Set Review - #10264-1: Corner Garage - Creator Expert - Modular Building

The modular building line for Creator Expert started in 2007 and is back this year with #10264-1: Corner Garage. It was released on 2 January 2019. This one cost $199.99 and with 2,569 pieces, it works out to be $0.078 per piece.

You can see the previous Modular Building reviews at the following links:
#10246-1: Detective’s Office (2015)
#10251-1: Brick Bank (2016)
#10255-1: Assembly Square (2017)
#10260-1: Downtown Diner (2018)

A lot of the reviews I’ve read or watched have been negative towards this modular set. They’ve said it’s rather plain and doesn’t have a lot of the detail others have had. So we’ll see…

Like others, the front shows the full build with the different floors on the right side. The back shows some of the inner details and then how it looks next to some of the previous modulars. The box shows it next to the Assembly Square and Downtown Diner. I think it looks pretty good there.

The contents are six sets of bags, an instruction booklet (that comes wrapped), a 32x32 stud tan base plate, and two 8x16 light gray plates. I’m not sure why the 2 light gray 8x16 plates are separated as there are also some in bags too. Oh, and no stickers! Whoo-hoo!

The first set of bags starts the first/ground floor. It includes quite a few 2x2 light gray tiles for the floor and road portion. You can see the start of the garage as well as the lift. There is a tool box in the garage for the mechanic to use and a broom and dolly outside. This set of bags come with a dog and a male mechanic minifigure (I’ll hit on the minifigures later).

One thing out of the ordinary for this portion of the build is the lift. There is a simple function that allows you to have the lift go up and then down. As you can see in the 2 pictures, you slide the piece out and it goes down and then you push it in and the lift goes up. Nothing to challenging, but it is cleverly integrated in the build without taking away from the aesthetics too much. So far I have only tried it with the vehicle that comes with this set and it works with that one, but that one is slightly heavy. I have yet to try it with a lighter vehicle.

The second set of bags mostly finishes the ground floor. Internally, there are some items for sale to include tires and maybe motor oil. There is also a cash register and counter. Then there’s a door entrance opposite the garage to go up to the higher floors. On top of the garage door is a small sign for the shop with a wrench on it.

This set of bags include a small Vespa type motor bike and a male minifigure who is the rider.

The garage has a door that can be opened and closed. It is the standard door used in some of the CITY sets, but it does not have the same attachment. There is a wheel on the outer wall that you spin to open or close the door. When you open it, the door parts roll up. When it closes the door goes down in a track along the walls. Some of the CITY fire stations just have the garage doors stay on the track the whole time. When the door goes up, it just slides up above the vehicle stall versus rolling up like it does in this set. I had a bit of trouble putting this together correctly, but eventually figured it out so it works fine.

The third set of bags builds the gas pump, the covering over the pump, and the tow truck. The gas pump is an old fashioned pump with a cool Octan logo on it. The covering over the pump has a sign that reads “Jo’s Garage” with the catchy and clever saying of “By Accident We Meet.” A blue tow truck is included too. It’s in the older style… maybe 1930s or 1940s… and has a simple mechanism to raise and lower the hook. This parts bag also has a female minifigure who is a mechanic.

Also included in this parts bag is a small tree that uses one of the newer leaf pieces to make the branches.

The fourth set of bags builds the second floor which is a Veterinarian’s Office. The front window says “Dr. Jones Animal Care - No Snakes.” Yet another clever graphic by the designers.

The waiting room has a small waiting area to wait for your animal to be taken care of. There is a girl minifigure who can’t actually sit on the couch or chair and a parrot who hangs out there. The waiting room also has a small table with a coffee mug, some flowers, and a fish tank with a fish in it that is build into the wall that divides the office with the waiting room.

The Office has an examining table, a work desk for the vet, a lab station, and a table with some equipment for the vet to use. The instructions have the vet examining a rabbit on the table.

Despite the size of the floor, the designers were able to squeeze a decent amount of detail in. I’m impressed.

The fifth set of bags completes the third floor. This floor is a studio apartment with one male minifigure that lives there. The apartment has a small kitchenette, a bathroom, a bed, a TV, a couch, and some decorations on the wall (a truck and a record). The front of the building continues with the brownish color (I’m not sure of the official term used by LEGO) with the blue-gray colored window frames. The third floor has some flowers growing on the window sill. You can also see some of the design done by the 1x1 pizza slice tiles (my name, not the official name) on the second floor.

I wanted to make sure the windows get captured because I like the way they were designed. The ones on the second and third floor above the garage door are made using SNOT techniques with one of the clear pieces used for truck windshields. I like that the windshield pieces are still framed by the same blue-gray color as the other window frames. The side above the front door has a balcony on the second floor and a window on the third floor. I’m not sure why the vet’s office needs a balcony versus the studio apartment, but you can always swap them if you want.

The sixth set of bags finishes up the build and completes the roof. The roof has some flowers growing, a lounge chair to relax on with umbrella overhead, and the doorway to get up there from the stairwell. This floor also completes the facade on the front. The facade design is pretty simple, but I still think it makes it look a bit more elegant and fancy versus just a plain corner on the top.

I added pictures of both sides so you can see the designs above each of the side windows. I like the use of the new-ish 1x1… um… it looks like more of an equilateral triangle or isosceles triangle versus a cheese slope… piece.

This set comes with six minifigures. On the top there’s the vet (Dr. Jones we assume) and 2 mechanics (a female and male). On the bottom are the “cool guy” who has a helmet to ride the motor bike, the girl who brings her pet to the Vet, and the man in a sweater who lives in the studio apartment. In my opinion, it’s a good mix of minifigures and I think having facial expressions adds to the set versus the original smiley face they used to have in the original modular building sets.

A closer shot of the vehicles… The tow truck has 2 tones of blue which gives it a nice look and then the motor bike.

Overall, this is not my favorite modular building, but I don’t have as many complaints as I saw in other reviews. I like how the angled wall in the front was done to create a corner building. There are a lot of pieces in great colors you can use in MOCs if you decide to tear your building down. The signage is clever with some of the humorous clips and the old fashioned Octan logo should become pretty popular on the secondary market. I’m a fan and I can’t wait to add it to my other modular buildings some day.

