Laura Beinbrech

In 2075, during what would become known as the Final War, Dr. Regis Blackgaard, megalomaniacal madman and insane genius, upon realizing that he would soon face defeat at the hands of the coalition led by the North American Union, initiated "Plan Ragnarok", whereby he triggered malware carefully secreted into the major powers' launch control systems for their Anti-Matter arsenals, causing all Anti-Matter ICBMs to launch simultaneously. His initial hope was that the entire world would either be reduced enough for him to easily take over when he and his elite Blacktron Guard landed their ships, or completely wiped out, allowing him to rebuild it in his image. Unfortunately for him and his nefarious plans was the fact that Dr. Bones, foremost scientist for the North American Union, was able to detect the activation of the malware soon enough to issue a general warning to all the major coalition powers (NA Union, European Union and East Asian Federation) for them to attempt to somehow intercept the missiles in flight. While various space fighter squadrons made heroic sacrifices to intercept and destroy Anti-Matter ICBMs in flight, none were nearly as successful, or had as high losses as the 22nd North American Space Fighter Wing, led by Col. Hikaro Takayama. They managed to destroy 85% of the North America bound missiles short of their objectives, however out of a 36-ship fighter wing, only the Colonel and his Wingman, Fritz Diehlmann survived the mission. Now, some 30 years after the Final War, and the chaos that ensued, not only due to damage from the Anti-Matter bombs, but the disturbances in the space-time continuum caused by such a massive release of energy, the world is re-building. The Federal Republic of America, heir to the traditions of the North American Union, still has the two heroic Sky-Spear Fighters from the 22nd Space Fighter Wing. Fritz Diehlmann now flies Hikaro's Fighter, since Hikaro has taken charge of the Federal Special Operations Command. These two ships are the only Hyperspace-capable spacecraft left in the entire world (contact with the colony worlds was cut off during the apocalyptic Anti-Matter exchange), with the exception of one A. Skywalker's modified "TIE Fighter", but that's another story. Sky-Spear Fighters, Side View by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr The two Surviving Sky Spear units. The one on the left is missing its main ION-Thruster module (currently being repaired), and is in the standard coloring of the North American Union and current Federal Republic of America Space Fighter livery, which dates back to the Rebellion "Futuron" space force during the war with the Galactic Empire in 1988. The one on the right is General Takayama's personal craft and the original Prototype built in 1989, which finally allowed the Earth Alliance (and Rebel Allies) to break the stalemate with the Galactic Empire and destroy their latest planet-destroying superweapon. Sky-Spear Fighters Front Quarter View by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Here the fighters are seen with their windscreens up, and you can plainly see the old, pre-Final War North American Union space suits... Suitable Replacements are on order from TLG industries, but it could be some time before they arrive, due to more pressing needs on various fronts due to aggression from the Grand Duchy of New York (Dr. Regis Blackgaard's latest nation), The Hordes of Chaos, and the Neo-CSA. Sky-Spear Fighters, Rear Quarter View by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr And here you can see the thruster assembly on the Original, and the mounting brackets for the thrusters on the production model. This is a map of the various post-Final War Factions in North America, so you have some idea of what and where this is going on: NorthAMLEGO by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Now for the run-down: I first built the Sky Spear II in 1989, and have been modifying/improving it since then. My lasted improvement session was yesterday, when I added a few detail parts and replaced most of the yellowed white pieces on it. That said, the windscreen is from the original Space Police I Galactic Peacekeeper, which I bought in 1989, the main thruster assembly and the outer maneuvering thrusters/Ion Cannons mounted under the wings are from the FUTURON Cosmic Laser Launcher, and the boat hull sections that form the bottom are from the Kings Oarsman boat (among others available back then), and the color scheme is basically the illegitimate offspring of FUTURON and Space Police I. The "Production model" was started in 1998, and uses parts from some Exploriens set, but I was going for a straght FUTURON look for it. Up until very recently (like, yesterday), it was only about half as long as the original, due to lack of parts and/or interest. I discovered, while going through some of my smaller sets and MOCs (to tear them down and add their parts to my parts pool for building bigger stuff), that I had enough white boat hull pieces to make it into a full-sized version. The "Air Force Roundel" shields on the side are BrickForge "American Hero" Battle shields (purists avert your eyes ). I just need to make PAB order to get another white 4x4 cone piece to finish out the "Production Model" version... I just wish LEGO still made those windscreens. Anyways, let me know what you think of these classic-styled ships of mine, and I hope you enjoyed them.

