LEGO Star Wars Yavin IV Rebel Base (75365) Review

Hi guy’s, Brick McBricksworth here with a review on the LEGO Star Wars Yavin IV Rebel Base (75365) set. This review is an independent honest review from an AFOL (adult fan of LEGO) with a huge love for Star Wars and LEGO!

LEGO announced Yavin IV with a price point of RRP £149.99, so at this price point you are expecting quite a large-ish build, possibly semi modular but with some play appeal, right? Let’s find out if that is actually the case with this set.

Let’s start with Minifigures: The selection is simply splendid for an AFOL/Collector. With 9 humanoid characters (including a Chewbacca). 2 R2 unit style Droids and a C3P0 with printed arms! The Minifigure selection is great, you get some rare and NEW Figs, 8 of which are new entries into the Bricklink catalogue!

The Build:

Comprises of what can only be known as a stumpy Y-Wing and a very, very open building play-set. Yes, a £149.99 RRP PLAY-SET!

The construction of the main building has pretty much zero display appeal to a collector, so if you are a collector you will be paying this high price tag just for Minifigures. Little more can be said here, if you are buying this purely for a child, then ask yourself why would they want so many rare figs in one set?
The Y-Wing build was OK at best as it looks good and was basic enough for the target 8+ audience that is advertised on the box. The main build of the base however could easily be completed by a 6 year old with a small understanding of what LEGO is. That said it did have the feeling of an old classic build, with it’s many proper 2×4 bricks etc.

The Instructions:

I wonder here if LEGO are trying out more family friendly builds with some of their sets, as this one had 6 small instruction books. This in itself would have some appeal to build with friends and/or family as you can all build a section and  it all easily pops together at the end. What better way to try and go for a record time speed-build on an almost £150 set?

How could LEGO have made this set better? They could have gone two ways with this to make the set much more appealing to one of it’s target audience:

1. The Collector/AFOL:

Get rid of the stumpy Y-Wing, keep the near perfect selection of Minifigures but improve the core build making it more modular. It doesn’t have to be full front, back and sides, just more built up to be able to display it on a shelf without seeing what is going on at the back from the front, let alone the sides. With this it would come closer to warrant the price.

2. The Kids:

Keep the stumpy Y-Wing and simply get rid of some of the Minifigures, these are the real reason this is carrying a hefty price tag! 3 to 4 Main core characters or even generic rebels would have sufficed in a play-set. The price would have to be a lot lower, easily in the £89.99 bracket for a set of this description.

In Summary this is a hit and miss at the same time, which makes it all the more frustrating! It has massive play appeal but with a very collector focused price tag. Great selection of Minifigures for the avid collectors but the build is poor for a set of this calibre. It is both great for collectors and kids but also has massive downsides for both. What do you think of this set? Let us know your views in the comments below. 

At the time of writing this review it is on sale at LEGO.com for £119.99 (still too high).