>>9164182>>9164738After assembling as much of the Hawk as possible without the wings I'm wondering if this was one of the most defective sets produced, a result of storage conditions over the last decade, or little of column A, little of column B. I somewhat regret putting in my parts request before diving into the rest of the parts but with some less than typical building techniques I was able to get things to fit.
One of the wedge plates for the sides of the cockpit was mismolded; got around this by shaving an edge off a plate that went over it. There was another warped wedge plate that was for one of the tail fins, had to get a little creative with pliers for it to cooperate, heh. Speaking of the tail, the 2x10 brick used for a good chunk of it was also a bit warped, took a little forcing but I did manage to everything together. Having a large brick in that state was a new one for me, there was a 2x4 brick in similar condition I had to swap out entirely; all told I'd say there were 5-6 pieces that were too warped, distorted or mismolded to use, though a couple of them got used anyway with some "adjusting".
Thinking back to my experiences with these first wave sets, the only warped piece I remember was a large plate in the OG Warthog that evened out enough within the build to not be an issue; otherwise it was either weak clutch or missing parts. My OG Hornet has some parts glued on and there's a Lego piece buried inside my Gremlin but I think the thrill of having Halo-themed construction sets outweighed all of those little glitches. The minifig design was also a major selling point; feels like people who rip on the original figs are either latecomers or forgot just how different and awesome they were compared to the bog-standard Lego minifig when they first came out. They weren't perfect (weak hands, limited articulation and posability compared to the later generations) but they were a big part of the SOUL of those early waves.