Actually, the Chaos wastes is almost directly taken from Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but with Sauron being re-awoken (he was defeated in one of my brother's an my LEGO campaigns, which took place not long after the Galactic Empire was defeated and Darth Vader turned to the good side), by the Chaos magic pouring through a rift during the Final War. He then proceeded to kick the Megabloks out of the four powers of Chaos (Slaneesh, Tzeench, Nurgle and Khorne) and made them work for him... Needless to say, what with the confusion caused by rifts popping up all over the place, and hordes of Chaos Warriors (think the absolute worst aspects of the Vikings, Mongol Hordes, Huns and Vandals rolled into one and cranked up to 11), Chaos Daemons (including Nazgûl and Balrogs) and Orcs flooding accross the plains, not to mention Warpstone (basically crystalized Chaos energy that can not only cause physical mutations but either drive the victim insane or turn them into a dedicated Chaos worshiper) dust blowing from the portals to the realm of Chaos (a.k.a. Hell), Canada didn't stand much of a chance... Thankfully a large portion of the population managed to flee to safe areas in the Republic of Lakotah, Six Nations and the Federal Republic of America (You'll notice a heavy dose of more British/Canandian themes in the Federal Republic, not the least of which is the use of the Lion as the national symbol as opposed to the Bald Eagle, and the predominant color of military uniforms and such being Red instead of Blue). ...Although, as nasty as the Chaos Wastes might sound, even your most dedicated follower of Khorne (Chaos "god" of bloodshed and war) will think twice before venturing into the Wastes... Those are the TRUE wasteland: Hundreds of miles of barren desert with no water or food for miles, and roving gangs of raiders who will attack and loot ANY wanderers they come across, not to mention wandering groups of zombies and skeletons that have meandered from the Tomb Kings' territories on the West Coast means that any travelers passing through them take their lives into their hands (about the only groups that the raiders WON'T attack out of hand are the Confederate States of America Army special forces, better known as the "Desert Rats", the Lone Star Rangers, and the FRA SOCOM Dragoons, who are basically mounted troopers who wear full, environmental unobtainium armor, carry "Tanegashima" high-power laser rifles, "Cosmo Dragoon" high-power laser pistols, vibo-Claymores, among other nasty weapons). The Mexican Badlands are pretty much the same story as the Wastes, but possibly even more lawless (although, again, most of the bandits aren't stupid enough to attack the Lone Star Rangers or the Caribbean League's elite Mayan Eagle Warriors).

Nice Space Police II themed MRLS you have there... While SP II wasn't exactly my favorite Space theme, I did like the fact that it brought back the Classic Space coloring of Gray with Green windshields.

Well, what brought me out of my first Dark Age was the Royal Knights/Dark Forest in late 1996/early 1997, which hearkened back to my favorite Classic Castle themes, the Crusaders and Forestmen... The Ninja line postponed my second Dark Age for about a year (and making major improvements to a Ninja-based MOC was the only major LEGO building I did during my second Dark Age), which was brought on by the fact that I was in the Navy on shipboard duty (nowhere near enough room for LEGO bricks), and LEGO's declining set quality at the time... What brought me out of my second Dark Age was the return of Pirates and discovering BrickArms... I've been back and haven't looked back since.

Thanks, and glad you like it... I'm glad I came back to LEGO, since they've come out of the slump they were in with regards to set design back in the late 1990's and early 2000's. My only regret was not getting more of the Fantasy Era castle sets... I need MOAR orcs.

That is one sweet locomotive, and your rolling stock is lovely as well! I like your bogie designs, even though I probably won't use them myself.

THIRD-rate ship of the line?! This thing is a BEAST! Good work, but dang! that is one huge ship (and I do believe that it more than qualifies as a SHIP as well)... That's about the size I'd be going for if I wanted to make a MOC of the Bismarck! Still, looking good, so far, and I really like the authentic modeling of the interior structure (ship's frame and such).

