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I've always only seen this set in those little catalogues that used to come with sets or more recently on sites like Brickset. The set looked appealing to me and after nearly 18 years I've finally been able to get myself a MISB copy of it. Read on to find out all there is to know about the often overlooked Fire Breathing Fortress, the largest set in the Dragon Knights theme. Info Set # - 6082 Name - Fire Breathing Fortress Theme/Subtheme - Castle/Dragon Knights Year - 1993 Piece Count - 393 Minifigures - 6 Price - MSRP $64 US Links Brickset, Peeron, Bricklink, Brickshelf Box The front of the box depicts the fortress on some sort of very high mountain top. This is set against a lovely orange and yellow sky as we can see far off into the distance. Note the emblem at the top right - while the theme is commonly known as Dragon Knights, the box refers to them as Dragon Masters. Missing from the front of the box is the set name, piece count and age recommendation. The set name is found on the top of the box while the piece count is found on the bottom. There is a warning that the small parts are not suitable for children under 3 years of age, however there is no other age recommendation present! As expected for a set of this time, the back of the box is host to an assortment of alternate models. Some of these are actually pretty decent, shame there are no instructions for them My favorite feature of these old boxes is the front flap that can be lifted up. The pictures highlight several of the play functions of the set. Also present is a small motivational set up story for the set. Here's a close up of the story: Under the flap are some clear plastic windows that allow you to see some of the contents of the box. The window to the left displays a number of interesting and exciting parts. The other window shows off some bagged parts. Box contents Sliding the cardboard tray out of the box gives us a better view of its contents. Thanks to this style of box everything is nicely packed and nothing gets damaged. The plastic on the display tray has started to peel away but no harm has come to the parts. Safely tucked away underneath everything is all the paper work. Here we've got a poster, the instruction manual, a subscription offer to the magazine of the time, a flyer advertising some sets, and a lovely cloth flag. Instructions The back of the instruction manual has a slightly different picture than on the front, and at one corner is a points token that could be cut off and used to help qualify for the Lego club of the time. Here are two random pages from the instruction manual. The page to the left shows what most of the build was like - there were no piece call outs and often 10+ pieces were added every step. Sometimes there would be arrows that point out where parts go if the view is obscured. The page to the right shows one of the few sub-models. As mentioned, the pace of the build is very fast - there are a lot of parts added every step and you have to pay close attention to spot where they go sometimes. I personally think this makes the build a lot more fun and it also allows the manual to be a minuscule 26 pages long. Colour differentiation is a no brainer as they're all perfectly represented. Some parts appear in multiple colours, but identifying the proper one to use is never a problem. I miss manuals like these... Poster The set also comes with a beautiful fold out poster. This thing measures approx. 16x22" and features a variety of castle sets on the front side (pictured) and many other sets that were available at the time on the back. Pieces Here are the contents from the display tray. Printed parts include the lovely wall and arch as well as the scroll. We've also got the head knight and his amazing cape, Majisto the wizard and his beard and glow in the dark wand, the dragon's torso, the distinct red roof, and some other stuff. The set contains seven bags of parts. Loose in the box were two LURPs, a rare stair piece, and a 1x16 beam. The contents of panel 1 were loose in the box (same as above), while 2-4 were the largest bags. They contain many arch pieces of varying sizes, wall pieces, turret tops in two sizes, some plant life, other large bricks, some minifig torsos, dragon limbs, a horse, and some accessories. Not a bad little castle building kit. The four physically smallest bags are stuffed full of more pieces. 1 contains loads of basic bricks and blocks as well as some accessories and weapons. 2 has got a wide variety of useful parts, including a set of large brown doors. 3 gives us the bulk of our minifig legs, and well are other parts. 4 contains the smallest pieces and more interestingly it also has two swords, a bow and arrow, and a quiver. Minifigures The fortress comes with three "generic" soldiers. These guys are admittedly pretty cool though. The printing on the torso is really nice - the big belt and dragon head look great. The red, blue, grey, and black colour scheme is simple but eye catching. All three figs have the same head, but thanks to the different weapon and helmet combinations they all seem unique. The pimped out guy on the left has an interesting torso print with metallic shoulder armour. He has a large helmet with three small holes to allow those yellow accessories to be attached. Note his lovely bright shield and cape. In the middle is the infamous Majisto along with his glow in the dark wand and crystal ball. To the right is the lone wolfpack minifigure. None of the minifigures have back printing as such as technique wasn't done at the time. Here are some extra shots of the awesome uber knight and his sweet cape The Dragon Knights theme introduced the dragon figure. His mouth, arms, tail, and wings can all be repositioned. Studs on his back allow a minifigure or anything else to be attached. The set also includes a horse. He can carry around some flags and a weapon. Note his dragon-esq head protection. And of course here are all of the figures together. The build As with most sets that are built on one of these raised baseplates, you start the build by placing supports around at the back. A support is also placed in the large pit. These allow the fortress to have greater floorspace. This is literally 2 steps later. As you can see, the build progresses quite quickly. At this point the base has been rotated around as well. At the back we can see a low wall has been built. Note the two hinge pieces - a secret wall will later attach onto these. The main doors have been added. At the back the prison is being built. The first of two LURPs has been put in place. Here is the secret wall/entrance. It is eventually pretty well hidden/integrated with the fortress. From a different angle, the second LURP is added - this one will host a large tree. Here is the current view of the back/side of the fortress, we can see that the staircase has been added. Everything has been built up some more, many large arches have been added. At the back some red roofing has been put in place. Back/side view again, showing the distinct red roof that is used throughout the dragon knights theme. A treasure chest is filled with some rubies and emeralds. This fits in nicely at the base of either LURP. The dragon can fit nicely in the pit and protect the treasure. The trap door at the top of the fortress is built. It is simply built out of a couple technic beams, a plate, and some pins, but it works very well. The rest of the roof plates are added, as are the turret pieces. There is a lot of floor place on this level. Here is another view of the roof, this time the supports for the tower have been placed. Tucked away in there is a small fireplace. The tower is a sub model that is then placed accordingly. The lower black round 1x1 is the top of a chimney, while the top one will soon hold a flag pole. The fortress at this point. It's looking great and is just about done. Note the finished tree. The dragon head is yet another sub model. More on how this works later. The dragon head attaches thanks to a technic beam. This allows the head to pivot. Completed fortress Alt. views 1 (front and right side) Alt. views 2 (back and left side) Complete set. Doesn't it look nice? Play features and other details Here we have the secret entrance all closed up. The entire wall piece can be pulled down to allow entrance or exit from the fortress. Around at the back of the fortress is the prison. In this case the sneaky wolfpack figure can be locked up. The cell is pretty cramped, but one can't really expect a medieval prison to be very comfy. There is an entire brick built bar underneath the trap door that normally keeps it up and flush with the rest of the second story. Pull the bar back and the giant trap door drops. You could drop an entire army or guys through this thing! Down to the dragon below! Here is a video of the trap door in action: The dragon head is filled with four grey 1x1 bricks that are sitting on the tongue. There is a spear that runs through the side of the dragons head that keeps the tongue level and in place. When you pull the spear our, the tongue can then drop down and released the "boulders" upon unsuspecting intruders. Here's another video: Majisto can stand up in his tower and cast spells on those below. There is no ladder up to the tower, but we all know ladders are a rarity among Lego structures. Besides, Majisto is a wizard, he can just used magic to get up there. There are many clips spread around that can be used to hold weapons. Note again all the lovely floor space on the second level (and that ridiculously huge - but very well hidden trap door) On the way up the stairs is a hook to hang whatever you want... such as a bow and arrow. Final Thoughts Design/Build: This certainly is not your generic looking, boring castle. In fact, this fortress is quite unlike any other Lego castle. The fortress has some good height to it and despite its relatively small size seems pretty imposing. While I say relatively small size, this is in comparison to say the Royal Knights Castle, or most modern castles. I must admit though that the fortress is larger in person than I thought it would be after all of these years of seeing it in pictures. It's quite attractive looking from just about any angle and has a nice organic feel to it. The red roofs contrast nicely. Though there is a lack of a ladder to the top tower, the rest of the set is logically laid out and makes for a good defensive fort. The build is a lot of fun and takes longer than modern sets of similar pieces counts. This extended build time is due not only to how the instructions are laid out, but the design of the castle is deceptively complex. A complete lack of any sort of repetition makes this an utter joy to assemble! Pieces: Though the piece count is relatively low for this being the largest set in a theme, this is still a wonderful castle parts kit. At first glance it appears that the castle is made up of only large parts, but there are in fact loads of regular bricks and blocks used throughout. There are not a lot of printed parts, but the ones that are included look great. There are no stickers. The fortress could benefit from an additional minifigure, but the current 6 is respectable considering the size of the set and the piece count. The included minifigures look great and the dragon is very cool. Playability: Wow, a castle that doesn't have a single catapult! That's right, the playability comes from a secret wall, a boulder launching dragon head, and a massive trap door! The dragon head and trap door are actually very satisfying (the dragon head is a bit fiddly to reload) In addition to these, there are plenty of other details and things to keep you busy. Top marks! Verdict: This set is often overlooked and referred to as the castle that was "the beginning of the end" in terms of quality castle designs (even though Royal Knights Castle, one of the finest castles ever made, as well as Fright Knights which really were pretty good came afterwards) but this fortress is actually really neat. I've been wanting to get my hands on this set for nearly 18 years and I'm not disappointed at all - the set is far better than I thought it would be. The design is very unique and the set offers loads of playability - the best of both worlds for any Lego fan. As always, comments and questions are more than welcome. Cheers!