As for downsides, I think the garage portion could use a bit more detail. Maybe some more equipment for fixing cars or more things to sell. Also, the color transition from the white and green to the tan-ish and blue-gray on the second and third floors doesn’t go well with my untrained eye. I’m not sure what to recommend, but it seems to clash slightly with me. To be fair, if I’m going to complain, why don’t I just redesign it myself, right?

What are your thoughts? Is this modular building really awful? Or maybe just not as good as some of the ones in the past? Or maybe it’s just different from some of the ones we’ve had in the past like the Parisian Cafe or Grand Emporium. Let me know what you think.

Happy building!

Set Review - #60222-1: Snow Groomer - LEGO CITY

I tend to avoid some of the repeating CITY subthemes like police or fire, but I find some of the less repeating sets interesting sometimes. The last CITY set I reviewed was #60204: City Hospital (the previous City Hospital was 11 years prior). Today we’ll go through the smaller #60222-1: Snow Groomer. I’m not sure where this set fits in as it doesn’t really fall into the Arctic subtheme and there aren’t any other similar sets in the lineup and I don’t recall there being a skiing set out there unless I’m missing something. It’s an interesting concept nonetheless.

This one was released in the US on 1 January 2019. It contains 197 pieces and retails for $19.99 or $0.101 per piece. I got mine for this review from Amazon.com for 20% off or $15.99 ($0.089 per piece). It definitely pays to wait a few months to save a few dollars as the trend seems to be the Amazon.com, Walmart, and Target run sales soon after release these days versus having to wait for the end of a set’s life to catch it on clearance before it retires.

Here’s the box. The front shows the set with its snow cannon feature and the back shows the snow cannon again along with a minifigure happily building the set. It also shows that you can set up the snow cannon on the ground.

The contents include two parts bags, a small sticker sheet, and an instruction booklet. I was happy to see that the instruction booklet was nicely placed inside and not jammed in with a massive crease in it when you take it out.

The first bag builds the base. Some Technic pieces make up the main portion and then you attach on the treads. Then there’s a spot for you to attach the cab and the plow. But let’s focus on the wheel in the middle for a minute… I’m not a fan. It makes the set slightly off balance and a little unrealistic in my opinion. However, with an age range of 6+ for the set, I’m pretty sure the concern was that kids would be frustrated that the treads don’t move easily. The table surface I built on is a good example. With the wheel, the treads move great. To be fair, it is easy to build this without the wheel in the middle. It is there for the play factor and that makes sense to me.

Bag one also comes with the two minifigures. One is a male in a bright orange jacket with a winter cap and gloves on. He has some long side burns and a mustache too. The other is a female skier. She’s got a helmet, goggles printed on versus attached to the helmet, a ski jacket, two poles, and two skis. Both have no designs on their pants. I remember growing up and playing with LEGO with my sister. We would argue over who got the limited number of female minifigues that we had. Most were male and it made for a pretty lopsided town. I’m thankful that LEGO has changed and we now have a very diverse crowd. My town today has a great mix of the two genders.

The second bag assembles the cab on top and the snow cannon. It also adds the plow in front. The cab is pretty simple and comes with a coffee mug so the worker can drink and plow. The cannon feature has been seen before only this one shoots snow (white 1x1 round plates). I don’t think I’ve ever tested the feature before, but these things go pretty far when shot. I’m sure some parents will be vacuuming up some 1x1 round plates in the near future. You do get a few extras in the set though so a kid hopefully won’t lose them all right away.

The plow needs a redesign. I’m okay with how it looks, but the attachment is very awkward. You can see a lot of the Technic axles sticking out and the plow just slides in and is not held in place. My suggestion for a redesign would be to either modify the attachment of the plow or to cover it up somehow so it doesn’t look so awkward. I would also make it so that it stays on. If a kid is playing with the plow down and decides to back it up, the plow slides off. It needs to stay on. I would think the LEGO designers would have caught that when designing the set.

Overall it is a pretty neat set that we haven’t seen in the LEGO CITY range before. There are a few minor design flaws in my opinion, but an AFOL with a large parts stash could easily refine this set to make some improvements. The option to pick this set up on sale makes it a little easier to swallow so look for it at some of the big retailers at a discount. It may get discounted more closer to the Christmas season.

I think this one is a win. What are your thoughts?

Happy building!

Set Review - #71023 - LEGO Minifigures - The LEGO Movie 2

I fully admit, I am way late to the game with this review. All of the major fan sites have released their Disney series 2 collectible minifigure reviews and here I am just wrapping up the previous set. Better late than never I guess.

This set was released on 1 February 2019 in the US. It takes me a little over a month to get small packages (read USPS Retail Ground) over here in Germany so hence the delay. I don’t want to pay the exchange rate and VAT here so I wait for the cheaper minfigures I order from the US. Like previous Collectible Minifigures, these are $3.99 per bag. There are 20 minifigures total in the series.

A few changes this time:
-The size of the bag the minifigures come in is slightly larger in size from previous versions.
-A number of the figures have a clear plastic bag with parts inside the main bag. In most cases, the minifigure itself was in the clear plastic bag. Then that was inside the main bag with the instructions and any accessories on the main bag.
-The instruction sheet and minifigure picture list is folded up much smaller.
-This is just from my limited experience, but in the orders I placed with Shop @ Home, they all arrived with a wider variety of minifigures. In the past, I’d open up the first 10 or so and already have a lot of duplicates. This time I felt like I’d open up 10 and they were all different. I’m curious if LEGO made an effort to disperse the minifigures a little more or if it was just by chance with my orders.
-The base piece is white. While not the first time it’s been different from the black bases, it is the first time it’s been in white.

Onto the minifigures…. and keep in mind that I have still NOT seen the movie as of the writing of this post. Hopefully that doesn’t qualify me for banishment from the AFOL community.

Hula Lula is the minifigure with the light green hair. She has a vinyl record and a microphone. Her grass skirt is a fabric piece that you have to insert into the leg studs while assembling her.