I'm going to see about ordering this bad puppy at the end of the month... I just set up my GMarket account, and I think I've located the same seller that Frogstudio bought his from. I just realized a couple things: First of all, am I correct that the gray used in this set (and Oxford in general) is the same as the old LEGO gray and dark gray? Also, these large-sized corner pieces (you can see them plainly in the pic): should be most welcome to Castle builders... I've always been a bit peeved that LEGO corner bricks only came in one size, meaning that you had to just stack them on top of each other until you got the height you wanted, which is not the most stable of construction methods... These bricks, on the other hand, when combined with LEGO standard corner bricks, should allow you to create interlocked, sturdy, corners without having to resort to the 6-high corner pieces... Finally, even if I can't mod the minifig torsos to work with LEGO legs, I'll still be happy to use the arms, hands and heads (always on the lookout for more variety in minifig faces).

Here's my take on Megabloks: I have long considered them to be my benchmark for clone-brand crapiness (brown standard, perhaps ), due to the fact that I once made the mistake of buying one of their army sets in the mid 1990's... It was just plain horrible: The bricks looked like they were injection molded with a hot-glue gun, and were all either misshapen, crooked or looked half-melted, and the mini-action figure, one of the few redeeming features of the set, suffered from similar problems, i.e. his helmet wouldn't fit quite right, the weapons didn't quite fit either the megablok minifig's hands or standard LEGO minifigs, and the holes in the bottom of the figures feet gave me extreme amounts of difficulty with fitting on either LEGO or megabloks studs... The only redeeming feature to that set was the fact that the sand-bag bricks were fairly useful, but I had to file down the rough edges to get them to fit right... That said, I somehow acquired some white Megablok pieces sometime around 2000 (probably in a trade with one of my friends so I could finish my awesome Japanese castle... The Megabloks have since been removed and I'm about to explain why), and although their quality control improved to the point that they seemed to no longer have problems with deformed, mutant bricks, the grip of these bricks wasn't all that great and the color wasn't even close to matching the LEGO white, and stood out like a sore thumb in my MOCs... Granted, some of the LEGO knock-offs that are featured on Reasonably Clever's Friday Fail segment somehow manage to make Megabloks look like the gold standard for brick-based construction toys. I do not, however, have anything against clones in general, as long as the quality is good... My brother and I got a big bucket o' Tyco bricks for Christmas in 1988, and I still have a few (my City Island Keep MOC has a 1988 vintage Tyco 1x3 black brick somewhere in the foundation). If Tyco was still making construction bricks today, I'd be more than happy to buy them, due to the fact that their quality (like all Tyco brand toys) was top-notch and, dare I say, EQUAL to LEGO brick quality. I'd given up hope on the existence of any decent clone brands, but now I've been hearing good things about Oxford, and from some of the reviews I've seen on this site, I'd be more than happy to give them a try (I'm going to buy that one King Sejong the Great DDG kit for that awesome 16 x 80 gray hull, and even if I don't use any other of the original parts for the MOC ship I have planned, I have a feeling some of the gray and dark gray elements are going to be showing up in some of my Castle projects). One final thought: Those folks who are always complaining about how "<insert that tiresome argument>" LEGO is should take a look at that Megabloks car... That makes the worst offenders of the LEGO Juniorization era in the late 1990's look tame by comparison.

Well, looking closely at the pics in the first post, it appears that the top part of the hull sections are held to the bottom parts by screws (much like the LEGO Pirate ship bow and stern pieces), so it should be a simple matter of removing the screws, inserting Styrofoam that has been cut to fit and reassembling them... Another possible way, that wouldn't add hardly any weight would be to use silicone sealant to seal the sections, creating watertight compartments in each hull section. This is actually how modern Naval vessels are able to stay afloat in all kinds of weather and/or after taking severe battle damage (most recent event that showcases how effective this compartmentalization is would be the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000), meaning that your ship could be completely filled with water, but as long as the hull sections remained sealed, it would float (might be riding low in the water, though)

Well said, Peppermint M... Although for some reason, I find the idea of ISO/IEEE standards for plastic construction toys both hilarious and strangely appealing at the same time. Anyways, to get back to the subject at hand, I really DO hope they come out with Peach and/or Daisy... I'll still likely get Yoshi for my girlfriend, since she's a huge Yoshi fan. ...Not to mention I'm curious how the quality stacks up vs LEGO... I had some K'Nex when I was in middle school (I built a space fighter plane thingy), and was rather impressed with the quality, but didn't like the fact that I couldn't use them with my LEGO bricks.

