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REVIEW: 75974 Bastion

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Bastion is one of my favorite Overwatch characters, so I was excited when it was announced that we'd get a Lego version of it. However, the first Bastion set that was released, the Blizzard exclusive 75987 Omnic Bastion, was a bit disappointing since the model was based on an obscure skin, was not small enough to be minifig-scale, and couldn't even really transform. Luckily, TLG seems to have fixed some of these issues by also releasing a UCS-scale model of classic Bastion in the main Overwatch line. But is bigger actually better? Let's find out!

About Overwatch

For those who are unfamiliar with Overwatch, click below for a brief summary:

 

Overwatch is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter video game by Blizzard Entertainment. It was released on May 24, 2016 for PlayStation 4, XboxOne, and Windows, and it has since gathered a huge fanbase and has even become a popular esport. What sets Overwatch apart from other first-person shooters such as Fortnite or PUBG is that it encourages teamwork as players are put into two teams of six, with each player selecting from a roster of nearly 30 characters, known as "heroes", each with a unique style of play whose roles are divided into three general categories that fit their role: tank, damage, or support. Players on a team work together to secure and defend control points on a map or escort a payload across the map in a limited amount of time.

This is the first Lego theme based on a first-person shooter game (unless you count the Star Wars Battlefront subtheme) since those usually go against their brand values, so many were shocked when this theme was announced. However, what makes Overwatch different from most other shooters is that it has a stylized kid-friendly look to it and takes place in the future with fictional weapons much like Star Wars, so it doesn’t violate TLG’s no-modern-warfare rule. This is also the reason that drew me to this game as I don’t like depictions of realistic war in video games either.

Another great thing about Overwatch is that it has a lot of lore behind it. While there sadly is no story mode in the game, the backstory behind the setting and its characters is revealed in web comics and beautifully animated short films. Seriously, even if you have no interest in playing the game, I strongly recommend you go check out the shorts on YouTube; they just might change your mind with their Pixar-level quality. The story of Overwatch is basically that in a future Earth, there was a golden age of technology where humans and robots called Omnics lived together in peace until the Omnics decided to rise up against the humans. A team of the world’s finest heroes called Overwatch was formed by the UN to fight off the robot uprising and they succeeded. Overwatch kept the peace for several decades, but due to in-fighting between its members and allegations of failure, Overwatch was eventually shut down. Six years later, with a terrorist organization called Talon causing trouble all over the world and a second Omnic Crisis on the horizon, former Overwatch member Winston decides to reform the team and save the world once again. This is where the game begins.

Add to that an ever-growing roster of fun and diverse characters and a relatively positive and creative fan community and you can see why TLG chose to make a theme based on this game. I bought Overwatch on a Black Friday sale 2 years ago and have been playing it almost every day since then because it’s just so fun and addictive! So let’s see if the sets are just as fun.

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Set Number: 75974
Name: Bastion
Theme: Overwatch
Year of Release: 2019
Pieces: 602
Minifigs: 0
Price: £54.99 / $49.99 / 59.99€
Links: S@H Brickset Bricklink
S@H description:

Quote

A fully reconfigurable LEGO® Overwatch® 75974 Bastion figure for your favorite Overwatch fan! One of the most recognizable Overwatch characters from the internationally acclaimed team-based action game, this buildable toy display model can be configured ifrom recon mode to sentry mode without any rebuilding! Fans will love the realistic detail of this Overwatch toy and will want to display it near their gaming setup—an Overwatch collectible for every fan!

To learn Bastion and Ganymede's origin story, I highly recommend watching the beautiful animated short "The Last Bastion"!

The Box

The box designs for the Overwatch theme have been pretty unconventional so far, but Bastion's might just be the strangest one yet! The front features Bastion in recon mode guarding the first capture point of the Eichenwalde map which is a fitting location for Bastion. The top has the usual white Lego Overwatch banner and it has the set info underneath it on the left and a Blizzard logo in the lower right. What is odd about it is that it highlights a play feature of the set on the front of the box instead of the back by showing Bastion in its transformed sentry mode in a little box on the right. There is also a small notification in the bottom left letting you know that Batteries are included.

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Things get even stranger when you turn around the box to see its back. Like with the Dorado Showdown box, the back box art is in portrait format instead of landscape like the front and looks more like your usual front art than back art. It depicts Bastion peacefully hanging out at the edge of the Eichenwalde map with Ganymede sitting on its hand and the city of Stuttgart which Bastion was originally programmed to attack visible in the background. There is also a name tag for Bastion, the URL for the Lego Overwatch product page, and another "batteries included" sign.

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The right side of the box has another render of Bastion along with some copyright information and a small box demonstrating the light brick functionality which is an uncommon place to have such a play feature highlight.

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There is more info about the light brick's battery on top of the box as well as an ad for the Lego Life app and a 1:1 scale image of Ganymede.

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On the bottom there is mostly just a bunch of choking hazard warnings.

