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Hi everybody, I got this new Lego Friends Heartlake Pizzeria for 2017, and made a building review of it, I hope you will like it :) I also made one of the new Stephanie's house , which I allready posted before. And still have the gift delivery set, that one I will review tonight. Thanks for watching and I hope you will enjoy :) Best wishes for everybody :)

NAME: Mr. Freeze Ice Attack NUMBER: 70901 THEME: DC Superheroes SUBTHEME: The Lego Batman Movie PRICE: $19.99 USD, $24.99 CAD I was fortunate enough to acquire this set early from my local Target by asking for DCPI 204-00-1946, and had an afternoon to kill so decided to write up this review. These are not supposed to be released until December 1st! The front box art depicts Batman swinging into action against Mr. Freeze's mech to save a security guard frozen in ice. The scene is action packed and the bright yellow banner across the top is certainly eye-catching. It also reveals that this set is branded under "The Lego Batman Movie" subtheme. The back of the box shows the play features in more detail, along with the curious slogan "Build Something Batman" The box contains two numbered bags, one instruction booklet, and a tiny DSS, which look fairly easy to apply this time around. Bag 1 will build Batman, the guard, the ice cage, and some nice-looking scenery. Bag 2 will build Mr. Freeze, his gun, and his mech. Here are all the pieces from Bag 1... ...and here are some of the more interesting ones. There are, of course, the two large ice wall pieces. I have not encountered the red macaroni pieces before, and they certainly appear to hold some potential for MOCing. I was pleasantly surprised to find there is an extra of Batman's new belt piece included. (More on that later!) The build is quite straightforward, mostly stacking bricks and plates. The red macaroni pieces are connected by a Technic axle and also sport a standard stud connection, which is pretty cool and further increases their usefulness. Before you know it, Bag 1 is complete! The stickers are easy to apply and I must say the sand green/red/light grey look nice together. The grey hinges on the white and blue ice cage are jarring and would have looked much better in white. Bag 2 looks much more interesting! Some interesting pieces include L tiles in light blue, short hoses, Freeze's printed chest armor, and a bulky new chassis piece which will form the basis for the mech. It looks fairly specialized, though I'm sure the community will come up with some creative uses for it. Things cool down as you start off by assembling Freeze and his comically oversized gun. Construction of the mech begins by immediately stickering a control panel to the inside of the chassis. SNOT is the next step, in which you discover two light grey cheese graters! I somehow missed these when going over "interesting parts of Bag 2." I am sure the community will be happy to find these in a cheaper set, as if I remember correctly, they are fairly popular for sci-fi creations and have only previously appeared in the $80 Dimensions starter packs. Some clips are added, the pipes wrap around, the back (made up of only a few clips and plates) is added, and the legs are a "x2" construction. The arms go quick, and the mech is complete! ...er, almost complete. Place Mr. Freeze in the slot at the back and clip the gun into the mech's fists and we're good to go! It looks suitably menacing. That should conclude our review... Wait, what? You want to see the figures, and some final ratings? Fine. Batman appears in all the LBM sets, though Mr. Freeze and the guard are exclusive to this set. (Barring their unlikely inclusion in the yet-to-be-revealed CMF) His weapons include a Batarang and a flamethrower, which is appropriate for battling an ice-themed villain. He also sports an alternate expression... ...as well as some nice back printing, which is covered by a cape made of the new sponge-y material. He is very similar to the "classic" Batman, though there are some slight differences in the placement and brightness of the logo as well as the muscle printing. He is also slightly taller due to the new belt piece. Batman, why do you need two belts? This is a very nice, clean figure who calls back to the original design. The belt looks great and helps distinguish him as the Batman from the new movie, which I personally like. The second figure is a generic guard. The face reminds me somewhat of Commissioner Gordon. When I first saw the leaked images, that's who I thought this was! If you look closely there seems to be a molding problem with his left hand. It's weird, and doesn't rotate quite as well. Maybe someone in the comments can explain what's going on there? He also features some nice back printing... ...as well as an alternate, scared expression. This figure is rather bland, but the new face is much appreciated and the torso printing is nice for including some diversity in your legions of GCPD officers. Not really sure what's going on with the fireman helmet, however. Perhaps it is meant to represent a gas mask in the explosion-prone Gotham Energy Plant? But I've saved the best for last, the main draw of this set, Mr. Freeze himself! I am happy to report his chest armor is printed, and his head includes the classic red goggles so sorely missing from the 2013 iteration. I would say he is certainly an improvement over said 2013 version, though maybe not quite as good as the original 2006 version. I still regret selling that one off. Freeze also has back printing, though the most interesting part of it ends up being covered by his armor. Mr. Freeze is easily the best figure included in this set and seems to be based off Batman: The Animated Series, which should attract quite a few prospective buyers on that fact alone. The ending of the instruction booklet shows how this set can be combined with two other small sets of this wave to form a larger Gotham Energy playset. Unfortunately the Target I visited did not have these other two sets in stock, or else I would have certainly purchased them! I can imagine this clip is what will connect the sets. To conclude I would like to leave some general ratings on the set as whole. PLAYABILITY: 7/10 - This set certainly has a lot going on, and there are numerous scenarios that could play out, especially when connected with the other two Gotham Energy sets. However, it doesn't have much in terms of actual play features. The only ones I noticed are the sole stud shooter on the mech and the opening ice cage. This could be improved perhaps by included the ability for the white tank to blow apart? BUILD: 8/10 - The scenery is rather a boring build, but the mech packs some interesting construction and more than makes up for the disappointing backdrop. PARTS: 10/10 - A perfect score is a no-brainer here. What other set can you get light blue and sand green, as well as several pieces new for this year and theme? FIGURES: 7/10 - Batman and the guard are a bit flavorless, but the fantastic new Mr. Freeze picks up their slack. I would even venture as far as saying he alone makes this set worth it. PRICE: 10/10 - No complaints here! $20 for 201 pieces is awesome, especially for a licensed set with exclusive minifigures and interesting parts. TOTAL: 42/50 or 84%! I would recommend this set in a heartbeat to anyone interested in the Lego Batman Movie or anyone looking to build their parts collection without breaking the bank. Feel free to leave your thoughts and comments on the set down below, and remember to vote in the poll!

