Random set of the day: Warp Wing Fighter
Posted by Huwbot,Today's random set is 6915 Warp Wing Fighter, released during 1997. It's one of 18 Space sets produced that year. It contains 236 pieces and 2 minifigs, and its retail price was US$30.
It's owned by 2,906 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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There's literally a purple eyeball peeking out in all green. What horrifying Lovcraftian thing is merging with the alien landscape?
A lot of the UFO vessels were themed on more-traditional flying saucers, but I liked this one, because it's far more of a badass space fighter.
I loved this line. Mostly for the minifigs. I remember being really blown away, when this line came out, because the figures were so colourful and interesting, and I loved the design. This line really felt alien and bizarre, and I liked them for that.
When I saw this while playing at my friend's house in 1998, it was immediately obvious to six-year-old me that this was Lego's way of making an unofficial X-wing fighter from Star Wars. Besides the X-styled wings at the extreme rear, you have the wedge-shaped cockpit canopy, the long laser guns on two of the wingtips, and the backseat robot copilot (under the yellow arrow). Furthermore, in the side profile you don't see the semicircular planform of the nose, you just see a long sleek taper.
(Imagine how delighted I was when a real X-wing set, 7140, was released the following year!)
I've collected almost all the other minifig-playscale X-wings, but I still don't have this one, the OG. :( ... Actually, that's not true. I bought a used copy from eBay a few years ago, but it was so dirty that rather than clean it myself I gave it to my friend. Someday I'll buy myself another copy of the OG Lego X-wing!
It's a very good-lookin starship, has some cool details (hoses etc) and even some weight! I'm sometimes surprised how this hasn't gained more popularity.
If you like it, get it!
For nearly two decades the Lego space sets were the guardians of peace and justice* in the old LEGO System... before the dark times.... before the Star Wars...
*Except for Blacktron I / II, RoboForce, and UFO themes. Those guys make Anakin Skywalker in EPIII look like a saint.
I liked this theme for the cool, glowy thingies. Somewhat like M:Tron but with alien tech.
Yes it had giant pieces but they were all printed!
i just got this locally, such a cool set, it's beautiful.
I miss the little “gimmicks” like holographic shiny stickers, heat-sensitive stickers and of course magnets (Which I don’t think this theme had but maybe Exploriens did?). I suppose we have cool stuff now like light bricks and some glow-in-the-dark pieces.
90s space themes were so unbelievably cool. The crazy prints and colours are wonderful.
So just some real fast lore. The creatures who drove the UFOs in this themes were Zotaxians. They lived under the rule of Alpha Draconis.
The Zotaxians also appeared in Insectoids. The crew from Insectoids consider themselves refugees/rebels from a tyrannical leader, which, given Draconis' personality in the LEGO Racer games tracks with the UFO gang being a bunch of baddies.
That said, in the non-canon Time Cruiser comics a much nicer Zotaxian captain and his crew helped Basil the Batlord escape from Willa the Witch's mind control. I can't remember his name though...
Great theme sadly I don't have this set.
@B_Space_Man said:
"I miss the little “gimmicks” like holographic shiny stickers, heat-sensitive stickers and of course magnets (Which I don’t think this theme had but maybe Exploriens did?). I suppose we have cool stuff now like light bricks and some glow-in-the-dark pieces. "
6975 had magnets same goes for several Exploriens sets
This is truly a great one, one of several U.F.O. sets I got for my birthday in 1997. Like noted above, I too saw this as "inspired" by the X-Wing of "Star Wars" fame (though I would not literally make that connection until I discovered Star Wars the following year). I remember being excited as I opened the box and found one of the large, tri-pointed baseplates used in the space shuttles from the Launch Command theme a couple of years earlier. I missed out on getting a LEGO space shuttle, so having this part in the Warp Wing Fighter let me feel like I was "close" to it.
I zoomed and zipped this ship so many hours over 1997 and 1998, often using it as the main attack fighter against my sister's Barbie-rian horde. Yet I didn't love it enough to have another copy of it, much less a third! You see, an unsuspecting relative got me this same set for Christmas that year, and I was naive and decided having a second copy of a LEGO set I already owned was a waste of money (my budget was really tight back then), so I had them return it and I got the refund. Then, in the following year or two, my aunt came to visit and she found one on sale somewhere in Louisiana and bought it for me as a gift. Again, I didn't really want another Warp Wing Fighter, but since she bought it so far away, I couldn't have it returned and I held on to it for a while, sealed in the box. I know at some point I got rid of it, but I cannot recall how exactly. All I know is that I didn't sell it over Bricklink or eBay and make a windfall of money since I was still very sheltered from that side of the Internet back at the turn of the century.
