Rumble Strike

As I said in the Heroica RPG discussion thread, I love the look and feel of Heroica Hall, Sandy. The blue colour is lovely and the separate areas are all very well thought out. The concept has inspired me to create my first ever MOC today (at least, the first since I was about 10!), which I hope to photograph and be able to show tomorrow when my character makes his debut

Thanks for answering the pole-axe question, Sandy. I have a couple more questions, if I may. The classes are rough guides to characters, right? I am looking at creating a warrior-priest, and the best class fit is Barbarian. However the classic image of a Barbarian, and fostered by the job class information, is big lunk with a loincloth who doesn't say much. I want this character to be civilised without being a Knight class as already there are a few of those signed up. Also I am puzzled as to why the Cleric base health is higher than the Barbarian - 9 versus 8. I would have thought that the two Fighter classes (Knight and Barbarian) would be the two with the most health.

Are we allowed variants of the weapons that are shown? I noticed that the Kingdoms-style pole-axe isn't pictured. I would like to create my own pole-axe from the Prince of Persia axe blades for my character and hope that will be OK for a Barbarian as they can use both spears and axes in the weapons list?

I have a few ideas for a character already. I'll have fun rummaging around my Lego tub to see if I can come up with something that matches my vision. This is very exciting, well done to Sandy for putting so much effort in. Heroica Hall looks amazing!

Glad to help, Thego. Great deal on Amazon for 7985 City of Atlantis, down to £29.99 from £49.99.

I'm just amazed Shadows is actually a real person after his repeated (non-player) characters in Fabuland Housewives Mafia School

Cirencester Tescos have lost the big OFD in the middle of the store (no idea where it went, but the normal Lego shelves are the same with no summer releases) but I did see that the Midi Star Destroyer was half price at £15. Quite tempted by that.

Awesome pics. I do enjoy taking pics of Lego figures outside in natural conditions, and you got some amazing ones when you went on holiday!

That's a large and impressive castle! I really like it, especially how many layers of walls there are, some very high ramparts

This is a beautiful design, the colours complement each other and you have some lovely touches like the curved staircase. Great work

Tesco in Cirencester have a big Lego OFD with Harry Potter, NinjaGo, POTC and Star Wars sets on. Sets include the summer Star Wars (Geonosian Fighter/Ewok Attack/Sith Nightspeeder) and NinjaGo (Mountain Shrine/Blacksmith) sets. Prices are the usual, no mis-priced bargains, but hopefully still newsworthy especially with Clubcard vouchers being sent out.

This sounds very cool, nice work on the teasers so far Sandy! It'll be interesting to see the mechanics of this RPG.

Once again, that is absolutely gorgeous. I love how you represent the actual toys in such a clean way with Lego. Great stuff!

Really excited for a new Y-Wing, my favourite ship in the Star Wars galaxy. To have the X-Wing, Y-Wing and TIE Fighter represented in a single wave is incredible.

My local Tesco (when I am at work) just put out 4 entire boxes of Series 4 when they haven't had any in for months and months. I doubt they will get a separate OFD for Series 5 at the same time, but I can only hope!

That's fantastic, the whole idea and execution is spot on. I agree that Lego should make a 3-pack of these to use as a special / promo item. Would be nice to own a part of history

I am away on holiday at the end of this month or I would love to be in another Hinckley Mafia game. Good luck to all those who enter and I shall be watching with interest as time allows.

I think you can get a cream for that!

Interesting to see that a few people have mentioned the Collectable Minifigure series, as they are what got me out of my Dark Age too. As a Minimate fans for many years, the fact I could buy just Lego minifigs in 16 different styles from the supermarket during my lunch break, well, I bought more than a few, and here I am.

Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you all like the review. Dave, thank you for your comment, I am a regular reader of your blog. The pics were tricky to touch up as there was quite a lot of white in them, but I feel that they came out well overall. Brickdoctor, I do agree with what you have said, but I just wish they could have made that section slightly more sturdy somehow. The rest of the speeder is rock solid.

I took a Lion Knight to Warwick Castle with me today. I'm sad, I know, but I do like trying to take Lego pics outside of my photo studio. Here he is on the riverbank. Behind him is the Trebuchet and the jousting arena. Here he is high up on the ramparts. Behind him is Guy's Tower. I hope you enjoyed these pics

