[MOD] A More Attack-y Attack on Avenger's Tower

[HyperOnion]

Hey everyone! Pretty new here, but just finished building out a giant expansion of 76038. Took me a few months and did it in three steps--for the first, I just bought a second set and added another floor with more Iron Legion launchers. Then, after discovering BrickLink, I sat down and with the POWER OF MY MIND and an excel spreadsheet, I attempted to add four more floors and widen the whole thing by 6 studs. And uh... that was somewhat successful? Ended up with a bunch of extra pieces and a few sections where I was short pieces and was basically very confused during the build what the hell I had planned during the planning stages. Which lead to phase three, me learning to use LDD, and building a finished model (...well... technically there was phase 3.5 when I realized I had exposed studs where I wanted tiles, whoops). Anyway! After a whole lot of work, it's finally done, and I'm pretty happy with it. Apologies in advance for the photo quality--got a tiny New York apartment, so no room to build a real photo set up. Anyway, here we go!

OVERVIEW

Side views of the full tower, closed. 8 floors, 2 balconies.

Aunt May, in her natural habitat--stuck to a wall with webbing, in mortal danger. Also visible: Quicksilver running fast enough to scale a wall, and Spider-Woman (custom). The exposed brick is reserved for one of the Spider-People from the Bridge Battle to stand on, using the new web piece to be saving Aunt May.

On the other side, Black Suit Spidey (custom), and some visitors from another world, hanging out and battlin' on the side of the tower.

BALCONIES

Top balcony, with an attack by Ultron, against the MCU Avengers team. I try to keep only one of each character on display (duplicates and variants are stored on the first two floors), but I made an exception for Ant Man, since I want to have micro, mini, and Giant sized versions all out, and for Spider-Man (who I justify through handwaving that Spider-Verse is happening sooooo sure, buncha Spider-people are out.) So, you can see the microfig Ant Man on the roof taking part in the main defense, and mini-fig Ant Man being overwhelmed by Yellow Jacket behind the drone tower thing. Also back there, but not super visible--Loki, Dr. Doom, and MODOK. An alliance that manipulated Ultron and Hydra into doing the main brunt of the attack? Sure! That's definitely what's going on, and not that I wanted those guys out and didn't have another place to put them really.

Lower balcony, with Hydra agents (led by Taskmaster and Crossbones) scaling the walls and overwhelming the SHIELD agents there. Iron Man, War Machine and Nova are providing air support, with Miles swinging down to assist.

INTERIORS - FRONT

Full tower, open. In addition to hinging open like the original set does, I added the ability to pull out the front section of each floor for floors 1-4. Like a series of drawers, making getting into each floor way easier.

Floors 1 & 2 are storage for minifig variants. Each floor can store two trays of sitting / small leg figures, with the top tray storing 25 minifgs, and the bottom fitting 26. So, room for 102 minifigs total. Still have plenty of room for more minifigs, so... eventually will have to add another floor for storage as we get more variants. But hopefully not for a few more years...

Floor 3 - Science Labs! Doing Science! are Tony Stark, examining Loki's Staff, Hank Pym working on some micro-scale suits (a display case holding all the micro-figs), two generic scientists doing Flasks near some microscopes and computers, and Pepper trying to figure out what's wrong with this Iron Man (is it that it's a custom, because an authentic SDCC figure is way outside what I can afford? It's probably that). Also present are DUM-E with the suitcase armor at the ready, and a deactivated Dalek ('cause uh... I guess you should study some other killer robots if you want to figure out what's up with Ultron, maybe?). Tools are mounted on the walls and in a stand in the middle of the room. But not on Tony Stark's side of the wall, which is displays and some controls, and oh yeah, a big 'ol sound system.

Floor 4 - Item storage. Center table has the Infinity Gems / Stones in display cases (plus the Eye of Sauron and One Ring because ehhh why not), plus helmets. Mounted on the walls are a whole bunch of guns, and the Avengers weapons--Cap's Shield, Thor's Hammer, Hawkeye's Bow, Star Lord's Elemental Pistols, and Rocket Raccoon's big eff-off gun. Also, deactivated Chitauri, Han Solo in Carbonite, The Collector (custom, because again, can't afford the real thing), and Portal 2 items--a modified Turret, Companion Cube and Chell.

Shelving unit is two stories, although I don't have anything (except Aladdin's Genie Lamp) to put on the second level. Yet.

Floor 5 is the Iron Legion Launchers. Has room for 12 Iron Men.

Floor 6 is War Machine Launchers. Room for 9 War Machines. Includes a custom War Machine made out of the Cyberman body since I wanted to have all the windows filled out while still being able to have a War Machine out and about doing stuff in the main display.

Don't have a good image of Floor 7 (you can kind of make it out in the image of the lower balcony), but it's Maria Hill and Dum Dum Duggan at some controls

INTERIORS - BACK

Back rooms of floors 1 & 2 are storage for Big Figs (plus Dr. Octopuses with tentacles). If you ever wonder why I don't want many more Big Fig variants to be released... well, hey, I only have room to store one more.