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Contents

Inside the box there are an instruction booklet, a sticker sheet, and four numbered bags.

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Instructions

The first eleven pages of the instructions booklet are filled with warnings and other info about the light brick battery. I guess they REALLY want you to be careful with this thing! :wacko: The eleventh page shows you how to "arm" the light brick and how to replace its battery.

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The next two pages show you how to use the brick seperator, how to build the set using the numbered bag system, and how to download digital instructions using the Lego Life app.

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Here is a random instructions page. The steps are easy to follow, and like the Reinhardt & D.Va set, there are several illustrations of these hinges that can click in seven different languages.

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Towards the end of the booklet there are six pages that show you how to transform Bastion from its recon mode to its sentry mode. Each transformation step fills out an entire page, making the illustrations easy to see and follow.

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The last two pages contain the inventory.

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Notable Parts

This set has a lot of parts in rare colors such as tan, orange, sand green, and light yellow. There's also that 1x1 round tile with the Overwatch logo printed on it again, and we get an interesting new part in black that looks like a 2x2 tile with a 1x2 plate attached to the top of its center at a 90 degree angle. And then there's the light brick of course which is not super rare, but always great to get in a set.

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Minifigs Gany-fig

Sadly there are no minifigs in this set - however we do get a small brick-built character in the form of Ganymede, Bastion's little bird companion. This is the last thing you build, but I figured I'd get this out of the way before we focus on Bastion. Ganymede is constructed using some clever SNOT techniques and half the parts that are used are in rare colors. The head looks a bit big and lacks some detail around the eyes, but otherwise Bastion's feathery friend looks pretty good and makes a nice addition to the set.

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The Build

The first bag contains a brick separator (yay? :sceptic:) and the parts for Bastion's head and torso.

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First you build Bastion's pelvis which is almost entirely built with SNOT (studs not on top).

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Next you build the hips. This is where the new black bracket piece is used to hold the red ball joint socket vertically so that the socket points down.

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Once you connect the pelvis and hips, you finish the rest of the torso and the head. This is what Bastion looks like after bag 1:

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The second bag contains the legs.

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The way the legs are built fairly straight forward, although they do utilize some SNOT on the sides for stability and detail. The gray round 1x1 plate with a bar sticking out of it is used effectively here to add some greebling to the knees.

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These are the parts from the third bag. Can you guess for what these are used to build?

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That's right, these parts are used to build the feet as well as the gatling gun. Bastion's toes are built using an interesting SNOT construction involving two headlight bricks to get that angled-up look.

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The fourth and final bag contains the parts for the arms and Ganymede.

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The arms are comprised of multiple moving parts which are connected and then added to Bastion's body. Once Bastion has been "armed", you put together Ganymede and you're done.

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Spare Parts

There are several little bits left over after the build including the Overwatch tile and some of the other rare parts like the round 1x1 plate with handlebar in gray and the rounded 1x1 tile in light yellow.

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The Completed Set

Once completed, Bastion looks quite impressive. This big bot stands about 10” tall and feels very robust. The tan, sand green, gray, and orange color scheme looks great, too.

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When compared to the Bastion from the game, it holds up pretty well. Aside from some missing details and minor proportion issues, the set looks spot-on. I think the designers really did about as well as could be expected of them.

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There is only one big inaccuracy that bugs me. If you look at Bastion's back, you will notice that the ammo canister on its gatling gun is completely absent. This is a pretty big oversight considering it's almost as wide as the barrel of the gatling gun itself and I have no idea why they didn't include it. Instead, there is just a small gray tube with the Overwatch logo on it cap which is a nice touch, but doesn't make up for the missing ammo barrel. The ammo belt on Bastion's submachine gun is missing as well, although that's easier to ignore.

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Bastion actually has a few things in common with WALL-E in that they are the last operating robots of their kind who surpassed their original programming to save humanity and pursue their own interests. To give you an idea of Bastion's scale, here are the two robots having a play date with their pets.

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Play Features

This set not only looks good, but it also has a lot of playability as well. Bastion has an impressive amount of articulation which is demonstrated in the following photo. The arms, shoulders, legs, and feet are all poseable. The hips can turn 360 degrees, the head turns and can look up and down, and the fingers can be put into a variety of poses thanks to being attached via ball joints. Bastion's thumb also has a jumper plate so that Ganymede can sit on it. The only thing that's not poseable as you might have guessed are the knees, but that's okay since Bastion doesn't usually move them much anyway. The arms can be fully stretched out, although it looks a bit awkward as the joint is on the upper arm instead of on the elbow. With such a wide range of motion you can put Bastion into all kinds of poses!

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You can even have Bastion enter "Rest Mode" by sitting it down.

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Bastion's eye is light blue when it's in peaceful mode, but you can have Bastion switch to combat mode by pressing the light brick button on the back of the head which is a pretty cool effect.