Finally, in 2001, among a garage sale haul of many LEGO sets from the 90s, I got yet another Warp Wing Fighter, albeit without a box or instructions and in poor shape. Someone had filed away the plastic nubs along the edges of the printed disc bricks and the trans-neon green printed canopy. Add to that a layer of dust, and I had a sorry pile of junk. Once cleaned and fully disassembled, I parted it out into my spare piece collection. So while I still have the original one I got for my birthday, yet another persists in pieces. Sometimes I wonder if I will somehow acquire yet another one someday.
I have a couple of these special wing pieces from a haul I got. Thing with Classic Space themes for me is, as someone who has never really been into sci fi or unrealistic stuff, it doesn't interest me.
However, and this is the point I want to emphasise, I still think all the Classic Space stuff, including this spaceship and others, are very, very cool. They are interesting, unique, heaps of great parts and prints, really good stuff that I can just appreciate as a Lego fan even if I'm not really into 'spaceships' per say.
Personally I really like the 'blue' Classic space era with all their Cold War style missiles SAMs and so forth (sorry rockets) and spacesuits.
Wish these themes would come back!
One of the very few WWF products made by LEGO
Very much a love child between an X-wing and the Enterprise.
Also, Blacktron. because of the black and Neon Green. I haven't gotten around to using that printed cockpit for Blacktron, mainly due to the UFO logo on it. I just use the blank ones.
@TransNeonOrangeSpaceman: If that's from the "WWF", it'd be after Foley took the the 15 chairshots to the head...unless ya' mean the 'other' "WWF", in which case: I blame the pandas...:D
My take: This is the result if a non-gifted mind (*COUGH*ABRAMS*COUGH*) trying to 'merge' "Star Wars" with "Star Trek"...
I think I might have liked this theme if it had less prints. It is way too colorful for me, otherwise the design is spectacular.
The UFO line was nearly as strange as the Insectoids line, but at least the Alien figures were pretty bad@$$ with their helmets.
@MCLegoboy:
Look in the upper left corner…
This looks so cool
My absolute favorite line. Got the fleet all lined up under blacklight....
On an unrelated note, anyone enjoy Nope?
I've got this one! Only annoying thing about it is a load of things plinging off when you pick it up wrong.
What can I say, I just love 90s Lego. The themes were so cool and unique, the artworks were colorful and welcoming and the sets were simple and imaginative.
it's past my own space time which ended around blacktron 2 and ice planet ... but I got this in some local haul and immediately felt how cool it is, despite one can feel the bad years of Lego creeping in already.
only critique: you want to swoosh it, but those feet and antennas make it very very fragile.
Oh, yes!
Desperately wanted a set from this series when I was a kid!
@Snail said:
"it's past my own space time which ended around blacktron 2 and ice planet ... "
I'm with you here. I'm seeing a lot of love for this, more than I expected. But for some reason I could never get into the later 90's themes. My love for Classic Space ends with Ice Planet, though I make an exception for Exploriens. Insectoids, UFO, RoboForce... I don't know, they were just a little too out there. Which, in the face of my appreciation for neon orange space chain saws, really makes no sense at all.
I should like this ship. I kind of -want- to like it... but I just don't. Still, I love that it exists, and I love that so many people seem to have fond memories of it. That's what it's all about.
@Murdoch17 said:
"For nearly two decades the Lego space sets were the guardians of peace and justice* in the old LEGO System... before the dark times.... before the Star Wars...
*Except for Blacktron I / II, RoboForce, and UFO themes. Those guys make Anakin Skywalker in EPIII look like a saint."
Now, you made Spyrius upset =/
@MCLegoboy According to lore, that green stuff - I was always curious how the LEGO scene builders made it - is one giant plant covering the planet of Zotax. So the purple thingy is either a part of the plant or something that got... stuck... at some point...
Wouldn't it be the coolest thing if Lego remade one of these "predator" figures for a CMF series?
During my dark ages, which is a shame as this is a pretty cool ship.
It would take a few years until Harry Potter and vikings pulled me back into Lego.
One of the most unreasonably coolest starfighters of the entire 90s. This thing screams swooshability!
It's a shame people tend to dismiss this theme because of the large panels. Sets like this and especially the Alien Avenger are just great all around. And who wouldn't want an army of robots?