Back Floor 3 is the medical bay, with three of the medical beds from the original set, occupied by The Mandarin, Aldrich Killian, and the Extremis Solider. Tony's just trying to help them get better. Also, the MCU Hydra soldiers I have because I need to hide them somewhere, and sticking them behind the paramedic fig works? Anyway, the medical bay is paired with the science lab in the front.

Back Floor 4 is intentionally left blank for now. I'm planning to try to fit the Dr. Strange set into this space, which just counting studs in the released images... I think will work? If I can't get the portal beast in there, all the mystic junk in that set should fill this space out. Either way, Dr. Strange Mystic Junk Storage will pair with the more science-y Storage Room in the front.

Also, you can see what it looks like when the floors are pulled out of the main building. Also, you can see the cut out I made for the 2x16 plates that support the floors of each floor. This is where I intially messed up in stage three of building, having these studs exposed without realizing that would mean I'd only be able to pull out EVERY floor all at once, instead of having the ability to pull out each floor individually.

Floors 5 & 6 are Armour repair / construction. Floor 5 has the Space / Scuba Iron Man variants in the front, and the Iron Spider in the back, Floor 6 has the Iron Legion drones in the front and Ultron Prime in the back. They're paired with the Iron Legion launchers in the front.

Floor 7 is the SHIELD command floor--Nick Fury is at the center command, flanked by SHIELD agents definitely doing important SHIELD things and not playing Galaga. Pairs with Maria Hill and Dum Dum Dugan at their control in the front.

Floor 8 is a bar, staffed by Mary Jane Watson. Leads out onto the balcony, where the Avenger's party was interrupted by Ultron (that dink).

FULL COLLECTION

Moved the rest of my collection over to get a group shot. I've got a complete collection of everything released in the US so far, with customs of the Comic Con exclusives and Dark Phoenix and Misty Knight (because I don't have super high hopes of getting official releases of them too, and they're AWESOME.)

The rest of my Marvel collection, in their natural habitat on my Comic's bookshelf.

Avenger's Tower, in it's natural habitat behind my workstation. Giant Man and Hulkbuster at the base.

And a final easter egg:

A minifig version of my fiance, as a SHIELD agent, having a great time and ignoring all that attackin' happening just outside the protective glass...

Thanks for looking!

[legobagel]

Wow! Amazing modification, HyperOnion! That is really cool! I'm excited to see the Doctor Strange set hopefully fit in! That would look so cool!

[HyperOnion]

Wow! Amazing modification, HyperOnion! That is really cool! I'm excited to see the Doctor Strange set hopefully fit in! That would look so cool!

Thanks! I think I have JUST enough room to include the Portal Beast. Will definitely update once that set's out and I have a chance to try to work it in.

[Mr Greeble]

Lots of action going on here! Love the hordes of Hydra Goons swarming it.

[Borex]

So much hydra goons! Now i know i need to buy me more too!

Anyway, you can see you had fun with this.

[HyperOnion]

So much hydra goons! Now i know i need to buy me more too!

Anyway, you can see you had fun with this.

Go for it! The regular Hydra Henchmen is starting to go back up in price, but the Hydra Diver is still pretty cheap. Pop the flippers off, and the goggles/breath mask just make them look like they're part of an elite strike team.

But yeah, you sorta need to buy a whole horde, otherwise the heroes WAY outmatch the villains.

[BaneShake]

This is way awesome!!!

[Davids19]

This is beyond amazing! I love how you added in floors that can be slid out!

[HyperOnion]

This is beyond amazing! I love how you added in floors that can be slid out!

Thanks! It was either that or modular building style removable floors, and that seemed a bit precarious on a building so tall and thin. If I were to start from scratch, I'd try to find a way to have fewer points of contact between the sliding pieces and the main building, since getting the floors in and out takes a bit of shimmying. But I'm over all super happy with how it came out--wouldn't pass muster in an official Lego design, but works for my needs.

Also, I uploaded the LDD files I worked off of, if that helps anyone.

AvengersTower_Floor1&2.lxfAvengersTower_Floor3.lxfAvengersTower_Floor4.lxf

Caveats on those files:

-This is only for the bottom four floors (I already had the top floors built out--basically just take the existing layout, and make it six studs wider and four studs deeper in the back)

-.Top support beams need to be modified to be tiles on top

-Modified the storage trays on the bottom so there's no longer any studs connecting the top try to the bottom. Even the four studs I have in the LDD file made it too secure a connection, and would lead to the whole thing coming apart when I tried to take the top tray off.

-The command center I modeled on level 4 gets moved up to level 7, and loses it's top in the process. And obviously the medical beds on level 3 get tripled--I already had two from previous builds, so only modeled the third to get the piece count right.

Hopefully someone finds them interesting / helpful despite all that.

OH ALSO!