Seems like there should be plenty of room in the model to fit the mechanisms for pop-out guns, ejector seat, and other gadgets. It'll be interesting to see just how many functions they incorporate from Goldfinger: -Rotating license plates, smoke screen and oil slick seems unlikely (but maybe they would still have the rear lights flip up?), shredders that pop out of the hubcaps, fold down front grill to reveal machine guns, armor plate that rises to protect rear windshield, ejector seat.

A micro-scale Hogwarts makes sense. For the past couple of months, I've been trying to figure out what the D2C Hogwarts set would be like: -With the Great Hall and Womping Willow, we've already got some big pieces of the castle. So would the D2C set contain other sections of the castle, so that you could combine multiple sets together? In that case, it would seem pretty weird to sell a big D2C Hogwarts set that was not only incomplete, but missing some of the most iconic sections of the castle. -But what about making it so that the D2C set contained the entirety of the castle? Then you'd have duplication between the smaller sets (Great Hall, Willow) and the big D2C set. And in trying to cram the whole castle into one set, you'd end up with each individual section of it being less detailed. There's no way they'd be able to replicate all of the castle in one big set, yet have the great hall portion of it be as detailed as the stand alone version of that. -So unless the D2C set were $1000+, there's no way that TLG would be able to release a set that wasn't compromised in one way or another. Enter the possibility of a micro-scale D2C Hogwarts set. You would get a highly detailed, and complete version of the castle, without it costing a fortune. Plus you wouldn't have to worry about releasing a giant set that is incomplete, or that has duplicate pieces of stand-alone sets. If things go to plan, TLG can keep releasing sets (Chamber of Secrets, Clock Tower, etc etc) in the scale of the Great Hall and Womping Willow. This can go on for however long they want, and the Hogwarts castle will keep expanding and expanding. I don't see how this is anything but a win-win situation. Was I surprised by this news this morning? Yes! Was I disappointed even for a second? Yes! But when I stopped to think about it, a micro-scale version of Hogwarts makes sense. Boohoo, it comes with nano-figs instead of minifigs! Come on people, you can get minifigs in the other sets (Oh, and there's even a whole line of CMFs)! Let's wait until we get official pictures of the set before we start making final judgment.

Epic review! Nicely done. I was super excited about this set, and picked it up first thing on the day of its release. It took me about 11 hours to build, at a leisurely pace. I found it to be a fairly enjoyable building process. Overall I love this set. It looks great, and it's a lot of fun to play around with. I do have one problem with its functionality. Using the brake/wheel, it's really hard to get the train around the corner, down the little drop, and to the base of the hill climb. If I turn the knob in the intended way (in a circular motion, counter-clockwise), the wheel will push the train out of the station, but then the train will usually come to a halt before reaching the drop. If I'm lucky, it will make it around the corner, down the drop, but then not have enough momentum to engage with the chain-lift. It doesn't matter how quickly I make that wheel spin, it doesn't give the train enough speed to get to the lift. Luckily, while watching Jang's review of the set, I noticed his technique for releasing the train from the station. If you set up the crank at around the 9 o'clock position, then violently thrust it downwards (still counter-clockwise) to the 6 o'clock position, you'll get the most propulsion. Basically do those short, 45 degree thrusts, three times (once for each section of the train), and it will reliably make it to the chain-lift (and catch it, allowing it to go up the hill). I've noticed a lot of video reviews not showing their trains failing to make it from the station to the hill-climb. They'll cut from a close-up of the train being propelled out of the station, to a close-up at a different angle on the train going up the chain-lift. It would be nice if more people would acknowledge this problem, and help provide fixes.

Back in around 2004 I got the UCS Imperial Star Destroyer. It arrived at my house in its shipping box. As I was carrying the box (which was very large and weighed around 20 or so pounds) down to my basement to build the set, I slipped and missed the second flight of stairs. It was a hard fall, and I sacrificed my body to protect the Lego box. I broke a couple of toes (which later turned a disgusting black colour), but I was still so excited to build the set that I didn't mind my injury too much. Another story (I think this one was at the end of 2009): I built the Taj Mahal while I had a broken arm and shoulder. So I had to assemble everything using only one hand. I had to come up with a lot of creative ways to neatly stack all of those 1x1s! Took two full 12 hour days of building to complete. That was a pretty great Christmas...

For those wondering about surface area for the feet/landing gear: you'll want something that's 13" wide x 18" long. The rest of the Falcon will of course overhang a lot, but the feet will all fit within those dimensions. My story: I got to my local Lego store about 3 hours before opening on the 14th. At that point I was 5th in line. The store had 12 copies for sale. I talked to a lot of people in line, and everyone seemed liked genuine Lego fans who were going to build the set (as opposed to selling it). It took me approximately 18 hours to build the Falcon. About 12 hours of building on the 14th, and then finished the rest the following day. I like to make sure everything is perfect when I'm building, so it could definitely be assembled an hour or so quicker. Any faster than that, and I would say people aren't accurately keeping track of time (...or they're ridiculously fast). I was surprised that there is a large section that is currently empty, and could be used to add in another interior room. For now I'm storing the FA dish/accessories and extra blasters in that space. After having it assembled for a couple of days, I spent this morning modifying it a bit. Swapping out dark grey for light grey on the mandibles (taking pieces from the undersides of them and swapping them with the parts on top), filling in small gaps here and there, and doing other minor cosmetic changes to make it more like the OT Falcon. Pretty simple changes that are mostly personal preferences as opposed to flaws with the set. Overall I'm super happy with the set. It looks amazing!

