Playtest: LEGO Star Wars – Imperial Assault Carrier (From Star Wars Rebels)

For our latest LEGO playtest, we chose the Star Wars Imperial Assault Carrier. It’s based on one of the Empire’s spaceships from the Star Wars Rebels TV show, which featured prominently in the finale of season 1.

Initially the main attraction for us was the choice of minifigures – specifically, this set includes the female Rebel fighter Sabine Wren. She’s been in a previously released LEGO Star Wars set, but this time she comes with the addition of her distinctive Mandalorian armour helmet.

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Sabine’s outnumbered by the Empire, as this comes with five other mini figures – all of them imperial: Agent Kallus, an Imperial Officer, 2 x Tie Fighter pilots, and an Imperial Astromech Droid (aka R2 unit).

This is a large set with over 1,200 pieces, and it took us a few construction sessions to finally assemble it, following the 170 page instruction booklet.

It was really fun to construct, with a mixture of standard and technic elements, and a great activity for me to share with my 3-year-old daughter. While putting together a LEGO build of this nature on her own is clearly not feasible yet (the set advises age 9-14), the experience of assisting me helps her with many aspects of her development of such as motor skills, patience, and following instructions.

She was constantly asking me, over the days it took us to make this, to ‘do another packet’ (the numbered bags that large sets are divided into – this one has nine).

Inspecting the undercarriage

The finished vehicle has a number of neat little extra elements and moving parts, such as:

• 4 releasable mini Tie Fighters
• A missile launcher (with a locker for spares)
• Rotating mini cannon turrets (also with storage for spare ammo)
• Removable top
• Hinged cockpit

Plus it has a hook as part of the structure, for flying it around going “Vroom, pew pew!”. At least, that’s what we used it for.

The set has a kind of dual scale element, as the Tie Fighters are much smaller relative to the Tie Fighter pilots. I kind of liked this approach.

The little Tie Fighters are also the perfect size for my daughter to fly around.

She is delighting in the play opportunities this set affords, and is already engaging Sabine in joint adventures with a fellow female star wars minifig Princess Leia from the Imperial Shuttle set.

My 3yo daughter is coming up with some awesome Sabine and Leia stories with her new Star Wars LEGO sets. pic.twitter.com/h8m7F3ipSD

— Man vs Pink (@ManVsPink) June 29, 2015

As the father of a mixed-race fangirl, I admit to being a little disappointed that Sabine’s skin colour seems to have changed from the light brown of the show to light pink here. But she still looks badass.

And while we’re talking about changes, did you know that the Imperial Officer minifig is in fact an Imperial Postman (according to a certain 3-year-old).

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The Imperial Assault Carrier is a great addition to our LEGO Star Wars collection. While the ship seemed a little uninspiring from imagery prior to getting it, in reality it is a really cool vehicle when constructed. As with her other Star Wars LEGO sets, my daughter has made no attempt to pull this apart as she’s enjoying using is as a playset and prop far too much.

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Disclaimer: While I was not paid to write this review, we did receive this LEGO set free of charge. All opinions stated remain our own.

The LEGO Star Wars – Imperial Assault Carrier set (75106) has a RRP of £99.99, and can be purchased from Amazon.