Snap Ships Gladius AC-75 Drop Ship - Construction Toy for Custom Building and Battle Play - Ages 8+

Great easy to construct and solid strong quality. Grandkids love the App too.

So far my son and I have enjoyed every snap ship set, and this one is no exception. This is currently the biggest set and on of the best. Pros: -Build quality is on point and the ship can be held with one hand without fear of items falling off. -For the asking price, you get a lot for your money for build quality and parts count. -The options for customizing and making your own craft are almost overwhelmingly high. There are a few alternate builds for the Gladius in the online App which will make your dropship into fully armed corvette class of vessel. -The scout car is really neat and rolls well. Cons: -The armed wing tips are held on by a single tab. It is secure but if bumped or dropped, they will fall off. They can easily be put back on however. -The Green Missile-Pods have a good point to them so parents may need to assist the younger kids on teaching them how to attach them without poking their fingers too much. As with this entire line, I cannot recommend the Gladius enough. This is a great building set of ships that are easily put back together and disassembled and I recommend highly as a collector of toys myself and as a parent.

All part of grandsons collection

This building system is amazing. It is very easy to put together a detailed science fiction vehicle. While most sets have instructions for more than one out-of-box model, my favorite activity is creating my own ships. You can build an attractive little mini-ship with 5 pieces in under 10 seconds. Or you can spend hours designing complicated, grandiose battleships. The designers developed a very elegant cuboid block system reminiscent of Zoids Blox, but with the the connecting peg attached to the primary block type. In its simplest form, you build a basic structure with the blocks and use a dizzying array of connectors and panels to camouflage the blocks and create a well-defined model that doesn't look like a building set. This was obviously a labor of love for the designers and manufacturer. There is a veritable buffet of parts that touch on classic science fiction vehicle elements: -Thrusters? Check! at least 5 different types -High-tech weapons? possibly a couple dozen death-dealing blasters! -Wings that look cool but are irrelevant in space ? Check! -Missile launchers? Several varieties of detailed missile launchers and "toyetic" launchers that really shoot! -Various undefined greeblies that allow you to imagine a high-tech function? Check! -At least 5 different cockpit types -Nicely sculpted 1-inch figures to staff your creation. There are distinctive design styles for each of the 2 warring factions. The "good guys" have very familiar grey and blue clean-lined parts that borrow from Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, etc. The "bad guys" have a black and magenta insectoid motif with menacing wings and pincers. The attractively textured packaging lid doubles as a display stand. While I've not tried the associated smartphone app, it looks pretty sweet from what I've seen. Cons: These toys are easy for kids to use but the detail is good enough for a grownup. This also means that some pieces are kind of sharp - case in point being the Gladius 9-missile panels. I would use the prying tool to push these into the blocks and warn your kids not to simply "thumb" them in. Worse than stepping on a lego brick. Some of the pieces are brittle - we've snapped a few missiles in half, and a number of the guns have broken off. Despite these criticisms, as a geeky adult I am engrossed in this toy. My 7-year-old and I give each other building ideas and fight for pieces so much I've had to buy a bunch of sets to keep up with our demand for pieces! I love trying to push the boundaries on how to combine the parts in novel ways.

Very happy kids happy to.