((INDEXED)) The world had only just gotten a taste of what the Star Wars ultimate collectors series had to offer. Then in 2002, the Lego company released the largest and most expensive set ever at the time. With over 3000 pieces, the Imperial Star Destroyer not only helped pioneer the greebling technique, but it also redefined what was possible as a consumer product. The Star Destroyer is one of the most iconic ships in the Star Wars universe, and this UCS set is certainly one of the most impressive Lego sets ever too. Info Set# - 10030 Name - Imperial Star Destroyer Theme/Subtheme - Star Wars/Ultimate Collectors Series Year - 2002 Piece Count - 3104 Minifigures - 0 Price - MSRP $300 US Links Brickset, Peeron, Bricklink, Brickshelf Instructions When you're building a monster of a set, you're going to need a gigantic instruction manual as well. Here we can see the front of this beast - it features the same picture as on the front of the box. The manual measures an incredible 17 inches long and contains 225 pages! The back of the manual features close ups of a handful of notable details including the deflector shield domes, turbo laser turrets, the engines (both main and emergency), sensor arrays, and ion cannons: Here is a random page from within the manual. Thanks to the Lego instruction gods, there are piece call-outs for every step. There can be anywhere from 4 to 50+ pieces used in each step, so there is always plenty to do and progressing through the manual is very slow. Colour differentiation, as to be expected from most manuals from the past decade, is poor. It can be a pain to distinguish between black and dark gray, and many of the same pieces come in multiple colours. Unfortunately, there are also a good half dozen or so mistakes to be found in the instructions. These mistakes can range from the wrong quantity of parts in the piece call-outs, to parts not being placed in the proper spot and there being inconsistencies between steps: Pieces The Star Destroyer is physically a very large ship, so to be expected, many of the parts are also massive. Unsurprisingly, there are also large quantities of these massive parts. For example, at the top left of the picture, there are two piles of 6x16 plates that are stacked fifteen high (for a total of 30!) There is a whole range of different sized large plates in this set, and you get a whopping amount of all of them: Here we have many more large parts, as well as some medium sized ones too. At the top left is the makings for the engines of the ship, the wheels are of the giant variety - the largest of that style offered by TLC. There are plenty of technic beams used in this set, as they are needed to make solid framework. At the top right, I have stacked the gray 1x16 long technic beams five high, and there are thirteen piles of them (note: one stack is six high. There are a total of 66 of these beams!) Many smaller beams, plates, and wings are also present: Here we have another display of varied pieces. There are many small plates and tiles, axles and pins, bricks and hinged bricks, bricks with pins, slopped bricks, panels, and even 28 magnets. There are many colourful pieces here, but they will be used inside the ship were they won't be seen when it's done. These coloured parts make construction flow better as they are easy to find and place: Greebles! To quote The Lego Book - "This model pioneered the use of tiny LEGO elements known as "greebles" to create intricate detail". Sure greebling had been used prior to the ISD, but TLC really went to town using the technique on this set. The greebling technique has since been used on just about every other UCS set, and has even found its way into many system scale sets. However, I don't think any other Lego set (not even the UCS Falcon) can match the sheer amount of greebles that are present on the Star Destroyer: Oddly enough, though all the rest of the grays found in the set are of the old variety, two of the four brackets in my kit were the new dark bley. I can only assume this is because I purchased my copy of the Star Destroyer from S@H after the shift to the new grays in production and so a pair of pieces in this new colour snuck into my set. Old dark gray on the left, new dark bley on the right: The Build Now the real fun can begin - construction of the massive ship. As the ship is going to be ridiculously big, you're of course going to want a good solid frame for starters. You begin by building a T shape which will be at the rear of the ship, this is made up of long technic beams that are sandwiched between plates, and then there are pins here and there which will be used for various purposes later on: Work on the frame continues much in the same way. You continue to add technic beams, plates, and pins. It does not take long to realize that you're going to need a very large work area, as the ship is going to be huge: This is how a completed frame looks. Note the many blue half technic pins around the edge of the frame - greeble covered plates will soon be attached to these pins. A number of magnets are added along the center of the frame, these will later be used to hold massive panels in place: Unfortunately, once you have completed the frame, you will encounter a 2x - meaning it's time to build a second frame. However, at this time you are also asked to assemble 16 greeble covered plates. Each of these plates is 10 studs long, and will be covered with 9 pieces. Even more unfortunate is that the 2x mentioned earlier also applies to the greeble covered plates, meaning you'll have to make a total of 32 of these! Instead of doing the greebles in two separate batches as per following the instructions, I tackled the greeble madness all at once. To make this process easier, I lines up the 1x10 plates on a handful of 2x16 plates and then proceeded to add the greebling. Using this method made keeping track of the proper amount of parts much easier. Note the missing goblet towards the right on the picture, this piece was found and added much later: Once you're done with the greeble madness, they can be attached to the frame. Before you know it, you'll have two identical frames like the one here: At this point we can make the feet which act as the stand for the model. Here is a walk-through of how a foot is made. Four of these feet must be made: One frame is inverted, while the other remains right-side up and then these are placed directly over one another. With the two frames on top of each other, they are secured together using 10 small block submodels, and the feet can be attached to a pair of short stands: Here we have a front view of how the models looks thus far. With two frames attached together into one, we now have a very solid inner structure for the ship: Here is an overhead view to give you a better sense of where the feet are placed, as well as the location of the 10 small blocks that are used to secure the two frames together. At this point the whole structure is very nose heavy, but if you're quite lucky it will stand up straight and not fall forward: Support is added for the super structure which will be added much later. Also note that additional magnets have been added to the bottom frame: It's time to work on the rear of the ship, and to add engines. First, 4 of these wedge shaped submodels must be built: Next, 4 panels with emergency engines are built: These 8 panels are attached to the rear of the ship as seen here: Here is a walk-through for the construction of one of the main engines. 3 of these engines must be built: The engines can be attached to the jumper plates, and the 2x3 plates at the rear of the ship. The extra weight from these engines helps to keep the whole models much more balanced on its feet at this point: Now it's time to clear an even larger workspace, and to make sure that your thumbs are ready to press lots and lots of plates together. We can now build one of the large panels which will be attached to the bottom of the ship. During this process, you butt-up large plates next to one another, and then use smaller plates to secure everything together. The length of the panel grows quite quickly, and it is satisfying to see such large results: At this point we flip the panel over to add pins on which a rear wing will later be attached, and we also add re-enforcements in the form of more plates: Reinforcements are added along the length of the bottom of the panel, as are magnets too: Here is the rear wing which I spoke of above. This is attached to the panel: Flipping everything over, we can see how this bottom panel looks now that it is complete: Carefully line up the magnets at the bottom/rear of the ship: Line up the magnets at the midsection and front of the ship as well: Plates with holes are used to secure the panel to the edges of the frame: It can be a pain to attach the panel to the frame, but once you do, this is how things look: A different view of the panel attached: You now must assemble a second panel which will be attached to the bottom of the ship. This second panel is identical to the first, save that it is mirrored. Once it it complete, the panel is attached to the frame the same way as the first: Again, an alternate view of the panels attached. Note the hole around 2/3rds up the ship - the mini Tantive IV which will be built at the end can fit in the makeshift hanger bay: Now we build one of the top panels for the ship. This is done in basically the same way as the bottom panels, but the shape is slightly different, and some of the parts used are different too (such as the large plates with the smooth sections at their center). We can also see the 4 turntables where the heavy turbo lasers will soon be attached. As before, the whole panels is flipped over to add reinforcements and pins for the rear wing section to be added. We also build the tip of the panel, and attach it as shown: Here is the construction of a heavy turbolaser. You have to make 4 of these: The heavy turbolasers are attached to the turntables. Though simple, these lasers look pretty good on the ship. In the Star Wars universe, one of these lasers measures 50 meters in diameter! Around half-way along the panel, a few other details are added as well, such as a defense turret: The first top panel is now finished: These panels are really long! Each one measures in at a length of 37 inches: The panel is attached to the ship in the same way that the bottom ones were. This is a tricky process, but you are greatly rewarded when you see the shape of the ship really coming along: Opposite angle: Here is a closer view of the interior of the ship at this point. People often ask if there is any sort of exciting interior to the ship - that's it, lots of frame work and magnets: You then build a second panel and attach it to the top of the ship. Looking straight on, the ship has a rather small profile, giving a false impression as to the overall size of the Star Destroyer: At a just slightly higher angle, you start to realize that the ship might actually be huge... Yep, the ship is big alright. This overhead shot almost does its size justice: Straight on rear reveals a nice view of the powerful engines: A slightly higher angle: And now just about an overhead shot, but this time from the rear: The side shot gives you a good idea of the shape of the ship, and it's length. Remember, this ship is more than 3 feet long! This hole will soon be covered over with the super structure. Should you ever want to move the Star Destroyer around, you can grab hold of the group of beams running along the center of the ship and lift it from there. Of course the ship is fairly awkward to move around because of its size, but at least it will hold together fine while carrying it from this point:

The Aquanauts must harvest the all-important hydrolator crystals to power their deep sea base - the Neptune Discovery Lab, as well as their subs, or risk being annihilated by the fearsome Aquasharks. What will be the outcome? I've waited fifteen years to get this set. Now that I have a MISB copy, what do I think of it? Info Set # - 6195 Name - Neptune Discovery Lab Theme/Subtheme - Aquazone/Aquanauts Year - 1995 Piece Count - 495 Minifigures - 4 Price - MSRP $89 US Links Brickset, Peeron, Bricklink, Brickshelf Box The front of the box shows the Aquanauts hard at work in their base. This is set against a lovely deep sea background. At the top right we can see the Aquanauts logo: The back of the box features a handful of alternate models. Since this is a large-ish set, some of the alternate models are quite elaborate: By lifting the front flap of the box, we can see close-ups of some of the different parts of the base. We are also presented with a story to set the mood - "Explore the ocean depths as you, the LEGO MANIAC, team up with the Aquanauts in search of the precious Hydrolator crystal that provides oxygen for the underwater world. But be on the lookout for Aquasharks! They will stop at nothing to take all the Hydrolator crystals for themselves!" Below this flap are some clear plastic windows to allow you to see some of the contents of the set. Some interesting parts are displayed in a plastic tray at the center: Instructions The front of the instruction manual features the same picture as seen on the box, however the additional info is missing: The back of the manual features some close-up pics of various set functions. At the top right is a little tab that would have been cut off and sent in as part of a LEGO Magazine subscription request: Here is a random page within the manual. There are no piece call-outs, so you'll have to pay close attention to where parts are added during each step. There are several sub-models that are put together during the course of the entire build. Colour differentiation is perfect: Pieces The majority of the pieces are found within these 9 bags: These are some of the other parts that were loose within the box: There is also two large raise baseplates. Though this style of baseplate does appear in other sets, this is the only one to feature this underwater pattern: Here are the contents of four of the bags. These are the large and medium sized parts: This is the contents of another four of the bags. These are mostly the smaller parts: The last bag contains some of the largest parts, including the door frame arches that the trans-blue doors will eventually be attached to: Remember the plastic display tray that was shown off in the box? Here is a close up of its contents: Onto the parts of interest. The set includes a large number of trans-blue windshields, canopies, and panels of different sizes. The large trans-blue hinged doors are exclusive to this set. There is a large quantity of the yellow octagonal bricks, which come in 5 varieties here. There is one yellow corner panel wall piece that is only found in this set and Eldorado Fortress. The large yellow octagonal cockpit is a rare piece, and can only be found in yellow here. The crane bucket assembly has not been used much in modern times, and this is the only set that the piece appears in a colour other than yellow: There are not stickers in this set, instead we get these lovely printed parts. A number of these can only be found within the Aquazone theme. Note: There should be two of the yellow computer slopes here but I had not discovered the second one when I took this picture: Here are some of the accessories. We get lots of good old fashioned chrome harpoons and knives, 3 chrome crystals, a working compass, and 3 magnets: Minifigures We are provided with four Aquanauts to populate the base. They all feature lovely printed torsos, complete with the Aquanauts logo on their chests. The head with the headband print can only be found in around 8 sets, while the head with the green sunglasses is exclusive to the Aquanauts subtheme. There is no printing at the rear, so all the minifigures look like clones : Here is the team with some of their gear on. There are two types of visors - the trans-blue ones, and the black ones. There are enough flippers for the four minifigures, though I've only given them to two of figs at the moment. At the back, their equipment features clips that accessories such as knives of harpoons can be attached to. It would be easy to overlook these guys when compared to say the flashy new figures in the Atlantis theme, but upon closer inspection the Aquanauts are actually nicely detailed and suit the subtheme perfectly: As far as sea creatures go, there is one black octopus. This guy is quite compatible with other LEGO parts: The Build We start things out by assembling the sub. The base of the sub is designed to fit nicely on a landing pad that will be constructed later on. Note the trans-orange headlight brick, this will be used in one of the play features: The sub is built up some more. A cockpit complete with a computer is added, and arms are attached. The 3x3 black slopes are used to create a storage area for crystals that can later easily be access by the crane bucket (the rear two slopes are actually in the wrong place here and need to be place back one more stud): The arms received attachments in the form of a pincher hand, and magnet. A hinged hatch is placed over the storage area at the rear of the stub, and some accessories are clipped into place: With the front canopy, hinged panels mid-ship, propeller and compass, and other details added, the sub is now complete: Here are some extra views of the sub. It is not the biggest vehicle in the theme, but considering it is just a support vessel for the base, the sub is pretty well designed. With only one propeller, the sub seems underpowered, however one could imagine that the octagonal pontoon bricks are water jets to help with propulsion: Construction of the base structure can now begin. We place the two base-plates side by side and add some supports at the rear. The long slopes at the center of the image will later be part of a play feature: We rotate the base around and build up the main structure a bit more. The interior of the base is equipped with a computer, and the modified 1x2 plates with handles will be used for attaching flippers to. Some black plates are clipped onto the bottom of the yellow gate and block the slopes mentioned with the previous pic. As part of a play feature, crystals will eventually make their way down into the hole where the slopes are. When the yellow gate is raised, the crystals will come sliding out: At the left of the image is the beginning of the landing pad for the sub. At the top right is support for the soon-to-be-added conveyor belt: Here is a close up of the conveyor belt sub-model. The chain is driven by rotating the round 2x2 brick at the rear: The conveyor belt is now in place. We can also see tiles angled to create a chute to guide crystals that fall off the belt down to holding area mentioned earlier. At the opposite end is a small area to place a crystal box that can also be filled using the conveyor belt: At the front of the base a small fueling station is added. This will be used as another play feature (more on this later): Supports for a small secondary control tower are put in place (bottom right). We can also see that the main base structure has been built up more, and a hatch has recently been placed: The base is really taking shape now. Looking at the left of the picture, the landing pad for the sub is now complete. The large arched door frames are put in place, as is the octagonal cockpit piece that makes up much of the control tower: This is how the base currently looks from the back. We can see the knob that is used to operate the conveyor belt, a second hatch leading into the main structure, and above that a little control station: The large trans-blue panels have just been added. I quite like that the designers of the set made the effort to make the base somewhat water tight. Just up from where the flippers are attached, we have a better view of the control station that is perhaps used to operate the conveyor belt or the soon-to-be-added crane: Around at the front of the base, the lovely large trans-blue doors are added. Above theses, a turntable for the crane is placed: Here is a close up of the sub model for part of the crane. When the octagonal cones are rotated, the boom of the crane is raised or lowered: The extension on the boom is added, and is finished off with the bucket. The bucket features a spring that makes it snap shut after it is opened and has picked up its load: With the crane finished, trans-blue octagonal canopy added to the control tower, and some coral placed, the base is now complete. The two baseplates take up a fair amount of real estate, and though none of structures are incredibly large, it still feels like the space has been well used. As you can see, the main structure only takes up the rear/middle portion of the base, however the supporting landing pad, control tower, or fueling station give the set a complete look: Leftover pieces. Nothing terribly exciting: Play Features Here is a video of the crane and conveyor belt feature: First the rear of the sub must be opened. The crane can be used to grab the crystals from the storage area and then drop them on the conveyor belt. Operating the belt in one direction drops the crystal into a container which can then be sent off for use elsewhere. Have the conveyor belt operate in the opposite direction and the crystal gets sent into the base to have its powers extracted and then disposed of down the chute. Open the doors and raise the gate to let the used crystal tumble out. At the front/center of the base is the fueling station. The octagonal trans-blue canopy is hinged allowing the placement of a crystal box. Attached to this is a hose and nozzle. Remember the trans-orange headlight brick on the sub? Power from the crystal contained in the trans-orange box can be transferred through the hose and into the sub via that headlight brick: The cockpit on the sub can be opened revealing the controls and allowing the placement of a minifgure: Climb the ladder and open the canopy to gain access to the control tower. Inside is a computer tile, clips for accessories, and plenty of room for a minifigure: The large front doors on the base are on hinges, allowing you to swing them open and get inside the structure: Around at the side of the main structure is a hatch. Use the control panel to open the hatch and get inside the base or go out to the sub: At the back of the base is another hatch which can be opened or closed: Complete Set Here we have all of the contents of the set displayed together. The sub is resting on its landing pad, and the Aquanauts are hard at work collecting crystals. The set has a very strong presence and looks incredible: Final Thoughts Pricing and Value: Unfortunately, many form their opinion of whether a set is good value or not based solely on the price to parts ratio, and at $89 US for 495 pieces this set would seem horrible. Luckily this set has some incredible parts, and the finished product is truly magnificent. I was incredibly lucky and managed to get a MISB copy of this set off of Bricklink for $90 US +S&H. This means that thanks to the current strength of the Canadian dollar, I paid less for this set than I would have fifteen years ago! However, Neptune Discovery Lab is a set that I would have gladly paid much more for - it's that good. Design/Build: This is a magnificent looking set. As mentioned earlier, it has a very strong presence - this is due to its sheer size, very cool design, and eye catching colour scheme. The set works perfectly as an underwater base, but it wouldn't seem out of place in a Space theme either. This is not a bad thing at all, it's simply a testament to the high tech look of the set. The abundance of trans-blue looks fantastic against the large amount of yellow with supporting black. The trans-orange details finish things off perfectly to create the beautiful colour scheme. The sub is sturdy and perfect for swooshing. It is nicely detailed, though I could have perhaps used a couple more props (again, one could imagine that some of the other parts are in fact jets). Construction of the base is a lot of fun as you adds parts here and there to build up the various structures. It's especially neat to see some of the play functions such as the conveyor belt come together. Pieces: Included are 495 fantastic pieces. Of these, the large trans-blue doors, baseplates, and crane bucket stand out the most. There are no stickers in the set, instead you get a wide variety of ever loved printed parts. There is a very large quantity of those yellow octagonal pontoon like bricks, but there is also plenty of more common parts such around round 1x1 bricks, and 1x2 bricks etc. The overall selection is incredibly varied and provides great MOC potential. Playability: It took me longer than anticipated to write this review because I found myself constantly playing with the set. The set provides endless fun thanks to both simple features such as opening hatches, or to more complex functions such as the working crane and conveyor belt. The sub is great for swooshing around and features a magnet arm for picking up those crystal container boxes. Verdict: I've wanted this set for fifteen years, and even though I thought I knew everything there was to know about the set, there will still so much new to discover and I was ultimately still blown away. Though this may have been the first underwater base to have been made by TLC, it may very well still be the best. 6195 Neptune Discovery Lab has everything going for it - the set looks brilliant on display, and there is an unbelievable amount of playability to be had. As always, comments and questions are more than welcome. Cheers!

