LEGO 75215 Cloud-Rider Swoop Bikes from Solo: A Star Wars Story features Enfys Nest’s marauders [Review]

The August 2018 wave of new LEGO sets includes a new batch of LEGO Star Wars sets from Solo: A Star Wars Story. We’ll be taking a closer look at each of these, beginning with 75215 Cloud-Rider Swoop Bikes. The set includes 355 pieces and 3 minifigures, and is available now.

The box, instructions, & sticker sheet

The three bags in the set pack tightly into the fairly small box. We’ve seen that this has a highly variable impact on the instructions and sticker sheet. The tight packing resulted in a nice, crisp instruction booklet and damage-free sticker sheet in 75216 Snoke’s Throne Room, but in this set, the two small instruction booklets were curled up inside the box, and the sticker sheet was bent as well — though thankfully none of the stickers had started to come off as we’ve found in other sets with unprotected sticker sheets.

The sticker sheet itself has two sets of identical stickers for the steering vanes on the front of the two longer swoop bikes, and one 1×6 sticker for Enfys Nest’s rear steering vane.

The build

Each component of the set comes in a separate bag, accompanied by one of the three minifigures. Given the overall size of the set split across three separate sections, each part isn’t particularly substantial, and doesn’t warrant much in the way of discussion regarding complex building techniques. That said, builders of custom LEGO Star Wars swoops and speeder bikes (the broader Star Wars universe is full of models that have never been depicted by an official LEGO Star Wars set) can certainly learn a few tricks from the steering vane outriggers and studs-out construction, with a central core of brackets and bricks with studs on the sides that mount various greebles and shaping details.

The first bag contains the diminutive Weazel, along with the parts for Weazel’s swoop. Next, the second bag includes Tobias Beckett and the sidecar attached to Weazel’s swoop bike. Finally, Enfys Nest turns up in the last bag, along with the largest of the three bikes.

The finished models

The first swoop bike — an Arrogantus-X Skyblade-221 — has lever controls at which Weazel stands, since he has regular short legs (we’ll address who Weazel is when discussing the minifigures later in this review). Three square steering vanes are attached to outriggers on the front of the bike’s body. A stud-shooter juts out awkwardly from the lower left side of the bike.

The sidecar does not have steering controls, and is attached to the main swoop with click hinges.

Both sections of Weazel’s swoop have large, brick-built engines on the back.

Enfys Nest rides a Caelli-Merced Skyblade-330, with triangular steering vanes and a large sail or steering vane on the back.

Enfys’ swoop has bike handles attached via an enormous fork, and she sits leaning back like the true badass that she is.

The vertical stabilizer or sail on the back is brick-built with red pieces sandwiching a 3×6 wedge plate, reinforced with 1 x 2 x 2/3 curved slopes.

This results in a rather thick cross-section, with printed details on only one side. However, the rear engines are quite lovely, angled thanks to being attached to sections of the body with 1×2 plates that have Technic holes underneath.

Although both swoop bikes look great, with color blocking that tie them together, nearly every LEGO speeder bike and swoop over the years has been incredibly oversized, perhaps excluding the very first Speeder Bikes (7128) and the Aratech C-PH speeder bike in the recent 75207 Imperial Patrol Battle Pack. The swoop bikes in this set continue the long-term trend set by 75141 Kanan’s Speeder Bike, Count Dooku’s speeder bike redesigns over the years, and the ever-enlarging classic Imperial speeder bikes. Nevertheless, both swoop bikes look great, and the larger size has enabled the designers to more accurately capture the shapes of the source material.

The minifigures

Depicting the train heist scene in Solo, the set includes three minifigures — Enfys Nest, Weazel, and Tobias Beckett.

Enfys Nest leads the Cloud-Riders gang of marauders, who attempt to take the coaxium from Tobias’s crew (including our heroes Han Solo and newfound buddy Chewbacca) in the very midst of their train heist. It actually turns out that Enfys nest is part of a nascent resistance against the Galactic Empire, and Tobias wasn’t such a great guy after all. According to Solo: A Star Wars Story: The Official Guide by Lucasfilm Story Group head Pablo Hidalgo, Weazel is the same character who appeared as a spectator in Episode I: The Phantom Menace in the Boonta Eve Classic podracing scene. This means that Warwick Davis now has a second LEGO Star Wars character in minifigure form, following all of the Wicket minifigs over the years (and excluding his Harry Potter minifigures, Hogwarts Professor Flitwick and goblin banker Griphook).

Both characters feature fantastically detailed designs that evoke the complicated outfits they wear in the movie. Each helmet is multiple colors of plastic and then printed with detailed designs. Enfys’ short cape is orange on the inside and black on the outside, with a printed Bantha-fur wrap design.