AHA! I knew I recognized this fighter design from somewhere! While I never got into Homeworld, I had some friends when I was in the Navy who were, and I remember seeing an image of a very similar looking spacecraft.

This is a very interesting heavy space fighter... Is is based on anything, like a movie or video game (it looks somehow familiar), or is it something you just came up with on your own?

Exactly: Accusing the clone manufacturers of "ripping off" LEGO would be like accusing Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc of ripping off IBM (or each other), since they use the same system architecture, or for that matter, accusing AMD of ripping off Intel, since both their CPU's have the same machine code/BIOS type. Seriously, the rabid LEGOist Fanboyism that sometimes goes on around here makes me ashamed to be an AFOL at times.

Heck yeah! Peach and Daisy are my favorite characters... I may end up getting Yoshi on the bike for my girlfriend, though (Yoshi is her favorite character in Mario Kart Wii, while I usually play as Peach or Daisy).

Thanks for this review, Frogstudio! I've been looking at other Oxford reviews, but wasn't really interested in their Military line, due to the fact that most of the sets used Dark Olive Green parts that wouldn't mix well with LEGO colors, however, I'm definitely getting this bad puppy in December (I blew my monthly LEGO budget for November on the Black Pearl)... Even if the light grey pieces don't match the LEGO light-bley color very well, I'd be willing to get this set JUST for the awesome 16 x 80 stud hull alone! Even leaving that aside, and possible coloring differences with LEGO greys, I could use the pieces for Castle/building MOCs. The Hull would be perfect for making a Light Cruiser or heavy destroyer (for size comparison, I'm using the 51 x 12 hull from the LEGO City Police Boat as the base of a MOC Guided-missile Frigate)... That said, this looks like a nice set, even though I'm rather disappointed with the Helicopter design and the fact that the ship has no interior, however it DOES look fairly close to the Real Life Ship, the King Sejong the Great-class DDGs that are the ROK's rough equivalent to the US Navy's Arleigh-Burke Class and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force's Atago-class Aegis DDG's. I'm wondering how hard it would be to mod the Oxford figures to use LEGO minifig legs... I like the overall design of the Oxford figs, but the leg design just bugs me... Probably because it looks a bit too "Duplo-ish" to me or something.

Very nice, very realistic railbus you have there! I like how you did the "low-rider" trucks on it as well.

Hmmm... Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the red & white bars are supposed to be the Austrian Flag... Nice detailing there, Too Much Caffeine!

Thanks! I'm glad you like it, Lighting Tiger.... I'm planning on posting some more vehicles and starting a series of reference pics for the various armies of the different factions in a Jane's Guide-type format (I'm going to call it Jayne's Guide to Military Uniforms of the World, 2111 Ed. ) If anyone is wondering why there seems to be a lot of shout-outs/crossovers, this setting of mine is based on the LEGO wargames my brother and I played when we were kids up until High School... The "Final War" mentioned basically is the in-universe representation of me going into my first LEGO Dark Age, and my brother going into his permanent one in 1994, when we gave away about 99% of all our LEGOs... I came back out in early 1997 (during this time, I managed to get back some of my Pirate sets and my brother's 4011 Cabin Cruiser when the friend I gave them to decided he didn't want to mess with LEGO anymore and said I could have them back), but was forced into a second quasi-dark age in late 2000, due to being in the US Navy and getting assigned to shipboard duty (no room for LEGO on a US Navy ship), and put all my sets and MOCs into storage (the Sky Spear II survived both dark ages). I finally came out of the second Dark Age in 2009, when I discovered that LEGO had finally brought the Pirates (my favorite theme) back. So, as a tribute to the good times I had playing LEGO with my brother, as well as some of the RPG's I played with my friends in the Navy, I've created this post-apocalyptic setting, which is mostly sorta like a combination of Lord of the Rings, Fallout, Rifts, and Warhammer 40K (but not nearly as grim-dark or hopeless as some of the settings) with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