Candy Rapper has pink hair and is holding a microphone and cassette tape. She has the skirt similar to many others. She’s also giving an eye wink. I’m a fan of the different colored hair pieces on both of these minifigures.

Kitty Pop comes with a guitar and microphone. Her hair piece has ears and she has a tail.

Flashback Lucy has a microphone and gold record award plaque for “Everything is Awesome.”

Apocalypseburg Abe has the steampunk look and comes with an ax. His outfit is pretty creative and i like the goggles attached to his top hat.

Sherry Scratchen-Post & Scarfield are repeats from the first LEGO Movie minifigure series only in Apocalypseburg style this time. Scarfield’s mohawk haircut style is great.

Again, I have yet to see the movie yet so I don’t know why the “Wizard of Oz” crew is in this series, but we have the Cowardly Lion with his bravery award and the Tin Man holding his ax and his heart.

And then we have the Scarecrow with his certificate and then Dorothy Gale & Toto.

Awesome Remix Emmet with his overpriced coffee, smart phone, and headphones.

Vest Friend Rex comes with his mini-velociraptor.

Gone Golfin’ President Business has the standard yellow hand and then a hand with what I assume would be a golfing glove. I’m waiting for someone to make a golf course with the club from this minifigure. Or maybe a mini golf putt-putt course

Apocalypse Benny has a mech arm and a tool box. Other than that he looks the same as the last movie.

Battle-Ready Lucy has a brown hood with goggles. She has some arrows in her quiver and is holding binoculars.

Uni Kitty comes in her happy form versus Angry Kitty.

Swamp Creature is holding a whip and has a fun print on his chest. The head piece is pretty cool too.

Watermelon Dude is holding a slice of melon and has an over-sized slice on his head. This one ranks right up there with many of the costumed minifigures from past sets.

And finally, more costumed minifigures!

Giraffe Guy is holding some leaves and has a giant giraffe head costume on.

Crayon Girl is holding a 2x2 tile drawing of a minifigure head.

Both of these are great. I’m a big fan of all of the costumed minifigures. I think it’s partially because you can easily mix them into a larger city scene display as Easter Eggs for people to find.

Overall, I think LEGO didn’t disappoint with this series. The characters from the original series were done up well, the Apocalypseburg style is fun, the costumed characters are a win in my book, and the “Wizard of Oz” gang look pretty good too. My preference is the more free form Collectible Minifigure Series sets versus the ones attached to a licensed theme, but I think this time LEGO did a good job of matching the theme and giving the fans a bit more.

I’ll be back (late) with the Disney Series 2 in a few months!

Happy building!

Set Review - #60204-1: City Hospital - LEGO City

The CITY theme has a bunch of re-release sub-themes every year. The Fire and Police sub-themes always seem to re-appear. Well the Hospital sub-theme (or is it medical?) is one theme that is not often repeated. The last version came out in 2007. It was #7892-1 and I actually have it. It’s not that great of a set, but I do like the sub-theme. Since then there have been a few other themes that have had hospitals to include Duplo and Friends. Thankfully it returned to CITY and on 2 June 2018, #60204-1 was released in the US. It retails for $99.99 and contains 861 pieces and 13 minifigures. At that price it is $0.116 per piece which is a bit high in my opinion. It does have some large pieces which drives up the cost of plastic and there is a light brick which adds onto the price as well. Onto the review…

The box is pretty big with the front showing the full set and the back showing some of the play features like usual. My container got a bit banged up on the way to my house, but I can’t complain. It was packaged well… just had a lot of opportunities to get beat up on the way to Germany.

The contents include 9 parts bags, 5 8x16 light gray plates, the instruction books, and a sticker sheet. The instructions and stickers were in a separate bag. While it is extra packaging, I like that they are protected versus some of the cheaper sets where they get all folded up and jammed into the box during packaging. I was especially thankful given the damage the outer box received on the way to my house. At least the instructions and stickers didn’t take the brunt of any of it.

There are a bunch of stickers… 26 numbered in total to include some that have more than one per instruction number. There are quite a few, but in my opinion, they add to the detail of the set so I made sure to place them all.

There are 6 instruction books. One is for the helicopter and some minifigures. One is for the ambulance. Four of them are for the hospital structure itself. The picture on the outside matches what the build is as well.

The first bag includes a helicopter, helicopter pad, and 5 minifigures (4 full size and one baby. The minifigures are a man with flowers, a woman, a baby with a stroller, a figure who we assume is a painter or some sort of handyman who has a cast on his arm, and the helicopter pilot. There is also a wheelchair that can be used for the man who broke his arm I guess. Not a bad selection of figures to start. As for the helicopter, I am not a fan of CITY helicopters in general. If you’re going to do one right, it needs to be larger with a bit more detail. This one has a purpose of carrying a small container of important medicine or something in a bulky container that sits on one of the landing skids. Really? The main rotor is pretty unrealistic as well given that it’s just 2 1x8 plates. I’m sure it has to do with kids enjoying playing with helicopters built out of LEGO bricks and not at all for AFOLs who want details on all sets to include those designed for kids.

Bag 2 starts off the ambulance build. It builds the frame and then the hood, doors, and some of the outer walls. It also includes a stretcher, a female EMT/driver, and what appears to be a miner who comes with hair, a helmet, and a bandage to put over his head. I guess he forget to wear the helmet so he has to wear the bandage due to his injury.

The third bag completes the ambulance. It’s not a bad design. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but I think it looks a bit more realistic versus what some past versions have looked like. The only design change I would make would be to have 2 doors that open out versus one door that swings up. In terms of the play factor, I think this one is missing some EMT equipment. Maybe a few small bags of equipment or something for the EMT to use when going on a call. Could also be something to design later with your own parts.

Bag 4 starts to build the hospital itself. The first floor includes a sliding glass door, a very small snack shop with a newspaper and LEGO set, a single seat waiting area, and what will end up as the Emergency Room entrance. I understand it is a CITY set meant for 6 to 12 year old kids, so instead of criticizing LEGO for poor design, I’m going to see it as an opportunity to make improvements. I see opportunity to add some floor tiles for decoration, expand the gift/snack shop, provide a true waiting area, and maybe even an information/check in desk.