In the movie, Enfys’ helmet is printed with a stylized form of Aurabesh (the alphabet used for the common language Basic in the Star Wars universe) that says “Until we reach the last edge, the last opening, the last star, and can go no higher.” That’s a lot of words to print on a minifigure helmet, so an abbreviated quote appears instead: “And can go no higher.” (It’s interesting to note that the text appears mirrored, which made it pretty hard for us to decipher.)

Now for something rather disappointing. One of the coolest moments in the movie was when Enfys Nest revealed herself to Han and Chewie, and each of her Cloud-Riders took off their helmets to reveal themselves as well. We learned that the alien-looking, beast-like marauders were actually the good guys all along. At the same time, the Star Wars canon gained another badass female character in a universe still very much dominated by male wizards with laser-swords and scoundrels with blasters. So LEGO sets featuring the mysterious characters that are released months after the movie’s release could be expected to include accurate representations of the characters under those helmets. This is particularly true given how closely we know LEGO Star Wars designers work with Lucasfilm long before the movie’s release. But both Enfys Nest and Weazel sport black heads under the masks, much like Captain Phasma. Weazel’s head has an odd print that lines up with the hole in his helmet, while Enfys’ head is entirely blank. Correcting this oversight will be one of the first modifications I make to this set.

Tobias Beckett wears a dark tan coat over the gray Imperial officer’s uniform he wears throughout the film. His hair the same piece as Mr. Incredible’s hair, with a curl over his forehead.

Although Tobias has detailed printing on his back, he doesn’t have an alternate expression on his head.

Conclusions & recommendation

Disappointments about certain aspects of the minifigures as well as criticisms of the overly large size of the swoop bikes aside, this is a lovely LEGO set, with fun vehicles and otherwise fantastic minifigures. Enfys Nest is my absolute favorite character in Solo (despite Han Solo being my favorite Star Wars character overall), and it’s great to see her in minifigure form, accompanied by another intriguing character from her crew.

At $30 for over 350 pieces, the set is also a good deal from a parts standpoint, with plenty of dark tan pieces and useful greebly bits. Solo may not have been a perfect movie, and this isn’t a perfect LEGO Star Wars set, but I can heartily recommend it.

75215 Cloud-Rider Swoop Bikes includes 355 pieces and 3 minifigures. The set is available now from the LEGO Shop (USD 29.99 | CDN 39.99 | GBP 25.99), Amazon.com, eBay, BrickLink, and elsewhere.

Read more reviews from the current wave of LEGO Star Wars sets:

And don’t miss our earlier reviews of the first wave of LEGO Star Wars sets from Solo:

9 comments on “LEGO 75215 Cloud-Rider Swoop Bikes from Solo: A Star Wars Story features Enfys Nest’s marauders [Review]”

  2. Tim Gagnon

    A cool set. I will probably pick it up. It would have been cool to see a printed head and hair piece for Enfys Nest though.

  3. Doug

    FYI, you put Weazel’s head on incorrectly, 90 degrees off. The brown is suppose to line up with the side and immitate ear flaps, giving the helmet more depth.
    I am also baffled as to why they didn’t include prints for the faces, it wasn’t a jaw dropping bombshell who Enfys was, unlike Kylo Ren’s first minifig itterations where his true identity wasn’t revealed yet (set came out before the movie).

  4. Andrew Post author

    @Thrawn: I meant Star Wars minifigs — I’ll clarify, thanks!

    @Doug: Well, I’m going to chalk that one up to very poor print quality in the instructions, then. Both minifigs had heads that appeared totally blank in the instructions, so I simply had to guess how the heads were supposed to be placed when assembling the minifigures.

  5. Josh Fowler

    Great to see a review for this set. This new Solo wave is really impressive, from the overall concept down to the build details themselves. I like how cohesive they are in forming the train heist in its entirety. No character repeats among them, and meant to form a single, complete cast of the heist.

    One thing I wanted to note: Tobias Beckett’s hairpiece is the same used for Mr. Incredible. When this set’s first images came out, I thought it was novel that Beckett had a new mold (having completely forgotten that I already owned one from the Disney CMFs).

  6. JD Carter

    Mr. Andrew, what head would you use to customize Nest? Are there any heads close to her soon type and facial features?

  8. Andrew Post author

    @Josh: Ah, you’re right! I’ll update the review, thanks!

    @JD: Hmmmm, I’ve been thinking about this the last few days since picking up the set. I’d built a custom Val minifig that looks almost exactly like the real one, using the same skin tone and hair. But there’s a lot less info online about the actor who plays Enfys Nest compared to the wonderful, world-famous Thandie Newton, so it’s hard to pick a good LEGO head that would work. It’s just really disappointing that LEGO didn’t get this aspect of the set right.

  9. JD Carter

    @Andrew

    Thanks for responding! I was afraid that’s be the answer, I was thinking of using Shuri’s head since they’re about the same age but unfortunately the likeness just isn’t there. I really hope Lego makes a second set with Nest’s unmasking and a new head.

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