I can confirm that the castle is 29" tall. If the height measurements in official Lego descriptions are correct, then Orthanc is 28" and Big Ben is 23".

Yes, I like to get all the moulded LEGO prints on the top of the studs facing the same way whenever possible. It has become a habit over the years for whatever reason (I guess mainly because I keep my sets built and on display for a long time, so I like them to look as good as I can). Also, I forgot to mention that I came across an error in the instruction manual while building. On page 360 (step #558), there are two white plates added that don't show up in the part call-out until the next step. Nothing major, but it caused me to do a double-take while building.

Took about 8-9 hours to build, at a leisurely pace. I like to savour the construction of a big set, but I'm also a perfectionist in that I like to get the LEGO print on the studs facing the same way, hide injection marks on pieces, and square up 1x1 tiles. Going back to the Ghostbusters HQ, the castle was a more challenging build. In the grand scheme of things though, this would be a medium difficulty. It could be easy to miss adding details here and there, and some sub assemblies can be a bit fiddly. Anyone newer to building Lego kits may have difficulty figuring out how certain pieces and assemblies are suppose to go together. Mainly there are hundreds of smaller pieces that could quickly and sloppily be added. Things will be crooked, but it won't affect stability. A lot of precision is required though if you want everything to look nice and tidy.

My images don't do a good job of showing it, but the castle is exactly twice the height of the Ghostbusters HQ.

