Solo playsets should be great news.  But when Star Wars toys are getting expensive and collectors and kids are divided by different offerings that are few and far between, Hasbro is taking a chance here.  How did that gamble turn out?

The first of two announced playsets is here. Vandor-1 Heist is mostly heavy stock cardboard, with a bunch of plastic accessories and pieces.  The cardboard is very thick ad sturdy, and puts previous Hasbro cardboard playsets to shame in that regard.  The “stenciled” parts are easily popped from the larger rectangular factory boards, and there seems to be little or no risk of the artwork tearing during assembly.  Even the small slots and holes pop easily.  If you come across any that don’t give as they should, keep a knife handy to help out, but you may not need it. 

Assembly will probably take you about half an hour or so.  There were a few steps that weren’t clear, particularly the way the “cave platforms” on both sides connect.  At first I thought I had a set that was cut wrong, but in the end everything worked out okay.  The cardboard tabs tend to “snap” into place, which gives you a satisfying feeling that the set is well-built.  A few plastic joints help keep the vertical pieces connected to the base.  The working gate is all plastic (assembly required), while the “bones” of the trains, along with the rail, and a post, are also hard plastic.  There are a couple of plastic foot peg stands located on the top and sides of the train cars, allowing you to pose figures.  There are also 2 loose stands, to help put figures anywhere you want on the set.

While I was assembling it, I was a bit skeptical of how things were turning out, but once I got the two rail cars assembled and then attached to the cardboard “mountain”, I felt a little bit of a child-like joy, just for a moment.  Everything ended up working together in a rather satisfying looking set.  The playset rotates and basically has 2 sides.  There is the Train Heist side, and what seems to be meant to be the Fort Ypso mountain village, where the team found Lando Calrissian.  This “back” side is definitely less interesting than the “train” side.  The gate is cool, but if they were going for the Fort Ypso theme, it would have been cooler if it was the interior of the village itself.

The set is completed by the inclusion of Chewbacca.  This 5POA figure is identical to the basic release.  The only difference is the addition of a pair of goggles as an accessory.  It would have been great if this was included with the basic figure in the first place.  It’s a neat, and important, accessory, so it’s a shame it can only be had with the purchase of this set.  Perhaps a different figure could have been included - one that has yet to be released, or at worst, a range trooper repack.

There are some fundamental issues I have with the set.  Obviously, there’s concern over the price.  $44.99 for a mostly cardboard set seems high to many collectors.  But it does come with some rather significant plastic accessories (the gate and the rail system), as well as a figure.  I feel that the set works as a very nice background and display environment, but there could have been a few things different in the design to make it a bit more fun.  Maybe the rail could have been on some kind of swivel, so the cars could “spin”, even just a little bit to the left and right, to give the illusion that the cars are rotating on the rail as in the film.  Instead, the cars are straight on.  Hasbro did include footpegs on the side of the cars, so that you can still attach your range troopers as if their mag boots are holding on, but it’s only at a 90 degree option.  What would also have been a nice touch would be if there was a clear plastic “arm” that could be affixed somewhere along the top of the cardboard mountain, which would then attach to Enfys Nest’s speeder, so it could be displayed swooping down on the train.  In the image, I just balanced it on the cardboard, but it would have been nice if this was an intended feature.  It also would have been cool if there was a larger structure around the rail post, so that Val could duel it out with a probe droid or something like that.  I don’t like the fact that there are characters painted on the background.  I feel that set should be populated with actual figures left up to the imagination of the consumer. 

But this leads me to the biggest problem.  There are very few figures, even in the 5POA line, that can properly be displayed in this set.  Currently, there are only the included Chewbacca (with the goggles) and the Range Trooper (soon to be available in TVC) for the heist side, while there’s only Lando (also coming in 2019 for TVC) for the Ypso side.  We have the wrong Han Solos and the wrong Qi’ra.  Wave 4 of the 5POA line should be a big help, with Val, Tobias, Rio, and L3-3T, if it makes it to retail after the terrible Wave 3. 

The main question is, “At whom is this set targeted?”  You’d think kids first, because it is in the Solo line, not TVC.  If it is kids, it might be too expensive.  Other than the working gate, there really isn’t much here that qualifies as an actual “playset”, which could easily bore most kids.  It’s more of an environment.  But then that should cater to the collectors, who have asked for such environments.  Many collectors might be satisfied with high quality cardboard sets like this one.  After all, many of us are still pretty happy with the POTF2 era Cantina and Jabba’s Palace sets.  Those work well as backdrops for the tons of figures available to populate each diorama.  Here we have an environment that has almost no available figures to create movie-accurate scenes, and that’s a real shame.  This set could fail for several reasons, and timing could be the biggest one.  If this set came out at launch, and there were more than like 5 or 6 actual Solo figures available back then, it would have had a better chance to succeed.  That’s not to say that it might not still succeed at Target, but it would have been better if it were released along side Wave 4 of the 5POA line.  Better yet, Wave 3 shouldn’t have been green-lighted in the first place. But even better still, we should have at least a handful of relevant TVC figures available for display.  As of the release of this set, there are exactly zero TVC figures from Solo.  Booo!

This set is a Target exclusive.  That’s great to hear, because at this point, I’m tired of hearing “Walmart” and “Exclusive” in the same sentence.  The price may be a bit steep.  The included 5POA figure is rather uninspired.  But this is a very nice modern equivalent to the old POTF2 cardboard sets.  It’s very well made, and serves the purpose of giving you a viable backdrop to one of the more iconic scenes from Solo.  This set is worth considering.  It does take up a lot of space, and is pretty tall.  But you might consider picking one up in anticipation of several more relevant figures in the pipeline.  While I can’t call it a “must buy”, I think Hasbro made a nice effort, even if there are some improvements that could be made, short of going full-on plastic.  I’ll give it a 6, making it at least worthy of your consideration.