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Set Name: 42117 Race Plane Pieces: 145 Price: $9.99 | 9.99€ Year of Release: 1HY 2021 Hello and welcome to the review of 42117 Race Plane, one of the two smaller $10 sets from the 1HY 2021 range. The set comes with a striking color scheme- what about it's build, parts, function? Let's find out First, a big thank you to Lego for providing us this wave of sets to review and showcase! Box Front As you would expect, the box shows the plane in action, suggesting it had just been through some sort of aerial course. Box Rear The rear of the box shows the B model, a sort of Delta wing inspired build. When instructions are available, I'll update this review with some details on that model. Box Detail A few sides of the box, the white wing piece is used as the 1:1 comparison. Contents Content wise, we get the instructions, a sticker sheet, two loose wing pieces, and three bags of parts. Sticker Sheet I will apologize in advance for some difficulties I have had with color balance in this review, the color combination of orange and dark turquoise was rather brutal on my camera and normal editing process. With that in mind, the stickers above appear more of a red color, but rest assured they are orange like the parts in the set. Parts Here is a complete overview of the included parts. We will talk about what's new in a moment. You get a nice selection of some dark turquoise pieces, certainly not a color that's in big supply yet in Technic. (Though, depending on your perspective, you'll either appreciate having some elements in this color, or dislike that they are harder to use due to the rarity of other elements in that color.) Recolors: While there are no new parts, we do get a few elements recolored in Dark Turquoise. The Build Here we have the start of the build. We can see the beginning of the function, the spinning front propellor. Adding Body Much of the shaping around the nose of the plane is done via system parts. While not pictured, it's worth noting you can rotate these panels up a bit. Not really an official feature, but it does allow you to see the function a bit, sort of a mock-engine bay door. Landing Gear The wheels are mounted to the underside, with gearing appropriate to drive the propellor when the vehicle is moved forward. No way to retract the gear, though some forms of plane like this do not have retractable gear, so it's passable. Of course, this particular gearing leaves little ground clearance. Finished Plane - No Stickers - Front We finish off the plane by adding on the cockpit, again which uses a fair amount of system elements. I wanted to provide you a view of what this plane looks like without any stickers, in case you plan to leave them off. Overall pretty nice looking, I think the colors are well distributed here. Finished Plane - No Stickers - Back Here's the back view. Finished Plane - Stickers - Front The stickers add some extra visual interest- more orange and white, for one thing. I do like the edge marker stickers added to the propellor when he blades are in motion, though the rough texture of the blades means that the stickers don't grip all too well. Finished Plane - Stickers - Rear Spinning around to the backside again, I wanted to discuss one of the visual design points that I'm not a fan of- the center rear wing. The piece used here was first introduced in Bionicle, and while I liked the look of it then, it does not really match the visual smoothness that the other surfaces on this plane have. It seems a little more out of place here than on 42044, for example. Finished Plane - Stickers - Side It sticks out a bit more here. The shaping of the plane overall is decent, for the size and complexity at least. Function Video Set Ratings (relative to other sets in this size class): Visual Design: 7 Build Experience: 6 Features: 6 Playability: 7 Parts/Value: 6 Overall: 6.4 When I reviewed the 1HY 2020 sets, some people requested that I add some rating similar to many other Technic reviews; with these smaller sets, I find it's difficult to determine how to rate them, as comparing a $10 set to a $270 Sian on the same scale is tough. So, with that in mind, my above rating are as compared to other $10 Technic sets only. The visual design of the set is fine and captures the look of a race plane without much issue. Points were taken off mainly due to the usage of the Bionicle fin which aesthetically is a little jarring, and the front landing gear is definitely compromised appearance wise by the function. But, overall it's a nice looking plane and the system helps to sculpt it. The build experience and features are marked at "middle ground." There are limitations to what you can do at this scale; the function works well, but overall many other small sets have comparably more functions than this one due to the nature of the vehicle they take on. There's not much else that I could see a kid really demanding from this set in particular. Though I do take some points off for the build as overall it's not very interesting. A basic body, add on the wings, and a few system bricks overall remove much of the interest to it. Playability is high, this is a set meant for kids and they will have plenty of fun swooshing it around, driving it along to make the propeller spin, and it's a sturdy set that won't come apart easily. For the adult oriented view, the parts/value is fine- $10 for 145 pieces is decent, we get a good selection of dark turquoise pieces here, some of which are new to this set. Like I said, this area is up for debate as some people may not find much value in the relatively rare color just yet. Overall the set scores a 6.4, average for a small set. It's good for kids, has a nice visual design and color scheme, and a good selection of parts. With that said, when compared to other small sets like 42102, though, it's not quite as engaging, which keeps it from the upper tier.