This bag also includes 2 female medical personnel. They both have glasses on and blue scrubs for pants.

The fifth bag completes the first floor. This includes the roof, the ambulance/Emergency Room entrance, a cart for the ER with some equipment, and a computer built into the wall. There’s a lot of potential here for expansion to include a built up ER with beds, monitors and medical equipment, a nurses station, a door for the ER entrance, maybe a covered entrance for the ambulance… lots of possibilities, not a lot of time.

Bag six starts work on the second floor with an optometry section. There the… I don’t know what it is called… the optometrist gives you different lenses and always asks “1 or 2?” There is also a computer scan or some sorts and 2 eye charts. The charts are a kid version and then the adult version with letters. The adult eye chart cleverly reads “if you can read this, you have good vision.” I would have added in a chair for the patient to sit in versus the little lime green tile with studs on the floor for the minifigure to stand on.

The seventh bag completes a lab of sorts for the second floor and the doctor or technician who works there. There is a microscope, a skeleton, a syringe, and then an x-ray viewer. The viewer isn’t super great, but it isn’t bad for a CITY set. There’s a red brick light that is set up on some pieces. You then have 3 stickered windows that you can slide in front to project the image on the wall. The one I show is of a broken minifigure arm. There is also one of a broken minifigure rib and one of a minifigure who swallowed a LEGO cherry whole. This section attaches to the second floor right next to the optometry section. It is oddly placed, but I think some work on the second floor on top of a re-designed first floor could provide much better detail.

The eighth bag starts the third and final floor. This section is the Labor and Delivery section of the hospital. Bag 8 includes the start of the floor, and another medical staff minifigure, and a bassinet for the baby. The bassinet includes a baby bottle and at the end it has a picture and some sort of label scribbled on it.

The last bag (#9) is the final bag and finishes up Labor and Delivery. It includes a delivery bed, a monitor of sorts, and a red and blue… I’m not sure what they are. Some sort of monitor attachment maybe. There is also a light attached to the ceiling. My favorite detail on the inside is actually the sticker on the wall. The fish design is fun and makes the room look very kid friendly (although that’s not what you are thinking when the kid is being born).

Here are the minifigures. In my opinion, they help to make the set a bit more worth buying. Besides the sheer number, you get a good collection of city figures, another baby minifigure, the 4 medical staff members, and 2 EMTs.

Here are the front and back of the building. It’s designed for play versus display or detail so in my opinion it’s lacking in some detail. The third floor only takes up part of the floor versus the second floor. There could have been some different choices in they types of clinics available. Or maybe they could have built some patient rooms? Or maybe we just need to expand it on our own?

Overall, not a bad set. A bit pricey, but considering the number of minifigures and the length of time between hospital set releases in the CITY sub-theme, it might be worth it. Wait for double VIP points or a good free offer set before you get it from LEGO Shop @ Home. Or maybe Amazon.com, Walmart, or Target will have a sale?

If anyone has modified it or put additions onto the set, let me know. I’ll be happy to post your versions for people to see how you spruced it up.

In the meantime, happy building!

Set Review - #70841-1: Benny's Space Squad - The LEGO Movie 2

From what I can tell, the LEGO Movie 2 was released on 8 February 2019 in the US. Is that right? Well it’s the end of March and I have yet to see it. I’ll get there, don’t worry. And you don’t have to worry about spoilers in this post if you haven’t seen the movie either.

From the last movie I wasn’t a huge fan of the sets that came out. I bought a few, but that was it. With this movie, there really haven’t been any sets that I saw and immediately wanted to add to my collection. That was until I saw #70841-1: Benny’s Space Squad. I was a huge LEGO space fan as a kid. I collected some of the Classic sets and then some of the others like Blacktron, M-Tron, and Space Police. Some really great sets… those were the days…

Well the LEGO Company knows that there are suckers like me out there who miss our kid days and would love to see more LEGO space. In the first movie we had #70816-1: Benny’s Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP! This time around we have Benny’s Space squad. It was released in the US on 10 January 2019. It contains 68 pieces and has five minifigures (well four and a droid). At $9.99 that makes it $0.147 per piece which is pretty steep… As I mentioned, I’m a sucker for space so I bought into the overpriced set.

With only 68 pieces in the box, it’s a pretty small box. The front shows the set while the back shows the features. It also names the characters. Kenny (yellow), Benny, Lenny (pink), and Jenny (white). I can’t wait to see MOCs appearing with a bunch of pink Lenny minifigures and spaceships made of LEGO Friends colors. The pink is a fun addition to the yellow, blue, and white space minifigures. I think I have red and black from back in the day and if you bought the Exo-Suit (#21109-1), you have green too.

The contents are two small parts bags and an instruction booklet. Nothing special considering it’s such a small set.

It’s a pretty simple build. There is a small ship that is built in the Classic Space colors. There is also a small dune buggy type vehicle that two of the minifigures can ride on. There is a droid this you get to build as well. The minifigures each come with an accessory. I assembled them for the picture based on the instructions. Some interesting things about them… the metal detector is different from the old space line. The detector portion itself is flat versus having a stud and hole like back in the day. Also the radio that Benny is holding has a different design on the one side. It’s indented versus flat. That’s the first time I have seen one like that.

Benny is the only minifigure with two facial expressions (happy and sad). The rest of the figures just have the old fashioned two dots and a line for a mouth.

Overall it’s a minifigure pack. I bought the set because I liked the minifigures. So if you’re interested in the minifigures like I was, then go for it. Otherwise, don’t bother. There isn’t much of a build involved and not a ton of great pieces or just pieces in general.

I haven’t seen this one on sale yet, but hopefully it’ll catch at least $1 off at some point. Maybe before next Christmas?

Happy building!

Set Review - #75954-1 - Hogwarts Great Hall - The Wizarding World - Harry Potter

Okay, the last of 2018’s Harry Potter sets. Sorry it took me so long to get through them. Thankfully I finished before the 2019 wave comes out (assuming that happens).

Hogwarts™ Great Hall (#75954-1) was released in the US on 24 Aug 2018. It retails at $99.99 in US and I have yet to see it on sale at Amazon.com or anywhere else for that matter. The set contains 878 pieces and 10 minifigures. This puts it at, $0.114 per piece which is a bit steep in my opinion. Is it worth it? Let’s dig in.