Hi everyone! TLG was kind enough to send me the two sets based on The Freemaker Adventures, so this is going to be a review of both of those sets as well as the TV show. There have been many animated Lego Star Wars specials over the years. Beginning with the stop-motion short film The Han Solo Affair back in 2002, the Lego Group has been delighting Lego Star Wars fans everywhere with these humorous cartoons based on everyone's favorite space opera. However, these were usually just spoofs of the movies and didn't offer much original content. They were also just one-off specials that were no more than 22 minutes long. It wasn't until The Yoda Chronicles in 2013 that they expanded their specials into a 7-episode mini series with an original plot. They invented a new character, the Sith clone Jek-14, and two new ships for the series and produced two sets based on it as well as a book and some exclusives. However, audiences were not too impressed since it still focused a lot on making silly jokes rather than telling a compelling story. The next mini series Droid Tales also had an overarching plot, but it only had 5 episodes and focused more on parodying the movies and TV shows again, just with a lot more meta jokes this time (which were hilarious in my opinion). It seemed like they were going backwards and were no longer interested in telling creative new stories... Enter The Freemaker Adventures, a brand new series that centers around a completely new cast of characters and an original story set between Episode V The Empire Strikes Back and Episode VI Return of the Jedi. This show has 13 episodes, almost twice as many as The Yoda Chronicles had, and tells the story of the Freemakers, a family of scavengers who make a living selling starships that they build out of scrap that they find around the galaxy and one day discover an ancient artifact that the Empire is after, so they have to go on an adventure to save the galaxy. The premise was already intriguing, but I was surprised how good this show actually is. Since they decided to make up their own characters rather than use characters from the movies (although they do get some cameos) gives them a lot of freedom in what they can do with them and I think it really paid off. There is actual character development and lots of good messages about family, believing in yourself, and defining your own path. While the trademark Lego humor is still very much present, this Star Wars special is a lot more serious than previous ones and it balances the comedy and serious moments very well. Over the course of the 14 episodes, you really get to connect with the characters and get into the story which is pretty well written. The voice acting, animation, and music are excellent as well. This show's quality is on par with that of Ninjago and it feels like Star Wars Rebels for a slightly younger audience. Is it a perfect show? Of course not, but it's a lot better than the movie parodies that have come before which have started to get repetitive. I can definitely recommend it. I will give my brief thoughts about each episode below, but be warned, there will be SPOILERS! So if you haven't seen it, please skip ahead to the review of the sets. Episodes 01 - A Hero Discovered 02 - The Mines of Graballa 03 - Zander's Joyride 04 - The Lost Treasure of Cloud City 05 - Peril on Kashyyyk 06 - Crossing Paths 07 - Race on Tatooine 08 - The Test 09 - The Kyber Saber Crystal Chase 10 - The Maker of Zoh 11 - Showdown on Hoth 12 - Duel of Destiny 13 - Return of the Kyber Saber In conclusion, this was a very good show that Star Wars fans of all ages can enjoy and I would love to see more like this! But do the sets based on it live up to its greatness? Let's find out! I will start with the set that includes the Freemakers themselves, the StarScavenger! Set Number: 75147 Name: StarScavenger Theme: Star Wars Subtheme: The Freemaker Adventures Year of Release: 2016 Pieces: 558 Minifigs: 4 Price: $49.99 USD Links: Brickset Bricklink S@H description: The Box The front of the box has the Kylo Ren art at the top like all of this year's sets which doesn't quite fit with the Freemakers theme since Ben Solo wont even be born until a few years after the events of the Freemaker Adventures. The art work is nice though as it shows the StarScavenger flying through space with some explosions and the Freemakers' home "the Wheel" in the background. There is a minifig lineup in the lower left corner, but the character names on it are a bit hard to read as they are printed so low that they are sitting just above the edge of the box. On the back, there are pictures showing off the playfeatures of the set along with some schematics and an ad for the Force Builder app. What I find odd is that the schematics and app pictures are much larger than the play features images, making the play features look like an after thought. I think they could have used the space better to highlight the features of the set more. On the other hand, it makes sense that they are advertising the app here since building with the force is a big theme in The Freemaker Adventures. At the top of the box there is another minifig lineup that is easier to read than the one on the front and it uses Rowan as a size reference. On the bottom there is not much besides a Lego Club ad and some copyright info. On the sides of the box feature a smaller image of the StarScavenger along with a choking hazard warning on the right... ... and the set name in Spanish on the left. Contents Inside the box there are five numbered bags, a sheet of three stickers, and an instruction booklet (which had a bent corner in my copy ). There are a couple of rare parts in this set, such as the A-Wing fins which only come in the latest A-Wing set, a dark tan scoop which is currently exclusive to this set in this color (although it will appear in a Marvel Super Heroes set next year), some inverted, curved 1x2 slopes in gray which only appear in 4 other sets in this color, and a printed double cheese slope which made its debut in two other Star Wars sets earlier this year. It's always a pain trying to apply stickers onto these pieces, so I am very happy they have started to print them now. The instructions are pretty mundane to look at as you can see from this random page since this is a mostly gray build on top of a gray background, but there is enough contrast that you can tell the different colors apart. This is a medium difficulty build, so the complexity of the part callouts range from one piece to five different types of pieces. Minifigures Now let's talk about the minifigures, the Freemakers themselves! I will begin with the main protagonist of the story, Rowan. He is the youngest of the siblings and is the only one who is force sensitive. He is very eager to master the force and help save the galaxy, even though he has a lot of trouble focusing. He is a great role model for kids with a short attention span which there are a lot of nowadays. Like all the Freemakers, he has a light nougat skin and brown hair (Maybe they are Kanan Jarrus's kids? ). Since he is often assigned to be the lookout, his accessory is a pair of binoculars, although they are the traditional kind rather than the high-tech ones usually used in Star Wars sets. His torso has back printing, however he does not have a double-sided head. In fact, none of the Freemakers do. This is a shame as a second expression really would have been useful to recreate some of the more sad/serious moments in the series. A concerned face or that wide-eyed stare he gets when he senses a kyber saber crystal nearby would have been great to get, but I guess this will do. He also comes with a white pilot helmet with goggles. I don't remember him ever wearing such a helmet in the show, so I am perplexed as to why it was included. It would have made a lot more sense if he would have come with the blue lightsaber that he often uses throughout the series. When compared to his appearance in the show, Rowan is pretty accurate except for some minor differences. His legs in the show are olive green to match Kordi's jacket, but here they are dark green, and his shirt is more blue than gray in the show. While it would have been nice to get the short legs in a new color, the dark green works with his color scheme, so I don't mind the change. Also, his animated counterpart has his brown shoulder padding stretch over his shoulders. This is something they easily could have done with some arm printing or maybe even dual molding, but I guess that wasn't in the budget. Next up we have Kordi. She is the manager of the Freemakers' Salvage business and can get a bit bossy. She usually only cares about money, but is also very protective of her brothers. She is a fast talker and has talked herself and her brothers out of trouble on many occasions. Her torso printing isn't as gritty looking as Rowan's, but it still has lots of nice details that continue down to her legs. She comes with a buzz saw even though she never used such a tool in the show (they actually use brick separators to disassemble their salvage ), but it's a tool that makes for a scavenger to have. When compared to her show counterpart, she is pretty spot-on. My only nitpick is that there is some flesh-colored printing missing above her shirt, but I guess this makes her torso more versatile. The third sibling is Zander and he's the oldest out of them. He is the team's mechanic, a racing enthusiast, and the self-described "fastest pilot in the galaxy guy". He builds Uglies out of the salvage they collect which they then sell in order to pay their rent, although he prefers his creations to be called Z-Wings. I like that they brought back the old EU concept of Uglies since they are a very Lego-like idea, creating something new out of the parts from preexisting "official" models. So Zander is basically an AFOL since he likes to build MOCs and gets excited at every rare Lego Star Wars ship he sees. And since he's a mechanic, he comes with a wrench. He has the same legs as Kordi and wears a matching jacket with oil stains on it. His swept hairpiece is exclusive to this set in dark brown. Much like Kordi, his design is identical to that in the show. Again, except for the lack of flesh printing on his neck. Lastly, there is R0-GR, or "Roger", a refurbished battle droid from the Clone Wars who is basically the Freemakers' maid. He serves as the comic relief and as Rowan's sidekick, although he can get quite annoying. If you hated the battle droids in The Clone Wars, you're really not gonna like him as he has the same grating voice and is ten times more slapsticky than them. However, he is very loyal to his family and is of some use to them from time to time. He is often seen sipping on a nice hot cup of motor oil which is why he comes with a mug in this set. Compared to his show counterpart, he is pretty accurate (although it's hard to screw up a battle droid minifig), however he does not have the Freemaker logo on his transmitter pack on his back. This is pretty disappointing since his transmitter plays an important role in the story on multiple occasions. Even a sticker would have solved the problem. The Build The first bag contains the parts for the mini scavenger and the cockpit of the StarScavenger as well as Zander. The Mini Scavenger is a quick and simple build, and honestly it looks pretty bad. It looks very boxy and unfinished. The scoop can be tilted down and the legs can be folded up, but they also look pathetically short, especially the feet look too small. The whole walker is a bit back-heavy, so it tends to fall on its back a lot, especially when the scoop is empty. The set comes with some items that you can put in the scoop including a light blue crystal which is supposed to represent a kyber saber crystal and two white 1x2 bricks which are supposed to represent... well, I have no clue what they are supposed to represent. Some kind of salvage I assume. You can seat a minifigure in the driver seat and there is a spot for Roger to stand in the back. There are also some clips to store accessories. You can't blame the source material for the bad look of the Mini Scavenger because it looks very different in the show. The animated version looks a lot better as it is fully enclosed and it's not a even a walker, It's a small ship. Plus it deploys out of the bottom of the StarScavenger, not the top. How did they get this so wrong? At the end of bag 1, the cockpit of the StarScavenger is complete. So far so good, although it's odd that they didn't include a 1x2 plate to fill the hole under the dark blue curved slope in the back. The second bag contains the parts for the rest of the front half of the ship as well as Rowan. Here are the completed turrets and the hallway sections leading up to them. Once you connect them via the Technic pins to the cockpit, the front section of the StarScavenger is finished. This part of the ship is a pretty solid build. The third bag contains the parts to construct the lower half of the cargo carrier. This is how it looks at the end of bag 3. So far it looks very bare. The next bag includes the parts for the other two engines. After building and attaching them, the cargo carrier is mostly finished, even if it may not look like it. The last bag contains Kordi, Roger, and the wings of the ship. Once you attach the wings, the build is finished. There are a few small parts left over as usual along with a spare spring missile and the brick separator (which could actually be considered part of the set since the Freemakers do have a brick separator on their ship for dismantling salvage). The Complete Set Once you connect the cargo carrier to the cockpit section, the set is complete! Overall, the StarScavenger is not the most appealing vessel as it looks cobbled together, but I believe that is intentional since it is supposed to be an Ugly made out of different ship parts. It looks like it was built out of the cockpit of a Jedi Defender-class Cruiser, the engines of an A-Wing, and the wings of some kind of shuttle. When compared to the show, the StarScavenger is vastly under-scaled in this set as the ship is supposed to be 2-3 times as big as it is, but the general shape of it is the same. Another inaccuracy is that the set has the Freemaker logo on top of the cockpit and on the sides of the fins while the ship in the show doesn't. So they made three large stickers for the StarScavenger that it didn't need, but they neglected to make one small decal for Roger's transmitter? The ship doesn't look so good from the back as the cargo carrier is very lacking compared to the cockpit section and I don't like how the spring-loaded missiles are sticking out of the back of the turrets. The wings can be folded out to convert them to flight mode. Here they are in landing mode: And here they are in flight mode. Looking at it from the front, the ship actually looks pretty good. The use of dark tan, gray, and dark gray give it a nice rusty look. The back, however, does not look so good as it is almost completely open aside from the engines and a couple of Technic beams. Also, only half of the holes in the thrusters are filled with trans-light-blue round tiles. It would look much better if there was a full circle of these like in the show. From the side, the ship looks alright for the most part in landing mode, although there is some of the interior showing towards the front of the wings. However, once you fold up the wings for flight mode, the ship looks pretty terrible from the sides as it is completely open. I guess Rowan and Roger will have to hold their breath during the flight. The reason why the cargo carrier is so bare bones is that it is designed so that you can split the engines apart and open up the top in order to access the Mini Scavenger on the inside. This is not a bad play feature, but I wish they could have implemented it without sacrificing the walls of the ship. While the Mini Scavenger is inside the cargo carrier, its scoop doubles as the scoop of the StarScavenger which is pretty clever in my opinion. The cockpit can also be opened from the top to seat the minifigures inside. In the show, there are two seats in the front row, allowing all the Freemakers to fit in the cockpit, but here you can just barely fit two inside. You can still fit all four minifigs into the ship by having the two others ride in the back. For non-salvage missions, the cargo carrier can be detached from the cockpit section as seen in the episode The Lost Treasure of Cloud City. This feature works fairly well, and even though the two halves are only connected by three Technic pins, the ship is stable enough when they are connected. Ratings Design: 3/5 - Scale aside, the StarScavenger looks decent, at least in landing mode. I like the look of the front half of the ship, but the other half is much too bare bones. The Mini Scavenger is ugly, inaccurate, and unbalanced. Build: 3/5 - The build is pretty average and there's nothing very challenging aside from some SNOT and Technic structures. Minifigs: 4/5 - Four minifigs is a decent number for a set of this size and they're all exclusive and pretty accurate to the show. There are some minor inaccuracies on some of the characters, though, and some double-sided heads would have been nice. Playability: 5/5 - This is perhaps the only area in which this set shines as there are a lot of play features in this set which all work as they're intended and the set can be split into 2-3 different vehicles. Parts: 3/5 - Most of the parts are pretty common, although there are some rare ones included. Price: 4/5 - 558 parts for $50 is a pretty good deal for a Star Wars set these days. Overall: 3/5 - I'm not impressed with this recreation of the iconic ship of the Freemakers. The minifigures are good and there are a lot of play features, but it just feels like they were cutting costs wherever they could, resulting in an unsatisfying set. The vehicles, especially the Mini Scavenger, are kinda ugly, even for Uglies, and since they aren't canon, I doubt any adult collector will be interested in this set. If you have kids who are fans of the cartoon and care more about minifigs and play features than looks, go ahead and buy it for them. For everyone else, this is probably an easy pass. Now lets turn to the dark side and see if the villains fare any better than the heroes. Set Number: 75145 Name: Eclipse Fighter Theme: Star Wars Subtheme: The Freemaker Adventures Year of Release: 2016 Pieces: 363 Minifigs: 2 Price: $29.99 USD Links: Brickset Bricklink S@H description: The Box The box of this set also has the Kylo Ren design, although in this case it fits a bit better with the Sith theme. In case you didn't already know, (spoiler alert!) Naare is a Sith agent working for the Emperor who only pretends to be a Jedi in order to gain the trust of the Freemakers and trick them into helping her find the kyber saber crystals. I'm sorry I had to spoil that for you, but it's impossible to talk about this set without revealing this twist (which is not a huge spoiler anyway since it is revealed in the first episode). I mean, just look at this box art! While the set description is a bit vague about it, the box art makes it perfectly clear that Naare is a Sith. Her red lightsaber, her evil tattooed face, and the color scheme of her starfighter are all dead giveaways. So don't blame me for this spoiler, blame the box art. The back of the box has the same wasteful layout as that of the StarScavenger, although thanks to the smaller box size, the play feature images take up a slightly bigger portion of the layout. Inside the box there is an instruction booklet and 3 numbered bags. No unnecessary stickers this time! There aren't many noteworthy parts in this set except for the trans-red windscreen with handle which is exclusive to this set in this color, 3 trans-light-blue 2x2 domes which appear for only the second time in this color, and 2 red round 2x2 tiles with a floral pattern printed on them. These printed parts only appear in this set and that pattern has no significance as far as I know, so I don't know why they didn't just use a regular old tile, but it's always nice to see them go the extra mile to print parts, so I'm not complaining. Since this set features a darker color scheme than the StarScavenger, it provides more contrast to the light gray background in the instructions as you can see below. This is a build of lower difficulty, so there are usually no more than three different types of parts in the callouts. Minifigures There are two minifigs included in this set. One of them is Naare of course and you can see her here in her Jedi disguise. This version of her has white tattoos on her face, and her torso features some detailed printing too which continues down to her legs with a nice silver pattern. Like Rowan, She does not come with a blue lightsaber to go with her Jedi outfit unfortunately. Her cape is the new spongy kind. The other fig is Dengar. He is a bit of an odd choice to include in this set as he is more often seen together with his employer, Graballa the Hutt and his goons than with Naare, although they do work together at one point, so I guess it makes sense. He is the only canon character in these sets, so he will likely be the most sought after by AFOLs. His accessory is a rifle, even though he is usually seen with a pistol in the show. When compared to the show, Naare is spot-on. Dengar is pretty accurate to his animated counterpart too. His face is not quite as grouchy as in his last appearance in the Super Star Destroyer set, although not as cheerful as in his first appearance either. I guess he has a lot of mood swings. His torso printing is more colorful this time and it is printed on a white torso which makes it look more cartoony and fits the tone of the source material, although I personally prefer the more gritty SSD version. The bandages on his head are the same headgear as that of the Clumsy Guy from the Collectable Minifigures Series 15 which is pretty clever and the most accurate mold used for him to date. Here is a rear view of the figs. Naare's cape is the new spongy kind which allows her hair to cover it effortlessly. Dengar comes with a backpack similar to the one he had on the Super Star Destroyer, except with a light gray 1x1 plate with ring instead of a dark gray one. Here is a picture of Naare without her cape and hair so that you can see her back printing. As you can see, Naare is the only one of the Freemaker minifigs that has a double sided head. Her alternate face is the Sith face that she gets whenever she looses her temper. Unfortunately the printing quality of her dark red tattoos is not very good, giving them an uneven tone and making them run along the crease towards the top of her head. It looks as if they were painted on with water colors. She comes with a hood and a red lightsaber to complete the Sith look. The hilt of her lightsaber is the same as those of Asajj Ventress which is inaccurate since she has a regular hilt in the show, so I'm not sure why they dug up this old mold. The Build The first bag contains Dengar and the parts for his speederbike as well as the cockpit of the Eclipse Fighter. Dengar's speederbike is a pretty quick and easy build, but the result looks pretty good. This would make a very decent polybag set on its own. There is a clip to hold his rifle in the back. He only used this bike in one episode when he was chasing the Freemakers in a Podrace. This is the best reference image I could get of it. As you can see, there some minor differences such as the use of an actual windscreen panel instead of a cheese slope and the use of a double cheese slope and a backrest instead of cheese graters in the back, but aside from that it's pretty accurate. This is how far we are with the Eclipse fighter at the end of bag 1. At this point, it looks like an escape pod. An EVIL escape pod! Bag 2 contains the parts for the structure of the transforming feature. Once the structure is built, you slide it underneath the cockpit and attach the support beams to the sides of it. The third bag contains Naare and the pieces needed to complete her fighter. Her cape is in a small white box as always. There are several small pieces left over at the end of the build, including a space spring missile and some extra lightsaber hilts. I guess you could pretend that the regular hilt is her turned off blue lightsaber or you could use it to replace the inaccurate hilt on her red lightsaber. The Complete Set After you add the engines and the missing hull pieces, the Eclipse Fighter is complete. It is similar in shape to General Grievous' starfighter, but it looks more curvy and streamlined. Also, unlike Grievous' fighter, Naare's has a third engine in addition to the two side engines. Looking at it straight from the back, the Eclipse Fighter's outline has a nice organic shape to it. On the side, beneath the cockpit, there are clips for holding Naare's lightsaber. There is no space to store her hair or hood though. The inverted slopes towards the front of the underside are there to provide an easy way to slide the front of the ship into attack mode. Looking at the front, you can see that the two nose halves don't completely close in flight mode. Also, the wings tend to droop down a bit, but otherwise it looks good. When you slide the midsection of the ship forward, the nose splits open to reveal two spring-loaded missiles. I like these kind of hidden missiles much better than exposed ones like on the StarScavenger. This is what the fighter looks like in flight mode... ... and here it is in attack mode. When in this formation, small crevices are exposed behind the missile shooters where you can press the back of the missiles to launch them. My Jabba-sized adult fingers have trouble reaching in there, but I'm sure kids will have no problem with it. (I really hope nobody takes that sentence out of context ) Compared to the ship in the show there are once again several small differences, most noticeably on the cockpit which is about 2 studs wider and longer in the show than it is in the set. I think I would have preferred it if they would have made the cockpit larger like in the show because the way it is now Naare barely fits into it, leaving no room for any controls. Ratings Design: 4/5 - The Eclipse Fighter looks very sleek and seems much better designed than the StarScavenger. Dengar's speederbike also looks quite decent. There are some inaccuracies though. Build: 3/5 - Another fairly average build where the only somewhat challenging part is assembling the transforming mechanism. Minifigs: 4/5 - Two minifigs for a set of this size is not great, but not bad either. Dengar is the most accurate version to date and Naare is the most detailed fig in the Freemaker subtheme, although I have to deduct one point for the shoddy tattoo printing on her Sith face. Playability: 3/5 - There aren't as many play features here as in the StarScavenger, but I really like the transforming feature and the two vehicles are fun to swoosh around. Parts: 2/5 - Most of the parts are very common, although it is nice that they printed the two round tiles. Price: 5/5 - 8.3c per piece is a great value, especially for a Star Wars set! Overall: 4/5 - This set is better than the StarScavenger in almost every way. The vehicles look good and are fun to play with. The two figs that are included are very detailed and accurate, and this is the cheapest way to get Dengar right now if you don't mind the slightly brighter colors on his torso. Plus it's a good value for the price, so yes, I'd recommend this set. The Full Collection In conclusion, as good as the TV show is, the two sets that they decided to produce based on it don't quite live up to that quality. It seems like either the designers or the animators were working off of early concept art, resulting in many inaccuracies, which is inexcusable since the sets and the source material were both created by TLG themselves. There should have been better communication between the two teams in my opinion. The StarScavenger is especially disappointing and would have worked better in a higher price point. On the bright side, this is probably the easiest and cheapest Star Wars subtheme to collect right now because it consists of only two sets. For just $80 you get four vehicles and six main characters from the show, allowing you to play out many scenarios and scenes from the show, which is probably what most kids who watch it will care about. There are rumors of more Freemakers sets coming next year, so if this is true I hope they will step up their game and release some better sets. There are plenty of characters, vehicles, and locations that they could turn into sets, including some species that we are sorely missing, so here's hoping. Well, that's about it. This is probably the most that I have ever talked about two sets. I hope you stuck around to this point and enjoyed this special Reviewers Academy triple review. I would like to thank The Lego Group for the opportunity to review these sets. Please rate them in the poll above and leave any thoughts you have in the comment section below. Oh, remember when I said that The Freemaker Adventures features an original story? Well, that may not be entirely true...

REVIEW - 42048 - RACE KART INTRODUCTION If you are old, like me, there's a pretty good chance the 854 Go-Kart (or 948 Go-Kart for the US) was the first Technic set in your collection. I remember my dad had to help me building this set. Actually, I think he did most of the building and I watched in awe. If you are a dad and have a son (or daughter) this might very well be the set to introduce your kid to LEGO Technic. Is it interesting for us AFOLs too? Let's find out. 854/948 GO-KART FROM 1978 Here you can see a picture of the kart I am referring to. One of the first LEGO Technic sets, although it wasn't called Technical LEGO back in the days. Wikipedia: The concept was introduced as the Expert Builder series and originally Technical Sets in 1977,[1] and was renamed Technic in 1984.. Note: All images can be clicked for hi-res versions. SET INFORMATION Number: 42048 Title: Race Kart Theme: Technic Released: 2016 Part Count: 345 Box Weight: 558 gr Box Dimensions: 15,4 cm x 13,8 cm x 5,9 cm Set Price (MSRP): € 26,99 Price per Part: € 0,078 Links: Brickset, Bricklink THE BOX The box shows the Race Kart on the starting grid and in the lower right corner you see the piston moving. There's also an arrow near the lever, going two ways, so there's probably a gear box of some sorts. BACKSIDE The backside shows the alternate model and a reference to the digital building instructions apps. The instructions weren't available in the app when I built the model, so I can't tell whether they are any good. They are probably up to par with the other instructions in the app, which are quite good. CONTENT OF THE BOX The box contains: 2 Instruction Booklets (A- and B-model) 1 Sticker Sheet 5 Bags INSTRUCTION BOOKLET A-MODEL The instruction booklet for the main model. INSTRUCTION BOOKLET B-MODEL Noteworthy is the inclusion of an additional booklet for the B-model. This is common in smaller sets, but I didn't expect it in a set this size. STICKER SHEET One look at the sticker sheets and it's obvious where these stickers need to be applied. The small round sticker is for the tank cap. The purple and orange color scheme is clearly present in the sticker sheet as well. BAGS Five bags containing all the parts for the model. No unbagged parts in this set. HIGHLIGHTED PARTS This section describes the new or highlighted parts. YELLOW 5L AXLE The 5L Axle has never been released in yellow. As far as I can tell, this is the only 1H 2016 set with a yellow 5L axle. RED 4L AXLE The Axle 4L in Red hasn't been released since 2005. It has only been released in 4 sets in red, so it's not a very common part. SILVER 3L TECHNIC LIFTARM The 3L Technic Lifarm has only been released in Silver in the 10242 - MINI Cooper. DARK BLUISH GREY 3x11 TECHNIC PANEL PLATE Also unique to this set is the 3x11 Panel Plate in Dark Bluish Grey. 3x13 CURVED PANEL The 3x13 Curved Panel, which was introduced in Bright Green in last year's 24 Hours Race Car, is being used in Purple. WHEELS AND TIRES The model uses 37 x 22 ZR Tires and 30.4mm D. x 20mm Wheels. Both are very common, but I mention them for easy reference. PART LIST The Race Kart consists of 345 parts. Here's the complete part list. THE BUILD The build is pretty straightforward, although the rear side with gearbox can be a bit tricky for the younger builders. The picture below shows the model halfway of the build. You can see the steering mechanism and lever for switching gears. The finished model looks quite good. The purple orange scheme makes the model standout. I like it a lot. Now that TLG introduced Purple panels, I hope that TLG will release more parts in Purple. Purple will also work very well with White. Steering is actually done via the steering wheel, something most car models lack nowadays. Of course the steering is easily accessible which facilitates the steering. The turning radius is quite big, which slightly reduces playability. This is clearly visible in the second video. The rear of the vehicle looks great too. One can criticize that using a big panel lacks ingenuity, but I think the panel is perfect solution. Admittedly, I am a big fan of the 3x13 Curved Panel! Hopefully this panel will be introduced in White in the near future. The next picture shows the chassis of the vehicle. As you can see, the White Driving Ring Connector is used multiple times as a 3L connector, where you normally might use a 180 Degree Axle and Pin Connector Angled #2. This is something you will find in the other new sets as well. To be honest; I can't stop looking at the Kart! I also imagine a Bright Green and White version, using the panel from the 24 Hours Race Car. Actually, I have built the Kart in Bright Green and White. You can see the result and comparison at the end of this review. The front and rear view of the Kart. VIDEO PARTS LEFT FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS This model has the following features: Steering Gearbox STEERING The steering wheel actually steers the Kart, which is a plus. On the other hand, the Kart from 1978 already featured steering like this, so it's not very special. Hand of God (HoG) steering wouldn't make any sense on this model. The Kart does have a pretty big turning radius, which does affect playability. I know the options are limited on a small model, but I would have liked some ingenious way of steering that would result in a smaller turning radius. GEARBOX The Kart has a 2-speed gearbox, and a neutral. The gearbox is operated by the red lever. VIDEO OF FUNCTIONS The video below demonstrates the features of the Kart. B-MODEL Since this set includes instructions for the alternate model, I decided to build it. Apparently this is a Track Car, although that is a broad concept. I can't really tell by the image on the back of the box what kind of Track Car this is supposed to be. There's only one way to find out I still can't pinpoint exactly what kind of Track Car it is, but it is a pretty decent B-model. Unlike the main model, it does have Hand of God steering. And it features an opening bonnet/hood. The steering wheel is for decoration purposes. It doesn't steer the model. For a B-model the design is more than sufficient. The next picture shows the chassis of the car. All things considered, this is a high quality B-model. VIDEO B-MODEL The video below shows a short demonstration of the Track Car. PARTS LEFT This image shows the parts left after building the alternate model. The leftover parts from the A-model are shown on the left. As you can see the B-model uses one red Technic Bush from the extra parts. SUMMARY Besides the rather large turning radius, there are no real downsides to this model. I love the looks and color scheme. It also it contains various unique and rare parts. It even features a working gearbox and working steering wheel. The set comes with printed instructions for the B-model, so it's basically a real 2-in-1 set. For around 25 euros you really can't go wrong with this set. Given the price, this also makes for a perfect gift. A gift for someone else, or gift for yourself?! You decide! I'd say this is definitely a worthy successor of me first Technic set ever!! SCORE How do I grade the good guy in this year's duo. 9 DESIGN Purple and orange work great together in this set. And it does look like a real Kart. 8 BUILDING EXPERIENCE Fun to build. Great introduction to gearboxes and steering. 7 FEATURES Working steering wheel and gear box on a relatively small set. 7 PLAYABILITY Limited turning radius slightly limits playability. 8 PARTS Some new parts and parts in new (rare) colors. 9 VALUE FOR MONEY Totally worth the money. 8,0 THE PERFECT GIFT As a bonus here are some picture of the Kart where the orange and purple color scheme has been changed to bright green and white. Not too bad, not too bad at all. It would probably look even better when the panels at the front could be replaced by bright green as well. My favorite picture of the Green Kart! The green fender works really well. COMPARISON Here you can see a comparison between the Purple/Orange and Green/White kart. I personally like the Purple/Orange better, but it's fun to have options. More image can be found on my Flickr page. Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.