Set Name: 42118 Monster Jam Grave DiggerPieces: 212Price: $19.99 | Year of Release: 1HY 2021 Welcome to my review of 42118 Grave Digger, one of the two pull-back sets for the 1HY 2021 wave, and also one of the two Monster Jam branded sets. Pullback sets have been released two per year since 2015, and this time around they get the Monster Jam treatment, a perfect matchup. But how do they stack up compared to pullbacks of the past? Thanks to Lego for sending us these sets to review. As always, all opinions are my own, and I will analyze this set from a few different perspectives. Box Front: Grave Digger is at home in a stadium here, pictured alongside the Monster Jam and Pullback logos. Box Rear The back showcases Grave Digger along with it's real-world counterpart and some specs related to the vehicle. The B model is also shown, an off-road buggy. Something interesting to note is that the buggy doesn't have the stickers applied, unlike the Race Plane B-model. I know Lego has omitted stickers from B models at times in the past, but I do wonder whether this has something to do with licensing, since the stickers are unique to Grave Digger and using them on the B model may not have been permitted? That, and the stickers would look rather silly on this buggy, you'd have sideways flames on the spoiler for example. Box Detail The side of the box has more Monster Jam and Grave Digger logos, some specs of the real vehicle, and the tires as a 1:1 ratio. Unfortunately the specs are pretty messed up on the box here- when we get review sets, they often have some labels slapped on the box. I try to remove them as best I can, but the adhesive was a little strong on this one. Contents Sticker Sheet: Nothing much to say on these yet. They look good, and this is one set where I think they are really necessary to bring the final look of the set together, as they introduce the pink/purple colors to the set. Parts Grave Digger has less pieces than Max-D (212 vs 230), but it makes up for it in two ways: First, more of the elements are larger, and second there are more interesting elements in this set - which we will look at next. First, though, I want to make a comment that Lego has steadily been packing in more elements with these pullback sets. Before 2019, these sets used to have around 130 pieces in each. Then, in 2019, we saw the count jump up to the 220's, though many of those elements were used in side builds. This time around, all 212 elements are focused on Grave Digger itself. Anyway, let's talk about the elephant in the room (I've mentioned this same thing in my Max-D review, so feel free to skip if you've read that one first); Lego introduced an absolutely beautiful new tire this year with the Jeep Wrangler set that would be a perfect fit for these monster trucks...and then didn't use it. I'm quite surprised by this, not only would it be a good way to stretch the new mold, but it would also make these licensed vehicles even more accurate. One working theory I have seen is that the new tires are a slightly more rigid rubber, and due to the light weight of this set, they would not grip the ground as well when the pullback feature is being used, unlike the softer tires included in this set. I do not have the Wrangler yet so I cannot test this now, but I do hope to do so in time. New or Interesting parts As far as new pieces, we get the new 3x7 panel in black, definitely a versatile color. Recolor wise, I believe the 4L lightsaber bars and technic pin connectors in lime are both new, I couldn't find anything on Bricklink for these two. Last, an element that is not new but relatively rare (I believe it's only appeared in one other set?) Is the lime green wheels, which we get 4 of. The Build The build starts off with mounting the pullback motor at an angle, this is to give the vehicle as much height as ground clearance as it can. Framing Similar to Max-D, this set is built like a brick, with every piece being attached and locked in. This is an ideal type of build for a set that will be sent into walls, off the table, etc. Front end work With that durability in mind, we add on a rather overkill front bumper. Body Panels Completed Set - No Stickers - Front From here you can see the completed set and it's shaping without any stickers distracting from the view. Overall, it's not bad- the major issue we can see here is the front bumper. It's not on the real vehicle, and it really stands out in dark gray. But, again, it's there for durability to protect.. the headlights from popping off, maybe? Completed Set - No Stickers - Rear The pullback motor is more noticeable here than on Max-D, mainly because the dark gray stands out more against the black. Completed Set - Stickers - Front The stickers help bring the set closer to it's real life counterpart. As mentioned earlier, the pink/purple is a key part of Grave Digger's look, though I feel even with the stickers it is lacking here. And, yeah, it desperately needs the new tractor tires. Completed Set - Stickers - Rear Another "feature" is that the flag at the back is mounted in such a way that it can freely bounce up and down. Completed Set - Stickers - Head on The shaping is definitely pretty basic here, and everything is squared off by that bumper - definitely not a good angle, this one. Completed Set - Stickers - Rear Interestingly, this hollow-back design is actually pretty accurate to the real vehicle. Completed Set - Stickers - Profile While Max-D focuses on adding some faux suspension, the unique aspect to Grave Digger is they created a bit of the under-body cage using the lightsaber bars. I should mention that there is some slight issues with lime green, similar to the Sian, you can see the green technic pin here is the main culprit, it's slightly more yellowish than the rest. Size Comparison Max-D has more parts than Grave Digger, but many of them go into smaller parts, such as the small spike details. Overall, Grave Digger ends up being slightly longer and taller. (The length is tough to see here, but it's about 1-2 studs longer) Size Comparison Grave Digger is quite a large vehicle, and definitely feels much larger than any of the previously released pullbacks. We can see here that it's quite large compared to a Speed Champions set, and even gets close to the Fiat 500 in size. Function Video Set Ratings (relative to other sets in this size class): Visual Design: 6 Build Experience: 6 Variety of Features: 3 Execution of features: 8 Playability: 6 Parts/Value: 7.5 When I reviewed the 1HY 2020 sets, some people requested that I add some rating similar to many other Technic reviews; with these smaller sets, I find it's difficult to determine how to rate them. This is even more true when you look at a pullback set. Afterall, how do you rate "functions" for a set such as this? One one hand, you may give it a 3/10 because it only has one function, the pullback feature. On the other, you may give it a 8/10, because all this set promises is a pullback feature, and that feature works very well. So, I've made some modifications here in order to fairly rate this compared to other $20 sets. The visual design gets a 6, overall it's a little messier than Max-D and I think even with the stickers, doesn't quite hit the mark. Plus, the lack of the tractor tires and the unsightly bumper unfortunately take it down. Build experience is good, it's one of the most complicated pullback sets thanks to it's parts count. As far as functionality goes, it's lacking overall as mentioned since it only includes the one single pullback feature, but gets an 8 on execution; the main drawback is that front bumper which reduces the front clearance a bit. Playability also gets a 6 as it changes based on perspective- if you keep the target audience in mind; it's durable, and will stand up to the roughness it'll likely be subjected to. Although from an adult POV, compared to many other $20 sets, it's likely there are other sets with much better play features out there. Parts / value is decent- pullback sets now have been getting quite a few more pieces than in the past, an this one comes with a good selection of rare/new parts compared to the other small sets in this range. Compared with Grave Digger From a parts perspective, I think I see more value in the parts that come with Grave Digger; looks wise, though, I think Max-D is visually a little more interesting and even slightly more accurate to the real vehicle than Grave Digger. What do you think? How do these sets stack up compared to previous pullbacks, and will you pick either of these up?