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However, there is more to Bastion than meets the eye as its main play feature is its ability to transform into sentry mode. As mentioned before, the transformation only takes six steps and is fairly easy to do. Below is an animated GIF that shows you how it works. The set's description advertises that the transformation can be performed without a rebuilding, and while this is technically true, you do have remove the head unfortunately for the transformation to be complete.
DISCLAIMER: Toy does not actually transform by itself. :tongue:

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Aside from having to remove the head, the transformation is pretty faithful to how it is in the game, although the energy core in Bastion's chest is not exposed by the transformation. I wouldn't mind if the Bastion in the game didn't have this weak spot either. :snicker:

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Here is a picture of Bastion in sentry mode with the removed head beside it. It looks pretty good and about as accurate as it does in recon mode. The gatling gun is mounted on a Technic friction pin, so it can be spun, but not very easily. It would have been kind of cool if the designers could have found a way to incorporate a six-stud shooter so that the gun can actually shoot something, but I appreciate that they focused more on looks than playability. The lack of an ammo container is especially noticeable in this configuration though.

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It looks pretty good from the back, too, although the arms don't tuck away quite as neatly as in the game, especially the gun arm, so it just ends up sticking up into the air.

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Ratings

Design: 4/5 - Bastion looks great and reasonably accurate in both recon and sentry mode, and Ganymede is a nice addition. I still wonder what happened to Bastion's ammo though.

Build: 5/5 - The build utilizes many interesting SNOT techniques as well as some Technic and there isn't much repetition. A very satisfying build experience, even if the stickers are a bit annoying.

Minifigs: 0/5 - No figs, no points, sorry. And no, Ganymede doesn't count.

Playability: 4/5 - Bastion has a lot of poseability and the transforming feature pretty cool, althougyh not completely flawless. The light brick is a nice touch as well, but kids might be disappointed that Bastion's guns don't actually shoot anything.

Parts: 4/5 - Lots of useful parts in nice and rare colors and even a new element. Not too shabby.

Price: 5/5 - Over 600 pieces for just 50 bucks is incredibly cheap for a licensed set, even when you consider the lack of minifigs.

Overall: 4/5 - It's a shame we don't get a minifig-scale Bastion in this wave, but this large transforming action figure of the character certainly makes up for it, even if it doesn't fit in with the rest of the sets. It looks great in both modes, is very poseable, and feels sturdy, plus it has a light brick and other neat parts. It would have been nice if some aspects would have been a bit more accurate or if it maybe included a minifig to give an extra incentive to buy it, but nevertheless I can highly recommend this set whether you are an Overwatch fan or just enjoy big robots. At such a good price, you can't go wrong.

Thanks for reading and please check out my other Overwatch reviews! If you'd like to learn how to do high-quality reviews like this, come join the Eurobricks Reviewers Academy! Special thanks to TLG for sending me these sets for review. Lego Overwatch sets are currently available for pre-order and will go on sale January 1, 2019!

What do you think of this set? Will you be buying it? And do you think they should nerf or buff Bastion? Let me know in the comments and vote in the poll above!

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Interesting that LEGO has chosen to make this one completely out of scale, but if it's a popular character then it makes enough sense. The colour blocking and transformation feature look really good. Still, it would've been great to have a couple of out-of-scale Minifigures thrown in.

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As a fan of both the game and Bastion itself as a character, I didn't think much of this set at first and never truly considered buying it. Well, the review changed my mind and I am preeeetty sure that I will buy it sooner or later.

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While this set is certainly better then the Blizzcon version, I dunno why they made 2 in such a short time span without an actual minifig scale one.

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On 12/22/2018 at 2:04 PM, Oky said:

To learn Bastion and Ganymede's origin story, I highly recommend watching the beautiful animated short "The Last Bastion"!

My gosh that's a beautiful short. It's nearly on par with many Pixar-quality tearjerkers. :thumbup: :cry2:

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On 12/30/2018 at 8:47 AM, TeriXeri said:

While this set is certainly better then the Blizzcon version, I dunno why they made 2 in such a short time span without an actual minifig scale one.

Actually, I'm beginning to think that the Omnic Bastion was supposed to be their attempt at a minifig-scale one, even if it doesn't feel like it, because compared to Reinhardt & D.Va who are also oversized, he seems to be about the right scale. Let's hope they will have a better minifig version of classic Bastion in the next wave if there is one.

7 hours ago, Digger of Bricks said:

My gosh that's a beautiful short. It's nearly on par with many Pixar-quality tearjerkers. :thumbup: :cry2:

Indeed, which is one of the reasons why I like Bastion so much. Although the Reinhardt short is even more of a tearjerker!

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Let's call Omnic Bastion bigfig-scale.  The model may be larger relative to a minifig than Bastion is relative to a human in-game, but it's appropriately scaled relative to the Winston bigfig.  Goodness knows Winston isn't <that> big relative to a human in-game!

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Not a fan of how chunky the leg armor is. Its a lot thinner in game and the green kneee pads can fold up to be flush with the legs, but here they are forced to hang down. Might have to mod the legs to be a bit thinner. 

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