Here’s the box. The front shows the set while the back shows the play features (pretty standard). The back shows that you can connect this set with #75953-1 Hogwarts™ Whomping Willow to expand your play with the castle. The Great Hall set has portions of the first 2 books to include “The Sorcerer’s Stone” and “The Chamber of Secrets.” For example, the Mirror of Erised is from “The Sorcerer’s Stone” while the basilisk is from “The Chamber of Secrets.”

And hardcore Potter fans help me out here… At what point did the basilisk chase Professor Quirinus Quirrell like it shows on the bottom left corner of the front of the box?

This set contains 6 parts bags. Bag 1 has a piece separator included in it. The instructions are bagged and include the sticker sheets. The set also includes 3 dark gray plates to include 2 which are 16x16 studs and 1 which is 8x16 studs.

The first bag includes one of the boats used to transport the first year students across the lake to get to the school. It is the same boat used back in the old Pirates theme days. It also includes a basilisk from “The Chamber of Secrets,” Fawkes the phoenix from “The Chamber of Secrets,” The Mirror of Erised from “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” and Dumbledore, Hermione, Harry, and Draco minifigures. Everything is pretty simple in terms of the build. The basilisk seems pretty lame in my opinion, but I don’t have any recommendations to make it better other than to just not include it in the set as the basilisk never appears in the Great Hall. This bag also includes Hedwig (Harry’s owl) and the Sorting Hat.

The second bag starts to build the Great Hall itself. The build is fairly simple and not very complex. It’s mostly stacking parts on top of each other. Kind of boring…

Bag three continues to build up the Great Hall. I expected a bit more detail in this set as compared to #71043-1 Hogwart’s Castle as this one is larger. It was interesting how some parts had more detail while others didn’t have any additional detail. One area in particular that caught my eye were the windows. In #71043-1 the windows, while small, had colored translucent plates behind the grills used for the windows to give them the stained glass look. This set does not have color in the windows at all. The reasoning probably is that they could either have the design on the window or the color, but not both. I don’t know. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make the windows colored while retaining the same look that it has now?

Bag four continues the build to include the walls and the tower. There are a number of stickers that add detail to include the clock and some of the brick design stickers on a few of the larger wall pieces.

The fifth bag builds up the inside of the hall. There are candles on the ceiling and the house banners. If you’ve watched the movies, you can see the candles floating. I think LEGO did a decent job making them float. The parts look a bit ugly, but I get what they are trying to do. As for the banners, you can flip them around to see all four of the houses so everyone is represented. Finally, there is a stairwell that is added and the stairs can close up. I don’t recall where the stairs are used in the books/movies, but it is an interesting piece that I have not seen used before.

Before I wrap up the build, I wanted to hit on a few of the accessories. The first is the Mirror of Erised. You get a few choices of what to put in the mirror as you can see. I get why they did it, but I think they could have cut back on the set cost by just having one piece and a clear sticker. The 4 stickers and extra piece don’t do much for me. Is it for the play factor?

You also get a boat and a basilisk. I find both of these extraneous and not needed in the set. I guess when the students first arrive in their first year they take the boat and one of their first stops is the Great Hall, but I would rather they focus on making the Great Hall more detailed than having one of the boats. Same with the basilisk. I’m pretty sure it never was in the Great Hall. They could do a Chamber of Secrets set and put it in there, but it’s just additional bricks to help jack up the price.

As mentioned earlier, the set comes with Scabbers, Hedwig, and the Sorting Hat. I’m okay with these being in the set. They all were in the Great Hall with the main characters at one point or another.

And here we have the main reason for the set. This set is a (very expensive) minifigure pack. You get (top row, left to right) Ron Weasley, Susan Bones, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter all with the short minifigure legs. In the bottom row (left to right) you get Professor McGonagall, Professor Quirinus Quirrell, Rubeus Hagrid, Albus Dumbledore, and Nearly Headless Nick.

Students first… who the heck is Susan Bones? I initially thought it was Ginny Weasley, but then I looked at the box and saw that it was Susan Bones. I don’t recall her being named in the movies and my NLS who has read all the books didn’t recall her either. I had to do a Google Search to find out who she was. Definitely an odd minifigure choice.

Okay, onto the larger minifigures. I like how they made Hagrid a larger figure. The arms snap in with Technic like pins and the torso is a much larger piece too. I’m sure it’s out there, but I can’t recall this design being used. In the Ninjago movie Collectible Minifigure series, Garmadon has 2 standard minifigure torsos stacked on top of each other to create his height. I like what LEGO did for Hagrid better to make him larger.

A number of these minifigures only show up in this set so it could help the price of the minifigures go up on the secondary market. I wouldn’t buy this set hoping for that though.

The sixth bag completes the build. The tower is finalized to include a few rooms in it which I should know, but I don’t and then Fawkes who normally lives in Dumbledore’s office. Maybe it would be better if I knew what the rooms are, but the tower doesn’t do much for me. I’m sure it is there for play purposes. And I added another picture of the Great Hall just because. The last bag is just the tower build and it connects to the Great Hall.

Overall, I was disappointed in this set. The cost is too high compared to what you’re getting. The 10 minifigures are great, but there are some excesses that should have been done away with like the basilisk, the boat, and the extra Mirror of Erised designs. There are also a lot of larger brick wall pieces which I’m sure add to the cost of the set. I would have rather seen more focus on details and the build versus making it an easier build to put your minifigures in.

If you’re looking to get this set, wait for it to go on sale. It’s not worth it at the current high price point that it’s at.

What are your thoughts?

Set Review - #75956-1 Quidditch Match - Harry Potter - The Wizarding World

I’ve had this set on my shelf for a while and finally got a chance to build it so here’s the review. #75956-1: Quidditch Match was released on 24 August 2018 in the US. It retails at $39.99 and with 500 pieces and 6 minifigures that works out to be $0.08 per piece. I have yet to see it on sale at Amazon.com or Walmart. I got this one at full retail price from LEGO Shop @ Home during the time leading up to Christmas for double VIP points.