Partially to review what the app offers, but also I need to wait a bit of time before I can test this outside, these functions aren't exactly ideal in a wet/snowy environment haha. I've tested it using the Powered Up app, what I can say immediately is it seems to be faster than the Top Gear car, and accelerates/decelerates instantly, whereas I believe the Top Gear car had a faux 3-speed system. However, even from some minor obstacles in my house, the lack of powered front wheels seems to suggest this will not handle much other than level terrain.

Hi! A project I've been really keen to start on this year is an Iron Man Hall of Armor & Tony Stark's mansion build. Problem is, I have exactly one iron man related lego item, and that's the Infinity War Hulkbuster set. I need more! I am in need of basically every Iron Man-related figure, including any non-Tony Stark related armors (War Machine, Age of ultron Drones, etc.). The only thing you definitely will not find on this list is the 2012 SDCC figure. For tracking purposes, here's a list of every figure I'm looking for: - Iron Man Mark 6 (from 6867 Loki’s Cosmic Cube Escape, & polybag) - Iron Man Mark 7 (6869 Quinjet Aerial Battle, Loki Juniors set) - Iron Man Mark 17 “Heartbreaker” Suit (76008) - Iron Man Mark 33 “Silver Centurion” Suit (Polybag, promotion for Avengers Videogame preorder) - Iron Man Mark 37 “Hammerhead” Scuba Suit - Iron Man Mark 39 “Gemini” Space Suit (76049 Avenjet Space Mission) - Iron Man Mark 42 (76006 Iron Man: Extremis Sea Port Battle & 76007 Iron Man: Malibu Mansion Attack) - Iron Man Mark 45 (76029 Iron Man vs. Ultron) - Iron Man Mark 46 (76051 Super Hero Airport Battle) - Iron Man Mark 47 (76083 Beware the Vulture) - Iron Man Mark 50 “Bleeding Edge” Armor (76108 The Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown) - Iron Man Mark 50 “Bleeding Edge” Armor (Alternate Form, with wings) (76107 Thanos Ultimate Battle) - Iron Man Mark 51 Invincible Iron Man Suit (76077 Iron Man: Detroit Steel Strikes) - Classic Iron Man Suit — Mighty Micros (Mighty Micros: Iron Man vs. Thanos) - Tony Stark (76007 Iron Man: Malibu Mansion Attack) - War Machine Mark II (76006 Iron Man: Extremis Sea Port Battle) - Iron Patriot Armor (polybag) - War Machine Mark III (76051 Super Hero Airport Battle) - Iron Legionaire (76038 Attack on Avengers Tower) Also looking for this set: - Set 76031 The Hulk Buster Smash (opened is okay, if complete.) Thanks for looking, please let me know if you have any of these for sale!