42057 replica! The smallest set of the 1h2017 line. Pictures were recently released and I decided to make a replica of set 42057, the smallest of the line. Here is the video with my review: Feel free to build your own! Instructions and part list towards the end of the video. Thank you! BrickbyBrick

Minecraft. Doing a past Minecraft review here, I was shocked at how little interest there was in the theme. I'm 40, so no, I don't care about it the way I do Star Wars or Superheroes themes. I was also surprised at how retro the series felt, using brick-built everything, rather than use loads of specialised pieces. Overall, it was a pleasant surprise. I had a chance to review the star set of theme, will it compare favourably? Thanks to the LEGO Group for providing the set. Set#: 21128 Name: The Village Theme: Minecraft Year: 2016 Pieces: 1600 Minifigs: Steve, Alex, Villager x 2, Zombie, Zombie Villager, Iron Golem, Enderman, Pig, Baby Pig, Creeper MSP: U.S.$199.99, £169.99 , 199.99€ Brickset Bricklink The box: So, my kid loves Minecraft. She won't stop talking about it, going on a year now. Often we try to take photos, and she does the most horrible, fake smile, but when she gets a massive Minecraft box? She can't stop smiling. The box is about as big as any LEGO box that has passed through my hands. The cover is what it is, a showcase of the different parts of the Village. The size of this set pushed the limits of my 'studio,' so you're going to see some not perfectly white backgrounds. Note how fat this box is. It's probably 50% bigger than regular boxes. The back showcases both the set and the insides of the set's buildings. The booklets There is one large square-bound book for the main build, and a thinner, traditional stapled one for the alternate build. The Pieces The set has eleven medium size bags, plus some of the plates that have become the norm in contemporary LEGO. The Build BAG ONE I'm going to show the pieces, but there aren't any stand outs. As I wrote in the intro, the series is retro in feel, and uses very few modern elements, beyond the colours. There are a few translucent green 2x2 bricks. The mini-figs are spaced out through the bags, the first having a villager. From what I know of Minecraft, the villagers are kind of useless, and likewise, this mini-fig has no moving arms or legs! Try playing with that, kids! I suppose this is a store? This is not a triumph of design, though I like the leaves dangling off of the tree. The first bag also builds these mystery blocks. What are they for? We'll have to wait till later to find out. This part of the build contains two of the very few printed blocks in the set, and as apple, which is a decidedly modern element. BAG TWO The bags are, on the whole, underwhelming. I think the target age for Minecraft is about 12. For my seven-year old daughter, this was actually a really comfortable build, as an adult, I felt it was somewhat slight. The bag builds have a building, my daughter informs me it's a crafting room, where you can upgrade weapons and stuff. There is a nice Technic technique here which will be utilised in the next bag. But note it now to see how it works. Down. Up. BAG THREE Here is the star of Minecraft, Steve. Now, LEGO has made a totally accurate representation of this totally bland leading character. I suppose to my daughter, Steve is as exotic a name as Luke or Han was to me. Anyway, that's a Minecraft thing, not a LEGO thing. I like the pixelated effect on the sword! This is a very fun part. So, I thought this was neat. A wall is made, and settled on the SNOT section. From there, a roof is added, and thanks to that Technic hinge... An opening building! This is a great little technique to use on small scale buildings. After the unexciting first build, this is a lot more interesting. BAG FOUR This is another half-build. It makes the base of a house, which opens with a side-hinge. The brick-built door is fantastic. This is precisely the sort of detail which receives high praise in MOCs, but I don't think is appreciated in these sets because of the AFOL bias against Minecraft. The inside is is sparsely decorated. Here is another of the printed bricks; a crate. While the furniture is nice enough, it isn't really functional with the Minecraft mini-figs. BAG FIVE Now this is a weird piece. I would be curious to see if LEGO finds any other purpose for a piece like this. The piece is the base of the poorly-balancing Enderman. Considering the aesthetic of Minecraft, this is actually kind of creepy looking! The bag builds the roof with some beautiful tan blocks. I don't know what the wheel is for, but the bookshelf is a nice touch. The SNOT on the roof is nice as well. It's not a fantastic building, but it's nice enough. BAG SIX This was a slight build among slight builds! It has a kind of rocky greeble to it. The translucent blue water is always welcome. BAG SEVEN This is probably the star of the set, a brick built monster by the name of Iron Golem. The mossy, pixelated printed tiles are sweet! It's as thin as it can be while still being posable. The bag builds a tower to place on the previous build. Now, this seems to be a half-measure. It's a very small castle element that is dropped into a village. Note the base of this is different than the grass of the previous builds, so this feels like it doesn't belong in the set. I'm guessing it's a necessary environment to justify the Golem. BAG EIGHT This bag comes with a second villager, with a different torso. Not all that much to say that the picture doesn't say itself. This build is a small garden, and animal pen and a pond of sorts. A few other sets have this sort of detail. The first set I got was a farm, so this is familiar to me. Remember those mystery blocks from the first bag? Now they come into play. Those blocks are added to put this thing together. The set is really modular. The garden is simple, but well-designed. This also contains the pig, a nice brick built animal. BAG NINE Three more figs, Alex, the female protagonist; Creeper, the mascot monster; and a baby pig. Creeper and Alex are pretty much as they were in my last review, while the pig is just a slightly smaller version of what we've seen. Again, I like the pixelated quality of her weapon. The build is a desert scene, a well and a cactus. Like the Iron Golem build, this is quite disconnected to the main grassy village. BAG TEN This is the first half of the final building. Much like the first house, it opens on a hinge. The structure is different, with double doors. BAG ELEVEN Contained are the final two figures, the zombie and zombie villager. I like the villager one slightly more, just because the face is amusing. Overall, they're not special, even if they are accurate to the property. The finished house is, from the outside, very similar to the previous one, which is again, accurate to Minecraft. The inside is sparser than the first house, and less exciting. I do like the pumpkin faces though. The whole set is then assembled using the remaining blocks to attach them. Again, the finished set is bigger than my makeshift studio can handle, sorry. In the photo, perhaps it appears smaller, but it is an impressive effect overall. Some LEGO sets seem so big, but then the finished product isn't that grand, and I think this suffers the reverse. It takes up a lot of space. You can see the way the two houses fit. For some reason, the pig goes in a tree. Steve goes shopping. Alex is going to do some mining. Underman apparently carries blocks around. And a recently zombified villager sneaks around. Alternate Build One of the big features of the set is the alternative build. Pieces are broken off and remixed. The first build takes the swamp and second house. The top of the instructions show which parts not to break apart, and the other pieces to be used. The build is a fairly nice gate, with double doors. There's a nice depth to it, it's more than just a wall. I like this more than the second house (mainly for how it attaches to the main build). The back of the gate is somewhat bland. Yeah, it looks better from the front. The shape fits up perfectly against the main build: slide it in and... snap! it's fastened with the same blocks as before. The second build removes the desert and shop. And again tells you what to keep as is. The new build is what looks like a dungeon entrance. I like parts of this, but I don't know why the treasure is out in the open. It would have looked nicer in that entrance. The other side looks a little better. I enjoy the Minecraft foliage. And it snaps in perfectly as well. I understand why they put the second house in the main build, it makes the village look more like a village. That said, I like the alternative build better. on the original build, the shop and desert were the weakest designs, so it's not heartbreaking to take them apart. It's a busy village. The Final Verdict Design: 6/10 I'm going to place a lot of the weaknesses here on the basic design of the Minecraft game itself. I think the game is well designed, but there are a limited number of elements in it. So, the torches are cool, but they're the same as in the other sets. Same as the pillars. Same as the gardens. It feels like the designers are cannibalising their own design. Is there a way to innovate with a property that needs a blocky, simple aesthetic? Build: 7/10 The best build is the house, but then it's mostly repeated. The gate would be the next best. Other than a few places noted (the crafting room, the doors), most of it is similar to the other two sets I've done. It gains some points for the alternate build, but to be honest. for a set this price, like any of the modular houses, it is a big letdown. Playability: 10/10 That's the big one on here. It's modular, so you can shift it around, it can join other Minecraft sets easily, and there is a narrative built in. My daughter was acting out battles the moment I released this to her. Even my intro photo shows some of the action available. Minifigures: 8/10 The number of them is great, the variety of them is great, but these are mostly repeats from other sets. Possibly they all are. As with the design, LEGO is limited to what is in Minecraft. I'm surprised LEGO doesn't make ones using the large amount of skins in the game. Price: 3/10 Can I give it zero? 12.5 cents per piece is fair, but there are a lot of 2x4 plates and 1x1 pieces. There aren't loads of new moulds or figures in this. I really feel like you're paying for a license and the LEGO group's robust sense of inflation. There is zero chance I would buy this at the suggested price. Overall: 6/10 I wish I could give it a higher score, but I just can't. I like the brick built style, and the figures are good. But the repetition of this series is setting in. Because it's a collection of small builds assembled together, I feel like I could have bought two or three smaller sets and had a similar building experience. Half the builds were underwhelming, and even the good builds weren't great. After my many years of buying and reviewing LEGO sets, I'm of the mind that there are no bad LEGO sets, but there are ones that are a bad value. I think this is only for the true LEGO Minecraft fans... like my daughter. She'd give this a 10/10, but then again, she's not the one who pays for this stuff.

REVIEW - 21305 - MAZE INTRODUCTION Admittedly, I definitely wasn't one of the first backers of the Labyrinth Marble Maze. Not that I didn't like it, but I only visit the LEGO Ideas website every once in a while. When I saw this project I supported it immediately though. Because I have been waiting for this set my entire life? Not really. But it's definitely very original and it is somewhat linked the LEGO games product line, which I do appreciate. When TLG asked if we would be interested in doing a review, I didn't hesitate to volunteer. I liked the opportunity to find out more about this set, especially how the tip-and-tilt mechanism works. I'm guessing we will find some Technic elements, but who knows! PICTURES Pictures can be clicked to view hi-res versions. DISCLAIMER This set has been provided by the CEE Team of TLG. It's not my goal to promote this set. It's my goal to give you an honest opinion about it. Therefor, the opinion in this review is my own and is in no way linked to TLG. SET INFORMATION Number: 21305 Title: Maze Theme: Miscellaneous, LEGO Ideas Released: 2016 Part Count: 769 Box Weight: 1542 gr Box Dimensions: 38 cm x 26 cm x 9 cm Set Price (MSRP): € 69,99 (est.) Price per Part: € 0,091 (est.) Links: Brickset, Bricklink THE BOX The box looks different than a regular LEGO set box. For starters, the entire box is covered with a maze pattern, which obviously represents the set. Furthermore, it's a box with a flip-open cover, so it can be easily used to store LEGO parts or other stuff. The front of the box shows the image of the default Maze, with a container to store the balls. It also tells us that a booklet with inspiration for extra mazes is included, which made me curious. The right bottom shows the LEGO Ideas logo with the number #13, which indicates this is the thirteenth set published via LEGO Ideas (CUUSOO). The back of the box shows it's a 2-in-1 set, which boils down to the fact that there's an extra maze included. The base will probably remain the same. The back also refers to the inspirational booklet. CONTENTS OF THE BOX Nice thing about this kind of box is that you can open it up gently to see what's inside. The instruction booklet is stored beneath the baseplate, which protects it perfectly from damaging. The bags and the four black plates are stored on top of the baseplate. Makes you wish that more sets are be packed like this. Thumbs up for this box The box contains: 1 x Instruction booklet 1 x Base plate - 32 x 32 4 x Black plates - 16 x 8 8 x Unnumbered Bags BOOKLET A single booklet with instructions and inspiration, so there's no separate inspirational booklet. PLATES A 32 x 32 baseplate and four black 16 x 8 plates. BAGS Ten unnumbered bags, which is more than I expected. HIGHLIGHTED PARTS If you are into building modular buildings, this set is a great source for parts. It contains loads of tan bricks and tan and black tiles. You might not expect it, but this sets also contains some interesting parts. 32 x 32 BASEPLATE The Baseplate is actually pretty rare. It's only found in the Parisian Restaurant in Light Bluish Grey. 6 x 6 TILES These tiles aren't new, but they are by no means common. From 2009 to 2012 they appeared in eight sets. Edit: Actually it's this tile included in the set, which is less rare. SOCCER BALLS The Orange Soccer Ball appears in only four other sets and is quite popular in the GBC scene. YELLOW TECHNIC AXLES Since 2016 TLG has changed their "axle strategy". Axles aren't mostly grey and black anymore, but yellow and red. Red for even length axles and yellow for uneven length axles. This set contains two of these new axles, 4 x 9L and 2 x 3L. PLATE WITH TOWBALL This 1 x 2 Plate with Towball has been released this year (2016). It also appears in some Mixel sets and a Nexo Knight set. TECHNIC AXLE CONNECTOR This orange Technic Axle Connector makes his debut this year (2016). It will probably appear in one of the 2H Technic sets as well, because it could have been used in any color in this set. Don't want to spoil the fun, but I can only think of one set.... PART LIST This set contains 769 parts, which can be found in the part list at the end of the booklet. Looking at the image makes clear that this set contains more colored parts than you'd think at first sight. THE MAZE AND THE DESIGNER The first two pages of the booklet are dedicated to the Maze and the Designer. THE MAZE LEGO Maze reinvents the classic ball and labyrinth game, adding a twist of creative LEGO building to the fun. Built entirely from LEGO elements, the LEGO Maze consists of a base frame and a simple tip-and-tilt mechanism made up of LEGO beams and axles. You turn the wheels to move the maze up and down or from side to side, guiding the ball away from the traps. Challenge your family and friends and see who navigates past the obstacles fastest. Once you've mastered the two maze designs included with the set, you will find lots of inspiration to start creating your own mazes using the bricks included or any of your own LEGO elements. You decide how simple or challenging the maze should be. Add extra traps or more walls, or use different colored elements. The interchangeable maze system means you can easily swap maze plates without rebuilding the entire game. The set also includes a removable container to store the balls and a travel lock that keeps everything in place when you are carrying or storing the game. Build up your gaming skills and enjoy hours of challenging and creative fun with this latest creation from LEGO Ideas. Here's a picture of the classic wooden toy. THE DESIGNER Jason Alleman LEGO fan and designer of the LEGO Maze "Growing up I was always fascinated with how things worked. I have never actually owned one of those original wooden mazes, but I would always be drawn to them whenever visiting someone who had one." "After building a few smell mazes it didn't take before I was building larger mazes to run a LEGO soccer ball through. I originally tried to recreate the wooden version of the labyrinth maze as faithfully as possible, but it quickly became apparent that this wasn't practical." "I decided to decrease the size of the maze and eliminate the holes. By having the ball fall into the depressions, the maze could be built using fewer larger plates." "One of the limitations of the original wooden toy is that it is always the same. There is no way to make it more or less difficult, or modify the maze to have a different play experience. As I was designing this model I really wanted to embrace the customization that having it built out of LEGO pieces would allow." "Not only can people modify the difficulty of the mazes to gradually increase their skill, but they can create mazes that follow specific patters, themed mazes, mazes with multiple pathways to the finish. The possibilities seem almost limitless." THE BUILD Enough with the background information and other facts, let's start building the maze! Of course, the inclusion of the baseplate is a huge spoiler of where we begin. This picture is taken right before you start to build some of the elements for the tip-and-tilt mechanism. As you can see the interior of the base doesn't solely contain black parts. Building the base feels like starting the VW Van, UCS R2D2 or some the other Star Wars UCS sets. What they have in common is that they have a monotone or duotone exterior, but the inner section is comprised of a color-vommit of parts. At first I found this strange, but I started to like it. It facilitates the building process and it prevents from getting only grey (or another color) parts. We continue the build by adding some Technic axles and liftarms, which will be connected to the upper section later on. The big black gear on the side will be used to control one of two tilting movements of the upper secion. Finishing the base is all about adding black bricks. After the base frame the first section of the tip-and-tilt mechanism is constructed. This consists of simple square frame, almost entirely made up of tan bricks and tiles. Two black pivot points connect the frame to the base. Here you can see the first section connected to the base. After attaching the second gear, the first section of the upper section can be tilted. The video below shows the inner workings of the Maze. We proceed by building the inner upper section of the tip-and-tilt mechanism. This section has a single stud border with tiles on the inside. These tiles provide a smooth surface to lay-in the actual maze. Since the maze doesn't connect to any studs it's easy to replace with a different design. Here you can see the inner section attached to the outer section. This basically concludes the tip-and-tilt mechanism and finishes the base. Here you can see the entire base in action. Now it's time to build one of the two mazes! This is a matter of building a custom base plate, which is made up of the four black 16 x 8 plates and a single black 8 x 8 plate. After building the base plate it's tan tile galore. Grey bricks are used as walls. I personally would have liked the grey bricks to be covered with grey tiles, to give it a smooth finish, but it's no biggie. The green section indicatates the start and the red section the end. One needs to move the ball from the green to the red section. The maze inlay is conviently placed in the inner upper section, which completes the build! Some people refered to the model as looking rather dull. I definitely don't agree. I think the black base with tan tip-and-tilt mechanism looks great. There's enough contrast between the base and the mechanism. The wooden game is entirely made up of wood, which would result in a completely tan model. I think this is a great compromise. FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS This being the maze game, one can't expect it to have loads of features and functions. You can turn the two gears to operate the tip-and-tilt mechanism. Besides that, there's a lock (the black box) to keep the mechanism in place when traveling. Furthermore there's a storage container which holds four balls. That's about it, and that's exactly what I expected from this set. The video below shows a demonstration of the game. Looking at the video you can see one downside of this maze layout. When the ball moves fast it doesn't "fall into the black holes". It simply moves on. I consider this inappropriate game play. I did make it to the finish once, but the ball jumped a few holes in the process. Another small issue is that the ball has mold marks, which makes it slightly irregular in shape, resulting in sudden unexpected movement. This isn't a big issue though. What I do think is an issue, is that the tip-and-tilt mechanism has slightly more tip and tilt in a single way. This means that tipping one way has more effect than tipping the other way. Same goes for tilting. Sometimes you need to change direction really fast and having less movement can be limiting. Does this diminish the fun?! Not really. A little frustration is what makes this game fun. I still found myself challenged to get the ball to the finish. I showed it to my dad who immediately was inclined to play a few rounds. Putting this game on the coffee table will draw everyones attention, I can assure you that much. ALTERNATIVE MODEL AND INSPIRATION After building the first model, there's lots of parts left. These are used for building the alternative maze. You use the included brick separator to remove the tan tiles and grey bricks, until you only have the black base plate. On that base plate you start building the other maze, which you can see in the picture below. The alternative maze attached to the base. The alternate maze in action. Obviously there's no way to tell how many attempts I needed, but I can tell you this maze is a lot easier. It only took me three times to complete the maze. I must admit that I am not entirely sure what the start and what the end is, so I might have taken the wrong path. At the end of the booklet there are two pages with inspiration for three other mazes. Instructions for these mazes are not included, but they should be easy to build, by looking at the pictures. The front of the box states that it includes a booklet with inspiration for extra mazes. While it does include three extra mazes, I found this to be a bit of a dissapointment. Five mazes in total isn't bad at all, but the statement on the box made me expect more. All in all I do like the alternate maze. It has a bit of a Mini Golf feel to it, which I find rather cool. SUMMARY This set is what it is...a Maze game, so we need to judge this set accordingly. It doesn't have nice little details like the modular buildings, it doesn't have cool Minifigures like some of the Star Wars sets and it doesn't have loads of functionality like most of the Technic sets. We need to compare apples with apples and not with pears. I think the designer did a great job in recreating a classic wooden game into a LEGO set. Ironically the LEGO brand has a history in wooden toys, which adds some value to this concept. The set looks great. I especially like the combination of the black base with the tan tip-and-tilt mechanism. The first maze is a very simple, yet difficult, maze, while the second has more appeal, but is a lot easier. I think TLG (or the designer) made the right choice. The tip-and-tilt mechanism feels a bit flawed, because it extends to one side more than the other. This limits gameplay in a certain way. Same goes for the included balls, which have mold marks and are not completely round. However, both these flaws are minor issues. Overall the game is lots of fun and it will generate a lot of interest. This set contains a lot of tiles, which can be useful if you are into modular buildings. If you are looking for those orange axle connectors, this set comes to the rescue. And it will get you started if you are thinking of starting a GBC career All jokes aside, this set might not be interesting enough for everyone, but I think it's a very original set and I do like it a lot. Thumbs up for TLG and Jason Alleman (and of course for the 10.000+ backers who agreed with me) SCORE Okay, so how do I grade this set? 7 DESIGN Simple, yet true to original. 7 BUILDING EXPERIENCE Straightforward build. 7 FEATURES Changeable layout is a plus. 7 PLAYABILITY Just as much fun as the real game, with some minor flaws. 7 PARTS Basic set of parts, lots of tiles and it includes a 32 x 32 baseplate. 7 VALUE FOR MONEY Worth the money, if you are into this type of set. 7 Maze-merizing EXTRAS There's a nice article on Brickjournal about remotely controlling the maze with your Mindstorms EV3 units. Thanks you for reading this review. All pictures can be found in my album.

