By John Lester - images & text © 2008

Scale: 1/72

Parts: 40 (2 figures, repulsorlift tractor, various droids and equipment) plus two smal strips of styrene.

Instructions: Online at Triliance website

Decals: None

Molding Quality: 9 - almost no flash, very few flaws

Detail: 9 - crisp and appropriate for the scale

Accuracy: Not rated

MSRP: € 30.00 EUR (~$44.02 USD/$45.48 CAN) available from Triliance

Overall Rating: 9 - great start to a diorama or vignette with your 72d scale Star Wars models

Triliance continue to expand their range of Star Wars diorama accessories. Their latest offering is this Hangar Equipment for Rebel Fleet set in 1/72 scale - perfect for creating hangar or maintenance scenes with the various (Fine Molds, Fantastic Plastic, Model Addix, etc) 1/72 models currently available.

Image: Closer look - that's the underside of the repulsorlift tractor at left.

Image: The 'wafer' holding the smaller parts is relatively thin

What You Get

Inside the bag are 40 or so resin pieces. These provide:

• 1 pilot (Rodian)
• 1 ground crew figure
• 1 repulsorlift tractor (2 pieces + styrene strip for the grab rail)
• 2 astromech droids, with one each R2 and R4 domes - (though my sample had only one body)
• 1 power ("gonk") droid (2 pieces)
• 5 ground service equipment pieces (fuel point, computer diagnostic station, etc)
• 1 ladder
• 20 deck lights

The figures appear to be based off a couple found in the Hasegawa Pilots & Ground Crew set - which is fine, that's a good place to start. The modifications (such as the Rodian pilot's head) are as crisply rendered as the plastic parts, and so don't look out of place.

The two-piece (three, if you count a strip of styrene for the grab rail) repulsorlift tractor is detailed underneath but smooth on the topside - the details on the bottom are probably conjectural, but they look good. Detail on the various pieces is nicely done and adequate for the scale and small size of the pieces.

Casting throughout is very good. I only found a few small voids, all on the back side of pieces where they would be glued to the deck. Flash was almost non-existent. About the only drawback I see is that the deck lights - which look like tiny droids or maybe "scutters" - plus the latter and astromech domes are all cast onto a not-insubstantial wafer of resin maybe .015" thick. I'm sure this was done for economy's sake when molding, but it does mean you will have to carefully sand the 'wafer' away from the parts before they may be used. That's tedious, but not difficult.

No instructions are provided with the kit. The Trilance website, however, has some explanatory text and several photos that are helpfull.

Conclusions

If you want to do a hangar scene, or even just include some maintenance/service equipment to give your models a sense of scale, this is a very good start. There's enough parts in the kit you could spread them out between several models. The high quality of the parts and the castings should make them easy to use - pretty much just paint and place.

Recommended.