Yeah I requested a replacement for the windshield, will definitely report in on how that looks once it arrives (though I didn't request any other window pieces, I'm hoping it being by itself may help. Then again, it may just be sitting in a big bin of windshields at the factory, thus causing everything to be a mess, we will see)

As the owner of a yellow JL wrangler, I'm super pumped for this set, especially since it's in the correct color! Though mine is a four dour, I may have to buy two and work on extending it

Good question! I'm making some tweaks to that scale, I want to split it to more fairly rank a set based on playability and then on design since sets that tend to excel in one don't do as well in the other. I will update this review once I've figured that out. But, this set is definitely very high on my list in terms of large vehicles; My personal favorite Lego set in terms of design is the UCS '89 Batmobile. While the Ecto 1 has some shortcomings that I mentioned in the cons section, it has a few extra added elements of playability over the Batmobile, so it will definitely be top tier for me. Yeah, while I as well doubt that they would ever return to the old material, I certainly hope they find ways to improve upon what they have now, at the very least protecting the parts more. The large windscreen was packaged with the rubber tires and the long gray hoses, which are relatively softer parts yet it still took a beating. Glad it helped your decision process! I do agree that the set feels lifeless in a way, I mentioned in my review that some features (like the proton gunner seat) feel out of place when you don't have figures that can interact. To be fair, most franchises are more about the character than the vehicle, certainly many people enjoy Batman more for his fighting and story than his actual gadgets, but even then I feel like the '89 Batmobile just feels more "right" than the Ecto-1 does in this style. Personally, I would rather this set have been considered under the UCS label like the Batmobile, so that we could have gotten a display plaque and maybe the original team of Ghostbusters figures with the set to spice things up. Thank you! It's definitely hard to show off comparisons when the sets take up this much room on the studio, but my main goal was making sure that the bumpers were actually lined up on the vehicles to properly show differences in length/width. Thank you, and thanks for the info on the steering mechanism! You might be right on the wheel piece being new, I'll take a look shortly at it's product number and do some searching. You are right that the blue tubes are much darker on the real model, my one short of the instructions gives a good look at that. One upside is, I've seen a lot of people that are happy the rust is stickers so that they can revert this into the more "classic" Ecto-1, having those brighter blue tubes would definitely make that process easier as well. Thanks to everyone so far for your comments and participation in the poll!

Review now live!

Review now live! (By the way, from what I saw of the info we had been given for this review, this is "internally" referred to as Creator Expert, and therefore is meant to be in line with the previous creator expert vehicles. Thus it does not include a UCS plate or figures like the recent Batman-inspired sets.)

It's time to bust some ghosts and review an Ecto-1, and I'm all out of ghosts to bust! Head over to Lego Licensed to check out my review of the upcoming set 10274 Ecto-1!

Finished my full set! Combined them all under one single frame build I would estimate roughly 2 pounds. My set of 4 above is just under 8lbs, I have two 8lb capacity command hooks holding it up

I've been wanting to get back into MOCing lately and finally sat down for a bit yesterday and threw something together. (it's also worth noting, I know there are those canon contests going on right now and this character is a future contender, this was not designed with those in mind, this is obviously an artistic take on the character and not at all what I would assume to be canon.)

Ordered my second set of Marilyn Monroe mosaics to take advantage of double VIP, can’t wait to have a full set of four!

