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#2349 SET REVIEW: 75387 Boarding the Tantive IV

Alt text / image descriptions are available for the images in this post.


The wait is over! After 25 years of LEGO Star Wars, we're finally getting a set of one of the most iconic scenes in Star Wars. The Boarding scene of the Tantive IV, where the first ever on-screen ship with the first ever humans made their appearance in a Star Wars movie! So does this set live up to all this time of expectations or fail in some areas? Board with us in this review to find out!


[Review products provided by the LEGO group, but all opinions are our own and honest - we don’t have to praise sets to keep receiving them.]


Tips and Bricks #2349 SET REVIEW: 75387: Star Wars Boarding the Tantive IV After 25 years of LEGO Star Wars, we’re finally getting a Tantive IV boarding scene! Was it worth the wait? Image of the reviewed set with a Tatooine orbit image as background. The set features a hallway scene inspired by the interior of the Tantive IV Corellian Corvette, with two white walls; one on the back featuring stickered panels, curved arches, and a hollowed door section; And another on the left featuring a sticker representing lights and an openable printed door that serves as a play feature when the door opens, it's shows a brick-built section representing an exploded door. Our Score: 19 out of 25 49.99 Pounds, 54.99 Dollars, 54.99 Euros, for 502 parts Board in this review with us!

Part selection: Parts in bulk: Arch 1 by 2 Inverted Stud, white, 26 included. Brick 1 by 2, white, 20 included. Minifigure, Utensil Ingot / Bar, white, 20 included. Interesting parts: Plate 1 by 2, trans-black, 3 included, rare. Tile, Round 1 by 1, trans-black, 2 included, new recolour. Plate 1 by 8, reddish orange, 4 included. New Prints: Tile Modified 4 by 6 with studs on edges, with 25th anniversary of Star Wars print, black, 1 included, available on other set. Panel 1 by 6 by 5, with Tantive IV door-themed print, white, 1 included. Stickers: A small sticker sheet with 2 sets of 4 repeated stickers and an individual one. Nothing special here, if not for the printed parts and stickers, this set could easily be built at home with spare parts. The transparent Black pieces are the new 2023 colour so that justifies the rarity, though it can easily be replaced by regular old transparent brown parts. Score: 2 out of 5 part selection.

Minifigures: This balanced selection of figures allows for children to play with and adults to recreate this iconic scene as a display! Captain Raymus Antilles: This figure has a rebel trooper's white helmet with a black visor, a tan rebel jacket with a captain insignia, and plain dark tan trousers. The face features a new dual-sided headprint with chin straps, one with a grin and another with a scared expression. The torso is new and features a larger captain's insignia when compared to the older version of this figure. Rebel troopers: 2 Rebel Troopers with a white helmet and a black visor, a black rebel vest with a sand blue shirt, and plain light bluish grey trousers. The face has a dual-sided headprint with chin straps, one with a grin and another with an angry expression. A shame that the two Rebel troopers are identical. Troopers first appeared in set 75365, Yavin 4 Rebel Base. Stormtroopers: Figures have white armour with leg printing, a stormtrooper helmet, and 2 different face prints, one for each. Face prints are one male with Light Nougat skin and neutral expression and a female with Medium Brown skin and stern expression. Darth Vader: Darth Vader has a spongy cape and a cool and reused white frowning face if you’re into Vader unmasked. it features a 2 pieces black helmet and arm/leg-printing. Featuring 7 Minifigures, all described above, and an exclusive Arc-Trooper fives not depicted in this slide, while having only 502 parts. This average almost feels like a battle pack! But here we not only have an equal mix of heroes and villains but also an exclusive Minifigure! Amazing! SCORE: 5 out of 5 Minifigures.

