review: LEGO Christmas tale 2013 #4000013

[Lego Otaku]

I'm surprised no one reviewed this since I found a couple Youtube reviews and one on a (I think) HK site, it's all in gibberish Asian language :D. Plus there's no scanned instruction anywhere. Not even on LEGO's instruction archive, I guess LEGO didn't want to share this yet? Whatever the reason, I plunked a fair amount of money into this because I wanted it as well!

Set: 4000013 A LEGO Christmas tale 2013 (yes, a lower case 't' in tale)

theme: Holiday, employee only promotion

435 pieces (plus 45 leftover pieces)

for 10+

price: not sold in any retail channel, about $100 to $125 on various marketplaces like Bricklink.com and eBay.com

price per piece: over 20 cents per part.

I got mine sealed so I can be 100% sure it's not missing any piece or any special additional materials. Yes it kinds of hurt to cut the seal on a $100+ set that may number less than 500 worldwide. But sometimes sacrifices have to be made to actually enjoy the set and to post a review, pictures, and more on this site. Later I will scan in all 5 books and upload them somewhere since no one else has made one.

When I first heard of this set a year ago, I attempted to reverse-engineer it from just a few pictures: 4000013 was close, about 90% of the pieces were right. Missed a few pieces here, wrong pieces there, etc. I'll also do a revised LDD version and post it in official LDD set thread later.

Upon opening the box, I was greeted with 4 numbered bags of about 110 each, 2 large white plates, and 5 books. 4 are instruction books which is a bit unusual. Small set usually have one large instruction book. I guess LEGO wanted this to be special. The 5th book is about this set, basically Holiday greetings from LEGO to their employees in 6 languages total.

laid out. 2 of the large plates goes with bag 1 and 2 lots, bag 3 and 4 has the same plates inside. No idea why LEGO did it this way.

The 5th book, a Holiday greetings. I'll include this book with 4 instruction books when I scan them in.

the 4 instruction books

First page of book 1. All the minifigs are assembled first as usual. The instruction always started with the white plate and added border and grey feet before proceeding to the rest of the build.

unsorted assorted parts from bag 1. Nothing too spectacular although all of the white 1x1 round plates are glow in the dark color

Part way through the build

Completed build #1

This is the ONLY minifig head in the whole lot that has 2 sided face. He's probably sad because he just heard someone got added to the Naughty list!

Leftovers from bag 1.

Unsorted assorted parts from bag 2. The white 1x1 round plates are also glow in the dark. The green 1x1 with studs on 4 sides are plenetiful here. Before this, only 2 sets has 1 each so this is a great source of green dalek bricks.

Part way through, the sleigh is complete. Reindeers are still not complete.

completed set #2

leftovers from bag 2

Assorted parts from bag 3 and the first few steps done. More green dalek bricks here!!!

Building the tree level by level can get tedious, and if you have fat finger, it can be hard. 2 large tree with Santa set, 3 large tree and a small one with this one plus one more tree to assemble, all the same way. Fortunately it's fairly sturdy and you can simply leave the tree assembled when you take it down at the end of Holiday.

Leftovers from bag 3. The extra brown carrot stem (along with 1 in snowman's arm, 1 leftover from santa set, and 2 in reindeer's head) means one more reindeer or 2 snowmens. These part exists in only 1 other set.

Unsorted assorted parts from bag 4. Still more green dalek bricks.

Part way through build 4. The fireplace are assembled separately and installed in the corner. It has 2 glow-in-the-dark round plates in the back which is a bit unusual.

Completed build 4.

yet more leftover pieces.

All 4 completed sets together.

In all it was a fair amount of fun but I noticed many of the inventory listing on sites like Bricklink are wrong. I guess whoever did the inventory didn't have the actual set on hand and as seeing instruction was never released, the person could only eyeball it and assemble a list of guesswork. So on top of scanning instruction book and revising LDD model, I'd have to compare Bricklink inventory and note the error and missing pieces and add the leftover pieces.

Bonus: no DSS at all!!!

While this set do have lots of parts such as brown carrot stems and green dalek bricks, the high cost of the set makes it somewhat impractical to part out just for a few rarer pieces.

Fun: 9/10 just a few repetitive builds on those tree and the 4 bases are the same

Parts: 10/10 lots of colorful pieces including a number of green dalek bricks to make people drool

Price: 7/10 only because it's a very cool looking holiday set it's almost worth paying a lot more than 10 cents per piece. Still a bit high.

Functions: 8/10 it's only for display, not for playing with. Still very cool display with cute mini-minifigs

Overall: 8.5/10 the high cost and rarity is hurting,

PS with Christmas just a few months away, I wouldn't be surprised if this set goes up in price by a bit, maybe $150 minimum? Get em now or wait until after Christmas.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Lego Otaku

[kinggregus]

Many thanks for sharing your experience with the community... and you did it with an impressive review. I'll probably never own the set, which means that your review is even more appreciated.

[VintageLegoEra]

Loool....so funny set