Stop motion review(presentation) of 6285 Black Sea's Barracuda Year: 1989 Pieces: 909 Minifigs: 8 Brickset Bricklink

Introduction Hi fellow EB members! Today I'll review one of the newest LEGO Architecture set: the United States Capitol. This building feels particular to me, because even if I've never seen it in real and probably never will, I see it almost every day in movies and TV series! But I don't think I know it very well, and I hope to learn lots of facts about it while building. Let's see if the LEGO model does justice to that iconic building. Thanks to EB LUG Ambassador CopMike and the LEGO CEE Team and Designers for giving me the opportunity to review this set! Set information Name: 21030 United States Capitol Theme: LEGO Model Making / Architecture Year: 2016 Pieces: 1032 Price: USD $99.99, GBP 79.99£, EURO 99,99€ Resources: Brickset, BrickLink Packaging As usual, the front of the box shows the set on a black background with a big LEGO Architecture logo. There is also a mention that the instruction booklet will include historical information and details in English, which is great for people who speak English, not much for the others. The rear of the box has a nice picture of both the real Capitol building and its LEGO rendition, and a comment about the building in a few language.There are also indications on the size of the final build ( 95 mm wide and 390 mm tall). You also see that you'll be able to lift the dome to see the National Statuary Hall from above. Content of the box The box contains the instructions booklet, 9 unnumbered bags, 6 loose 8x16 plates in dark bluish grey, a brick separator and the usual LEGO Architecture flyer. Instructions booklet The 155 pages instructions booklet is relatively big, almost an A4 size (Letter size I think). At the beginning, there are a few pages with details about the building, with nice pictures. The instructions are clear (there's almost only white bricks on a black background) and easy to follow. Except for a SNOTed assembly in the dome, there are no fancy or advanced techniques in this build. When needed, the designer placed the side stud of headlight bricks in the hole of a 1x1 technic brick. He also used that technique when it was unneeded, instead of using a plain 1x2 brick. Build We'll start the build with stacking plates to make the base. It is rather fragile, especially if you're building on your laps like I did for this review! The first plates and tiles delimit the walls of the building. We can also see the flooring of the National Statuary Hall. The white jumpers will be used to offset some assemblies that we'll do later. At step 58, we've done some gardening and put the first layer of bricks. The front stairs are also in place. Here you can see the completed walls. Different windows' sizes are done with either headlight bricks or technic bricks. At this point, and after positioning 178 of them, I couldn't stand the sight of a white headlight brick. That picture also shows the most negative point of the set: the back-side is just composed of plain white bricks. Colonnades are done and we're starting building the roof. After all that white, sand green almost feels like a bright color! The finished building, with the roof and dome completed. Some spare parts. Surprisingly we got two spare white statues! Interesting parts The most evident interesting parts are the sand green ones. The 6x6 dishes in sand green are exclusive to this set, as is the dark bluish grey statue, while the white statue can be found only in the 21026 Venice set. But in this set we got 6 statues of each color! In the picture I didn't include the 6x6 round plate in white, which can only be found in the 75904 Mystery Mansion and the 71040 Disney Castle, and the #21229 Fence Spindled 4 x 4 x 2 Quarter Round with 3 Studs that is exclusive to this set. Conclusion I like this set, it looks good... But it lacks some kind of wow factor. When my friends saw the model built, their first reaction was: "I thought it would be bigger". I think it is due to the height of the dome that makes the building under looks rather flat. That said, the set has the right proportions compared to the real building, except for the eastern facade, the back side of the set, which is simply cut off. That looks a bit strange when looking at the set from above, and even worse from the rear. I think since you can't display the set from two opposite angle at the same time, it is a rather good compromise since a whole facade would have needed two or three hundred parts. Design: 7/10 - The set is well designed, and it's the first time I see a "play feature" in an Architecture set (the dome lifting up to reveal the National Statuary Hall). Parts: 8/10 - Almost no variety in bricks' shapes and colors, but some nice parts, especially the 12 statues and the sand green parts. Build: 7/10 - The build experience is quite boring and repetitive (some steps ask you to place 40 headlight bricks!), but it is nice to see the building rise. Price: 6/10 - The price per piece is average for the theme (0,097). Too expensive as a parts pack at full price, if you want a good source of white headlight bricks you should wait for a discount. Overall: 28/40 (70%) - A good representation of the original building, except for the missing facade. This set is a nice addition to a LEGO Architecture collection, next to the Lincoln Memorial fo example. My only advice would be to display it at eyes level.

Another year, another Comic Con, and as you probably know, TLG always likes to sell exclusive sets at these cons which are very popular. However, they are not the only exclusives being sold there. Another hugely popular SDCC exclusive are Funko's POP! vinyl figures. They are stylish, adorable representations of characters from various licenses. There are hundreds of them and collectors can't get enough of them. So, for this year's San Diego Comic Con, TLG seems to have decided to appeal to both LEGO and Funko fans by debuting their upcoming Brickheadz, a series of brick-built figures in a similar style to the POP! figs, just blockier. I was able to acquire one of the four sets that were available while I was at the con and it contains the stars of the latest Marvel blockbuster, Captain America: Civil War. So, do Lego bricks and the vinyl figure style go well together or do they clash like the two Marvel heroes did in the movie? Lets find out! Set Number: 41492 Name: Iron Man & Captain America Theme: Brickheadz Subtheme: Marvel Super Heroes Year of Release: 2016 Pieces: 184 Minifigs: 0 Price: $39.99 USD Links: Brickset Bricklink Before we begin, I would like to tell you about my experience at San Diego Comic Con. I have been going to this convention and its sister convention, Wondercon, for the past 3 years. I always enjoy it a lot as it is great to get together with other nerds and just geek out about the things you love. You can see everyone's cosplays, meet artists and celebrities, get sneak peeks for upcoming media, watch world premiere cartoons, and get neat stuff! However, with every passing year I have been noticing how increasingly crowded it has gotten, and the more crowded it got, the less enjoyable it has become. The first time I went to SDCC, I had no problem walking around, getting exclusives, and getting into the panels I wanted to see (except for the Marvel/DC ones in Hall H - those have always had a notoriously long line). But within just three years it has gotten to the point where navigating the exhibit hall is virtually impossible without pushing your way through masses of warm, sweaty people and you have to get in line for exclusives and panels multiple hours in advance to even stand a chance to enter them. I spent most of my time just standing in line in the hot summer sun and most of the time the exclusives were sold out or the panel was already over by the time I got halfway through the line, so I walked away with nothing but a bad sunburn and had to try my luck at the next line. The line for the exclusive minifigs stretched from one end of the convention center to the other and the worst thing is that most of the people were scalpers who were only there so they could sell them for ridiculous prices later. So while the panels and booths that I did get to see were great, I definitely think that TLG and the whole Comic Con team need to organize this event better somehow. Needless to say, I will think twice before I attempt to get an exclusive next time, if I even go at all. That said, after getting in line at 4 in the morning, getting lucky in the raffle, and standing in another line at the Lego booth to buy it for forty bucks, I did manage to get this set as a souvenir, so lets open this bad boy! The Box The set comes in a thick, shiny box which is much more sturdy than your average Lego box. The background transitions from a yellow/orange gradient on Iron Man's side to a black/red gradient on Captain America's side via a dot pattern which gives it that comic book feel. At the top of the front there is a big LEGO BRICKHEADZ logo and a little circle letting you know that this is a SDCC 2016 exclusive. Thanks yellow circle! I never would have guessed! The Brickheadz logo is a bit bland and the Z instead of an S seems a bit corny, but it's cute how they stylized the H to look like a Brickhead. On the bottom, there is the Marvel logo and labels for the two Brickheadz included in the set accompanied by a little icon for each of them which is a nice touch. The backside has a similar layout with the same logos, but what's fun is that the Brickheadz are shown from their backside here. It also features a picture that assures you that the figures are indeed removable from their base, and instead of the labels there is a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo. The sides of the box continue the theme of showing the Brickheadz as if the box was see-through by showing Iron Man's right-hand side on the left side of the box and Cap's left-hand side on the right. Even on top of the box you see the top of the "headz" of the Brickheadz. However, on the bottom you don't see the bottom of the figs. It's just black and there is a fancy tape stretching across it with the Brickheadz logo and a shadowy impression of the eyes of a Brickhead printed on it. Now I'm going to do something that is probably unthinkable for all those scalpers at SDCC: I'm actually going to open and build this Lego set! The way you open the box is you cut the tape at the bottom and slide the cover off. Contents The box contains one instructions booket and one parts bag for each Brickhead. Much like the box, the bags are not the usual kind. You don't need to rip them open as they have an easy to open flap on the back. They also each have a sticker with some mysterious numbers on it. This is the first page of both of the instruction booklets. It shows both of the SDCC exclusive Marvel Brickheadz sets together on the left side and a teaser image for the upcoming Brickheadz line on the right which confirms the release date of the theme to be March 1st, 2017. The instructions are presented on a solid black background which provides a nice contrast and gives you the sophisticated feeling that you are putting together a collectible display item rather than a kids toy. The callouts are clear and the build is very simple as it only involves some basic SNOT. Good news! There are no stickers in this set! All the decals are printed, giving us a nice assortment of exclusive parts. The most notable printed piece is the black 2x4 tile with the Lego logo and the hashtag "LEGOSDCC" which there are two of in the set. It bugs me a little that they put a hashtag onto the set itself as it seems like a blatant attempt to get social media exposure for the event, but at least it marks it as an SDCC exclusive. Aside from Cap and Tony's torso and helmet pieces, there is also the new Brickheadz eye tile and Iron Man's eye tiles which are trans-light-blue 1x1 tiles with a simple white square printed on it. As always, the light printing on dark parts is not very strong, so things like the "LEGO" and "A" fonts are not as white as they could be. There are also some new recolors in this set such as the 1x2 plate with clip in red and the 1x1 round tile with small tube in white. The trans-clear stud with handle from the latest Spider-Man sets is included as well. Now we know where Spidey got that new web-shooter tech from. Assembling the Avengers You can start the build with either one of the Brickheadz. I'd like to build these in alphabetical order, so let's start with the guy who has a big "A" on his forehead. The parts contained in the bag for Captain America are the following. You start the build from the waste up and add the legs later on as you've seen on the sample instructions page earlier. Two round bricks serve as a center support for the torso. All of the SNOT is achieved by using the double brick with four studs on the side which was introduced earlier this year. The inner walls of the head are entirely comprised of them. What's funny is that in the center of the head they included a 2x2 brick in pink so that it looks like there is a brick-shaped brain inside of the brick-headz. Well played, designers. Here is the finished Captain. He looks quite adorable with that big head and glissening eyes. It's interesting that they made the highlights in his eyes square to stick with the brick theme of these figures. Next up is Iron Man. He has a few more parts as you can see in the lineup below. Iron Man's torso is similar to Cap's, but it's more intricate as it uses a lot of headlight bricks to attach his armor plating (or should I say tiling?). The inner structure is the same, including the brain brick which is the same size as that of any other Brickhead. I guess Tony is not so smart after all. After you add the plates around the head and add the legs, you're finished! Iron Man looks quite good with his armor tiles and repulsor beams, and the trans-light-blue showing around the eyes gives them that blue glow that they have in the movies which is an effect that the minifig version has yet to achieve. My only gripe is that the red strip on his forehead is interrupted by a yellow line, but that's excusable. The Completed Set Don't they look adorable together? It's hard to imagine these little guys starting a civil war. Both of them are based on their comic counterparts, so their costumes look very colorful, especially when standing next to each other. As you can see looking at them from the front, the boost from Iron Man's jet boots makes him stand one plate taller than Cap and all the other Brickheadz. Also, the use of tiles on his chest and slopes on his shoulders give the impression that he is wearing armor. The printing on both of their faces and torsos is very minimalist, but works with the simplified look that they're going for. For comparison, here is a picture of Funko's POP! versions of these characters. They look quite similar, don't they? TLG is not even trying to hide the fact that they are copying Funko's style. Captain America looks almost the same and the only difference on Iron Man is the use of standard black eyes (although they did use white eyes in the later movie versions of the character). I like how they used that white claw piece to represent the little wings on Cap's helmet. I can see them using the same technique for the Flash. I also like the way Iron Man holds his repulsor beams. This trans-clear stud with handle is a very useful part and I hope they use the same technique for the Iron Man minifig in future sets. Like in the comics, the printing on Cap's costume is exactly the same on the back as it is in the front. It's a bit lazy, but it's nice to see that he does have printing here, unlike Iron Man who is completely blank. They already printed so many parts in this set, so it would have been nice if they would have just printed these two tiles too. Cap's shield-holding hand is different from his left hand as it uses the 1x2 plate variant with the clip on the short side rather than the long side. This is supposed to give the arm an angled look which sort of works, although it does look a bit awkward. I should also mention that they are obviously top-heavy, especially Iron Man, so they tend to fall over backwards when they are not standing on a flat surface. However, this can be fixed by mounting them onto the center of their base. When I first saw these, I was hoping that their heads and arms were mounted on turntables so that you could pose them a little bit like you can with the Funko POPs, but alas this is not the case. They have zero points of articulation, making them decidedly more display items than toys. Here they are compared to their minifig counterparts. As you can see, they are about twice the size of a minifigure. Ratings Design: 5/5 - I think both of these figures look great. The designers managed to replicate the cute vinyl figure look fairly well while putting their own blocky spin on it, and the pink "brain" brick is a nice touch. Build: 2/5 - A very quick and easy build with nothing special aside from some basic SNOT. Nothing challenging. Playability: 1/5 - The Brickheadz don't have any articulation or play features, so they are clearly meant to be displayed rather than played with. Although the fact that the set includes two characters who have quite a history in both the comics and movies does allow for some role play. Parts: 4/5 - Most of the bricks included here are fairly common, but they're useful nonetheless. Some of the parts are exclusive to the set and all decals are printed which is always nice to see, although the lack of printing on Iron Man's back armor is disappointing. Price: 1/5 - I know I don't really have a right to complain since most people have to pay extortion prices on ebay to get these, but $40 for just 184 pieces is way too high already for me. When these are officially released, I hope that they cost only half as much or less. Overall: 3/5 - I have never bought a vinyl figure since I try to limit myself to collecting only one type of toy (#Lego4Life ), but I do see the charm that people see in them, so when it was announced that Lego will be making their own Funko-style figures, I was quite excited. While I don't think that Lego will become a serious competitor to Funko and other real vinyl figures, I do think that these Brickheadz are pretty cool on their own. Kids might not be interested in them due to their lack of playability, but some adult collectors like myself might find them charming. That said, I do not recommend getting this set, especially at aftermarket prices. It's just too much money for two little figures that might get released for a much more reasonable price in about half a year. The only special thing about it is the packaging and the hashtag-tiles. The only reason I got it was that I didn't want to leave the con empty-handed. In conclusion, while the process of acquiring these wasn't much fun and I payed more for them than I would've liked, I don't regret getting them as they do look rather nice and I look forward to see what TLG will do with this theme. I really like the Brickheadz style and might even build some of my own! I hope you enjoyed this review, and since it's the trendy thing to do this year, I added a poll above where you can vote for your favorite superhero, so go and vote! It's sure to be an easier choice than the presidential election this year. To end this review, there are so many jokes that could be made with these, but I'll settle for this one:

