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"Tracking scans indicate the craft is still in pursuit, Captain" the medical
assistant states.
And the already-grim expression on the medical shuttle captain's face turns to
a deepening scowl. "But who on earth would assassinate a jedi-knight and so
determinedly pursue his knight-in-training?" the captain asks himself for the
hundredth time. He glances once at the medical readouts of the padawan
(slipping further into unconsciousness), then to the readout of the
dagger-shaped craft closing in on them. "May the force be with us, we cannot
outrun him." the captain mutters silently.
Meanwhile, in a life-support bunk, the padawan's slumbering mind feels icy
fingers reach out to him like a lengthening shadow in the blackest night…
I didn't like the Sith Infiltrator when I first saw it. Catalog images from
the web were not impressive and even seeing and inspecting the box at a store
did nothing to encourage me toward purchasing. It was only after reading the
(more than a few) positive comments of others who stated that it was a much
neater model to view in person that I finally talked myself into giving it a
try. I've purchased and assembled the model, swished it around the room a
couple of times (even dive-bombing a couple of unsuspecting Power Ranger action
figures), and while I'm still not taken with the design of the model I do like
the assortment of pieces that come with the set and I'm going to give it a
positive review.
The Infiltrator is a long narrow-nose craft (quite long when compared to other
similarly medium-size ships) with a storage compartment located near the front
of the nose. This compartment isn't too deep, but it is wide enough that it
merits being split into two sections. One section suggests storing the pilot's
weapon while the other half stores three nifty probe droids. The rest of the
body tapers toward the end and then widens again into the main cockpit and
small, angled wings. To look at the ship from above, one gets the impression
of a syringe. At first the cockpit looks like it is windowless, but a sloping
brick is pre-painted to give the appearance of view slits. The rear of the
cockpit opens up like a ramp to allow the pilot to be extracted. The pilot
sits in a mobile, chair-like vehicle and the whole unit of pilot and chair fit
snugly (though a bit too snugly for my tastes) inside the cockpit. An
interesting aspect about the design of the ship (not readily noticeable from
the outside of the box) is that there are lots of blue and red tiles and bricks
used in the construction of the ship's interior. These colors compliment well
the basic dark grey colors of the craft without seeming gaudy.
A single figure accompanies the model, he's the black-clothed Darth Maul with
the new minifig hood and a double bladed light-saber (as opposed to the single
bladed saber included in the 7101 Lightsaber Duel set).
There are just a couple of things I didn't like about the Infiltrator. As
mentioned above, the pilot's removable chair fits just a bit too snugly for my
tastes. I'm rarely able to situate the chair perfectly so that the rear door
closes all the way, and if I'm lucky enough to position the chair correctly and
close the door, when I go to remove the pilot he's more than tricky for me to
remove. It's entirely possible that I made some slight error in constructing
the ship that is causing these problems, but I doubt it. The other complaint
is in regard to the round struts that serve as feet for the ship. I've never
had much luck getting these pieces to stick to the bottom of the ship well (the
6915 Warp Wing Fighter uses them too) and they're no different here. Since
they fall off so much, I usually just remove them and put them back in the box
for safe keeping.
There aren't a lot of unique pieces to the set, but those that quickly caught
my eye included the 6x6x2 inversely sloped elements (wing mounting brackets),
the odd-shaped 6x6 plate that sits on top of the cockpit, and the portal-shaped
wall element that serves as the back door of the ship.
Alternate models aren't as prominently featured for this set as they are in the
X-wing and TIE Fighter/Y-wing sets, but there are a couple of neat aircraft
alternates pictured toward the end of the instructions.
The bottom line here is that I'm not impressed with the bulky-design of the
Sith Infiltrator but the set provides so many plates and otherwise useful
bricks that I can easily envision a creative builder coming up with their own
impressive design (or even a modification of the original) using only the
bricks in this set. I rarely give a good rating based solely on the assortment
of bricks, but this set gets it!
!!!4x2ReVu Stats!!!
Rating: Five out of eight studs.
Thumbs up for: LOTS of plates for a set this size.
Thumbs down on: Detachable pilot chair doesn't fit well inside the cockpit.
Fans of the original design of this ship may not like the Lego Group's version.
Wallet-Wise: $30.00 approximate U.S. retail for 243 pieces.
Date: 10/12/1999
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