LEGO Star Wars 75405 Home One Starcruiser: Home One home run? [Review]

LEGO Star Wars fans of a certain vintage may remember a set named 7754 Home One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser. I certainly do – to this day it’s one of my favourite sets. But that remains the only rendition in the brick of Home One, the Rebel Alliance’s de-facto headquarters in the Return of the Jedi era. Even then, it was only the inside! In 2025, we get to see the MC80 depicted in all its bulbous glory thanks to 75405 Home One Starcruiser and its 559 pieces. Part of LEGO’s fledgling Starship Collection, it is available for pre-order now for US $69.99 | CAN $89.99 | UK £59.99, and will ship out from January 1, 2025. After that date you might also be able to find it on sites like eBay or Amazon. Will this be another entry into this writer’s pantheon of favourite sets? Read on to find out!

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

The box and contents

We have Home One displayed on a solid black background. The background hue colour often bears some relation to the subject matter, but I’m not sure where green comes into it here. Endor’s forest moon, perhaps?

The back shows the reverse of the ship, with a small inset of Home One as seen in Return of the Jedi.

Inside the box, we have five numbered paper bags…

… Plus the instructions. As is customary in many 18+ sets, a few pages of blurb set the scene before we start building.

The build

We kick things off with something rather fun: some little easter eggs hidden away in the middle of the ship. In order, we build Ahsoka and Hera Syndulla; a Green Squadron A-wing; and Admiral Ackbar in his command chair. It’s nice to see Home One’s existence in other series acknowledged with the Hera and Ahsoka ‘figures’.

After assembling the walls and roof, we now have something looking more like a fish tank than a starcruiser (which I suppose is appropriate, given the amphibious nature of the Mon Calamari species).

Our first addition to the external hull comes at the end of bag 1 when we attach a set of thrusters.

We work our way forwards as we use up the parts in the second bag. A patchwork of curved slopes and tiles gives that classic, beat-up, well-used-by-the-Rebel Alliance look.

Once we get to the front, there’s evidence the construction might start to get a little more complex. That’s inferred from a tower of bricks with studs pointing every which way. For now, they are mainly used to attach some larged curved slopes to the underside.

 

Let’s set all that aside for the moment. We’re going to make the sides of the cruiser now, starting with the right-hand one. This is done almost all in one go with a gigantic sub-assembly.

The starfighter port makes good use of jumper plates to sit on top of some arch pieces and integrate seamlessly with the rest of the curved slopes.

A handful of pieces later, and this is what we have ready to connect to the main model.

Once it’s on, some of the gaps are filled in with yet more curved slopes. It’s not entirely clear to me why they need to be put on afterwards rather than during the build of this sub-assembly. I guess it does break up the build a little more.

The last bit of side plating once again comes at the front. Eagle-eyed readers may have spotted a black clip make its way on to the build earlier, and its purpose becomes apparent now. It’s all to achieve the gentle taper at the front of Home One.

It’s a case of same-same but different for the left-hand side. Some bits are different, such as the starfighter port and some slope positions, but it’s broadly similar in concept. You could have a good game of spot the difference between left and right.

Now we have something looking a bit more like a starcruiser! Well, apart from that hole at the front.

So let’s plug that gap. We’re onto the fifth and final bag now, and we’ll be jumping around a bit as we apply the finishing touches.

Interestingly, two of the little sub-builds for the front are attached using the underside of studs. The quarter-domes above connect to a pair of green headlight bricks, and a bigger element then goes on to that.

Speaking of undersides – let’s flip this ship! Anti-studs are also used here to add some detail to the model’s lower side. That round plate in the middle is where the craft will meet its stand.

The stand, for its part, is a simple, black one built primarily sideways. A few different arch pieces are used to give it some shape and make it look a bit more elegant.

Home One isn’t the only capital ship in this set, you know! We have a microscale Nebulon B frigate to build too… Or an approximation of one, anyway. I appreciate the scale makes an accurate Nebbie difficult, but I’ve built tablescraps that are more interesting than this.

It’s connected to Home One via a transparent bar, also attached to the underside. The finishing touch is adding a couple of command posts along the top of the main vessel.

The finished model

Considering it’s done at a small scale, Home One still feels quite big. It’s just over a foot long and has some considerable heft to it. For a microscale capital ship, that’s definitely a good thing!

What’s worth considering at this point is just how many curved slope elements LEGO has introduced over the past few years. The MC80 cruisers are defined by their bulbous, curvy shapes, which are quite tricky to replicate in a system mostly based on right angles. But the designers have done an admirable job here.

It is a bit on the blocky side when compared with reference material, but it’s hard to see a better way to do it without making it overly complex. And that’s not to say it’s a bad model – I think it looks rather good. The variation of textures and colours both makes it visually interesting, as does the Nebulon B.

I appreciate that some detail has been added to the bottom, even if it is a little sparse. It means it doesn’t look unfinished if you happen to see it from below if it’s on a top shelf, for instance. (If you want to take it off its stand, that black 4×4 plate will almost certainly want to come with it, as you can see!)

The entire port-side hull can be removed to give us a look at the little easter eggs inside. They’re cute, but I probably wouldn’t display it like this, as some of the internal colours stick out like a sore thumb.

Conclusions and recommendation

Home One is one of two Starship Collection sets releasing in January, the other being 75404 Acclamator-Class Assault Ship. Having built both back-to-back, I think the Acclamator has a slight edge over Home One: it’s got a better price-to-part ratio, it’s cheaper overall, and the ship depicted lends itself a little better to a LEGO model. But this starcruiser is still a decent set. It has great presence on display, being bigger than you might expect. With an almost complete absence of studs, you could almost be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t made of LEGO at all (and it also makes for a great parts pack, if you’re after mostly grey curved slopes). Given the choice, I’d pick up the Acclamator over this, but if you’re more Rebellion than Republic, you still won’t be disappointed with Home One.

LEGO Star Wars 75405 Home One Starcruiser contains 559 pieces, and can be pre-ordered now for US $69.99 | CAN $89.99 | UK £59.99. Full release is January 1, 2025, after which date you may also be able to find it for sale at sites like eBay or Amazon.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

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