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Collectables? Cheap minifigures? Low-budget presents? Play sets for the kids?
Or are Microfighters pointless? Poorly designed? A series to be dismissed? LEGO squeezing every dollar they can from the successful Star Wars theme?
Brick News and I decided we should get some insight from someone more qualified to give an accurate point of view, my 8yr old son… seeing he is more the target audience that LEGO is surely aiming at with this low piece count, 6yrs+ series of sets.
Our family has both given and received Microfighter sets as birthday or Christmas presents over the years, as I believe they are in the correct price-range for a small gift. They also seem like a cheaper gift option for a LEGO fan, or even from us who have a love of LEGO ourselves, so I think kids might get excited over a LEGO branded box beneath the wrapping paper.
But are they actually something a kid might get excited about? Are they a LEGO set the child will treasure, or play with day after day? If LEGO does interest the child, would it be worth getting a larger set with more features, or will Microfighters continue to entertain them?
Lets be realistic here, everyone is going to have a different opinion about any LEGO set, and every kid’s interest is going to vary when it comes to any toy they receive.
My son has been given a number of small Star Wars sets, either polybags or Microfighters, and they are sets he can, and will, build on his own. I’ll put it into perspective for you; he has a Speed Champions car and a Brickheadz set still in their boxes, he lets me build larger sets while he plays with the minifigures as they come out of the bags, he enjoys the animated LEGO Star Wars TV shows… basically, Star Wars interests him (thanks to his old man ;P ), and his attention span when it comes to building Lego sets is limited, so Microfighters are seemingly an ideal LEGO set for a kid like him.
But, does he continue to play with them or want to collect them all? Not really, I mean he would be happy enough getting them as gifts and adding to his collection, yes… but Microfighters don’t keep him returning to the set to play with over and over again, and they don’t ever reach the top of his wish list. In fact, when asked by his grandma which sets he might like for his 8th birthday, he informed her about his interest in the droid battle pack and the ‘Rebuild the Galaxy’ Tie Fighter & X-Wing mash-up set. He only received the battle pack, but he revisited that set each day for a week, whereas the Microfighters only seemed to get played with for a day or two.
For this article, I told my boy we would be doing a school holiday project together, and it involved LEGO. So my son got to open the delivery box and discover what set he would get to build, and he was genuinely happy finding the Captain Rex Y-Wing Microfighter (75391). He didn’t have that set or that minifigure, so all good so far.
The set has 99 pieces (which is probably slightly above average for the Microfighter series per vehicle, as excluding the sets with two vehicles/creatures, the piece count ranges from approx. 70-105 pieces.) and it was a simple build for for my boy, with simple instructions for him too. It was a good length of time spent to construct it; too much longer and he would have wanted to take a break and come back to it later (how much ‘later’ is the unknown). He also enjoyed building the Microfighter and Captain Rex, who he immediately began posing with the guns for the camera. It was also noted that it “looks cool” and has “nice colours”, again the comments and feedback was all positive.
My son got his collection of Microfighters and Star Wars polybag builds out on the table and played with them all briefly, then the next day I thought I’d grab my larger Y-Wing as a size comparison, and to see which might draw more interest and play time. He did play with both of Y-Wings occasionally, though toys need to be packed away and when its out of sight it’s out of mind also. Though a week or more later he did mention that he thought that he does enjoy playing with the larger sets more; the Microfighters, as with a lot of the very small sets, can be limited in terms of play value. (I should add here that whilst playing with the larger Y-Wing, other non-LEGO toys were brought in by both my kids as passengers… so added play value there for sets that can accommodate extra figures, which is something a Microfighter is very, very limited with).
We currently have the LEGO treehouse as a centre piece our dining table, and I had my Ewok village displayed on a bench for a number of years too, and both of these got a lot of play and interaction. The larger LEGO sets, and the fact that they are visible all the time, draw our kids in to play with them… perhaps if we had the Microfighter collection on display they would get more use, but there are generally very few moving parts other than the shooters/guns.
My own evaluation of the Microfighters are that they are cute and low-budget options for families with younger kids. Though the scale varies between each set and the actual vehicle/creature they represent, the detail that the designers have included is fairly good for the size they are. They are a good set for kids interested in Star Wars and who don’t have much LEGO building experience (or a short attention span). They are a better option than Star Wars Mechs (in my personal opinion anyway... that's a set that I think is squeezing everything they can out of the Star Wars theme), and have the advantage over a polybag because of the minifigure that the Microfighter provides.
The minifigure of Captain Rex has been a sought-after figure by many, which has bumped up the value of older versions, so having a Captain Rex in a Microfighter set has made it much more readily available and affordable. For adults I could see this being the most desirable feature of the Microfighter series. I would highly recommend getting this set just for Captain Rex if you are a collector and/or interested in the Clone Wars era of Star Wars, as this Rex will likely jump up in price as well after the set is discontinued. I did read that there are a number of unique minifigures in past Microfighter sets, and the cost of the figures alone (once discontinued) can be the same as the set at retail value, at least… so definitely something to consider if you collect Star Wars minifigures.
I will personally get a Microfighter in the future just for the minifigure if its one I really want, and I will get my son to build it knowing he will enjoy building the set.
Also noteworthy, is that this particular Microfighter was the only one to be released during 2024 (though a couple more were still available during the year), so a collection of this series would develop over a number of years, and by then a child may have moved on from these smaller sets, or even from LEGO altogether, but they are absolutely a much more affordable way of putting a collection together.
I tend to think that, unless he specifically requests one, I will let others give my son Microfighters as gifts, as I would rather get him the occasional Mario LEGO set (seeing he has an obsession with anything Super Mario Bros at the moment)… or get a LEGO set that we can enjoy as a family, with the adults building a larger set with his help if he so wishes (which is probably more likely to happen as he gets older), and my kids playing with it on a regular basis while I enjoy having it on display.
My son and I would like to thank Brick News for the opportunity to build and review Captain Rex’s Y-Wing, and I hope this article helps you decide whether or not a Microfighter is the right LEGO set for you or your child.
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