How to build a midi-scale LEGO Star Wars Venator using just one set (and 13 extra pieces)

Fancy adding a midi-scale Venator-class Republic Attack Cruiser to your LEGO Star Wars collection? Here’s how to do so using just one official set (and 13 extra pieces).

The LEGO Group has tackled four different Star Wars ships in its midi-scale Starship Collection so far: 75356 Executor Super Star Destroyer, 75375 Millennium Falcon, 75376 Tantive IV and 75377 Invisible Hand. Three of those are from the original trilogy, while one hails from the prequels. But if you want to bolster your Clone Wars-era armada without waiting for a potential 2025 wave, there is a way to do so right now.

That’s thanks to Rebrickable user nickwood5, who has managed to take nearly all the parts from just one copy of 75356 Executor Super Star Destroyer and turn them into an utterly convincing midi-scale Venator instead. A year on from the May the 4th 2023 launch of the first set in this new LEGO Star Wars subtheme, we took apart our copy and reassembled it into the Venator to check out this mod for ourselves.

A quick glance at these images probably tells you all you need to know about the result. If you were looking at this thing fresh, you’d be forgiven for assuming it was an official LEGO Star Wars set on the way in 2025, save perhaps for the lack of a printed nameplate in line with the rest of the Starship Collection. nickwood5 has captured pretty much every angle of the Venator with credible proportions.

There are only two places where the model might seriously benefit from a little tinkering with your own parts collection. We’ve done the first, which is adding in 13 extra dark red elements to recreate the Republic-era Venator’s distinctive livery (available on BrickLink for just a few pounds or dollars in total), because the Executor is completely grey.

The second is in the engines, which on this mod are just that little bit undersized. The pieces chosen from the Executor mimic the shaping and number of the Venator’s engines, but come in slightly too small – something that the Rebrickable community has already picked up on and attempted to improve, if you’re looking for inspiration.

Even without bringing in additional engine elements, though, the pieces included in 75356 Executor Super Star Destroyer do a surprisingly solid job of creating the impression of a midi-scale Venator. And it’s still enjoyable to put together, too – which isn’t always a given with fan-designed alternate builds, simply because they’re not put under the same level of scrutiny as mass-market LEGO sets.

With only 730 pieces in the box to first sort through and divide up (you won’t be able to take advantage of numbered bags for an alternate build like this, of course), this first part of the process is relatively streamlined. And the building experience that follows is interesting and challenging in the ways you’d expect from a model like this – nothing feels too fragile at any given moment, but there are a couple of areas where you’ll need to pay close attention to line everything up properly.

Adding those dark red elements at the end is as easy as leaving out the light grey tiles along the centre of the ship’s hull and replacing them with dark red – we went with 2×6 tiles and 1×2 ingot pieces, but other options are available – and then dotting the additional tiles along the back edge. You could also consider adding 2×2 round tiles with the Republic logo on them for even greater detail.

Yet beyond those minor improvements (the engines, the printed nameplate), it’s difficult to see how the LEGO Group could do much better than this with its own midi-scale Venator. And given the Starship Collection appears to be a one-wave-per-year thing, much like the Helmet Collection and Diorama Collection, we’re probably going to be waiting a while to find out.

If you want to have a go at building nickwood5’s Venator in the meantime, 75356 Executor Super Star Destroyer is available right now from LEGO.com, while the instructions for this alternate build are completely free at Rebrickable (at least at the time of writing).

This copy of 75356 Executor Super Star Destroyer was provided by the LEGO Group. Check out our original review of the set here.

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