Got my copy yesterday, just a couple minutes after my local Lego Store opened. They sold around a dozen or so more castles while I was in line for the checkout. I don't think I've ever seen a set fly off shelves like this; and it's especially impressive considering the price of this one. This was one of the most enjoyable large builds I've ever done. There was a lot of repetition of small things, but since each one didn't use very many pieces, I didn't mind. There were however many instances where I wanted to high-five Marcos Bessa and the design team, because very creative and satisfying building techniques were used. I found myself saying "Wow, this looks awesome!", many times during the build. While the Ghostbusters HQ feels a bit small considering it has 4600 pieces (mostly due to the double thick walls), this castle despite having 600 fewer pieces looks far more impressive (which is no small feat, as the GB HQ is massive and looks great). Minifigures shouldn't be a deciding factor when you have a castle that looks this great. It will be frustrating when I put this up on a shelf to display it, as I'll constantly want to take it off again so that I can poke around with the detailed interior. Luckily the castle can conveniently split apart into 3 sections (the main floor/mains walls, the 2-4th floor the tower), making it easier to transport. A note about the big grey front walls: these are built up of A LOT of pieces and have quite an involved build. Sure the big panel pieces could have been made up of individual bricks, but then the cost would likely go up even more. I never felt like big pieces were being over-used in this set; most of its size comes from the use of regular bricks. I'm super happy that this set exists. I'm really impressive with it. Love it!

The Aquanauts are in search of precious deep sea crystals. Using their Crystal Explorer Sub, will they find what they seek? Or will they have a date with a menacing octopus? Join as we go deep sea exploring where no man has gone before with this fantastic submarine! Info Set # - 6175 Name - Crystal Explorer Sub Theme/Subtheme - Aquazone/Aquanauts Year - 1995 Piece Count - 160 Minifigures - 2 Price - MRSP $33 US Links Brickset, Peeron, Bricklink, Brickshelf Instructions The front of the instruction manual features a lovely scene set in the deep sea. The yellow sub stands out nicely from the calming blue of the water: At the rear of the manual we find the last step of the instructions. There are no piece call-outs in the booklet, so one must pay close attention for newly added parts every step. Colour differentiation however is perfect: Pieces The set includes 160 pieces. They are mostly yellow, however there is also some black, some trans-orange details, and trans-blue windshields and hatches of various sizes. All the pieces provided are nice and useful: Here is a close up of some of the more exciting pieces. The trans-blue pieces are wonderful, and many of them feature hinges so that they can actually be opened when attached! Handy! The set does not have any stickers, instead we are treated to some lovely printed pieces. We are also provided with a handful of nifty accessories such as a compasse, flippers, crystals, and weapons: Included in this model, but no longer found in modern sets are two yellow 2x4x2 bricks with holes on either side. These pieces were used in 19 sets between 1992 and 1999 and were of course useful for performing the SNOT technique. In this case, some black pontoon pieces will later be attached to them along the side of the sub: The set also included a large number of these little arm pieces with finger hinges. Unfortunately, this is evidence as to why TLC moved away from finger hinges in recent years - a lot of stress was put on them and they were prone to breaking after long time use: Minifigures Two brave minifgures are provided to man the sub. They feature wonderful printing on both their heads and torsos. There is nothing to be seen at the rear as back printing was not yet used. Despite these being the first aquatic themed minifigures produced, their design still holds up nicely today: Here are our diver friends with their gear on. The Aquanauts had both trans-blue and black headgear. The back of their equipment featured clips that weapons or other accessories could be attached to: Also included is a black octopus. It is quite compatible with other LEGO parts: The Build Construction begins on the large black 6x16 plate. This provides a strong base for the sub: When the cockpit is added, it is also enhanced with a computer and steering wheels to control the various functions of the sub: A pair of long hexagonal pontoons are attached to the bottom of the sub. This allows the vehicle to be pushed smoothly over different surfaces when playing with it: Two arms are assembled using the little finger hinge pieces. One is host to a pincher hand, the other to a magnet: The sub is really taking shape at this point. Most recently a trio of propellers have been attached at the rear of the vessel: Here is an example of one of the sub-models put together during the course of the build. This is to be the front cockpit: With the sub watertight, it is now complete. Some other trans-orange antennas, as well as the compass top things off: From the back of the sub we have a better view of the housings for the propellers. The overall shape of the sub is not very sleek, instead it is actually quite bulbous - however this suits it fine as an aquatic vehicle: I really like all the window pieces used to create the cockpit. Not only do they look really neat, but they would also provide excellent visibility for the crew. Here are a handful of close-ups from various angles for us to appreciate all the trans-blue goodness and provide a better understanding of the shape of the sub: Play Features The hatch at the back of the sub can be opened. This allows plenty of space for the crystal container to be stored: The two panels mid-ship can be opened revealing another large storage area. This is perfect for placing additional crystals or gear: Just above the panels is a little control station. This is there presumably so that the divers can manually open the various hatches while working outside of the sub. There are also clips on both sides of the sub for harpoons and flippers to be attached to: The front of the sub can be opened up for access to the cockpit. The construction of these front windshields allows them to be folded very far back which gives lots of clearance and allows easy placement of the figures. The two provided minifigures can fit in no problem as there is plenty of room: The two arms are flexible and can be posed in many different positions. They can also be used for picking up objects such as the crystals, or latching onto the magnetic containers: Complete Set Here are all the contents of the set ready for action. The corral is a welcome addition to complete the underwater scene: Final Thoughts Pricing and value: At $33 US for 160 pieces, this indeed has a relatively poor parts to price ratio. Overall value does not seem as bad though when you consider the fantastic parts, and of course the final product which is in fact a respectable sized sub. Design/Build: This set has a lot stronger submarine vibes compared to many other Aquazone vehicles which could easily pass as space ships. Construction is straight forward and non-repetitive. Plenty of hinged parts and cockpits are a treat in comparison to many recent sets which feature static windshields. Pieces: The parts here are particularly useful provided you want to build other aquatic vehicles or else space ships. The many large trans-blue windshields are beautiful. The printed pieces are fantastic and exclusive to only a few sets. The two minifigures are standard Aquanauts, however they are still nicely detailed and hold up well even compared to newer generations of deep see explorers. Playability: It's a blast to recreate underwater adventures. Will the Aquanauts find the crystals or will the octopus get them first? The sub is built strong and lends itself well to swooshing around. There are plenty of hatches and compartments to open and play with. The arms are great for collecting those crystals, and the propellers are fun to blow on to get spinning. Overall there is a lot of play potential here. Verdict: 6175 Crystal Explorer Sub is one of those definitive aquatic sets. It has a classic sub design and appealing colour scheme. It looks great on display either by itself or with other sets in the theme and it's also a great deal of fun to play with. As always, comments and questions are more than welcome. Cheers! Who do you think gave birth to the Atlantis Squid Warrior!? That's right - ME!

Nice review! I picked up this set the morning that it was released and spent around 8 hours building it at a leisurely pace. As I assembled each section of the cave, I began to realize that this set was going to be massive. While many people are complaining about the price of the set, or that it has a poor price-per-piece ratio, when I saw the completed set in front of me I couldn't help but be impressed. Next to the recent modular buildings, the Batcave is significantly larger. Sure I would have liked to have paid less for the set, but I don't feel it's horrible value when compared to other Lego offerings. The set looks fairly ugly in pictures, but quite a lot better in person. The large 16x16 dark tan plate between Wayne Manor and the bottom of the batpoles is still very ugly, as are the exposed beams at the sides of the structures. Otherwise everything else looks really good, and pretty detailed. The bright colours of the minifigues, the vehicles, and other details help to distract ones eyes from the uglier portions of the model. I agree that the set is in a bit of a weird place - it isn't the most amazing looking thing ever, and it isn't the most highly playable kit either. I wouldn't say that it downright fails as either a display piece or a play set though. The recent UCS Helicarrier didn't have the good looks of most UCS Stars Wars models, nor did it have much in terms of play features. I don't think a model needs to be categorized as a display model or play-set and excel at one or the other to be a good Lego set. In the case of the Batcave, I think all the contents of the kit add up to make something special. I'm very happy with my purchase! (I do wish that there was a can of Shark repellant Bat-spray, and the actual Bat Computer) BTW, the Batcopter did show up a handful of times in the TV series. I've been re-watching the whole '66 series and I'm halfway through the 3rd season. The Batcopter showed up a couple times either near the end of the second season, or at the start of the third.

