Review: 75043 AT-AP

Set ID: 75043 AT-AP

Number of Pieces: 717

Year of Release: 2014

Minifigs: 5

Purchased Price: About SGD 140

"4 legs good, 2 legs bad" was ringing in my head whenever I come across 2-legged sets in the LEGO Star Wars series. Instead of agreeing to George Orwell's famous line from Animal Farm, anything LEGO that walks and balances on 2 legs never fail to impress me, more so if they come with a huge body and high centre of gravity. That addresses the engineering geek in me, but when it comes to aesthetic and look, this AT-AP, or the previous release in 2008, still fall short of my expectations, which I will talk about in the later part of the review.

A quick comparison with its predecessor (set 7671) reveals that the brick count has been doubled, but the overall size of the AT-AP has not been upgraded to any where near the doubling mark. There is also hardly any visible improvements, so the additional 300+ brick count really baffled me, at least until my construction commenced.

The AT-AP can pretty much survive without its third frontal leg, which can be tucked away neatly beneath the body and stay locked with the cleverly designed lever located at the rear. The two hind legs are more than adequate to keep the AT-AP steady and visibly impressive. The deployment of the third leg is apparently for better stability during its all-terrain manoeuvre but somehow I find it rather redundant, at least from a display point of view.

Retractable front leg does little on the stability

You need three Troopers to operate this AT-AP - 2 well-placed and shielded within the armour body and one gunner who sits in the gun station situated on the top of the vehicle. Totally exposed to the enemy fire, I would have taken him out first with a sniper shot before engaging the clumsy vehicle close up.

Access through hatch doors

Tipping over ...!

Both operating pilots have their own exclusive cockpits  and they can access the interior of the pod via two opening hatches found on each side of the AT-AP. Alternatively, you can lift the entire top (together with the gun station) backwards to have a better insight into the operation within the pod. Warning though, that this may tip the AT-AP over.

The armoury includes a few forward facing gun turrets. The gunner is also able to fire off a spring loaded missile from where he is sitting. As mentioned in some of my previous posts on this new spring loaded mechanism, the missile firing ability is simply awesome as it can really shoot a decent range. The down side is that the rear of the missile tends to protrude very far out, and in this case, almost right in the face of the gunner. The gunner station can be rotated 360 to confront enemies from different angles, or it can also be locked in place to align with the main cannon turret by simply clicking on a ball socket to a pair of c-clips. This is the first time I see such an innovative clip on design and I must say I am impressed.

Missiles invading the space of the gunner

Interesting ball and c-clip design

Both hind legs of the AT-AP are well designed and can be posed independently of each other. However, it is worth noting that each leg is only movable at the "hip" while the rest of the leg are pretty much, fixed. Therefore, this restricts the movement of the leg to 90 degree between pointing down and horizontally backwards. And before you get overzealous with the posing, do note that the AT-AP can only be stably posed with both legs parallel and vertically down. On the contrary, the third leg does have more degree of freedom and can even be deployed to step on slightly elevated terrain.

The finished product feels quite solid and can be easily carried around by just scooping the AT-AP up from behind. The only slightly loose pieces are those round plates that can be found at the hinging points of the legs. They are attached on by a sole stud so chances of dropping off are much higher.

Look-wise, I have to say this version has, as much as possible, stay true to its movie counterpart, even to the extent of getting the proportion of the body / legs ratio right. However, if I can make just one suggestion to improve the look, is to minimise the visible stud on its body armour, possibly by the use of more SNOT bricks. I know this is not an easy task given that studs are part and parcel of LEGO bricks.

Building Experience

The box for this set looks slightly elongated and flatter than I thought it should be. It is so flat that the five packs of bricks were pretty squeezed when I released them from the box itself. The AT-AP took centre stage on the art work in front and the back, as usual, painted a picture of how playable the set is. The content also include two instruction booklets and a small sticker sheet, much to my delight. As with most of the recent sets released, the minifigs were kept in different packs, presumably to keep the interest of the builder through the building process. Some of the steps are not easy to read especially in those pages when two big parts are to be put together. There is always an indication of where the connecting pegs should be inserted but somehow, it can easily be lost or misinterpreted by someone who is not into technical drawing.

For a set that is less than 1000 pieces, I initially thought the recommended age of 8-14 (especially the upper range of 14) seems a little too high. But after building it myself, I have to say it is well placed. Underneath the shell of the AT-AP lies a complex mesh of Technic parts and it was certainly not a walk in the park to put them together. In fact, every packet that I opened will reveal more Technic blue and black pegs, and I believe at least 200 pieces of brick counts are attributed to that.

Having an irregular shaped armoured body will always pose a challenge to the designers of LEGO. A good example of how challenging this might be can be found in the AT-AT sets over the years, where pieces of armour plates are constructed separately and then attached to the main frame via Technic pieces or hinges. The result is a rather shoddy finishing with gaps between those plates. The problem is not as acute in this set as there are lesser plates to grapple with but the two side armour plates are my biggest complaint as they feel very loosely attached to the body, mainly because there is only a single Technic peg keeping each plate in place.

Minifigs

Commander Gree - A Clone commander with an identity "Gree". I have absolutely no recollection of this character at all in the movie or cartoon (which I have never watched a single episode before). His head piece is the same with all Clone Troopers released in the Jan 2014 wave. His oversized helmet is primarily silver in colour with patches of green and battle damage prints on it. I suppose Gree spends most of his time in the thick vegetation, which explains the extensive and elaborate camouflage prints on his torso and leg piece.


Chief Tarfful - The revised Wookies' minifigs this year have been a delight to collectors. First it was Chewbacca, then this Chief Tarfful. As with all Wookies minifig in the past, the headpiece is fused to the front and back torso extension. This one piece gear gives the minifig its unique identity and boy, the designer has indeed done well to make Tarfful so recognisable. His 2-tone face and exposed fangs underlines his affiliation to the Wookie family. The thick fur and pleated braids are also well designed to give Tarfful's torso a textured look. The effort to put the extra hairs on his leg piece probably did not pay much dividend as you can hardly tell that they are fur. Chief Tarrful's is equipped with a pair of long common muskets that pale in comparison to the high-tech laser blasters owned by the Clone Troopers.

Battle Droid Commander + Common Battle Droid - They are exactly the same, with the Commander just having additional painted yellow stripes on his head piece. And as the yellow is very close in colour tone to the beige body of the droid, it is difficult to tell them apart from a distance.

Super Battle Droid - Another one?


Conclusion

The finished AT-AP has a rather intimidating vertical presence when on display so from that point of view, is a good set to buy to beef up the collection on the shelf. This AT-AP does impress me from the engineering perspective, but some basic design flaws do undermine the overall impression of the set. Chief Tarfful's minifig is a great inclusion but not worth the SGD 140 price tag.

+ Intricately designed balancing mechanism, stability of the finished product
+ Good use of Technic parts
+ Good effort to minimise gaps between armour plates, but still it can be improved
+ Good vertical presence

- Spring missile intruding into the space of its operator
- Loose armour plates in the legs and sides
- Can have a smoother finishing look on the body armour (ok, I am just being picky here ...)