ZORK64

Thanks for the feedback! Thanks for the hint, I added it to the review So it still took almost a year for the Mixel joint to be used as a coupler... well, since I'm not paying much attention to vehicle-sets (like the City-Line), I more or less just guessed, as the Shrunken Headquarters was the first set I came along to use it as a coupler (which is not surprising, considering that the list of sets which does so is apparently still rather small). Also, on that note, thank you for mentioning the word "coupler". Even though I'm rather fluent in English nowadays, every once in a while I encounter the problem of not knowing the proper word for the most mundane things (ironically enough, the German word "Kupplung" is phonetically very similiar, but it slept my mind as well while writing the review). I think the only thing that could've been done to make the Shrunken Headquarters more evocative of its original would've been to add actual eyes (printed on 1x1 round studs), but I guess that would've make it look a bit too cartoonish.

I'm also not entirely sure what to think of these sets yet. The giant rock monster looks neato, though I'm certain it will be a bit too pricey for my liking, while the pictures of the smaller sets are a bit too small for me to decide how much I like them (they look promising though). Anyway, I finally managed to write the first of the three reviews I had planned, and it is - as promised - the Shrunken Headquarters.

I'd like to start this review with an apology. I promised to write this review a few weeks ago, but thanks to some Real Life stuff, I had to delay it. But now I've got some time, and I'll make good use of it. Similiar to the Mini Fortrex we got in Nexo Knight's first year as a freebie, LEGO offers currently a miniature version of the Headquarters (or Jestro's Monstrous Monster Mobile, to literally translate the German name which I frankly adore because it gets shortened as "MoMoMo"), the biggest set of the current Nexo Knight wave. But how well does this set fare compared to its monstrous inspiration? Let's find out! Set number & name: 30378 Shrunken Headquarters Price: This set is currently free, but can only be obtained along with another Nexo Knights set Parts: 44 parts and 1 minifig (according to BrickLink) Release: Late 2016/Early 2017 The bag The front of the bag shows us the set and its pilot, a regular Stone Stomper. I'd like to mention that I generally like the visuals of the background used for this wave. All these blueish ruins give off a very eery and spooky vibe, which fits nicely with the bad guys (while the heroic knights provide some nice contrast). The bag is naturally nowhere as interesting. Well anyway, let's open the bag! The parts Here's the parts overview of the set. Since I'm not really willing to count the parts myself (which I used to do in my reviews of the constraction sets), I cheated and checked BrickLink. According to them, the Shrunken Headquarter contains a total of 44 parts. It's kinda surprising to me that the amount of purple and dark stone grey (the two colours which make most of the color scheme of the baddies) is so short in this set. The building instructions are a folded poster, which is quite common for small sets like this one. Pieces of interest The supposed action feature of the Shrunken Headquarters is a catapult. I'm not sure how old this piece is (EDIT: It debuted in 2010's Kingdoms line), but here's a picture of it for the little catapult enthusiast in all of us. This little TECHNIC-esque piece on the other hand is familiar to me, as it was also used in various G2 Bionicle sets (it might even have debuted in them?). It's a pretty cool-looking part, and I'm happy to get it now in black too. Another nice bonus: The Shrunken Headquarters comes with a total of three of these, but one of them is a spare part, so even if you kept the set built, you'll get one of these connectors for your parts collection. This brick is part of the catapult, and it's a rather exotic piece (at least for me...). Oh hey, a Mixel Ball joint! Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but could the Shrunken Headquartes be the first set to use one of those in a vehicle, just like how the older plates with balls were already used for decades? Either way, it's a pleasant surprise, considering that I actively collect these joints, what with being a constraction nerd. I generally like 1x2 plates in this style, I think the first time I spotted this variant was in the Mini Snowspeeder. The Shrunken Headquarters uses two of these to connect to steam roller-like front section. The Minifig Instead of featuring a specific character like Jestro (similiar to how the Mini Fortrex was piloted by Robin), the Shrunken Headquarters is piloted by a Stone Stomper, which are apparently the lowest-ranking mooks of Jestro's new army. As this picture shows, Stone Stompers are Gargoyle-like humanoids. A front and back view of the figure itself. As you can see, the Stone Stomper got overall some nice printing. He also comes with an alternative facial expression, so it's up to you if the Stone Stomper sports a evil grin or a more aggressive expression. Here's a comparison with one of the mooks of the past wave (my apologies for not knowing his title though). Given the versatility of the color black, the Stone Stomper looks good if you swap the gear around, while the combination of bright red and purple is kinda odd. Building the set The build of the Shrunken Headquarters is rather simple and straight-forward, starting with the front section, followed by the back section, and once both sections are completed, they get united. I think I can let the pictures speak for the most part here. This picture shows you how the roller in the front is assembled. The instructions themselves of course expect you to first assemble the roller completely before you attach it to the vehicle, so I kinda cheated the instructions here to give you a better insight of how it is built. The front section, completed! Now we also got the back section done, so once we've combined both, we get... The finished set Behold, the evil Miniature Monster Mobile (MiMoMo)! Oh right, spare parts. Design and playability As the name implies, the Shrunken Headquarters is based on Jestro's Headquarters, the larges set of this wave. It comes probably to nobody's surprise that a polybag set doesn't emulate every play feature of it's bigger brother, but I think the set does manage to evoke the shape of the MoMoMo. One feature I like about it is how you can alter the height of the front roller. Since I don't own Jestro's Headquarters, I'm not certain if this feature is inspired by a similiar trick of it or not, but it's still a cute little feature. The set's other play feature, the catapult, leaves something to be desired though. Not only is the Stone Stomper in the way of the catapult, the bricks you can fling with it also fly in a rather low arc, and thus, not very far. So good luck hitting anything besides a miniature town with it. Of course, as a miniature set, the Shrunken Headquarters may not be really up to challenge the Nexo Knights - or at least not their Action Suits... ...except for other polybags I guess. While I would have loved to show the Shrunken Headquarters next to the Mini Fortrex, I unfortunately don't own this set, so I went with another polybag instead. Final thoughts Truth be told, I was initially not really interested in this set, mostly because another polybag which popped up around the same time in the Nexo Knights 2017 thread, looked far more appealing to me. However, once I opened the bag and built the set, the Shrunken Headquarters managed to win me over, as the set still has a rather neat design and comes with plenty of unique parts that will be very great for my parts collection. So if you want buy some Nexo Knights in the foreseeable future, make sure to also get this polybag with it. It's a neat little set that I can recommend.