Castle fans are always craving more civilian based sets (and rightly so!), and the summer wave of the Kingdoms line satisfies. More than a quarter of a century after TLC released the well loved 6040 Blacksmith Shop and 6041 Armor Shop, we finally receive the Blacksmith Attack! Info Set # - 6918 Name - Blacksmith Attack Theme/Subtheme - Castle/Kingdoms Year - 2011 Piece Count - 104 Minifigures - 2 Price - MSRP $10US, $13CAD Links Brickset, Peeron, Bricklink, Brickshelf Box On the front of the box is a colourful picture displaying the set, all of its contents, and the battle-to-be... once the Dragon knight makes his way across the tiny river. The back of the box has a different angle of the set, and it also demonstrates the play feature - by turning the water wheel the hammer works its magic! As is becoming a popular trend, instead of having one of the minifigures to scale, an accessory - in this case the hunk of gold - is shown to scale. Instructions The front of the instruction manual has the same picture as on the front of the box. I've saved you all the agony of not showing the picture on the back of the manual. Here's a look inside the instruction manual. There are no piece call-outs, but don't worry, it's still easy to follow. Colour separation is not an issue. Near the back of the manual is a lovely two page spread displaying all of the newest Kingdoms sets along with some of the older ones. For all the parts lovers out there, here is a high-ish res. scan of the parts inventory: Parts Inventory Pieces Instructions aside, the box contains two bags of parts, a bag of weapons, and a 4x12 plate. Here are all of the parts on display (please forgive the harsh shadows). The set consists of a range of pieces in nice earthy tones. Originally developed for the Heroica line of Lego board games, these same weapons have made their way into this set. These new weapons are significantly smaller than standard ones, and are a very soft and rubbery. Minifigures The set contains two minifigures - a Dragon Knight and a blacksmith. The Dragon Knight has appeared in a few other sets, but the blacksmith is unique to this one. He has a wonderful double sided print torso, and his apron extends down onto his legs. Here we have a better look at the figs with their headgear off. The Dragon Knight has a single sided head, while the blacksmith gets the double. This double sided head is new too and seems useful for lots of applications. Out with brickbuilt fowl and in with pre-molded ones. This rooster came in his own separate little bag but he feels like pretty good quality. It includes printed eyes, comb (fleshy hairdo), and wattle (fleshy part under neck). Here we've got a size comparison of the new kid in town on the right with his brickbuilt predecessor beside him. To help understand the size of the new animal, I've thrown in our blacksmith friend and everyone's favorite accessory - the bucket. As you can see, the rooster is pretty small. The Build Time to start construction. First up is the little weapon stand. Its got two clips at the front, and it can also hold the armor and a third weapon on the top. This seems like something we'd get in an impulse set, or in an advent calendar, but it's a nice addition never-the-less. Now onto the main build, the forge comes first. The little chimney looks a bit silly and seems kind of useless as most of the flame is exposed anyways. In any case, it's essential that the blacksmith has fire! Next up we have a nice little brickbuilt anvil. A clip on the top allows you to secure whatever weapon you want to work on, in this case a dagger. The walls for the shop go up, and the mechanism for the hammer go into place. At the right of the shop we can see that a small blue plate has been attached, this of course indicates that it's situated on some sort of stream or river. The water wheel is built and attached. This is similar to the one from the Medieval Market Village, but it is a bit smaller and simpler. Hinges are also added to the top of the shop. With the roof attached to the hinges, the shop is now complete. From the front we can see that the interior is used up by the hammer and mechanism. There is however still enough room for two minifigs to squeeze in. Here's the view from the back - nothing new really to see, but at least we have pretty good access to the interior. Onto everyone's favorite section - play features! Oddly enough, this set doesn't contain a single catapult or flick-fire missile! Instead we have something infinitely more complex - a water wheel that when spun makes the hammer get to work by going up and down. The mechanism to do so is simple but effective. Left over pieces. Collectors of bucket handles are the real winners here. Complete set Here are all of the contents of the set together. There is no official place for three of the new weapons to go, so they can float around and placed as desired. Just don't lose them! Despite the presence of the Dragon Knight, the blacksmith looks pretty happy. Is it because he's holding a huge hunk of gold in his palm, or does he know something we don't? Final Thoughts Design/Build: This is a really nice little set. The weapon rack could use a couple more clips as trying to lean stuff against it is a bit of a pain, otherwise the leftover weapons just kind of lay around. The shop looks like a shack that's missing a couple walls, but this allows for easier access to the interior. The overall set is satisfying as you get a lot of content for your money. The build is fun and fast, but more rewarding than many sets of similar piece counts as there are a number of details and even a play function. Pieces: This is a fantastic parts pack. There are a number of rare pieces such as the bucket and the water wheels. You get a set of the new weapons from the Heroica line, one of the new roosters, and a unique minifigure with fantastic prints. The rest of the parts are useful enough, and you even get a handful of the wonderful palisade bricks. Playability: Top marks for the amount of play potential here. As is the trend with many modern Lego sets, you've got a 'conflict in a box' by having both a good guy and a bad guy to duke it out. You've also got a fiery forge and a working water wheel powered hammer to craft weapons. As far as 100 piece sets go, you can't do much better than this. Verdict: This doesn't look like a $10 set, but it is and I love it. It's nice to see cheap sets give you so much! The set contains some great pieces, provides loads of play potential, and it looks great on display either by itself or with other castle set-ups. As always, comments and questions are more than welcome. Cheers!