Minifigures: Arc-Trooper Fives is finally here, with an abundance of details and even arm printing! The Minifigure comes with a Special 25th-anniversary display plaque. Arc-Trooper Fives: This armour version is phase 2, so no helmet fins. While the printing on the helmet is not 100% accurate the overall result looks good and has some great features! The Minifigure has a white clone trooper helmet with blue details and a range finder attached to the helmet. Face has an exclusive print of a clone trooper head with a "5" shaped dark bluish grey tattoo on the top left corner, and a goatee. Torso has an ammo pouch and Arc-trooper armour on top of the regular clone armour. Arms are white with blueprints, each side with different gadget prints. between the head and torso, it has a printed exclusive cloth pauldron on both shoulders and a brick-built backpack. Leg prints feature regular white clone markings with the addition of a blue Kama. Image of the Fives Minifigure side-by-side with his reference image showcasing small inconsistencies in the helmet print. There are white gaps in the prints where the fin is located, and it should be all blue instead. Upgrades: For Fives, you can include an Original Cloth Kama or even a custom one if you fancy. Image of part 74664, black cloth Kama piece. Average price: $10.71 For the Rebels, you can change the legs to dual-moulded ones! Image of part 970c00pb1023, Dual moulded dark tan legs with reddish brown boots. Used on Captain Antilles. Average price: $1.91 Image of part 970c00pb0411, Dual moulded light bluish-grey legs with black boots. Used on Rebel Trooper. Average price: $4.92 The upgrades section of the slides features all 3 parts described above attached to the respective minifigure showcasing its uses on each.

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Techniques:

Seems like the LEGO designer had cake after designing this set with this pink part!

Close-up of an interior section of the floor build showing the use of a pink part.

The image of the right corner of the build showcases several interesting SNOT connections and a small build of the trooper-knocking mechanism, that is simple and effective.

Video of the back of the left wall shows this clever and simple Technic system that allows for one lever to open the door smoothly and another, at the other extremity of the set, to open more abruptly. When the door opens, it pulls the panel with the printed door and shows the opened exploded door.

Rendered image of the exploded door effect, with the use of several transparent parts.

SNOT Techniques and Technic systems make for a smart 502 parts set.

SCORE: 3 out of 5 for Techniques.



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Video demonstrating how the door system works, pulling one of the levers, connected by the same axle, will open it.

The door system from the play perspective is very interesting and well executed, working perfectly and allowing for a fun play feature for kids and two display options for adults.

Video explaining how the trooper-knocking mechanism functions, a small Technic Liftarm positioned on the front of the set, connected to an axle where a section of the floor is also attached, can be turned making for this feature.

Beware the blaster fire! Another fun feature of this set is the possibility of knocking out troopers that are positioned under these movable floor sections.


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Features:

Yes, we can recreate that terrifying Rogue One scene.

A dark and ominous video of the set. The door opens revealing Darth Vader, and shortly after he ignites his Lightsaber.


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Accuracy:

A decent blend of nice part usages, stickers, and a printed door makes this set very accurate for display.

An image of the entire set is displayed next to a fan art by Paul 'Wiz' Johnson. circles are highlighted in both images to show the accuracy of the build. Highlighted in blue is the left section of the set showing the door section, highlighted in green are the back wall panels characteristic of the ship, and highlighted in red are the details of the protruded arches in the back wall.

A clip taken from Star Wars IV: A New Hope is depicted showing the boarding scene at the beginning of the movie used as inspiration for this set.

Some techniques in this set are similar to the ones used in the Skywalker Saga game.

Another image of the set, slightly rotated to the right, shows similarities to the interior of the Tantive IV when compared to its in-game representation.

Even though this set only features one side of the wall, which is obvious because it allows for a better play experience, the details are there with a lot of care for the ship’s interior design.

SCORE: 5 out of 5 for Accuracy.


Set comparison: Images of sets 75387: Star Wars Boarding the Tantive IV and 75324: Dark Trooper Attack are displayed together to compare each other. LEGO hit the sweet spot with these hallway scenes sets and it looks like they learned from their previous set. While the Dark Trooper Attack set has only 166 parts, this one has 502 parts which allows for richer details and a much better display piece packed with even more features than before!

Final Thoughts: Promotional Image of the set available on the LEGO website, shows the set displayed in a table, other objects are blurred in the background. The price per piece on this set is around 10¢ so for value per part itself doesn’t score well on our grades, but considering you have 6 minifigures plus an exclusive Fives, we believe that 4/5 in value for money is fair. If you’re looking for a cool set, with a fun building experience and amazing Minifigures, this set is just for you! Let us know in the comments if you agree with our scoring and what are your thoughts on this set!


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