When I first saw the photos of this set last year I will admit I was a bit underwhelmed. There had been rumors floating about for "Ultimate Hoth" in the Lego community for months. I think it is possible with the amount of hype this set had that almost no one was going to be 100% happy with it. That said, I am not going to dig too deeply into the criticisms of this set as you can find plenty of that elsewhere. Instead I am going to focus more on what I really enjoyed with a couple constructive criticisms from my personal point of view. First off: the E-Web blaster is awesome. It looks amazing and was fun to build and is much more realistic than previous versions. It is also larger than prior versions but not so large that it looks too big next to a snowtrooper minfig. The battery pack for it is great as well and has a great storage feature for extra ammo. Next are the snow trenches and artillery. In the designer interview the set designer makes a comment to the effect of the snow trenches being less interesting that some of the other parts of the set (can't remember the exact quote). I would actually say I enjoyed this part as much as any other part of the build. And it actually looks really good once it is done. I really enjoyed the option to move around the three different types of guns and the Hoth Rebel Troopers look great packed behind them. If you add the Hoth Attack set along with the small and larger snow trenches from this set you can actually create a fun set of layers that adds the realism of the scene. The smaller black guns (not sure the name) look nearly as good as the E-WEB blaster. The Atgar cannon looks and works fine and has a repeating stud shooting feature. I hear there was a much better looking older version. This one works for for me. The anti-infantry guns looks great as well. You can also sit a minifig in the tops of the if that is the look you want. Not sure if this happened in the movie but I think there were some older toys that did this back in the 80s. Shield generator: this is underrated. It loved building it and it looks just like the film, almost. I can understand why so many really wanted to see all 4 rings of the generator so it looks more like the film but that doesn't both me much. The exploding play feature is nice as well. The snowspeeder: good fun. Just like Luke's Snowspeeder from a few years back, just with different colors. I know this because when I built this new version a took a break and built Luke's right after this. Having them both in the display is great as you can put one out into battle and keep the other in the hanger so the interior of the base has some Hothy ambience. Next up is the entrance to Echo Base. Once it is done it is VERY large. Despite the simplicity it does not get too redundant in the build as you are also building the housing for the sliding doors on the back side. Did I mention the sliding doors? They work perfectly and look great. They could have been dark grey or whatever the official name of the color is but the black works just fine. They open and close seamlessly and you cannot overturn the gears so you want have unintended brick explosions! There is LOTS of room on top for minifigs and two additional ports to add in the cannons you build with the trenches. Again, I love this feature of setting up the cannons how you want. Finally, I see the adjustable lookout tower as a nod to two separate things. One is Yavin 4 from A New Hope (mentioned by the designer). The other is a bit more obscure but it was one of my favorite toys as a kid so I have to bring it up now. Sometime between the release of the Empire and ROTJ there was a short lived line of micro scale Star Wars play sets that featured plastic environments and pre-painted metal die cast figures. One of the was called Hoth World and the Echo Base part of the set had the exact same lookout tower. Maybe this was not the designers intention but I love that it was included and it brings back lots of great memories. Next we move onto the interior of the base and the Wampa Cave. This is where I find the set a bit lacking. This is mainly because there is not much of it. What is included is great. Beautiful Wampa and Tauntaun are included. The small control center is a great mini-build and has some good detail (lots of stickers too!). The Wampa cave is a quick build and had a nice feature to hand Luke upside down. And the loading station and Tauntaun pen are fun and look like they could very well have been part of Echo Base. The Rebel Troop Cart is also a very neat little build and looks surprisingly similar to the movie version. Ultimately I would have really loved to have seen more of the interior of the base. I know this was done fairly recently in another set so I understand why there isn't so much in this dept. Honestly, if I had to choose what to get rid of in order to add a Bacta tank, I probably couldn't pick. Finally, the Ion Canon. Again, fun build and it looks very circular/spherical. The tip of the gun is a bit ridiculous looking and I would have liked to see something a bit more realistic considering how well the other canons look in this set. It does have a very nice shooting feature and I like that you can open it up to put a minifigure inside. I think that adds quite a bit to play value for kids. I am not going to say much about the minifigs as this has already become much longer than I intended. I will say that I really like everything included. Standouts are Wedge (love the helmet), Han, Astomech, K3P0, and Toryn Farr. All of the Hoth Troopers and Snow Troopers also look great. I was glad to see a reasonable amount of variance from trooper to trooper, including different torsos and facial details, since there are so many of them. Now to the Critiques: 1. Not much interior in Echo Base. Nuff said. I was really hoping for more and this was why I was initially disappointed when I saw the photos of the set. 2. The rest of my critiques lay on the missing minifigs. No Leia!?!?!? Really?!?!? General Rieeken is also missing. I think the inclusion of these two figs would have gone a long way for this set. Also, some extra Snowtroopers and possibly even a Vader would have made it feel a little more like an "assault."I am not too bummed about not having R2 or 3P0 here as you can find them in so many smaller sets and you don't need a "Hoth" version of them. Chewy would also have been nice. And once again back to the Bacta tank: I would have loved to have seen 2-1B here. That is about it. I will post photos of my display, which I think looks great. I added in Hoth Attack, Snowtrooper Battle Pack, Lukc's Snowspeeder, the 2016 Rogue One At-St, and some of my loose minifigs in to beef it up. One last thing (hint, hint). I think we are ALL waiting for an Ultimate Bespin! Also, a coupe more small Hoth Sets (like the Bacta Tank!) would also be welcome sets in the future to add into the Hoth environment.