Here’s the box. The front shows the full set with the minifigures flying around on their brooms. The back shows some of the play features of the set as per usual.

The set contains 3 parts bags, 2 instruction booklets, and a sticker sheet. The instructions were folded, but the sticker sheet was in-between the instructions so at least it was somewhat protected.

If you’re interested in the Harry Potter line of sets hopefully you’ve either read the books or have seen the movies. I admit that I have only seen the movies. My NLS has read the books though so that’s got to be worth a few points.

Bag one builds two of the four viewing towers. The red and yellow colored one is the Gryffindor tower. It includes a Hermione Granger minifigure with a wand and the bottom part of the tower has a door piece with a sticker that swings out. I assume it is so the quidditch players can fly through there, but I could be wrong.

The green and gray tower is the Slytherin tower and it includes Professor Snape with a wand. This tower is built similar to the other one only it has a Technic pin attached to a translucent orange flame piece to match the scene from the Sorcerer’s Stone where Hermione casts a spell to start a fire to distract Professor Snape.

The second bag completes the remaining two towers. The blue and gray tower is the Ravenclaw tower. I couldn’t tell you any of the characters from the book/movie who were in that house and they don’t appear in this set either. The tower has a speaker/megaphone attached to it.

The other tower is the Hufflepuff tower. It is black and yellow and also contains the scoring display. There is a brick container that holds 1x1 round tiles that you can attach to the Technic pins in the tower to display the score of your game. It also comes with four 2x2 tiles to display the houses playing. Each tile has a sticker to use and there is a tile holder in the back of the tower.

This bag includes the Harry Potter minifigure with his super long cape (why didn’t they use a smaller sized one for him?), broom, and a snitch. It also includes Lucian Bole with his broom and bludger (if you don’t know what that is, Google it).

The third and final bag completes the set (which I took in front of my 71043-1 Hogawts Castle set). It includes the three goals, a clear piece attached to some Technic parts to move the keeper who can protect the goals, and connections for 2 of the towers to the goal area of the pitch. It also includes a chest to hold the parts and a trophy for the winners.

Bag three includes Oliver Wood and his broom (Gryffindor) and Marcus Flint (Slytherin) who is holding a broom with a… I have no idea what that is attached to his broom. I think it’s supposed to be your way to try and shoot the quaffle (yes I had to look that up) through the goal. There’s also another shooter on the ground that has a bunch of 1x1 round black plates. I’m not sure what it is for. Anybody smarter than me on this one?

Overall, it’s a pretty simple build. There isn’t much to this one and I’m kind of disappointed by it. I would feel slightly better about it if I had waited for it to go on sale. I’d definitely recommend waiting for a sale if you are interested in this set. For big Harry Potter fans, buying 2 of these would allow you to have a good start to making a full up quidditch pitch. It would take some additional parts, but you could make the viewing towers a bit bigger and you’d have 2 goals. You’d probably have to supplement with some other minifigures as well.

In terms of building techniques, this one is pretty simple. It definitely fits the 7 to 14 year age range that they list versus an old fart like me. It’s not really a piece pack either. The parts really aren’t that spectacular so don’t buy this set looking for rare parts.

What are your thoughts on this one?

Happy building!

Set Review - #71043-1 - Hogwarts Castle - Harry Potter

In 2017 and 2018, I tackled the two largest sets that the LEGO Group had to offer. First off was #10256-1 Taj Mahal, which at the time was the second largest set out there with 5,923 pieces. Then it was #75192-1 Millennium Falcon with 7,541 pieces. Well the previous #2 is now #3 and I got sucked into buying and building the new #2. Hogwarts Castle (#71043-1 ) has 6,020 pieces. It was released on 2 September 2018 or as can be seen below, it was put on shelves in LEGO stores on 1 September. The retail price in the US is $399.99 which works out to be $0.066 per piece.

I used some VIP points, bought during double VIP points, made sure there was a good free offer to go with a purchase over a certain dollar amount, and used EBates (to get $20 back at the time). Still not a cheap set, but not a bad way to get a substantial discount on it.

Below is the box the set came in (it had an outer box to protect the inner box). The tag says it was made in Mexico in August 2018. I bought it in November so it sat for three months after production.

Here’s what the set box looks like. The front shows the front of the set while the back shows the back of the set and some of the details inside the castle that are included.

The contents included 37 numbered parts bags, 3 parts bag with larger pieces and BURPs, and a package that included the instructions and stickers. Some of the parts were in the separate white box shown while some were just in the main box. I’m not sure why they had that distinction.

The first instruction book had a write up about the design team, some info about designing the set, and info about the set designer and graphic designer. Definitely something interesting and out of the ordinary, but cool for a set to have.

There are 3 sheets of stickers. I’ve seen debate on some of the sites about whether to use the stickers or not. There are a lot and I don’t like stickers, but I decided to use them anyways.

The parts box, inside the set box, inside the LEGO big set box, that was inside the shipping box…

Instructions

Set contents

Stickers

The full build is built on two bases if you want to call them that. The first book completes the first base. The bottom portion contains a lot of the BURP pieces as well as a lot of slopes and cheese slopes to make the BURPs look like the bottom base of the castle. The whole assembly is pretty sturdy and it took some time to build as you really had to pay attention to where the cheese slopes went on which part of the BURP. Normally I can just complete each step and move onto the next one, but for this build I had to pull the pieces for that step and then build. That way I knew whether I had done everything for that step or not.

Here are two views of the build from the first instruction book below.

The bags for the first book also included the boats (pictured later). I did some Googling and it looks like the boats are used by first year students to cross the lake from the train station to get to the castle and then return to the train station. They are also used by graduating students. They first appeared in the book/movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

The first book also includes a minifigure for Godric Gryffindor (pictured later). He has the sword of Gryffindor and a wand. The set includes a stand that you build and put stickers on picturing the crest of each house at Hogwarts. That stand is easy to build and I like how they used the stickers to show who each of the minifigures are.

Finally, below the base built with the first instruction book is the Chamber of Secrets. It includes the entrance to the chamber and then the chamber itself with the basilisk inside.

