...they are great!

Funny enough I only finished building this set last night, while being glued to 'The Grey' with Liam Neeson (don't remember Qui-Gon swearing so much in Star Wars! LOL!). The final build is much better than previous versions.

The point made about 'there's not a whole lot to do'...this is why I fear genres like LOTR will surpass Star Wars in the next 12-18 months. There is just so much more playability with the LOTR genre LEGO. Take the Mines of Moria set. I've seen it get bagged out. HOWEVER...i've taken three of those sets, built a fantastic little setup, bought additional Orcs totalling 27, and it looks/plays fantastic! Same with the Orc Forge set...having 8 of those setup is fantastic on the way to attacking Helm's Deep.

Anyway...great review!

[SquareSide]

Nice Review. Just built this Tie Fighter a few weeks ago. I love it! It's my first Tie Fighter, love the grey scheme too. You've motivated me to post a pic of mine(don't know how to make it small and clickable like yours), I've added some green lightsaber blades to make it look like it's shooting at my Y-Wing up on the shelf. Don't know why it comes with red on it's flick fire missiles. Unless it's to associate itself as a "bad guy" ship to the kids?

[legohunter]

I haven't opened mine yet. I'm afraid it is taking too much space on my shelves.

I would agree that it is a good idea to remake of this because I can't stand TLC using blue color for the old one which didn't represent a tie fighter. IMO, this new t-fighter is awesome except that it is just a little too big and pricy. It would be perfect if the wings are smaller. It seems that it is hard to modify/make these wings smaller. So, I may probably MOD dark vader's t-fighter by enlarging its wings.

I will definitely get another one if I can find it at 50% off.

[scandell]

The r2 unit alone makes this set a no-brainer...especially for $35.20. I bought two.