LEGO Star Wars 75299 Trouble on Tatooine from Disney’s The Mandalorian [Review]
The second season of The Mandalorian just wrapped up a couple weeks ago on Disney+, and LEGO continues to drip-feed LEGO Star Wars sets based on scenes from the show. Hitting stores on January 1st, 2021, 75299 Trouble on Tatooine provides a fairly low-cost (US $29.99 | CAN $39.99 | UK £27.99), spoiler-free way to pick up Mando and the Child in minifig form, with a few key pieces of equipment and scenery from season 2.
The LEGO Group sent The Brothers Brick an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.
The box & packaging
There’s nothing especially noteworthy about the box for 75299, which simply shows a non-spoiler action shot on the front of the box and an alternate view on the back. The front box art features Mando in minifig form.
The build
The parts for the three components of the set come in their own bags, with the instruction booklet loose in the box. Thankfully, there’s no sticker sheet.
Small sets don’t need to have super-complex builds to be fun. The speeder bike Mando borrows from Peli Motto is packed with detail and even a few interesting techniques. 1×1 brackets attached to bars serve as footrests, and the backpack and baby carrier are held in place between 1×2 round plates and “nipple” pieces affixed upside down.
The Tusken residence is built from wedge plates attached with hinges. There’s not a lot of interior detail, but there’s a pot to one side and a fire pit in the middle.
Similarly, the ballista (no, these big crossbow kind of thingies that launch bolts are ballistae, not catapults)
The finished models
For anyone who’s seen the first episode of season 2, the action depicted by the speeder bike, Tusken home, and ballista should be fairly self-evident. For everyone else, well, you get a half-hut, speeder, and spring-loaded missile launcher that looks like the offspring of an X-wing and a crossbow.
LEGO speeder bikes tend to be much larger than they should be — something I’ve noted in reviews of the BARC speeder in 75280 501st Legion Clone Troopers and all the vehicles in 75215 Cloud Rider Swoop Bikes.
This speeder, though, feels much more proportional to the minifigs, despite the great greebling on the sides the angle of the fork on the front, and so on — a larger size was not required to produce an accurate speeder.
The Mandalorian has certainly humanized Sand People, if that’s the right term for non-humans who breathe through masks and ride Banthas single file. The last time we saw a Tusken home, Anakin Skywalker was slashing his way through to murder every Tusken he could find (and not just the men, but the women and children too). There’s not much detail here, but it’s still a nice backdrop piece that achieves curves with wedges and hinges.
The final component of the set is the ballista, which has an X-shaped set of arms on either side of the spring-loaded missile launcher. The missile itself appears in light bluish gray for the first time.
The minifigures
Smaller sets tend not to include completely new minifigures; LEGO has learned to include the very best minifigs in larger sets, so you have to buy them to get the minifigs you really want. But a LEGO Star Wars set without Mando would be pretty dumb, so thus far each set from The Mandalorian has included the titular hero. We weren’t expecting a completely new Mando minifig in this new set, but alongside existing minifigs of a Tusken Raider and the Child, we get Din Djarin sporting shiny new beskar armor.
The entire Mando minifig is new, from a shinier helmet to bright silver armor on his torso and legs. What sets this minifig apart from the typical minifigs in a $30 LEGO Star Wars set, though, is that he sports fully printed arms. These details make the minifigure feel much more like the sort of “premium” minifig you’d expect to find in a $100 set or even a UCS set.
Although it’s not noted in the instructions, the baby carrier attached to the back of the speeder bike can be removed and worn by Mando, with a bit of a tight squeeze under his chin. I imagine that this is how Din goes grocery shopping.
The Tusken Raider is the same minifig as the one in recent LEGO Star Wars sets, including 75270 Obi-wan’s Hut released in January 2020.
Conclusions & recommendation
You really can’t go wrong with a $30 set with 276 pieces that includes what is sure to be one of the most sought-after minifigs from The Mandalorian, plus the lowest-price set so far that includes the Child.
And that new minifig really is stellar. Mando only wears his original armor for a handful of episodes in season 1, spending the rest of the show in his shiny beskar armor, so it’s great to have the version of the character as he actually appears on screen for most of the show.
One of the best speeder bikes to date and a fun Tusken ballista make for great accessories to the minifig stars of the set, making our recommendation easy if you’re a fan of The Mandalorian.
75299 Trouble on Tatooine includes 276 pieces with three minifigures and will be available January 1st, 2021 from the the LEGO Shop (US $29.99 | CAN $39.99 | UK £27.99), ###Amazon.com, ###Target, and elsewhere, including third-party sellers on ###eBay.
Read our other reviews of LEGO Star Wars sets from The Mandalorian:
75254 AT-ST Raider 75292 Razor Crest BrickHeadz 75317 The Mandalorian & the Child 75318 The Child
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