Great review Panda! Excellent photos and a great write up I think I like this set more than I originally did. I've never really been much of a fan of Lego's other "functional" holiday offerings as I think the ornaments and the like are usually pretty lame and cheap looking. But this is a pretty convincing decoration, it does a great job of conveying what it is, but not hiding the fact that it's Lego. Plus, it's not exactly the worst as far as parts go. I like that it has a lot of alternate configurations, and I could definitely see Lego exploring more functional decorations like this in the future as holiday exclusives.

grandson is definitely one of my most influential artists, IMO his stuff only keeps getting better & midnight sky is definitely a banger

Fantastic work! The unique head design here is brilliant and a really nice use of not only a skull spider in a non-conventional way, but also finally a good use for that visor piece. I think what I really like about that is it's not just a visor that goes in front of the face like the old HF set had done, but rather it's built in as a part of said face. The rest of the MOC is well done, a very unique vibe coming from this figure.

Oh dear, Warhol’s is my favorite artist so the Monroe is a must buy, but to buy four of them at that price...ouch. I do wonder what the aftermarket on BrickLink will be for the exclusive frame elements? I’m hoping in time it will become cost effective to just buy extra frame elements instead of multiple sets at those prices if they do a Lichtenstein set I’ll be ruined over here

What an absolutely abysmal round of decisions. The typewriter makes no sense, we already have the piano coming and I seriously doubt this is on most people "must buy" list. Personally I think Seinfeld is awful, but I'm more peeved that this somehow made it, but The Office was shot down what, 3 times? Home Alone makes sense as a set; I'm sure they want to try to work in ways to have "traps" be sprung and whatnot, but personally I really have no interest in a set for this film. (Not to mention this will likely be a pricey one.) I am hoping that the Planet Express ship was skipped because of the (IMO) superior set coming in the 1st 2020 review. It's disappointing that Legend of Bionicle was axed as that is about the only shot Bionicle will ever have in the Idea's lineup, but honestly with how Lego treats Bionicle I'm not surprised. Ratatouille, while not my favorite Disney property, would have been a fun build in terms of parts at least. Everything else I was very un-interested in for this round.

I had to frontpage this a few days ago as soon as I saw it- the design here are fantastic. While controversial, 2006 was my favorite year for Bionicle, and I will always have a soft spot for the Piraka. These designs are fantastic, they truly add a new level of character in the design, and blend a great mix of building styles. I also love the unique teeth for each one; reminds me of my simpler Vezon I did a while back. I would absolutely love to see you tackle the remainder of the Piraka; and I dare say you've inspired me to attempt this type of project as well, though perhaps with a different set of characters. The Toa, though I'm not sure on- don''t get me wrong, the builds are fantastic. And I see you went with a re-imagined viewpoint for these figures, especially with Kongu and Nuparu, to where they look more like their Mctoran counterparts, rather than being Inika inspired. I think that's a good idea, but I'm not sure that Matoro really fits in here. Again, he's a great build, but honestly before reading through your comments, I though that was supposed to be some kind of twisted Thok or even pre-mutation Pridak. I think, perhaps, it's because he doesn't utilize his old Matoran mask, whereas his fellow two counterparts do? I do hope to see you continue this series.

Yeah, honestly even a regular Baron would have been cool; it definitely wouldn't be out of the ordinary to have someone dressed as the Baron, the owner of this mansion. In fact, I feel like it would almost have made more sense than the twins they put in here One way I wanted to spookify this place was to add in a Johnny Thunder with a skeleton face... Baron caught his ultimate prize, Johnny Thunder himself Thank you! The windows were definitely a chore, and I kept panicking every time I would be searching through a pile of parts for that last window, convinced it was going to be missing. I did leave out the blurbs, sometimes in easter egg filled sets like this, I like to leave a small thing or two out of the review so that someone who has read the review and purchased the set has a little surprise left in some way. (In my case, Junkbot and the little blurbs were unexpected). Thanks for the comments everyone! As always with these reviews, I appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts and taking part in the poll. These reviews continue to be a great way to share your thoughts directly with Lego

Thanks Fangy! I do agree it's tough to display, not quite as bad as the UCS Star Destroyer, but a challenge in the other direction Thank you! I believe I mentioned at one point in the review that this set has no stickers at all, everything you see is a print! Good catch on the controller pieces Thanks to you both for clarifying on that! It's interesting too that the speed of the cart also depends on how you drop it- if you use only the one crank, the cart eventually freefalls more aggressively. If you utilize the other crank which disengages the gears, the entire chain pulls down with the cart, which also slows its fall. Though that crank is more difficult to use, I have a sense that the Powered Up functions likely offer the smoothest operation of the ride. What I mean is, I feel like if you operate the ride "normally" the braking system doesn't seem to do anything, it's moreso if you use the secondary crank that the slowing effect is really noticeable.

Today we take a trip into a spooky, 90's nostalgia filled house- Samuel Von Barron's Haunted House, that is! Jump to the Special Themes forum to see my review!

-pictures broken-