Because it's Lego, and adding to this scratches an itch that nothing else does: I'm thinking of adding a floor between floors 4&5--just over the lower balcony, to move the Iron Man launchers up a level so they don't open onto the battle scene on the balcony. But I'm not sure what I would put there. Living quarters are the first thing that come to mind, but I don't think they'd fit into the space I have super well. I know I want a door onto the balcony, but other then that, I'm low on ideas.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

[Cmay91472]

Looks great! If you do add another floor, I recommend having it angled to give the tower more of a sloped look to it. Being able to slide out the lower levels definitely was a suburb idea. Excellent work all around.

[DComics Shop]

Its amazing job, I love it!

[HyperOnion]

And worked in parts of the Sanctum Santorum set into my tower:

Interior

Exterior. Am gonna need to pick up the curve pieces in light bley in my next bricklink order...

Dr. Strange, Mordo, and The Ancient One taking their place on top of the tower. The Ancient One will probably get moved down to the interior as I need more space up top, but Dr. Strange and Mordo are too cool looking to hide on the inside.

Unfortunately, my calculations for fitting the portal beast in were WAY off--didn't take into account the gearing system on the back, or how that would interfere with the Sanctum window work. Plus, putting it in would make it take up the entire floor, with no room for anything else. If I add a floor, I may make this the entire floor, so I can fit everything. Or maybe I'll try working it into a modular... I dunno. It's too cool to break up just yet, so... keeping it as a built element on my desk, with the hope of one day finding a place for it.

Edited August 11, 2016 by HyperOnion

[rob-ot5000]

Shameless plugging works!

But seriously, I like it! Sooooooooo many Hydra agents, I'm a bit envious! I love that you have minifig storage built in to the lower floors. That seems like a great idea for a structure that's so tall. I also enjoyed reading of your struggles and finding BrickLink and using LDD and etcetera. Ah, memories

As a comic nerd, though, I only have one problem: Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum is definitely not in Stark Tower. You did a nice job incorporating it, I just think it's blasphemous. But a fun, friendly sort of blasphemy. Eh, we can blame that on Spider-Verse too........somehow.....

Have you seen the newest trailers for Luke Cage? Misty Knight FTW! Also, I've always been curious, is your screen name SUPPOSED to remind me of Hyperion? It can't just be a coincidence, can it?

Edited August 11, 2016 by rob-ot5000

[HyperOnion]

Sooooooooo many Hydra agents, I'm a bit envious!

And yet... it's never enough. Why oh why can't Lego make a Hydra army pack?

As a comic nerd, though, I only have one problem: Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum is definitely not in Stark Tower. You did a nice job incorporating it, I just think it's blasphemous. But a fun, friendly sort of blasphemy. Eh, we can blame that on Spider-Verse too........somehow.....

Yeah, it doesn't make a WHOLE lot of sense. Ideally, if I had more space I'd LOVE to make a modular Sanctum Sanctorum--I've looked longingly on Glen Bricker's version many a time--but that's a long ways out.

Uh... let's just say for now that Spider-Man Japan's Leopardan stomped on the Sanctum by accident during Spider-Verse, so... Tony let Steven and his surviving window move in for the time?

Have you seen the newest trailers for Luke Cage? Misty Knight FTW! Also, I've always been curious, is your screen name SUPPOSED to remind me of Hyperion? It can't just be a coincidence, can it?

HUGELY psyched for Luke Cage. Really hoping they get Misty right, since that's a character I love despite feeling like the comics have never really done her right...

It's kind of a co-incidence? It came from my mis-reading Hyperion on the spine of some sci-fi book my mom was reading way back when I was in fifth grade or so. And I've used it as my screen name since then. So... it's a misreading of the book imprint Hyperion, not Not-Superman Hyperion.

[rob-ot5000]

Thanks for the link to that IDEAS Sanctorum! I had not seen that! No matter, the Leopardon explanation makes PERFECT sense. Dang Spider-Mechs, always messin' stuff up.

Wow, your origin story is hilarious. Fifth graders are so dumb. Also, I lol'ed at "not Not-Superman Hyperion", so thanks for that too.

[HyperOnion]

Thanks for the link to that IDEAS Sanctorum! I had not seen that! No matter, the Leopardon explanation makes PERFECT sense. Dang Spider-Mechs, always messin' stuff up

Yeah, I want that pretty badly. In case you haven't seen it, he also did an amazing X-Mansion.

Never been more bummed that an Ideas set didn't get made then those two. No idea where I'd put them, but I'd buy the heck outta them.

...how have we not had a Leopardon set? Why Lego gonna make a Spider-Trike and a Spider-Helicopter before they make a Giant Spider-Mech what actually exists in canon.

[BrickShady]

Oh man, that's some action packed tower! Great job on 'modding' the set!

[Legoman123]

I think this is how we all wanted the Avengers Tower to turn out when we first heard about it.

[liortenz]

this is sooo cool!

[TheGreyPilgrim]

 

Simply awesome!

[The Architect]

Love it! Good job!