This theme is just rad and I will hear no objections! This one in particular is a solid little fighter, you can get some proper dogfights out of it
@watcher21 said:
"Great theme sadly I don't have this set.
@B_Space_Man said:
"I miss the little “gimmicks” like holographic shiny stickers, heat-sensitive stickers and of course magnets (Which I don’t think this theme had but maybe Exploriens did?). I suppose we have cool stuff now like light bricks and some glow-in-the-dark pieces. "
6975 had magnets same goes for several Exploriens sets"
6979 uses magnets to dock the smaller fighter to the rear of the main ship.
All the comments about how this was obviously inspired by the X-wing, and no-one comments on the name? sure, "Warp" isn't a letter, but it's still a very Star Wars-sounding name.
@Lego_Lord_Mayorca: I know what you mean about not wanting multiple sets when younger. So glad I grew out of that...
Never had any of the big UFO sets as a kid (though I did have 6800 as one of my first sets, found 6900 in a used lot in my mid-teens, and got about *half* the pieces of 6975 - including all the big panels but not enough to support them - from the same used lot that my semi-complete 7317 came from last year), but I had a couple of the alien minifigures who I traded with one of my schoolfriends for back in year 6.
I remember I hadn't seen them up close before - only in Lego Racers and in a picture of the little Shell set - so getting to handle them in person (and to own them - I could hardly believe he was willing to trade them for what I saw as less interesting minifigures!) was absolutely fantastic - I especially loved their printed transparent heads beneath their helmets. Eventually I let the blue one go when I was downsizing my Lego collection via eBay, but I still have the red one as seen in this set.
@MCLegoboy said:
"There's literally a purple eyeball peeking out in all green. What horrifying Lovcraftian thing is merging with the alien landscape?"
In the UFO advertisement comic of September 1997 the planet Zotax (the UFO aliens homeworld) was described as being completely covered by a giant living plant-like creature. The Zotaxians seem to live in peace with the plant and even use some of it's largest 'sprouts' as a sort of launching device for their spaceships (even shown in some catalogues).
The same advert also tells us, that Zotax is close to a dangerous lava planet called 'Vulcox'. Their is also a wormhole close to Zotax, that leads to our sector of the galaxy. The red alien included in this set is called Chamon, he is the main protagonist of the comic and described as one of Zotax' most skilled pilots, which happens to also be his 'rank'. He possesses telekinetic powers that are boosted by the special helmet he wears, while his armor plate protects some fragile crystals that are somehow needed for their vital functions (?). The other aliens are only referred to by their rank - the blue one (6900, 6975 and 6999) is 'The Officer', a veteran tactician and the grey one (6975 and 6979) is 'The Overlord', one of Zotax' most powerful leaders and a defender of justice. Unlike some other depictions, the aliens are generally shown to be 'the good guys' here, with their fleet's main purpose being that of protection of the planet Zotax and it's inhabitants (often including the flora and fauna). They are also often shown as a sort of rescue team for lost space crews, like the one in the comic, that got lost on Vulcox.
The name Chamon only appears in two other sources: The Lego World Club Magazine (issue 5/1997) which has a photo comic showing him leading a rescue team to find a crashed 6975 on an unknown planet, inhabited by a 'metal-eating plant' (depicted by a mass of orange Aquazone grappling arms) that devours their space ships... Awkwardly though he is not represented by the red alien, but a custom minifigure based on the grey alien without armor and a light grey helmet. He is later shown in his correct form visiting a christmas market together with Count Batlord, Tim from Time Cruisers, Chief Black Eagle and a few others. There is also an earlier comic, mentioning the (unidentifiable) alien 'Drake' who left Zotax in search for a rare species of dinosaur.
His last appearance was in LEGO Racers, where one of the Racers in the Basil/Gypsy Moth courses is the grey alien, referred to as 'Chamon' in the Danish version (most other languages call him by his US name). This makes me believe that the Zotax/Chamon canon is the Danish/continental Europe version of the UFO lore.
It directly contradicts the US/NA version, where the aliens are from 'Planet Humorless'. The only named alien here is the grey one as Alpha Draconis (sometimes spelled 'Alpha Dragonis'), described as an evil (yet somewhat comical) villain who leads the 'alien UFO force' as a group of stereotypical invaders. Alpha's face is described as so ugly, he scares himself when looking in a mirror... They are enemies of both the Exploriens and RoboForce, as is often shown in catalogues. They also try to invade earth and terrorize the inhabitants of Lego Town, abducting them and their alligators (in lack of cows back then, I guess...). The only other named UFO character in the US is the red android from this set, who is called 'Andy Droid' and is said to be the lost brother of Ann Droid (the white Exploriens droid) who got abducted and re-programmed by the aliens (given his color scheme and the relation to Ann Droid, I believe he is supposed to be the Spyrius Droid before joining UFO).