Introduction After two days of waiting I finally had the opportunity to build the newly acquired 75017 Duel on Geonosis. This set gives us one of the best lightsaber duels overall, the one between Yoda and Count Dooku towards the end of Attack of the Clones. This new set is kind of a remake of set 7103 from 2002 Jedi Duel which also featured Count Dooku and Yoda. This is my first review, I tried to stick to the rules. Please, don’t be to harsh on me… Not all the pictures are perfect... Set Title: Duel on Geonosis Set #: 75017 Theme: Star Wars Subtheme: Episode II: Attack of the Clones Pieces: 391 Minifigures: 4 Year of Release: 2013 Price at Release: USD ??, GBP ??, EUR 49.99 , CAD ?? I think that most of you are interested in the set because of the figures. So I will focus a little bit more on them. Let’s get started… Box Here you see the box with the new Yoda design and some action. Minifigures are there as well: Back of the box: And the side with Poggle in real-life size: The box opens on the side which leaves me with a medium level of destruction : Contents Inside we have of course the manual and three bags. Furthermore there are two separate pieces: a 8x16 tile in dbg and Poggles wings. I was quite surprised to find the wings outside a bag. According to Bricklink the large tile only appeared once in dbg in a set before. I was quite lucky some time ago as I found three of those at PAB in my Lego Store in Cologne . No stickers, very good. Instructions There is one instruction manual with the typical good structure and explanation as we know nowadays. A random page of the instructions. The parts (sorry, the pictures here are really not good): The minifigures Starting with the minifigures, first we have Poggle the Lesser. We have had some Geonosian before, but we get him for the first time as far as I know. For comparision (from Wookieepedia) With a lot of front printing Some nice backprinting And in all of his glory with the plans for the DS Overall, I think it is a fantastic figures with very nice details! Next up we have the new and non-CW Count Dooku. Again for comparision from Wookieepedia We have two different faces (nice) but no backprinting (not so nice, but due to the cape okay). Sorry again for the crappy pictures, have to work one that one. I like the new Count Dooku a lot, as I think his face os more or less perfect! And finally Yoda, again for comparision (from Wookieepedia) Front and back with hair and nice printings And finally all four of them including the droid. As you can see, Dookus light saber handle is still in silver The build The build was really fast, starting of the speeder in bag 1. It continues with the entrace to the lair in bag 2 and finally we have to other to parts with the Yoda play feature and the falling thing (whatever it is) that threatens to smash Obi-Wan and Anakin. I didn't take pictures of every step as it was really speedy. Here you see the finished speeder with the entrance. I liked the way the arch was buildt as it is really stable. There are some nice rock parts, a lot of slopes. Really, nothing that special. You can flick-fire the two elements (tower handles???) and remove the lamp quite easily. There is a compartment for the force-lightnings, the light sabers and so on. The build of the other parts of the cave was quite nice. Of course it could have been bigger, but you will get a lot of useful feature for a playset. You can have Yoda jump around in crazy ways. There is only one little problems: His lower part is of course heavier that his head. So it is almost impossible to do a real somersault. It is a nice playfeature, but I prefer Yoda without necklace. Here you see the additional parts of the lair. One part of the wall on the left side can also be 'flick-fired' As there are no Obi-Wan or Anakin included I had to squash someone else. I doubt that Yoda will allow Dooku to escape... And finally, the spare parts (quite a lot in my opinion). Nice, an extra light saber handle: Ratings Functions A lot of playability! I think that the different features are cleverly integrated. You ‘only’ need the new RGS and Ep. II Obi-Wan and Anakin to completely rebuild the fighting scene. 9/10 Parts Nothing to special, rocks are nice. Despite that everything as usual. Some technic elements, a lot of spare parts. 7/10 Minifigures I think that most of you will buy the set because of the minifigs. Well, at least I did. And they are great! It is a good set to include Poggle, but if you want to be 100% close to the movie, you need Obi-Wan and Anakin. Therefore... 9/10 Price We all know, Lego Star Wars is expensive. This set makes no expection. But in my opinion the price-per-piece-ration is okay, especially regarding the great figures. 7/10 Accuracy: The scene is quite nice. The entrance to the cave is really good. You could move different parts with the force. But, Obi-Wan and Anakin are missing, but we get Poggle. Of course the lair could have been bigger. 8/10 Overall: Buy it if you want the figs. The setting is nice, playability is good. What do you want more: 40/50 This is my final verdict. I hope you liked the review and can turn a blind eye to some of the pictures. Looking forward to your comments.

In this video, I show you what exactly comes in the 9797 Lego Mindstorms NXT Base Set with this stop-motion style unboxing. If you liked this video and would like to see more unboxing videos in this style, please let me know!

Video review: Year - 2014 Pieces - 261 Price - 25$ **THE BOX** The box is pretty nice with some awesome art of Darth Vader lingering over the set as if hes about to grab you. The display of the set looks very nice and appropriate with an action packed scene of the wheel bike in action. The bottom shows the 2 minifigures as most LEGO sets do. On the back it shows off the set again with its play features which includes a flick fire missile, the ability to transform the bike from wheel mode to walking mode, and the fact that you can indeed roll this thing. I really love the little blueprint like showing of the set on the side as well as another action piece on the top right which reenacts a scene from Episode 3. Its really nice and makes the box pop. **THE MINIFIGURES** Obi Wan looks great! He looks like an awesome representation of his on screen character and just looks nice. He comes with a blaster and a guard staff. I am disappointed by the lack of his own light saber as it means you cant have the lightsaber duel before hand, but it is what it is. The fig looks great and has printing that descends onto his legs to show robes. His face is dual sided with one side showing an angry expression and the other showing an unhappy face. Its in my opinion the best look Obi Wan figure we've gotten so far! Tho the lack of a lightsaber for him is disappointing for sure. General Grievous looks GREAT! This is without a doubt the best looking Grievous LEGO has made so far. He can move his arms, legs, and head. He has wonderful printing on his face that shows off his very menacing eyes as well as printing on his arms which just adds to the detail! We've come a long way from the pure white Grievous we got in 2005. I kind of wish he would have came with his cape, but its understandable that he didn't cause I don't know how you would make a cape for a figure like this. He comes with 4 lightsabers and he holds all of them at once obviously. He looks absolutely fantastic and any Grievous fan is going to want this in their minifig collection! **THE SET** The set looks absolutely awesome on display and is a gigantic improvement over the original 2005 version. The wheel bike looks incredibly sinister and fits the evil Grievous very very well! Grievous can indeed sit in the cockpit and he fits just fine and it looks good and natural for him. The back of the cockpit has a holder for the blaster that comes with the set, but that is the only storage that the set offers which is kinda saddening cause there is nowhere at all to put the lightsabers of guard staff. Its not huge but it is disappointing.The bike has a flick fire missile on the cannon side that works quite well. The cannon looks awesome and very menacing! The legs on the set can be positioned in anyway you wish and support the bike extremely well and add to the displayability of the set. A bulk of the set is built around a large clear wheel with a belt that is brick build wrapped around it. The set isn't very hard to put together and looks great. Though I am disappointed that we didn't get a new version of Boga, as the set does feel a little incomplete without the big lizard. **FINAL THOUGHTS** Despite lacking a lightsaber for Obi Wan, Boga, and storage, the set looks great and comes with 2 awesome minifigs. It looks great displayed on a shelf and works very well for play as well! Overall if you can get ahold of this set I would recommend you do so!

Hi all, I present to you my second review here on EB! I want to apologize in advance for the poor quality of certain photos in this review and for the lack of play feature shots. Other than that, I won't be very elaborate in my writing, the pictures will partly do the talk anyway. With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy the review! Name: 70590 Airjitzu Battle Grounds Theme: LEGO Ninjago Piece count: 666 Minifigs: 5 Year released: 2016 Retail price: USA $59.99 UK £49.99 GER €59.99 The box Contents Included are five numbered bags, two instruction manuals, and two loose ripcords and Airjitzu flyer propellers. No sticker sheet, only prints! Unfortunately, my instruction booklets were both wrinkled. Bag contents From left to right: top row are piles of bags 1, 2 and the parts that came loose in the box, bottom row are bags 3,4 and 5. Especially the amount of brown and tan surprised me here. There are hardly any bricks to see here with a colour that does not fit the colour scheme of the final build, which is really nice! Interesting parts All of the parts above only come in four sets or less, the exclusive ones for this set being the Dark Azure propeller and the printed 2x2 tiles with Lloyd's and Nya's symbol. I left out the exclusive minifigure parts, but we will get to these in just a moment. Spares & brick separator I'm taking some liberty here to express my utmost gratitude to the designer(s) of the brick separator, it works fantastic and has saved both my bricks and my fingers many times! Minifigures The good guy side gets Lloyd and Nya, both in their Airjitzu robes and exclusive to this set. Lloyd's outfit features bright and dark green energy patterns, golden emblems on front and back and golden sparks on his face. Nya's Airjitzu version is quite unique, as she has a beautiful water phoenix on the front in dark blue, shiny metallic azure and white, against a dark red base colour (whereas all the others get a black one. Her signature symbol on the front and her eyes too are golden. Her dark red 2012 ninja hood is exclusive. Neither of the two figures comes with a secondary face and neither has a weapon. Overall, I am very pleased to add this version of Nya to my collection and Lloyd fits in well with the others. A minor issue that I have is that Lloyds face here does not quite resemble his regular face, something that isn't the case for any of the other ninja's Airjitzu variants, in my opinion. Now, let's bring in the bad guys! Three antagonists are include here, from left to right are Martin, Sensei Yang and Chris. Martin and Chris are in fact identical, only their weapons are different. They wear old school ninja hoods, which are recoloured in Light Bluish Grey here, exclusive to this set. I like the statue details on the face and the torso, featuring cracks and thorns. It's a nice figure that I don't mind getting two of. Yang is a great figure as well. The other set he comes in is the Ultra Stealth Raider, which is much more expensive, but in return he does not come with his lantern in this set. His white robes are very elegant and on the back of the torso is a combination of two symbols that have been previously associated with Sensei Wu, interestingly enough. The completed model I found the build enjoyable, although it was a tad repetitive at some points, most notably the flyer launchers. The end result looks good on display and can be easily broken apart and rearranged, the individual modules are fine individually, in my opinion. My favorite part of the scenery has got to be the blue and tan house, I love the 'ghost town' air that it has, as well as the weapons on the rack. The amount of specialized parts is minimal and even the pieces hidden away in the construction have colours that fit the colour scheme. Where I expected bright yellow, blue or green, I found grey, brown and tan instead, something I hope to encounter more often in the future! Play features Admittedly I haven't taken enough pictures of the play features, but the box art shows them off very clearly. Both features that can knock your figures off the roofs work well and I had some fun with them, the 'stairs slide' (don't really know how I'm supposed to call that) is another neatly integrated function that works does a good job as what it's intended to do. As you can see on the picture above, You can take out the pillars and use them as regular hand-held Airjitzu flyer launchers. However, I am not really sure if I like the side launchers. I couldn't try launching both at the same time, but with one it does not always go as it should. Sometimes it maintains it's angle after the slide (which is neat, by the way) and hits the ground, after which it spins out of control. Nevertheless, even if this does not go smoothly most of the time, the other play features are good alternatives. My verdict Compared to other structure-based Ninjago sets, this one may not be spectacular, but I'd say it's somewhere between 'good' and 'great'. A nice looking model, a desirable selection of minifigs, a very useful assortment of parts and some fun play features are enough reason for me to recommend this set to other Ninjago fans and fans of the more traditional ninja theme as well. Thank you for reading my review, feel free to share your thoughts about it and the set below! Have a nice day!