As I wait to acquire the newly released Technic sets, I thought I would do some quick reviews of a few slightly older sets. First up... Set Name: Telescopic Handler Set Number: 8295 Year Released: 2008 Number of Pieces: 1182 Price: $109.99 CAD, $89.99 USD First up is the box - it is quite large and features the back corners which must be torn to get in. The back of the box shows how the model can have power functions added. A picture of the alternate model is also displayed (Log Loader - the instructions can be found online). The build is split up over three instruction manuals, each weighing in at about 75 pages. Random shot from instructions. They are well laid out and easy to follow so long as you are paying enough attention. Colour separation is decent - there was only one point in which I accidentally used a pair of black beams in place of dark bley and did not catch my mistake until much later on. At the end of the third manual are instructions as to adding power functions to the model. I tried this out using the motor and battery box from 8292 Cherry Picker and found it worked fairly well. The sticker sheet after it's contents have been applied. They don't enhance the model greatly, but I figured I'd stick 'em on anyways. The completed model. The exhaust is used to engage/disengage the stabilizers at the front. The cab features a little seat, levers, a steering wheel, and an instrument panel (sticker) It also includes the lever to switch between raising/lowering and extending/retracting the boom, as well as steering controls (via hand of god) The 4-wheel steering tour... The 4-wheel steering works not too badly, though it is perhaps a bit vague. Thanks to this system though, the large vehicle can make relatively tight turns. A small modular section which is the starting point to all the action in the model. It can easily be removed and replaced with a motor. The heart of the telescopic handler. (note: the cab was removed to make photographing easier) The source of sore fingers. Cranking the beige gear sets things in motion. By flipping the red lever on the side of the cab, the clutch mechanism can divert the cranking action of the beige gear at the back to either work it's way to the linear actuator thus raising or lowering the boom (green line), or to extending/retracting the boom (purple line) Alternate angle. Walk through of functions. Green still for raising, purple for extending... And voila! Boom fully raised. ...continuing with the extension mechanism... ...still going... (note: the half pin is used to prevent the boom from retracting any further) ...finally the 8-tooth gear gets to work it's magic! (note: the 1x2 slope is used to prevent the boom from extending further) Fully extended Raised and extended (measures approx. 18" (46cm) long and 19" (48cm) high. Quick recap The front forklift can be adjusted as well. A cargo pallet is also included. Ratings: Build - 4/5 Nearly 1200 pieces means the telescopic handler will take many hours to build. The model is quite large and therefore has a bit of flex to it - still feels quite solid though. Decent selection of pieces and gears. Includes 1 linear actuator. Playability - 4.5/5 It's fun to drive this thing around and chase after house pets. Thanks to the 4-wheel steering, this thing has some pretty fun handling characteristics. When it's time to work the boom (raising/lowering, extending/retracting), front stabilizers can also be deployed. These functions are addictive to use, though turning the gear to do so gets hard on the fingers - this is where the set loses marks. Extending/retracting is relatively quick and painless, but raising/lowering is time consuming and requires significantly more effort. Power functions can be added to the model. Price - 4.5/5 $110 CAD/$90 USD for nearly 1200 pieces (though of course many of these are small pins etc). IMO this set is very reasonably priced. It is large and fairly impressive Overall - 4.5/5 I REALLY like the telescopic handler. It may not be as technically/mechanically impressive or complex as some other models, but it's still got a lot going on. A telescopic handler is not as easily recognizable as many other models featured in the Technic line and may perhaps be overlooked by many because of this. This is a shame as I think this set is pretty nifty and encourage more people to check it out if possible. Comments, questions, suggestions are more than welcome! Cheers!

After having this set built for a few weeks now, I've got some more thoughts about it. Overall I still really love this set. It looks great on display, and there are tons of things to play around with too. I do have some new issues/complaints though. 1. The two side panels towards the front of the vehicle (the ones with the tan handle/clamp part) no longer stay open all the way on their own. They droop down so that they're only about 1/3 of the way open. The panels along the side at the back can of course be opened all the way, but the two near the front rely on friction to stay up. I imagine I could replace the friction pins with some new ones, but it'd be a nuisance to have to do this every couple weeks. Anyone else having this problem? 2. I wish there was an easy way to remove/replace the crane from the interior of the Sandcrawler. I don't have the biggest hands in the world, but I'm often finding that even with all the side panels open and the roof removed that I still have trouble fitting my hand in the vehicle sometimes. The crane sticks out so far that even by sliding it all the way to one side or the other it's still obtrusive. 3. The control room up at the front/top of the Sandcrawler is a huge improvement over the old one, but it still seems cramped. The floor of the control room has a massive gap all along its perimeter, so it could be increased in size by a stud or two in every direction. I have one final observation. I've noticed in a lot of pictures and videos that people have a massive gap around the front ramp when its raised. When you crank the knob in one direction to raise the ramp, the chain will slip when it's just about all the way up (this can still be corrected by turning the knob more to pull up this new bit of slack). However, by turning the knob in the other direction to raise the ramp, the chain doesn't slip and the ramp will raise up perfectly and not leave any gaps.

Did a really quick mod of the interior of the base camp. There is a lot of room when you pull out the tiles that the snowmobile parks on, so you could easily add just about what ever you want. I added two bunk beds and a long dinner table down the middle.

Amazing review, Rufus! I'd been peaking at (and drooling over) your WIP for a while, but it's nice to see the finished review. I picked up a copy of this set a couple days ago, and I agree with most everything that's been said about it. First of all, I want to get it out of the way that I really love this set. I'm super happy that it was put into production. With that out of the way... Had all the parts been printed, this would easily be right up there as one of my favorite sets ever. Stickers just feel like cheating to me, so they knock the ship down a couple of points. The technic stuff under the wings is a massive eyesore. It reminds me of the most recent minifig Millennium Falcon that was built on a big ugly square of technic frames. The rest of the underside of Benny's Spaceship is pretty nice and slick, but then you've got those blocky technic things in three different colours (if they'd all been one colour at least it would have really helped). Also, the big yellow windshield isn't held on very well. It popped off every single time I opened it. I decided to shave down the dark gray click hinge plate a bit so that the windshield would open/close more easily. Two of the 2x2 click plates could be substituted, but then you'd have to rework the construction of the command area under the saucer. Overall though the ship is great. It feels great swooshing it around too. Usually I don't care too much for minifigs, but I'm a huge fan of the classic space Uni-Kitty and Wyldstyle in this.

I picked up the new Arctic Base Camp yesterday and built it earlier. I really like this set. It feels like such a complete package - there are so many different vehicles (plus enough figures to man everything), and the base itself is quite nice. Pushing around the big tractor feels great - it balances on a rubber tire which is connected to the treads, so it rolls around super smoothly. There is a lot of room inside the base, but a large section is taken up as a parking spot for the snowmobile. I'm going to pull out the tiles for the parking spot and turn that half of the room into a sleeping area with some other accessories.

Picked up Benny's Spaceship today at a local Lego store in the GTA. The build was enjoyable and the finished ship looks amazing. I'm geeking out so hard while looking at it/swooshing it around (it's really big, but there are some good spots to grip it underneath for flying action). It felt like I was applying stickers every couple of pages, but there are also a handful of printed parts - including 3 slopes with the classic space logo, and a bunch of computer slopes. The main cockpit windshield isn't held on very well, so I shaved down the click hinges a bit so that the piece is easier to flip up/down and thus doesn't pop off every second.

I went into my local Lego store on Saturday to pick up the Ewok Village. On display was the Sandcrawler. It looked way nicer in person than in pictures. It seemed smaller than expected, but really detailed and all the angles fit together well (any gaps are very minor). I came home with the Ewok Village, built it, and love it. But then I couldn't get the Sandcrawler off my mind, so I went back on Monday and bought one. With all the pieces dumped into a giant pile, it took me about 12 hours to build and a leisurely pace. For it being a big brown box, it's pretty awesome. It looks great on display here in my place, and I can't stop playing around with it either. I'm slowly making modifications to the interior, but it's definitely not a set that needs to be modded. I like the tech specs that are in the manual, but would have preferred the plaque treatment for it as I'm unlikely to have the book laying around to read whenever I want.

I haven't bought too much asides from exclusives for a while, but I'm really temped to pick up this whole Arctic wave when they're released. I'm not sure if it's my love for The Thing (the movie) that's somehow attracting me to these sets or what. TLG seems to be really generous with the huskies and polar bears with this line too which is nice. And I wonder if that little outpost in the Ice-Breaker set can be easily made to attach to the one in the Base Camp?