Reading the forums, it seems like a lot of people's personal Lego Dark Ages ended with the introduction of the incredibly successful Star Wars line. I only dabbled in this theme at the time, buying the landspeeder and the snowspeeder. Now fully on board the Lego express again, I have been picking up sets from many different themes. I was loathe to get this set initially but I caved in as the minifig selection on this newer one was great for a fledgling Star Wars collection. Let's see how the set fares. BASIC INFORMATION: Set Name: Luke's Landspeeder Set Number: 8092 Number of Pieces: 163 Minifigs: 5 Price: USD 24.99, GBP 25.99, EUR 26.99 Theme: Star Wars Year Released: 2010 ADDITIONAL REFERENCES: Brickset Peeron Lego Shop@Home My photo set on Flickr THE REVIEW: BOX: Front: In 2010 Star Wars sets featured a white box with Clone Troopers in the top corner, even for their Original Trilogy based sets, like this one. Regardless, the box clearly shows off the minifigs and the landspeeder itself, zipping across Tatooine. It's unfussy, uncluttered, and distinctive, as all good packaging should be. Back: The back shows off the only play feature in the set, and also a cross-sell section with 3 other available Star Wars sets at the time. Again, it looks good from this side. Top: The top of the box shows Luke with his lightsaber as the 1:1 image. The image is turned on its side as the box is too narrow to show him holding the lightsaber. IN THE BOX: Contents Inside the box are three bags, none of them are numbered. There is an instruction booklet with the same picture as the front of the box, just showing off a little more of Tatooine's sandy, rocky surface on either side. No sticker sheet for this set, which is rare for Star Wars sets in general. There are also two tubes, which form part of the detailing on the front of the landspeeder. Instruction Booklet: The instruction booklet is easy to follow, with only a couple of pieces being added for each step. No issues with the colours either. Check out Darth Vader's head in the top right corner. The Pieces: Here are all the bags opened up and dumped into a nice big pile. The colours are mainly tan, dark red, and, uh, normal red. The white envelope holds the stormtrooper's shoulder pauldron. Pieces of interest: Oh Danny, Danny, Danny. Why did I pick out not one, not two but THREE transparent pieces for this photo? Well, I really liked the windshield piece and the 1 x 1 cone and 2 x 2 flat piece I've not seen transparently clear before. Also the 1 x 1 brick with all the studs on it is really useful. Three of these pieces help to make up the sentry droid, we'll get to him in a sec. MINIFIGS: Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi Front: The front of the two Rebel minifigs. Both have some nice, clean torso prints. Luke's tunic detailing goes down over his legs. I love the belt detailing on Luke. Obi-Wan doesn't get leg printing but the folds of his robe are well executed. Neither figure has back printing or an alternate expression. Accessories: Both Luke and Obi-Wan get a lightsaber to use. These use the regular metallic, non-chromed hilts. Here's Luke with his lightsaber. The facial expression is OK, it doesn't scream Luke to me, but it'll do. However, the hairpiece is definitely a girl's hairpiece, and it does make Luke look a bit strange. Obviously Lego felt the same as they tweaked this figure for inclusion in the new 2011 Millenium Falcon set, changing the hairpiece to something a little less girly-looking. From what I have seen, most fans modify this figure by using the surfer's hair from the Collectable Mini-Figure Series 2, to great effect. Obi-Wan uses the classic male hairpiece, if I'm not mistaken, which is something the one in the original 1999 Landspeeder set did as well. Nice continuity there. The detailing on old Ben shows wrinkles and slightly sunken eyes, and the expression fits, being quite steely. C-3PO and R2-D2 Front: The front of the two droid minifigs. Both have great torso prints. I know Artoo doesn't have a torso in the strictest sense, but you know what I mean. Back: There is back printing on Threepio's torso, and on the back of Artoo's head. Artoo's torso remains annoyingly plain. Here's a close-up of Threepio. I know most Star Wars fanatics will have a few of these by now, but it's my first one, and I am pleasantly surprised how good he is. The sculpted head adds a lot, I think, and even if the Lego minifig torso shape isn't quite right for him, it works well enough. This isn't my first astromech, having already got Plo Koon's Starfighter and the V-Wing, but it is my first Artoo, and he doesn't disappoint. I love the Lego take on the astromech anyway and he is immediately recognisable and very cute. Stormtrooper and Sentry Droid Front: The front of the two Imperial representatives. The stormtrooper has the usual clean details on the front. The brick-built sentry droid gets a translucent stand to simulate his hovering. Back: The stormtrooper also has back printing. The sentry droid has a lever on his back. Accessories: This is all the gear the stormtrooper comes with; a blaster rifle, his shoulder pauldron, and a brick-built backpack. Here's the stormtrooper rocking the shoulder pauldron but not the backpack. The grey bracket clip that the backpack attaches to can be seen. It has the unfortunate effect of pushing up the helmet and making it not sit properly on the head block. It's a bit wobbly. Here's the stormtrooper with all his gear on. You can see that the backpack piece fixes itself nicely to the back. It looks a tad bulky, but it makes the trooper look distinctive, especially with the addition of the shoulder