This time I present to you the epic story of a tractor I fell in love with (even though it's not perfect), a hamster having a bath and one mean turkey. But seriously, that thing makes 42056 look ugly. Pros: - real beauty, IMHO can rival the 42056 Porsche - excellent big new tires, exquisite stickers - great modding material thanks to standarized PTOs; you can make custom attachments for it - brilliant steering system and cabin rotation mechanism - best source of new and recent pieces in this price range - reasonably priced for a set with PF and many new pieces - very easy to control - lime is love, lime is life Cons: - the cabin and the hood are pretty flimsy - no actual B-model, just another attachment instead - very complex internal construction and steering system leave little room to mod the actual tractor - only one attachment with motorized functions - the crane seems rather crude compared to the tractor and can barely lift anything

Introduction As a fan of Star Wars, the original trilogy, there are some scenes that are absolutely iconic. The final duel, on board of the Death Star two, is one of them. Luke facing both Darth Vader and the Emperor, and finally awakening the Anakin Skywalker still inside the black armor. I can still remember the emotions I felt when I first watched this scene years ago. Will this set make me feel the same things? We'll see at the end of the review! Set information Set Name: Death Star Final Duel Set Number: 75093 Number of Pieces: 724 Theme: Star Wars Year Release: 2015 Prices: £69.99 / $79.99 / €99.99 #75093 on Brickset #75093 on Rebrickable Packaging The box is pretty big and shares the Star Wars Rebels layout with all the early sets of 2015. The front shows the whole set in "play mode", completely opened and with Luke, Darth Vader and the Emperor fighting. The new Darth Vader helmet is highlighted by specific artwork in the lower left corner. The rear of the box shows all the play features of the set and has some very nice artwork. A side of the box shows the minifigures included. Lord Vader himself is the 1:1 part. Content of the box The box is quite full with the instructions booklet, 6 numbered bags and a sticker sheet. The stickers are only for two 1x2x2/3 slopes in black and the inner side of the four 4x4x5 cylinder quarter. I usually put stickers on parts when doing a review, but those stickers are so nice, that I didn't apply them on the cylinder parts. Instructions booklet The instruction booklet shows the same artwork as the front of the box. It is quite big, almost an A4 size (21cm x 29,7cm), with harder paper for the cover. The first page could make a nice poster! The instructions are easy to follow, while not on the same level as a Minecraft set. The very light blue background makes them clear and easy to read. The last double page shows sets from the wave and all the minifigures you can collect. Gotta catch 'em all! Minifigures The minifigures are the jewels of this set. We got two imperial guards, a new Luke, a new Emperor Palpatine and a new Darth Vader with his two parts new helmet. Except for Luke, everyone wears a cape in this set, meaning we got two red/dark red and two black capes. While both Luke and Palpatine got alternate faces, the back of Darth Vader's head is printed with scars. Luke is also the only minifigure in this set to get back printing, but he is also the only one not wearing a cape! A closer look at Darth Vader. I think he is really well done, with the new helmet and his awesomely printed face. He looks maybe a bit too kind, and I don't know why, but I think his head should be in light bluish grey and not white. Interesting parts The set is filled with nice bricks that give texture to the walls and bases, like the #2877 1x2 modified brick with grille. The set contains two #16577 1x8x2 raised arch, which is a new part from 2014, and not common in light bluish grey. But what may attract us to this set is the fantastic 6x6 inverted dish with handle, printed with Death Star window pattern. And we have 3 of them! And let's not forget the fantastic minifigures included that we reviewed just above. Build The first bag contains all the capes and both Luke and Vader minifigures. At the end of the first bag, we have the center part of the set, on which we'll build the emperor's throne. Note that the front of the build can extend, as seen in the pictures illustrating bag 2. There is also a small lever mechanism that I will explain later in the Play feature section of this review. The second bag's contents... .. And what we build with it. Again a play feature here: look at the lever on the side of the stairs. With the bag 3, we'll build the left side of the set The left side of the build features the collapsing bridge. The 4th bag will bring us the right side of the set... ... which will be used to make the reactor shaft. Bag 5 will complete the throne room. And with bag 6 we'll build the entrance door and frame while the second imperial guard shows up. The complete build in all its glory. Spare parts are always nice! Especially with the lower half of Vader's helmet that could be used to make a Dagobah Dark Side cave's Luke. Play features First, let's recognize that the set looks very good. I had it displayed in my living room for weeks. And my nephew kept playing with it each time he visited! Working doors are always nice, even if the mechanism could be enhanced. Vader can make Luke trip... Or Luke can do a force jump, you choose! The collapsing bridge will hurt Luke badly... ... as will the collapsing stairs! The Emperor can make a lightsaber pop-up from behind its throne. Careful when you catch it, it's lighted up! The reactor shaft can be used as trash disposal... ... or to enact emotional plot twist! Conclusion Design: 10/10 - The design is almost flawless, well deserving a 10. Parts: 9/10 - The parts selection is really nice. The windows are truly awesome! Build: 8/10 - The fold out structure and all the play features make the build very interesting and easy to store. Playability: 10/10 - We had so much fun playing with this set, there is so much to do! Minifigs: 10/10 - I couldn't want more minifigs with this set, and all of them are great. Price: 8/10 - Star Wars sets aren't cheap, especially in Europe... But at least, this set is worth the (high) price. Overall: 55/60 (92%) - This is a great set. It manages to be both great to look at and full of playability! The different areas of the set really capture the mood of the movie, and the very detailled minifigures add to the accuracy of the set. It has a lot of play features that kids love... Well if you let your kids play with it! If you are a Lego Star Wars collector, this set will have its place next to Jabba's Palace!

Rolling right out of a Danish plastic Chinese restaurant near you, it's… Set Name: Ecto-1 & 2 Set #: 75828 Theme: Ghostbusters (2016 Movie!) Pieces: ? Minifigures: 6 Year of Release: 2016 Price at Release: USD 60 Check out the Flickr set for more and bigger versions of all pictures! Stacking up as perhaps nobody's most anticipated IP ever (besides Angry Birds, right? Please?), the Ghostbusters 2016 reboot/make/run/thing movie has sure caused quite a firestorm way before almost anyone has seen the film. Guess what this review is NOT going to focus on? That. I've said it before and I'll say it again literally right now: sets to me stand on their own merit, not the merit of their IP. I've seen great sets based on of IPs that suck and terrible sets I'd never want based on IPs that love. So if anyone has any, errr, 'comments' about the film - howabout don't. This review is about the LEGO stuff. This set actually looked quite attractive to me for two reasons: cool car and so many cool female minifig heads and hairpieces. In this set that basically boils down to "everything" because there's nothing extraneous in this set. Sure, there's a motorbike, but who doesn't love ridiculously out-of-proportion motorbikes? Nobody, amiright? So, come with me as I see if this set, or at least those awesome-looking new hairpieces, live up to my expectations. (NOTE: This set was given to me as a gift at LEGO Fan Media Day in Billund, but the opinions are all my own and will not stem from the sense of giddiness I experienced being at LEGO Fan Media Day in Billund. At least, probably they won't. No complete guarantees.) INSTRUCTIONS (I ditched the box in Billund and my photos of it were a bit lousy, so I'm starting with the instructions.) The front art is nothing amazing, just some ghost-busting action and Chris Hemsworth looking like he may be about to ram into the car. His character is supposed to be a bit daft I guess. Though this instruction booklet is bound in 'normal-set' fashion as opposed to 'premium-badly-glued-original-Ghostbusters-set' fashion, it still contains several pages of movie/character info. Maybe to get you hyped for the movie because you're probably not? But that's none of my business. I'll spare you from all of the pages (check the Flickr set for the rest), but I found it interesting that the bad guy minifig in this set is apparently based on a green furry ghost. Does it look green and furry to you? Hmm.... I'm not complaining though since it's a cool figure with great parts. The actual instructions themselves are straightforward as always, and set on a serviceable plain black background. PARTS and BUILD In this section I'll go through the four bags bag by bag, pointing out any cool parts and anything particularly interesting I noted in the build. Since this is a review and not a True Build Experience ™ I'll just say now that the build of this feels much more like that of an adult/high end set than that of a kid-oriented set - tons of SNOT, sub assemblies, little bits, great color detail, etc. Really quite a pleasurable experience watching the car come together. Bag 1 The first bag provides the most drab parts selection and also the most samey, as it has you build literally four of the exact same thing (proton pack). Nonetheless, we get straight to some minifigure goodies, so that's cool. The ingot piece new in black stands out to me as the most pleasantly surprising re-color, but some other parts are quite cool too like the trans-clear stud-with-bar piece, recolored skellie parts, apollo stud, and that SNOT piece (which maybe has been around, but I wasn't familiar with having droves of them). I included the 3L bar just because it's still a bit more rare to get. Finally, the printed boat-bottom pieces (four in total) have quite a nice print that I could see being used outside of this particular context. Bag 1 builds Kristen Wiig, Chris Hemsworth, the Ecto-2 bike, four proton packs, two containment units, and the skellie/ghost/Mayhem thingy. Fear not, I'll be taking a closer look at everything further on in this review. Bag 2 Things get a bit more colorful immediately with Bag 2, though not necessarily more interesting. Tons of brown jumper plates must jump out at you though. Two printed license plates may be cool, but most exciting are the trans-clear headlight bricks, which are still rather rare (they come in 12 other sets according to Bricklink, but really 10 since two of those are rare non-regular-retail sets). By step 25 you'll just have a build a blob the beginning of the seating area. There's something I find very pleasing about putting down tons os jumper plates. No idea why, though I get the same sensation with total tileage. Another SNOT-y blob thing for the front end of the car at step 43. Kudos to the designer for this clever headlight assembly utilizing headlight bricks plugged-in sideways to headlight bricks. (Step 53.) By the end of Bag 2 (step 55), the lumps of LEGO almost start to resemble a car. Bag 3 Bag 3 moves us into the color palette that you'll actually see when all is said and built. Also, cool new hairpiece alert. Those small wedge plates are still pretty new, so they're welcome. Despite this set having some stickers, all the curved slopes on the side of the car are prints! Woohoo! Thank you LEGO Overlords! All the comfy leather seating gets installed by step 70, but the back of the hearse still looks a bit bare. By step 107, it just lacks wheels and a roof (not like cars really need either of those things, though. Right? I'm no automotive expert). Bag 4 Now we get into more bits and bobs, since all of the 'equipment' on the roof of the car gets constructed from bits and bobs. I was surprised by the jail cell bars and door, but I admit I had not looked at pictures of the set too closely. Not a ton of interesting parts here, though I always like trans-tiles and that particular wheel piece is still pretty rare in white. Also, the toolbox piece looks pretty in dark blue. At step 110 we've got wheels and axles, but the hearse is still going topless. Et voila, step 139 finishes it up. Spares One of the perks of a set that includes a lot of small parts is that it will have a lot of spares. In this case, extra skellie parts and an extra one of those trans-clear stud-with-bar parts! Woohoo! Thought I might as well try and whip up some homemade accessories, what with all of the minifigure-related parts on offer. It was a quick and dirty attempt. MINIFIGURES Like I said way up in the intro (which even I can barely remember by this point), the minifigures are a significant draw of this set, and boy do they deliver. Or maybe girl do they deliver. They're all terrifically detailed, and even if you don't care for the uniforms everything besides the torsos can be useful for minifig customs. Really I've got nothing but praise for these - the care that went into designing them is quite evident, and three new hairpieces plus amazing new heads are beyond wonderful. All five humans get alternate expressions. Luckily Chris Hemsworth getting possessed isn't a spoiler, since it happens in one of the (really awesome?) trailers. I especially like the 'blehh??' face on Kristen Wiig's minifigure and the goggles face on Holtzmann. Everybody gets subtly different back printing too, which successfully conveys different body types. Really well done. Super-cool details on the bad guy's wings too. Closer look at those two glorious new hairpieces and one cool but not as wow new hairpiece. It's great to have a new fairly-African-descent specific hairpiece, and I love the eccentricity of the middle one. See more closeup angle here, here, and here. The use of parts for the bad guy thing made me think that it's some type of evil soul version of the collectible minifigure gargoyle. They look cool together. MINIFIGURES - with Accessories Most of the accessories are brickbuilt, and look pretty cool. I like the canister builds, though it's a bit awkward that they don't fit straight down in a minifigure's hand since they're so tall. Holtzmann's gun also is a bit weak of a build, honestly. Everything else is good. The proton packs look pretty good from all angles, and by my estimation are as small as they could possibly be. I love that each one uses two black ingots because... black ingots! The minifigures do have to bend forward a little to stand without falling over, and holding an accessory helps for counterbalance. Still, quite nicely done. Having to bend a bit at the waist works just fine for the classic Ghostbusting pose! ECTO-2 I do love the old-school motorcycle mould, but adding builds to it just accentuates how ridiculously large it is compared to minifigures. It's like the size of a horse! In any case, it looks simple but cool. Through the magic of perspective, somehow the bike looks reasonable once you put the minifigure on top. That's the human brain for you. ECTO-1 Finally here, the meat of the set. I took a crap ton of pictures, so this will be just a key selection. I hate gushing about a set, and I feel like 99% of what I've said thus far has been positive, but… this car is really lovely people. It isn't huge but it feels substantial, and from all front angles just feels right. Clean, streamlined, well done. Of course it is a bit huge compared directly to minifigures, but as a model it feels like a good size. LEGO models do skew 'larger than life' in general, especially because minifigure proportions are so strange. One small issue that muddles the appearance just a little is that the printing on the side curved slopes is not quite accurate enough, so they don't line up into clean lines. The two sides are pretty similar, besides for the one having a ladder, which accurately matches the source material. Overall, despite the printing issue, still looking quite good. The top has a bunch of cool little builds, one of which includes a white fez which I neglected to mention in my parts breakdowns. Who knows what any of these things should represent, but I think that applies to the source material as well. It's got a nice mishmash variety. Of course the top can be removed, providing access to the interior that manages to have plenty of space for four minifigures and still have details like a break or gear stick, steering wheel, and nicely stickered dashboard. Especially compared to the original Ecto-1 set, which could not fit all four, this is wonderful. Also note that the doors open, though you really need to remove the roof to get the minifigures in and out. I've been saving discussing the back for last, since the back is actually one of the most awkward sections. From a straight-on angle (which I have), it doesn't look too bad, but usually you'd be looking at it beneath you and from that sort of angle the transition from a 6/8-wide car to rear lights and a 4-wide door just looks a bit strange. Not terrible, but the shaping definitely falls down here somewhat. Another slightly awkward or less than stellar aspect of it is that the back can barely fit one proton pack, meaning that if you have all four ladies in the car, you'll have to just dump their packs somewhere else. On the plus side, you can fit all of the other accessories! ....or possessed Kevin. Kevin gets his revenge for being treated this way by absconding with some of his other wavy-haired friends. But then he probably feels bad and returns to his Ghostbusting duties. CONCLUSION Like what you see? I certainly do. There are a couple minor flaws in this set, like the printing on the slopes not being aligned well enough and the back being a little strange, but all in all it's a lovely model that fun to roll around and put minifigures into. It comes with amazing minifigures with amazing new minifigure parts and prints. It packs a lot of exciting an/or rare and/or new parts, should you happen to want it for parts. It even seems roughly worth it's (US) value, which I don't think you'll have heard this review say for quite some time. Even if you don't care for the source material, it's a splendid car design in its own right, and I think anybody could get something out of this set. Unless of course you hate the IP with such passion that you wouldn't touch anything related to it with a three meter pole. If that's the case.... maybe you need to cheer up.

A Faithful Tribute This is a follow up to the very successful 5002812 – Classic Spaceman Minifigure from 2014 and 5003082 – Classic Pirate Minifigure from 2015. It was no surprised that LEGO was going to continue this rather special trend of celebrating classic themes through these exclusive promos. This set is a direct homage and tribute to 6012 - Siege Cart; a small impulse LEGO Castle set released exactly 30 years ago. Unintentionally this promo becomes even more special as it’s released a few weeks after the passing of Daniel August Krentz, a retired LEGO designer who worked at LEGO between mid-1970s until 2000. Daniel is known to many us as the designer of 375 – Castle. Packaging The primary aspect of the box design is very reminiscent of most of the boxes between 1960 – 1965; the white studs covering the entire box and the LEGO logo in the top left. The box doesn’t scream attention to the contents much like the current products do, instead they show a small and simple vignette of the set with an extract of the booklet included and the 2016 stamp. Other nice details of the packaging include the LEGO System logo from 1950s on three sides. To open the box, you have to slide open the drawer on the right hand side which contains the pieces and booklet. Not only does the contents of the product reflect the classic sets, it’s also presented through the packaging and experience as you open the box which is one of the many reasons why this series is clearly a success. These easily have the best packaging of any LEGO product alongside Architecture, LEGO Ideas and the two exclusive Technic sets (41999 & 42056.) Booklet The booklet starts off with the simple instructions to build the Minifigure and model. It follows up by documenting the classic LEGO Castle sets through a timeline starting with the origins leading up to 2016’s Nexo Knights. Which follows a similar pattern with the previous two promos in this series. With the future instalments I can only guess it will be a similar scenario by promoting a new theme / sub-theme that links back to a classic LEGO theme. Surprisingly this also comes with a sticker sheet / postcard; the stickers are images of Minifigures represented throughout the Castle themes as well as the two LEGO logos. On the reverse side it’s a typical postcard design with a ‘castle / knights’ twist! I wish it was just a postcard with an awesome print showcasing this set instead of the stickers which slightly decreases the exclusivity of this promo. Minifigure The Minifigure is a near replica of the official castle sets, the difference being the weapon of choice; the long axe is a rather odd choice, perhaps an alternative weapon such as a bow and quiver could have been included instead. The printing is fantastic, both on the torso and the shield. I really appreciate that the torso or printing wasn’t over done or didn’t represent the ‘classic’ torso. That’s was one aspect that took away from previous promo (5003082 - Classic Pirate Minifigure.) Model The only noticeable difference between this model and the one included with 6012 - Siege Cart is the use of brown slopes over plates for the front bow shape, my guess is they weren’t available in the 80s. Besides that, pretty much every detail and feature from the original model has been replicated into this model, including the shield attachment at the front! Much like the printing they’ve stayed faithful and not over done the details to bring the design into modern day. Final Analysis / Conclusion Comparing this promo to the previous two; it’s easily the superior of the three! Not only does it reflect and celebrate the classic castle theme it also gives a faithful reproduction to a classic set: 6012 - Siege Cart; rather than including a random assembly of parts as did ‘5003082 - Classic Pirate Minifigure from 2015. It’s a perfect example of what a faithful homage and promotional product should be! 9.5 / 10 In the memory of Daniel August Krentz (1937 – 2016.)