Well, to be fair, real-life Kendo armor (basically just padded/bamboo armor for practice fighting with bamboo swords) DOES rather strongly resemble hockey pads/goalie masks... That said, I'll still probably buy them (or at least the booster packs) just for the dark bley samurai Armor... I got me some samurai that need armor... Of course if it would be cheaper to just buy the armor and weapons on BrickLink, I'll just forget about it.

Well, you asked for it: LEGO Fleet by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr Pictured are: Front Row, left-right: Islander Catamaran, Sea Serpent, Castaways' Raft (minus the rag sails), and Raft Raiders. Back Row, left-right: Black Pearl, FNS Hawkwing (Fast Frigate MOC using the 2011 City Police Boat hull), SS Merry Maid (Container Ship MOC using the 2010 City Fire Boat hull), and the FNS Inferno (MOD of the 1991 Cabin Cruiser to turn it into a PT boat) ...Though I doubt the Hawkwing, Inferno and Merry Maid count for these purposes, even though the crews of the former two ships use standard Pirate torsos.... The Black Pearl almost makes the Hawkwing look puny!

Interesting technique! This might be useful for re-creating some of the early wagonways, such as the Derby Canal Railway or similar horse-drawn railways...

Ah, ok... I was just going by set pics on BrickLink, and that explains whey the QAR and BP don't mount more guns... Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll have the Black Pearl (and the double VIP points, since I'm planning on buying it at either the LEGO store in Arundel Mills or online at LEGO.com), but I'm modding that into a Neo-Confederate Armored Cruiser, which will have two 6 or 8 inch gun twin turrets and several broad-side mounted guns (or possibly broadside sponsons, which will allow the ship to train at least six 6-inch or 8-inch guns on a target regardless of which direction the ship is approaching from).... I'll probably need to order a metric butt load of 2x2 black round corner bricks and/or 4x4 round bricks for the funnels, though. One more observation: It would seem that the total pirate fleet out-guns the Imperial fleet by about 2 to 1... You'd think it would be the other way around!

That is a really nice Guard Van... IIRC, they're the European/British equivalent of a Caboose and are also called Brake Vans... Anyways, nice, very detailed interior, but I agree with Kyphur on the tiled floor bit, but that's just a personal preference.

Right... Somehow I managed to get the Skull Eye Schooner mixed up in my head with the Red Beard Runner... So, here's a list of ships by cannon ports in the broadside: Queen Anne's Revenge: 6 (only comes with 3 cannons, though) Imperial Flagship (Pirates II): 4 Skull Eye Schooner: 4 Black Pearl: 3 (only comes with 2 cannons) Brick Beard's Bounty: 2 Black Seas Barracuda: 2 Red Beard Runner: 2 Imperial Flagship (old version): 2 Caribbean Clipper: 2 (the only large pirate ship I ever owned) Armada Flagship: 1 (not much of a flagship, if you ask me! ) Cross Bone Clipper: 1 Renegade Runner: 1 ..So, the best bet would probably be the QAR or SES to win vs the Imperial Flagship... The advantages of the IFS are that its gun deck is enclosed, meaning that it could use canister or grapeshot against the SES or QAR to decimate their gunners before switching to round shot (or, even better, heated shot) for the kill, but that's just this salty old sea-dog's take on it... Besides, I guarantee, even as a kid, the FIRST thing I'd have done with the IFS would be to add some guns to the main deck (I guarantee that I'd have bought at LEAST 4 of those Cannon Battle sets as a kid... I bought about a dozen when I realized that the 2009 pirates were being discontinued... Would have bought more, but I had already depleted the local stores' stock ). Of course, if it came to a boarding action, the SES would probably win, due to having a larger crew, provided the aforementioned grapeshot didn't eliminate that advantage (Yes, I've come up with a system for shooting "grapeshot" from the LEGO shooting cannons... It involves carefully stacking multiple 1x1 round bricks with the spring pulled all the way back).