In the UK there was another different version of the story. The UFO fleet is lead by the blue alien, called Commander X. He is described as the 'Alien Prince of the ancient planet Xizos' and being a very old and wise leader. They fight against the evil Black Droid Empire, that is never shown nor explained any further (are they their US counterpart from Planet Humorless? RoboForce or Spyrius?). The other named characters here are the two UFO droids, being called Techdroid 1 (blue, sometimes spelled 'Techdroid I') and Techdroid 2 (red, sometimes spelled 'Techdroid II'), who are both from the planet Xeebo that got conquered by the Black Droid Empire. When Commander X came to free them, they joined his cause. Things are a bit confusing here as well, since Bricks'N Pieces either mixed up their images (Techdroid 2 as an unmasked blue alien as well?) or the catalogue descriptions are wrong, possibly making Commander X the grey alien...
Oh, and there is also the bizarre connection between UFO and Fright Knights - an advertising campaign exists, where Basil the Batlord is fighting with an UFO alien and the even team up against Willa the Witch ('Izralda' in the original) in the World Club Timecruisers comics (the grey alien is called 'IXVIZIKIL' there in all capital letters). I don't know which source Kim Hagen used for his names, but most seem to not match any other canon. Confusing...
On to the actual set:
I really liked how this looks like a smaller (yet way more heavily armed) version of the UFO flagship 6979. It is funny how the German names for both sets reference this as '6979 UFO Mutterschiff' ('mother ship') and '6915 UFO Schwesterschiff' ('sister ship').
It's look is quite intimidating with a total of 9 guns and 9 engines. Unfortunately, you really shouldn't look at it's underside - that's... a bit underwhelming.
The internal name of this set (revealed by the missing parts service page in 2010) was 'Terra Tomahawk Tracer', probably referring to the shape of it's front - was this meant to work as a last resort weapon, like the A-Wing's nose in SW Legends?
It also has quite a few cool parts, like the printed canopy and wings, trans-neon green 'mailbox' and many grey parts, that were somewhat rare in 1997.
Also it's kind of funny, how the box art shows the droid piloting the ship, while Chamon is on a ground mission^^
EDIT:
Don't forget the Insectoids connection to Zotax:
In the EU version, Zotaxian explorers established a base on the planet Ameron, where they had to cover their ships as giant insects, becoming the Insectoids fleet in turn. A bit weird given that most Insectoids characters look very human-like (if you ignore their blue/gray skin and their borg-style implants). Where as the UFO characters look very... well 'alien' (some look a bit reptilian, others more insectoid or a mixture of both).
The UK version had the Insectoids be Zotaxians as well, however, this was the first mention of the name there, without any connection to UFO.
The US version never had the name Zotax mentioned anywhere, with the Insectoids just living on planet Holox.
Got this when it originally came out, always loved this and therefore I've never disassembled it.
These U.F.O.-guys were the perfect true alien antagonists for my MOC Star Trek ships & crews.
Plus: Great prints and the stickered parts were holographic or heat sensitive.
Those were the days to grow up as a LEGO fan! :-D
While this set undeniably has X-Wing fighter vibes, I'd still consider 6887: Allied Avenger to be the first proper homage. But as a set, I think this one takes the cake with all its play functions.
Oh, this one is cool. I recently acquired 4305 Cyborg Scout, 6900 Cyber Saucer and 6979 Interstellar Starfighter from the local classifieds, I'm excited to review them soon on Board Games, Bricks & Hobbies https://youtube.com/shorts/Gq1uSbYMpc8?feature=share
@ra226 said:
" @Snail said:
"it's past my own space time which ended around blacktron 2 and ice planet ... "
I'm with you here. I'm seeing a lot of love for this, more than I expected. But for some reason I could never get into the later 90's themes."
Same. My appreciation ends after Spyrius. Later themes either had comparatively poor builds or poor aesthetics. I think UFO was the best of post-1994 Space, but still not good enough for me to want to own, then or now. The saucers shapes were great, but I found the decorations too chaotic to really appreciate. Then sets like 6979 and 6915 were just a weird mash-up of different spaceship designs.
Oh well, I'm glad these were a big part of some people's lives.