pauldron. Here is the sentry droid. I think there were a few of these buzzing around Mos Eisley in the Special Editions, looking for Threepio and Artoo. I wouldn't particularly call it a minifigure, but it does feature some interesting parts and does fit in with the set, which is all you can ask for really. THE BUILD: Step 18, and we have started constructing the general shape and framework of the landspeeder. Notice the bricks towards the rear which will be utilising SNOT construction techniques. By step 24, we are building up the back of the speeder, especially the secret compartment area. The 4 “grill” slopes add some nice detail to the rear. Step 27 is where we get to use the two pieces of tubing that were loose inside the box. These are quite fiddly to get in place properly. Step 30 is concerned with putting those black discs on the bottom, these help to simulate the hovering nature of the landspeeder by making it a bit more swooshable. After 39 steps, we are finished. The last piece to be constructed was the middle engine. These were the extra pieces – several cheese slopes, a trans-red stud, a black stud, a Technic piece and a lever. Pretty standard stuff. COMPLETED MODEL: Let's take a look around the completed landspeeder. This side shows off the dodgy engine without a cover. I know what Lego were trying to do here but it doesn't look all that good. The landspeeder looks great from the front. The windscreen piece is very effective. Overall the speeder's probably a bit longer than it should be, but it suits the Lego version. From this side you can see the good engine, and get a better look at the steering wheel. I'm not sure that's entirely accurate to the model but it works. The landspeeder does look sleek and fast, partly down to the plates and SNOT techniques. From the back, the Technic piece to attach the middle engine looks out of place, especially in red. The rest of the speeder looks good though. This is the main play feature. The middle engine lifts off and there is a secret compartment for the lightsabers to be stored, although they do have to be separated from their hilts. It's a much more elegant solution than just clipping them onto the craft itself. Plo Koon's Starfighter, I'm looking at you! COMPLETED SET: Here is the landspeeder loaded up with minifigs. As well as plenty of space for Luke and Obi-Wan in the two chairs, there's also plenty of space for the two droids to tag along. Both Threepio and Artoo fit securely onto the back section of the landspeeder. It allows recreations of the trip into Mos Eisley. Adding the stormtrooper and sentry droid into the mix. I'm sure those actually aren't the droids he's looking for! Overall, the landspeeder looks much better than I thought it would, and light years ahead of my old 1999 one. It's quite big (but not too big), swooshable, and holds all the required minifigs in it. The minifig selection is purely scene based, but works to give you great versions of key characters, plus a stormtrooper. Even the little brick-built sentry droid ends up looking rather swish, with the transparent bricks. Now to go for the totals! Totals: Design: 8/10 – I think the design of the landspeeder is really good. It might be a tad big compared to the source, but thankfully that translates into sleek and powerful-looking rather than bulky. Parts: 6/10 - Most of these parts are fairly standard. I always love transparent/translucent bricks so the sentry droid stand and the windscreen pieces are standouts, but there's not a great deal to excite here. Build: 7/10 – I liked the build, it came together nicely. The only awkward bit was putting the tubes in place and I just feel the reverse nature of the middle engine configuration was more trouble than it was worth. It looks bad and it feels flimsy. It's the only part that moves when you swoosh the speeder around. Minifigs: 10/10 – Taken as a scene from the film, you can't get a better selection of minifigs to go with the landspeeder than this. For one fairly cheap set to include great, detailed versions of Luke, Threepio, Artoo, Obi-Wan and a stormtrooper is really good for those who want to kick off their Star Wars Lego minifig collections. Playability: 7/10 – Recreate the Mos Eisley scenes from the film! The minifig selection and the landspeeder itself all adds to the playability of the set as a whole. Price: 7/10 – This does seem like an expensive set, as it only contains 163 pieces. However the sheer number of minifigs help to make the price seem reasonable, and the landspeeder is really good for the number of pieces used. Total: 45/60 – A superb starter set for those new to the Star Wars Lego phenomenon, and a good set for those who aren't. The minifigures are the highlight, but we mustn't discount the very solid design of the landspeeder too. I hope you enjoyed this review; the fifth of my series of Reviewers Academy reviews. I would love constructive comments and feedback below.

Uh, mutley, a set based on that pic might be a tad expensive! Thanks for the review StoutFiles.

I know it's a niche line, but Marvel Minimates have been going since 2003 and just keep going on and on. Like the Star Wars lines (Lego and Hasbro), they constantly refresh the main characters (Spidey, Iron Man, Cap, Wolverine) and make incremental changes to them each release. Then they will redo the older figures to more closely match the current designs. I can definitely see this being a years-long line if Lego want it to be.

Bob, the Marvel deal is for the forthcoming Avengers film due in 2012, and also "classic" (which we are taking to mean comic-book looking, based on the Wolverine shown) figures from of Spider-Man and X-Men.