The Chamber of Secrets

The door to the Chamber of Secrets

The second instruction book finishes the first half of the build. It includes the Great Hall, the main tower, and the courtyard. The top also includes a bunch of dementors. It also includes the minifigure for Helga Hufflepuff.

The main tower (is there another name for it?) is built very similar to the building technique of #21309-1 NASA Apollo Saturn V. I’m not sure where, but I thought I saw a LEGO video somewhere where the designers of both sets shared building techniques with each other. Anyone know what I’m talking about?

Inside the Great Hall

Moaning Myrtle’s Bathroom (top)
Moving stairs (bottom)
Professor Dumbledore’s office (not pictured above the bathroom)

Tower

Hungarian Horntail Dragon

The third book is the second part of the bottom base. It is very similar to the first base with a lot of BURPs and slopes to add detail. It includes the minifigure for Salazar Slytherin.

Wizard’s Chess Board

The room on the left is the Room of Requirements and the room on the right is a Potions Classroom.

The Flying Keys room with the broom to ride to catch the right key.

The Mirror of Erised

The set includes a number of small builds within the larger set. I will go through them quickly here.

Boats for crossing the Black Lake

The Whomping Willow with the Weasley car. You can see my review of the Whomping Willow set here.

Hagrid’s Hut to include the garden with pumpkins and Aragog (the spider). You can see my review of the Aragog’s Lair set here.

The set includes 28 minifigures. This includes 4 of the standard sized minifigures. The 4 minifigures are the namesakes for each of the houses of Hogwarts. From left to right they are Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Salazar Slytherin, and Rowena Ravenclaw.

The remaining minifigures are microfigures. There are 24 for some reason my set had 36. The 4x12 plate was not part of the set, but I grabbed it from my spare bricks to put them on.

The fourth instruction book finished the build. As you can see from the pictures, there are a few additional rooms that get finished. The first is the school’s library. The picture I took gives a good view of how the designers gave the windows the stained glass look. Using 1x2 grills and translucent colored plates it gives the windows a pretty cool look. The next picture includes Professor Umbrige’s office from “The Order of the Phoenix” book/movie. It also shows the Defense of the Dark Arts classroom on the right side.

School library (top) with the Room of Requirements (bottom left) and Potions classroom (bottom right)

Professor Umbridge’s Office (top left)
Defense of the Dark Arts Classroom (top right)
Chamber of Secrets Warning (bottom)

So here’s the final set (without Hagrid’s Hut and the Whomping Willow). Was it worth what I paid? Overall, I think yes. I enjoyed the build. It was challenging and fun. There are a lot of great pieces and techniques used in it. I was nervous at first that it would be all small pieces since it is at a smaller scale, but it thankfully is not all small pieces. The stickers were annoying, but not too bad and they do provide some nice details to the set. I think part of the argument is that each book/movie adds different parts to the castle and they weren’t all there at once (like Professor Umbridge was only in one book/movie). In my mind it’s all good. I’m not trying to build the Castle for a specific movie. I wanted to capture it all like the designers built it. So not a big deal. If you want to build the set by book/movie, then go out and buy 7 sets and use only the stickers that apply to each book/movie.

Will this set ever go on sale? Hard to say. Usually LEGO doesn’t discount the really big sets. Sometimes Amazon.com or Walmart will, but you have to be right on the site when they announce the sale to get it because everyone else sitting there and waiting will scoop it up. Using VIP points helped and getting double VIP points was good too.

In the end it was definitely worth the investment. Now I just have to figure out where to put it. Along with where to put the Millennium Falcon and Taj Mahal.

Happy building!

Bohrok Product Review - LEGO® Bionicle®

James from the site Brick Pals contacted me asking if he could do a post for the Bricks for Bricks blog. I said sure and today I have his post. I’m not a Bionicle fan and I typically don’t go back to past sets to do reviews so you’re getting both from James. If you like his work, definitely head over to Brick Pals. They have some good minifigure reviews… especially of the collectible minifigure series sets. Enjoy his article!

---

In 2002, BIONICLE was entering its second year. It had hit the ground running and became more popular than LEGO could have hoped for. It's own comic book series, an online game, a promotional campaign by McDonald's; it had it all. But with its heroes, the six Toa, having fought the Makuta and won, they needed a new enemy.

Enter the Bohrok: mysterious, insectoid beings that appear out of nowhere. Controlled by parasitic brains called krana, the Bohrok seem to have only one goal: to "clean it all." In other words, they were going to destroy every last piece of nature on Mata Nui, and anyone who got in their way. Split between six swarms, each one wielding one of six elements, they were one of the deadliest threats the Toa would ever face.

Description

There is a saying in the BIONICLE universe about the Bohrok: if you wake one, you wake them all. In this case, if you own one, you own them all. Like the Toa Mata, the Bohrok are copies of each other, the only difference being their shields and colors. So, we will be talking about them as a group rather than individual sets.

Released in the first wave of the 2002 BIONICLE sets, the Bohrok are generally made up of about forty pieces. They're not that tall, only coming up to shoulder height of the Toa Mata. What they lack in size, though, they make up in originality.

The Bohrok were among the most creative sets to come out of the BIONICLE line. I think that their introduction was one of the highlights of BIONICLE. There's something about their alien appearance that can draw people in. The short stubby arms and legs, the shields on their "hands," the eyes and fangs on their mouths, and the domed head. It was like nothing ever seen in LEGO before!

The Bohrok had several unique features that made them so appealing. The first is their actual shape. The Bohrok come in ball forms. Thanks to their design, they can transform out of ball mode into attack mode. This design is incredibly convenient, allowing them to get put in storage without taking up too much space while looking cool.

The next feature is the snapping head. The Bohrok use a combination of gears, a lever, and a rubber band to create this. By pushing down the bar, it will cause the Bohrok's head to lunge forward to attack. Put it in the right place, and it will knock the mask off a Toa!

The third and final feature is inside the Bohrok's heads themselves. Unlike most beings in BIONICLE, the Bohrok do not wear masks. Instead, they wear these tiny, rubber things called krana. Unlike masks, the krana are organic, and thus are alive. There are eight krana for each of the Bohrok swarms, and they got packaged at random, so you never knew what you would get.