Time to power up to 1.21 gigawatts, hit that 88mph mark and lets go Back to the Future! Far out man. The official LEGO set blurb from the Shop@Home website says: Now on to the review. The box, like all the other dimensions sets, is more of a swing tag carton kind of thing. The level packs have an extra fold of cardboard on the front that creates a tab to add a little extra front space. This advertises the fact that the Level Pack unlocks a whole new game level. Displayed quite nicely are the character and the two vehicles, both iconic to Back to the Future. The side graphic, the trapezoid design of the carton makes the sides pretty hard to capture well on camera, the angle causes all sorts of issues! Though the unusual shape makes it stand out on the rails in shops. Here, like all the other boxes, there is a picture of the character with some action going on. The back of the box show cases the three in one nature of the vehicles. A little picture of each "mode" and an in-game shot of them in action. We also get the Dimensions graphic and the regular blurb and ratings information that is legally required. Inside the box are two polybags and the most pointless instruction manual you ever did see. The booklet only shows you how to build your minifigure and then directs you on to the game. Of course, this is part of the nature, the point, of LEGO Dimensions. Building real LEGO that then plays onscreen is what sets the game apart from other toy/gaming products. This does make it a little frustrating if you see the mini set and characters as display pieces and a nice gift for a Back to the Future fan. Though it is not impossible to track down the instructions online. Marty We've got the many layers that makes a Marty outift and the nifty printed game tag. I love the use of the Back to the Future font for his name. This is the same figure as the one that appeared in 21103 The DeLorian Time Machine, now with the guitar, unprinted. It is listed as a new part in Bricklink, but it looks a little like a number of other guitars that have appeared in varied printed designs. A decent way for a collector to pick up a Marty figure if they missed the limited set. Though, like all Dimensions, pricey from a purely bricks point of view. Here from the official LEGO Dimensions youtube channel: The character video for Marty. DeLorean Time Machine This one has a snazzy mini-kit style design with moving gull-wing doors. A very clever use of parts and great for display. Electric Time Machine The Electric Time Machine, it's electric! With the usual re-jigging of parts used to make the original flavour time machine, this one is a lot more sparkly with the trans-lite-blue parts. Like in a lot of LEGO games, lightning/electrical powers are needed to neutralise or power-up obstacles and puzzles in game. Ultimate Time Machine The Ultimate Time Machine: Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads! The flying DeLorean (and many other flying cars) are the second most desired dohicky that featured in the far off year of 2015 in Back to the Future part Two. Again, kudos to the designers for making such a tidy little model using all the parts in two other builds. A neat looking car, matching the look from the movie at this scale. It is honestly competing with the original flavour DeLorean Time Machine for the spot of display vehicle. Hoverboard It is 2016, we have a hoverboard. Okay, so it is a LEGO one and it only hovers if we swoosh, but still. Hoverboard! The most desirable part being the actual hoverboard piece. The correct shape, colour and print (barring the rival toymaker's logo!) this was what was sorely missing from the original minifig scaled DeLorean set. Of course, it has a lot of extra "goings on" to fulfil the three vehicle mode requirement. They aren't too bad in this "mode" but still a little odd considering the sleek appearance of an "actual" hoverboard in the film. Ultimate Hover Jet - Now this one is the nicer of the designs if you're planning on keeping the hoveboard with all the extras. Though it looks like this is a board tooled up for a trans-atlantic flight instead of future style skateboard shenanigans. The Cyclone board for whirl-ey cyclone-ey powerups. This design is one of the more odd. I also feel like the clip arm should be holding something, so kept on searching in case there was something missing! Well, again a great set for the big Back to the Future fan in your life. Everyone loves a LEGO figure of a character they like and the mini-kit style DeLorean is an excellent design with two equally great alternates to build. A printed hoverboard is great fun for collectors and fans alike. Game wise, it is more of the same for a LEGO Game. With the gimmicks brought in by Dimensions and the game pad. Thanks to TLG and Eurobricks for providing me these sets to play with! Sorry it takes so long for me to play them!

Introduction Ninjago never was my favorite theme, but I must say that as the years pass, it tends to grow on me. I'm not interested in the TV show, but the sets have a nice Sci-Fi vibe that makes me want to get my hand on them! So if I make a mistake or miss some important point in this review, please feel free to correct me. Thanks TLG for the opportunity to do this review, which will of course only reflect my own opinion. Set information Set Name: Ultra Stealth Raider Set Number: 70595 Number of Pieces: 1093 Theme: Ninjago Year Release: 06/2016 Prices: £79.99 / $119.99 / €89.99 (Euro prices may vary) #70595 on Brickset #70595 on Rebrickable Quote The Super Sonic Raider has been reinvented to become the Ultra Stealth Raider and is ready to take on Master Yang, Master Chen and Eyezorai. Jump into the cockpits with the ninja heroes and speed into battle. Swerve the snapping jaw and spring-loaded shooters of the Chenosaurus. Fire back with the awesome tank's twin 6-stud rapid shooters and 2 spring-loaded shooters, then split it into a helijet, a huge bike and 2 tread bikes to ambush the enemy. Detach the golden ninja weapons for one-on-one battles and grab Master Yang's Aeroblade to claim victory! Includes 7 minifigures: Cole, Zane, Jay, Kai, Master Chen, Eyezorai and Master Yang. This set includes the 4-vehicles-in-1 Ultra Stealth Raider and Chenosaurus. The Ultra Stealth Raider features 2 opening cockpits plus 2 open cockpits, big tracks and wheels, twin 6-stud rapid shooters, 2 spring-loaded shooters, 6 detachable golden ninja swords, 2 golden shurikens, plus a splitting function. Divide the Raider into a helijet (with foldout wings, 2 golden shurikens, rear prison for a minifigure, and translucent flame elements), a big bike (with both rapid shooters) and 2 tread bikes (each with a spring-loaded shooter). The Chenosaurus has 2 spring-loaded shooters, a snapping jaw, fully posable joints, a detachable chair and fang detailing. Weapons include Master Chen's Jade Blade, Master Yang's Aeroblade, an Anacondrai blade, Anacondrai sword, 2 golden sai, 4 golden swords and 2 golden shurikens. Accessory elements include Master Yang's lantern. Recreate and role-play epic scenes from the NINJAGO™: Masters of Spinjitzu TV show. This set offers an age-appropriate building experience for ages 9-14. Ultra Stealth Raider (full-size) measures over 4” (11cm) high, 14” (38cm) long and 13” (34cm) wide. Detachable helijet measures over 2” (7cm) high, 9” (24cm) long and 3” (9cm) wide with wings folded in. Detachable big bike measures over 3” (9cm) high, 12” (33cm) long and 7” (18cm) wide. Detachable tread bikes each measure over 2” (6cm) high, 7” (20cm) long and 3” (8cm) wide. The Chenosaurus measures over 6” (17cm) high, 9” (23cm) long and 4” (12cm) wide. Packaging The front shows the 2016 Ninjago theme with Cole's head in the top right corner and Master Yang's lantern in the lower left corner. All the minifigures included are shown on the bottom. The back of the box shows the set's play features, the main one being the separation of the Ultra Stealth Raider into 4 different vehicles! Judging by the artwork in the lower left corner, it seems like we'll have to collect 6 blades in the 2016 summer sets, two of them being included here: Master Chen's Jade Blade and Master Yang's Aeroblade. A side of the box shows all the minifigures we'll get, but strangely Cole and Zane carry swords instead of sais and shurikens. There is also a 1:1 sized Cole. Content of the box The box is 2/3 filled with 8 numbered bags, a big tire and a plastic bags containing the instruction booklet and the stickers sheet. There is no cardboard to prevent the stickers sheets to fold, relying on the instructions booklet for this. The 13 stickers are very detailed and look pretty good. Instructions booklet The instructions booklet is pretty thick with 183 pages. Instructions are clear and easy to follow. The light blue background makes color distinctions easy. At the end of the booklet, there are a few promotional pages. One shows all the sets for the summer 2016 wave. There is also an ad for the official Ninjago page, and oddly two pages about Lego Technic. As always at the end: the bill of materials. Minifigures The set contains 7 minifigures: Master Yang, Master Chen, Eyezorai, Cole, Zane, Kai and Jay. Their outfit is well detailed and each ninja got his own design. I really like the back printing of masters Yang and Chen! All mifigures have a double printed head, except for Master Yang and Kai who seems to be always angry. Master Yang is awesome. I really like his sand green face, he got a new wizard beard in black and his lantern is wonderfull with the trans-neon green printed head piece. Interesting parts This set comes with two obvious interesting and exclusive parts: the two printed #10312 Windscreen 10 x 6 x 3 Bubble Canopy Double Tapered with Square Front Cutout (Now that's a long name!) that only existed with B-Wing printings. The other printed parts include the six #14769 2x2 round tiles in pearl gold printed with each ninja symbol, the #85984 roof tile 1x2x2/3 with the Ninjago control panel pattern and the magnificent #3626 minifig head in trans neon green printed with Master Yang dragon symbol. Speaking of Master Yang, his #10052 wizard beardis new in black. Other interested parts are #85861 1x1 round plate with hole in light bluish grey and #24201 curved Slope 2 x 1 Inverted in light bluish grey and black. We also get a pair of a new ornamental part, that I don't know how to describe, but you know wich it is! Build With bag #1 we'll get Master Chen, Cole and Eyezorai. We'll also start to build the Chenosaurus. With Bag #2 the Chenosaurus is finished! Bag #3 give us the frame of the Raider. Bag #4 completes the frame. Lots of stickers applied, but I must admit they look good. With bag #5 we'll finish the main vehicle of the Raider. Bag #6 brings Kai's motorcycle. And bag #7 brings Jay's motorcycle. The helijet, Zane and Master Yang come in the 8th and last bag. A few spare parts. The complete Ultra Stealth Raider. Lots of tiles and curved slopes, totally my kind of build! The Chenosaurus. Play features The main play feature of the set is that the Ultra Stealth Raider divides into 4 different vehicles: a big motorcycle for Cole, a helijet for Zane and two motorcycles with tracks for Kai and Jay. I think that the helijet's wings could have been buffed up. Ninjago sets often use those big blades as wings, but I doubt they generate much lift. Kai and Jay motorcycles are exactly mirrored, each with subtle blue or red touches. The "tank-cycles" roll nicely, but a tender or some kind of suspension would have been a great addition. The big motorcycle is cool, but I'm not fan of making wheels with dishes, a 4 studs wide tire would have been better. The attachment points for the vehicles work well and are easy to secure. The helijet just slides in and attach to the motorcycle cockpit using a clip. The helijet's wing deploy by sliding forward the part with the thrusters. On its bottom side, there is a prison cell... Not the best play feature I've seen. Of course, there are lots of studs shooters! The big motorcycle has two 6 studs barrels, with lots of ammunitions in store. Each tank-cycle has a spring loaded shooter while the Chenosaurus got two. The Chenosaurus is posable, but could have used some ball joints for his head and tail. Conclusion Design: 9/10 - Great designs for all the vehicle. Tiles and curved slopes everywhere! The transformation in 4 vehicle works very well. Parts: 8/10 - A nice selection of parts. Lots of dishes and curved slopes. Some more printed parts would have been nice. Build: 8/10 - Not very difficult builds, but rather interesting. Playability: 9/10 - A great playset. I don't think the Chenosaurus stands a chance if the Raider is played with by a skillful ninja kid. Minifigs: 8/10 - Very nice minifigs, especially Master Yang. Price: 7/10 - A good ppp of 0,08€ and 6 minifigs, this set's price is correct. Overall: 49/60 (82%) - The Ultra Stealth Raider is a great set with a nice selection of minifigures including the 4 ninjas and nasty bad guys! Really enjoyable to build and I guess to play with. Lots of parts that could be put to good uses too!