The cool thing is that, by pressing down on the Bohrok's eyes, their heads would flip open and launch the krana like a catapult. Even cooler, the krana could attach themselves to the face of the Toa. In the universe, this would assimilate the victims into the swarm.

Benefits

The Bohrok's combination of its features is fantastic! The ability to turn from ball to attack form, the snapping head, the krana, everything is incredible. They even have one final feature: the canisters they come in.

Each Bohrok canister comes with a hook that goes on the lid. This lets owners put the Bohrok ball mode and suspend them from inside their canisters as if they are asleep. This simple yet effective form of immersion made the toys all the more real.

Conclusion

Of the sets to come out of Gen 1 BIONICLE, the Bohrok are among the most memorable thanks to their design, features, and appearance. They made be carbon copies of each other, but their role in the story of BIONICLE was one of the highlights of the original sets. I recommend getting at least one of these things online if you haven't already!

Set Review - #21047-1 - Las Vegas - Architecture Skylines

LEGO released the Las Vegas Skyline as part of its Architecture series back on 2 September 2018. While I’m not a collector of every Architecture set, this one hit home with me because I lived in Las Vegas for 4 years. It retails in the US for $39.99 and with 501 pieces, that makes it $0.08 per piece. I picked it up at Amazon.com for 20% off or $31.99 so no complaints from me on price. I just had to wait for the set to be discounted.

Most of the sets in the Architecture Skyline series like #21039-1 Shanghai feature famous landmarks in the city, monuments, tall skyscrapers, or other key buildings. Las Vegas is the only one that features only resort casinos. I’m not sure what else they would put… the Hoover Dam? Or… that’s really it. So they selected a few of the casinos and given that there are so many in Vegas, they had to choose. They picked mainly from the Strip (except for one) and originally they were in order of appearance as your drive through the Strip or along I-15 that runs parallel to it. Unfortunately for LEGO, one of the casinos they choose was the Mandalay Bay Resort where in October 2017 a really awful thing happened there and a lot of innocent people lost their lives. When LEGO announced the set, there were a lot of comments about it being inappropriate to highlight this Resort after what had happened less than a year ago at the time. So they smartly delayed the set to redesign. Now the skyline is not in order, but it works.

Onto the review…

Here is the box. The front shows the completed set, the back shows the completed set with pictures of the actual buildings nearby.

The box has 5 unmarked bags and an instruction booklet. The instruction booklet has some facts about the city and the buildings in the beginning and then throughout the build. It also has a number of quotes to include the one I posted from the box.

If you’re bored, Google “Cinnamon Stomberger.” It’s not who you think it is…

Onto the build… The base is built first. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Space for the buildings with a printed tile on the front.

To start the build, you make the Fremont Street Experience and the Stratosphere hotel. Fremont Street is in Downtown Las Vegas and not a part of the Strip. For those of you not familiar, the Strip is actually part of Unincorporated Clark County. So the city of Las Vegas gets mad that it doesn’t receive tax revenue from the Strip. When I was there they were promoting Downtown Las Vegas quite a bit because they got revenues there. At the time, downtown was pretty sketchy, but I hear it has improved. The Fremont Street Experience is much larger than what is in the set so it was scaled down substantially. I get what they tried to do, but it doesn’t to much for me. They should have added another of the better known casinos instead of an inadequate Fremont Street Experience model.

Next up is the Stratosphere which is on the northern end of the Strip. I lived in Vegas before smart phones were big so instead of GPS, we navigated around the city based on where the mountains were and the Stratosphere. I think they did a good job capturing it in a miniaturized LEGO form.

Next up on the east side of the Strip and still on the northern end is Encore which is part of Wynn Resorts. Encore is the second hotel which was built after the Wynn and it looks very similar. My guess is they choose Encore over Wynn to get the Wynn name out of the set given recent misconduct reporting on the company’s namesake CEO. Encore is a curved hotel which makes it a challenge to build at such a small scale. I think LEGO captured the color scheme good, but at such a small scale, adding in the curve makes the building look a lot less sleek than it actually is in real life.

The Luxor is on the southern end and west side of the Strip. The LEGO build has half of the hotel casino and then the sphinx out front. The head piece is pretty cool and they captured the obelisk out front too. The only thing I would have improved on would be the famous Luxor light on the top. They added in the red light on top of the Stratosphere and I think it would have been cool to show the Luxor light too.

The final building is the Bellagio. The Bellagio replaced Mandalay Bay in the set. Mandalay Bay is next to and further south of the Luxor on the south end of the Strip. The Bellagio is actually further north on the west side of Las Vegas Blvd. No big deal…. I think they did a good job capturing this casino and its famous fountains out front. If you have never been to Vegas, definitely YouTube the fountain show. It’s cool to see and even better in person. There is another tower to the left that they didn’t include called the Spa tower. I've spent the night there and got to watch the fountains from above. Pretty cool! The wings of the hotel are held up by some clips so the back of the hotel is ugly looking in this design, but as long as you stick to the front, you’re fine.

Last up is the famous “Welcome to Las Vegas: sign. I think this is the only time I’ve seen a Skyline set have a printed tile versus a build. I get why they did it, but I think it looks tacky. It also doesn’t look quite to scale given the pieces behind it.

Here’s the final set… I think the designers did a decent job capturing the city given the constraints, but I don’t agree with all of their choices. Fremont Street looks dull and the Encore loses out of its sleekness. Could they have added in Caesar’s Palace and its statues? Paris Las Vegas and the Eiffel Tower? Treasure Island and the pirate ship? The Mirage and the Volcano? MGM Grand and it’s awesome bright green color? NY NY? I realize you are limited to space so maybe the goal was to pick buildings where you didn’t have to put a lot of outside detail into the model to get across the resort you’re building.

My overall take is that I don’t think I would have picked this one up if it wasn’t on sale. Also, having lived there, I have a connection to the place too. As a touristy place, I’m sure selling a brick built version of the Strip goes over well to include at the LEGO Store that wasn’t there when I lived there. The build was alright and there are some decent pieces, but overall this one didn’t excite me.

What are your thoughts?