The set 1.Introduction Hello, welcome to the review of 42037 by roppie11! I don’t buy much sets, so I miss a lot of parts. I wanted the 42000 hubs and some more useful suspension parts were very welcome. So I searched on Bricklink and the best option to get all the parts was buying 42037. I was lucky because some LEGO sets were on sale at wehkamp.nl. Of course I bought it immediately. I looked for reviews but there was no 42037-review on EB so I decided to do it myself. Enjoy and let me know what you think! Note: Go to my Flickr page for higher resolution pictures. 2.Set Information Let’s start with the set’s information. Set-number: 42037 Set-name: Formula Off-Roader Parts: 494 Price: €54,99 is advised by TLG, I paid €40,49 and it is €39,99 at Bricklink. Building time: + 1h Price per Part: 5499/494 = 11,13ct per part Power-functions: No, not upgradable either Box-weight: 152g Box-dimensions: LxBxH=36x26x7 A-Model-weight: 513g A-Model-Dimensions:LxBxH = 36x26x21 B-model-weight: 502g B-model-Dimension: LxBxH = 36x26x16 Link: bricklink 3.The box The box is a pretty standard one. In the left-corner is a logo and beneath that is some information. This set is dedicated to kids from 9-16 years. The front shows the main model with (right-corner) its functions. These are steering, moving pistons and an opening safety-cage. It also tells that there is a B-model which brings us to the other side. On the other side, we find the b-model. It is also some sort of race car. You also see a shipping sticker. The box came loose like this, without another box or something else around it. It is luckily not damaged. On the side, you will find a 1:1 picture of the lime rim to give you an imagination how big (or small) it is. 4. Content of the box The box is pretty full. About ¾. It contains the following: 5 unnumbered bags with pieces. 2 instruction booklets, one for the A-model and one for the B-model. A sticker sheet. 4 loose tires. (Not on picture.) a. The bags There are 5 bags, they are unnumbered. Not surprising for a medium set. The biggest bag, contains beams, some panels and other big parts. It also contains 2 small bags with pins etc. Another pretty big bag, contains the lime parts, the shock absorbers and some more stuff. There are three more bags, containing the other parts. b. The instruction booklets The sets contains 2 booklets. They were loose in the box but they didn’t got damaged. I like it that the b-model is included as well. I’m therefore going to review that as well. The front shows the model itself that will be build. The back on no.1 shows some more 2015h1 models and the bag on no.2 asks for feedback. If you do so, you make chance to win ‘a cool LEGO prize’. c. The sticker sheet The sticker sheet is really cool. It has a metallic layer and it’s shiny like a mirror. (Can you see me with the camera ;) ? The quality is as usual very high. I recently washed my LEGO bricks in hot water in a tub, and none of the stickers got loose. TLG knows how to make stickers. The stickers itself on the panels don’t have much metallic on them. I suspect that stickers are made from a shiny sheet and not that a metallic layer is added later. Because the underside of the sticker is also shiny and it’s shiny all around the stickers. The stickers are numbered so you can’t go wrong when applying the stickers. d. The tires The tires are 81,8x36R balloon tires. It’s written on the tires itself. I forgot to lay them on the table when I took a picture of all the content so here is a picture with the rims fitted inside it. They are pretty big. They are bigger than the 42043 tires but these can get very flat whereas the 42043 tires are pretty sturdy. I like them because it are my first balloon tires. I don’t know if it are my rims or the tires, but they tend to slide of the rims when playing with it. I don’t have this problem with the wheels from 42008 and 42043. 5. Parts. Ahh, my favourite section: The parts. I bought this set specifically for the parts. This set does not contain many new parts, by which I mean, this set does contain just a few new parts, that weren’t already available at that time but it does have a lot of parts that are new to me. The new part is a pin with pinhole. You get only two, but it’s better than none. This set has also a lot of suspension parts. You can see them at the picture. 4x: 6x2 A-suspension arms 2x: Front and rear wheel hubs 4x: Inner part of a wheel hub 1x: Differential 2x: 6l links 2x: female CV-joint 4x: male CV-joint 2x: H beams 2x: 5x11 Frames 1x: 5x7 Frame 4x:Yellow, hard shock absorbers 10x: 2l pin+1l axle 2x: Pin+pinhole I forgot to put the last part on the picture, but it can be very useful. It looks like this: The part was new, when the set came out. If you want some suspension parts, this is probably a good set for you. I don’t have to tell you that a lot of those parts are specifically for suspension. It also has 2 H-beams and some frames. These are far from rare, but I find them very useful so I decided to include them as well. I didn’t put this part on the pictures as well , but this little guy is very useful. It contains 10 of these. It does not include its counterpart: . A-model 6. The build Let’s build it! I was curious how long it would take me to build this one, so I had a stopwatch running. I paused it when I took a picture, so the time should be fairly accurate. I took a picture every time I finished a stage/module and sometimes in between. I build pretty slowly and carefully and I don’t assemble big sets at this speed. It took me 5 quarters but if you build at a normal speed, you can easily finish it in 1 hour. If you’re interested, this was my working space: a. Front-suspension We begin with the front suspension. It’s just a pretty standard suspension but the first one for me. It’s unusual how you have to attach the 5x7-frame. You have to slide it one stud upwards, so that it is locked in place. That is a nice one! After a few steps you have to put in the gear-rack. I was genuinely amazed how solid and sturdy the build was. There is really no way out for the gear rack and the whole build is held together with axles and pins, all around. After that it is just a case of putting wishbones and wheel hubs to finish the front –axle. The wheel has a travel of 2 studs from the neutral position. So it has a total travel of 4 studs. you add the shock absorbers you find out that they are placed just right. It uses full travel of the wishbones but the spring is not compressed. (In contrast to the rear axles where this is the case.) I didn’t expect the wheelhubs to have so much backlash. It works fine anyways. Time: 12:47 b. The motor The motor is a pretty standard inline 4. It goes right before the front wheels and it really shows itself. A few weeks ago I read in a topic(42056-porsche topic) that the crankshaft configuration on LEGO motors is wrong. On LEGO motors, the configuration is: up-down-up-down. In reality the configuration is: down-up-up-down. So I changed the crankshaft a bit and now it’s more realistic. A few more parts are installed https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7786/27104071652_204e2bed4b.jpg[/img] Time: 18:22 c. The body After that you are building the body. The driving- and steering-axle go all the way to the back of the car and they are ready for the front axle. Also the exhausts are added. The lowest point is at that the moment the suspension-arm. Its 2 studs lower than the body. Time: 26:10 d. The rear axle The rear axle is also very predictable. This is what I have in my head when I think about suspension. The build is really study. The black pin on the wishbone limits the down-movement to 1,5 stud. If I place it on 2 frames, I can exactly lay a thin part under it. The up-movement is also a bit limited by the lime L-beams. When the shock absorbers are attached, it doesn’t go further than horizontally. The suspension works great btw. The shock absorbers should have been attached somewhere else because they are constantly compressed. Time: 36:10 e. The rest of the body After that, some work needs to be done before you add it to the body. First the steering axle is build and firmly attached. Here you can see that the spring is compressed. The black pin is slided a bit upwards. On the 3rd picture you see a loose shock absorber, to see how it should be. The axle gets added to the body and some beams lock it in place. Now, only the cabin and the panels need to be done. Time: 48:05 f. The chair This one does not really deserve a chapter but I took a picture so I did it anyways. I like the chair. It is blue as usual. It is made out of 4 beams. It looks pretty well as a chair but I don’t like the gap in the middle. They should have made a beam in the middle as well, but that is luckily easy to modify. 51:08 g. The panels This set includes 10 panels. 2x panel #5 2x panel #6 2x panel #4 2x panel #3 1 mudguard right 1 mudguard left They all get a sticker. The panels are placed very well and give a nice shape to the body. The stickers should already be added, but I was curious how heavy the look relies on the stickers. So I added them after. Time: 58:40 h. The cage The last step is the cage. It consists of several connectors and axles and 2 lights are added. On the rear, 2 bent beams are added upside down. If the long end points downwards, the beams is just perfectly vertical/horizontal. I’m glad the designer didn’t do that because this looks way cooler. The last step is adding the wheels, and it is finished. img]https://c7.staticflickr.com/8/7223/27103932942_f343f58c92_n.jpg[/img] Time: 1:05:51 i. The stickers I added stickers later. It took me a good 7 minutes because I also had to remove the panels before I could apply the stickers. I like the model both, with and without it, but it looks cooler with. I think that the sticker sheet is made from a shiny material. The back of the sticker is so shiny as well, and the area around the stickers as well. The final time ended up being 1:12:05. j. The spare parts This set has a staggering 6 spare pieces. Nothing unusual, you can see them at the picture. 7. Functions This set is medium so it does not have a lot of functions. All functions are manual because this set does not contain Power-Functions. HoG Steering Driven inline-4 motor. Openable safety cage. 4 wheel independent suspension. 8. Impressions ‘Hmm, I recognize that.’ is someone probably thinking. That’s right Sariel. I took it straight from you because otherwise I didn’t know how to call this chapter. I look at things I noticed when building. This is comparable to the ‘impressions’ in Sariel’s reviews. a. Reality I was wondering whether the model was based on an existing car or not. So I googled for: ‘formula offroader’. The most matching car I could find was this one: This one does not have the springs on the front and I have not seen any who do have it. I think they couldn’t find a better place for it and I can’t either. b. Stickers Here is the stickerless version compared to the stickered version. I like them both but the stickers make it look cooler. The shiny part was a good idea but it is not very good visible. That could also have been gray. You’re left with an empty stickersheet. c. Dimensions And what about dimension. I built a box for it. I build it as wide as the widest point and as long as the most out sticking point and as high as the highest point. The highest point is the steering wheel. I’s a pity that it is a small knob. Big ones are more pleasant. It is not held in place by (a half) bush but it just sits on the axle. The front-wheels and the bent-beams on the back are furthest from each other apart. All in all the dimensions are: LxBxH = 36x26x21. d. Just something As you can see, the body leans a bit forward. This is because the front-axle is higher than the rear axle, if you look at the chassis. The rear axle is 2 studs lower. The front axle however, has more travel and when taking everything into account, the body is at the front 1,5 studs lower. I like it. It looks a bit more aggressive which is what you want for such an off-roader. e. The suspension It is very nice that this model is fully suspended, but how good does it work? My camera has a slow-motion modus, so I filmed it. Sariel did it also, but I wanted to do it by myself as well. I looked at the front suspension first. It turns out to work very well, but I have to say I threw it pretty hard. For the rear suspension I have 2 videos. On one of the video’s you see that a wheel is getting loose. I have that problem constantly. I am almost thinking about not throwing it anymore :p The suspension is quite good. I could have let it jump on a ramp, but if you want to see that, you should look at Sariel’s review. 9. Rating Ok, the final decisive rating is finally here. Right now I am typing for 2,5 hours already so I’m glad I can give my rating. I will look at the same things as Jim in his review, but only on things which are relevant. Design: 7/10 Not bad, the springs on the front are ugly, cabin is well shaped. I’s missing the details. Building experience: 9/10 My first full-suspended set. Everything is new to me so I like it more automatically. It is very well constructed and this build will not fall apart easily. No loose parts. Playability: 9/10 Suspension is great, functions work like they should so it is fun to play with it. Parts: 8/10 Many suspension parts, and interesting parts. Few gears. Value for money: 9/10 Many great parts, and big wheels. 11ct per piece is not bad. Total score: 7+9+9+8+9 = 42 à 42/5 = 8,4 à 8,4/10! B-model 10. The build I first had to disassemble the A-model. When doing that, I realised that I did not have to disassemble every piece. A part of the rear suspension is the same and lots of other things. After half an hour of disassembling, I ended up like this and was ready to build the model. I didn’t use a timer this time because some parts were already assembled, I didn’t have to put on stickers, and I was building a lot faster than with the A-model. It took me a good 30 minutes to complete it. a. The front axle The build starts with the front axle. It is pretty similar to the one of the A-model except that it is not suspended. It is still steered. The way it is build, isn’t much different either. On the picture you see how the wheel hubs are attached. In the holes go 3l axles with stop, just like the A-model. Here you see the finished front axle. The suspension arms are attached the same way as in the A-model and the model has therefore the same width. (picture didn’t want to work. It’s still on my laptop) b. The inline-4 motor After that, you have to build the motor. I kept it assembled so, that didn’t take a long time. It still has the crankshaft-mod. A few more parts are added the body in this stage, exactly the same as in the A-model. c.The rear axle On the first picture, you see the part that I led assembled. Until this step (actually a little further) the rear axle is identical to the A-model. The difference comes when the steering knob gets added. It is much lower than on the A-model. This part, you have to attach to the rest. d. The body When the rear axle is attached, the beams come in to make it one solid piece of LEGO. At the sides, you have to attach a bent beam. In the A-model the bent beam is used in the front axle and the straight beam here. Since there is no need to attach a SA, the beams changed places with each other. This is great in my eyes because the beams on the front were very ugly. In this stage the Shock absorbers are added. They do nothing because the front axle is not suspended. The SA’s give a cool look to the car. It is a good place to add though. At first I was disappointed that they don’t do anything, but it would have been worse if they placed it on the suspension arms to fake the suspension. To cover the front, a panel is added. The rest of the panels comes in later. e. The cabin Then the middle part is very empty, so a cabin gets built. I like the cabin less than the one on the A-model. It looks very unfinished and it does not have a chair. Take a look for example at the blue 3l pins sticking out. There is also no chair included because it does not fit. The scale however is not changed. I don’t blame them however, because the parts are pretty limited. I am sorry to only have one picture of this stage. f. The panels From the last picture to this one, only the panels are added. I forgot to take pictures of those but it should be quite easy to see the changes. I like how the panelling is done. The roof is curved and all stickers are upright. ‘Oh, wait…. They are actually upside down. I did something wrong I think. Hmm, let’s look at the building instructions. Ohh look! The stickers are upside down on the panels!!” That literally went through my head when I saw it. I think they wanted the metalized part on the front to represent the motor, but that had a price of stickers being upside down. It is a choice they made. Luckily, you can make the panels right if you want by changing their places. The most obvious sticker however (with 65) is not upside down. g. Finished And there is the finished product. I can’t make the comparison, with and without stickers because they are already applied. There are quite a lot of pieces left as you can see. 27 to be precise. 11.Functions The functions are less, than on the A-model. Driven inline-4 motor Suspended rear axle HoG steering 12.Impressions a. Reality What were they trying to recreate? Is the model based on something? I don’t know but it looks like a beast. b. Dimensions I used the same box to measure the dimensions, because it has the same width. I can change the length and for the height I just have to move the red 3l pins. It turns out, that it is exactly as long as the A-model. It is a tiny bit wider because the suspension arms are not diagonal anymore but I decided to leave it like this. I had to change the height. If you are going to count the studs, don’t mislead yourself, you should count the space under the ‘roof beams’ and between the side beams. I made that mistake myself so I thought, it might be not a bad idea to warn you. If I did everything right, the dimensions are: LxBxH = 36x26x16 c. Comparison to the A-model I don’t know if this is fair to do, because building a B-model is pretty limited for the designer. There are a few things I want to have said about it. First of all, this is very similar to the A-model. The front-suspension is a bit different because it is not suspended. The rear axle is to a certain point exactly the same, and the way the motor is attached as well. The cabin and the panels are different which gives it another look. I am disappointed that the front axle is not suspended, but I understand it. It would make the model even more similar to its brother, the A-model. I like how the SA’s are placed now. The cabin is uglier, but of course it is difficult to construct it. The most obvious thing is the pins sticking out, on the green beam. You can even see it on the box. (no I’m not gonna post another image here, scroll back, you retard The model is leaning a bit more forward and I like that. It is constantly saying: “c’mon lets fight, or race!!” The panelling is more creative and looks really good. I only have doubts about the stickers but that’s a choice TLG made. All in all, I like this less than the A-model, but you can’t expect too much from a B-model. d. Just something again It is leaning forward more than on the A-model and that is the only thing I like more about this one than on the other one. The front is about 3,5 studs lower. On the picture of the dimensions, it looks a bit too much but it really isn’t. it looks quite good. e. Suspension I tested the rear suspension of course. I was also wondering if the tires are a good suspension because they can be pretty easily deformed. When looking at the video, you can see that the back is bouncier than the front. The suspension clearly does its work. The bent beams are not a good idea. If the suspension goes to deep, it touches the ground and the beams get loose. That’s what you see here: 13.Rating I’m going to rate this, the same way as the A-model. Design: 7/10 Not bad, cabin is ugly, front looks great. I don’t like the upside-down stickers. The leaning forward is great. Building experience: 8/10 I learned not how to make suspended axles, but how to make solid unsuspended ones. That is also quite useful. I only am less exited because I build it for a second time. I consider giving it 9 stars. Playability: 7/10 Suspension on front axles gives a better playability. Parts: 8/10 Idem ditto to the A-model. No special/useful parts are unused. Many suspension parts, and interesting parts. Few gears. Value for money: 9/10 Many great parts, very much, and big wheels. Uses quite a lot of parts from the A-model. The review 14.The making of the review This is my first review. I first typed some text in word, then copy-paste to EB. In word you can already add hyperlinks(to bricklink etc.) and add pictures by putting a link between img tags. It looks like this: http://..[/img] at the end, I only had to make some corrections. The review without this chapter had 4057 at his final version on word. The pictures and slow-motion vids are all taken with the Panasonic DMC-tz20 which has a 24mm lens from Leica. It costs lots and lots of time to make a proper review. More time than I thought. Even a set this small takes a lot of time. I can only imagine how much time it costed jim to make the 42043 review. To give you an insight I made a list how long it took me to make this review: Preparing and research about review: 0,5h Unboxing, pictures: 0,5h Unboxing, Writing 1,5h A-model, building 1,25h A-model, pictures 0,75h A-model, writing 2,0h A-model, disassembling 0,5h B-model, building 0,5h B-model, pictures 0,5h B-model, writing 2,5h The slow-motion video 0,5h Pictures: computeràFlickràWord 1,5h Links to text (for parts etc.) 1,5h Writing this chapter 1,0h ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total: 16,0 hours I didn’t follow the reviewers academy. To make a good review, I took the 42043 review from jim as an example. I don’t think I’m gonna do another review because I don’t buy so much sets. Let me know what you think about it. Have a nice day!

My first time not mine MOC review. As fan of 4x4 cars I can't miss oportunity to build this MOC by Sheepo. It is not huge like other Fernando's MOC's. So I am in! I decided to do it with shortest and smallest version (I am lazy and busy simultaneously) - 90 inch version. I split my review to 5 parts - 5 separate videos with comments, close ups and so on, cons&pros. Turn on youtube subtitles - they are english! If you are busy to watch all 5 episodes, I advice you to watch the last - 5th epsiode. I will start from it right now. Epsiode 5. This shoud be in the end of the post, but I am afraid you can't go till the end. My vision of Defender: Ultimate offroad machine, well result is not ultimate, but at least looking like that (I hope). I have to solve some weak points of original MOC. Model lost some its pros: gearbox and realistic axles. I have to reinforce chassis and transmission for high load purpose and increased weight of detailed model. Unfortunately, cant make Land Rover unkillable as my Toyota FJ. But result is lovely, Defender will take its place on my "untoucable" shelve with mechanical MAP chassis. many photos of this version is here You shoud know, that MAP - is modular all-terrain platform. And all LR body verison based on this customizable modular chassis. Episode 1 is about chassis Then I have built Defender 90 body in yellow color. Almost STOCK. More photos. I have too much of this color, and construction machines - is not about me. So this LR is good oportunity to use all yellow parts for Camel Trophy style MOC. Episode 2 is about Defender body and small modifications I did with it. Episode 3 is about outdoor test drive. Then my viewers ask me to compare LR with its all-time real competitor - Toyota Land Cruiser. I have several ready to go Land Cruisers on my shelve. So, that was easy for me. But it was not easy to compare this MOC's, since they are completely different inside... Check my episode 4 "DEF vs LC" all photos can be found here http://www.bricksafe.com/pages/rm8

Hello everybody! This is my first try to make a review, I hope you will like how I did it. Series: Technic Year: 2013 2H No: 42008 Pcs: 1276 PPP: 0,08€ Model B: Crane Truck with Semi-Trailer Model Weight:1100g Set weight: 1961g Instructions: 3 booklets , 100 steps Price: 114€ Parts list: -Bricklink -Rebrickable Packaging: It comes in a large box (47.5 x 37.5 x 9 cm)with dark background typical for technic sets. Inside you will find 17 unnumbered bags: 16 with pieces 1 with instructions and stickers Instructions: On back of the first and third booklets there is publicity, the second one ends with building step . On the last page there are some of the 2013 sets Parts: No exclusive parts in this one, athough it has exclusive and rare colors.Also includes new parts for 2013 Technic Beam 1 x 7 Thick - exclusive Technic Beam 1 x 9 Thick - rare(2 sets) Technic Beam 1 x 13 Thick - rare (3 sets) Technic Beam 3 x 5 L-Shape Thick - rare (3 sets) Technic Fairing # 1 Small Smooth Short, Side A - rare (2 sets) Technic Fairing # 2 Small Smooth Short, Side B - rare (2 sets) Technic, Panel Fairing #21 Very Small Smooth, Side B - rare (2 sets) Technic, Panel Fairing #22 Very Small Smooth, Side A - rare (2 sets) Pneumatic Pump 1 x 6 - rare (2 sets) Technic Gear 8 Tooth [Reinforced] - New for 2013 Technic Beam 1 x 5 Thin with Axle Holes on Ends - New for 2013 Model It is large model with a lot of green and a tow crane at the back. Because of the color this model hits your sight instantly. Has a detailed interior and a lot of stickers. Functions: Steering - front two axles with different steering angles Opening doors - because the rear view mirrors are fixed to the roof , the drive should down the window before opening the door. Motorized functions: M-motor power a distribuition gearbox which has two levers o either side of the truck. Here is a page from instructions which shows what every lever does: First function : Rear stabilizers Works very smooth, and at decent speed .Powered by two mLAs Second function: Winch Has a lever that prevents it from unrolling and also has a clutch gear that keeps the motor from struggling. Pay attention to which way you switch the battery box to turn on the motor, as it should be powered in only one direction: unwinding the winch is done manually Third function: Rear boom lift Works at decent speed and probably lifts more than you will ever need to tow a vehicle. Power by a single LA. The next function is a single 6l compressor which powers two pneumatic switches. A: Wheel lift It uses one small cylinder and works good. B: Telescopic crane arm Nice add-on to the boom and uses a clever lever mechanism with another small cylinder. Ratings: Looks - 9/10 Nicely done set, the crane looks crude.The stickers are for looks ,the model can live without them. Functions - 8/10 Almost perfect - non-controllable pneumatics (you can't stop it half-way for example); one way winch Parts - 9/10 Main color is rare in the Technic line Value - 10/10 At PPP standing at 0,08€ you can't complain Total- 9/10 Very nice set , great parts pack I hope you enjoyed my first review ,feel free to post your thoughs about the model and the review

Hello everyone I'm just starting to make Lego stop motion builds and would like to hear what you think .. I know I have a lot to learn yet so be nice not to be too hard I just love to build Lego and has recently found out that I have fun by also making these videos.