I can confirm that Clay's Mech Suit comes with a second sword, while Axl's Mech Suit has only one axe blade (which saddens me, since I would love to build an axe with two identical blades). I also got news on the review front: I finished the pictures for the Shrunken Headquarters today and began to take the pictures for Lance's set. I will write the reviews once I've took all pictures for all of the sets.

Alright, I'll make sure to take plenty of pictures while building these sets. This will be fun! Any wishes as for which set I should review first?

I went to my LEGO Store today and bought Aaron's Stone Destroyer and Lance vs. Lightening. I also got the promo item (Shrunken Headquarters) along with it. Since it's been quite a while, I've been pondering to write some (pictured) reviews for these three sets. Are you folks interested in any reviews here? I used to write reviews for the Hero Factory sets over in the Action Figure forum.

Ooooh, that's good to know! I want to visit my local LEGO Store tomorrow anyway, so I might take a further look at this then.

I can second the love for the hands. I generally like robot MOCs with separate fingers (look no further than my Self-MOC - man I gotta have to update my galleries again...), and these are gorgeous. Though that doesn't mean the rest of this guy is any less impressive. The whole build is pretty awesome. Things I particulary like about this MOC are the head and the color scheme. How poseable is he though? Any trouble with the weight of his limbs? Oh, and how did you design the wrist joint? It's kinda difficult to figure it out from the picture...

I only own a few of the Ben 10 sets (two IIRC, got them relatively cheap and haven't made much with the parts yet), and I can second VBBN's notion. The parts are quality-wise top-notch, and the design blends fairly well with CCBS. In fact, some parts (like the thigh piece and the hooves) were also later used in a few Hero Factory sets. I more or less missed the other themes, though I'd be curious to get a closer look at Galidor sets or Znap parts.

Yeah, I also think it's plausible that Macy's Dragon thing is some sort of drop ship for some squire bots, but it can still combine in some fashion with her mech suit.

Aw, that would be a bummer for me. I won't give my hope up on this yet though, considering that the Ultimate Sets were also two waves. (Though then again, we already have all of the good guys in their mech suits, so it sounds feasible that the summer sets are intended to work with those and the bad guys won't get any suits...) Macy's Dragon might be interesting for me, the other sets are a bit too pricey for my liking. But first things first, I gotta have to get one of the exclusive winter sets - though I'm still pondering which one I should get...

I might have recently bought my last G2 Bionicle set, as there was a sale in my LEGO store, so I had the chance to pick up Quake Beast. It's a decent set with nice parts.

Man, I've been a member for roughly 7 years here on EB now, but I never really paid attention to this event until now... I might start reading a bit further into this, maybe I'll try to visit the Event this year.

Yeah I can second that. Axl's battle suit holds the shield in the same fashion as the others. legozebra, it might be possible that your set was missing the piece. On that note, I recently bought Clay and Axl, and I like these suits a lot. While I hoped that the shoulder joints wouldn't be part of the mech torso, but separate bits instead, I still like the design of it, and the other parts they come with are also pretty neat. But I still hope that we not only will get another wave of battle suits in the summer, but also that these will use the new hand mold which was introduced with Mr. Freezer's mech. Is there any information if we'll get mech suits in the summer wave yet?

I haven't really paid attention to the Star Wars CCBS sets (as I haven't gotten around to watch the movies yet), but I like the new figures. Baze in particular looks nice with his Space Marine-esque neck section.

Happy Holidays from me as well! Quick question: Does Axl's Mech Suit set come with any spare parts - or more precisely, is by ancy chance a second axe blade one of the spares he comes with? I mean, Clay has a second sword...

While the grey joints are a bit unfortunate, they don't bother me too much. I'm more annoyed that the legs don't have any articulation. I also second the wide face on Finn - I wish they'd used a white brick with the face printed on it (though then again, the flesh brick would allow to built a hatless Finn). Regardless, these figures look pretty neat. I'm not sure if I will buy these, as I'm not the biggest Adventure Time fan (I like the show, but I haven't watched it in ages), but the parts assortment is solid and I like the idea behind them (brick-built actionfigures)

I've got a mail today that the new sets are available in Germany today, and I also just learned that Jestro's Headquarters' German name (which was most likely changed because the Headquarters Pun wouldn't work in German) also works in English and means "Jestro's Monstrous Monster-Mobile (MoMoMo)", which is glorious.

Perhaps I'm a bit late with mentioning this, but both the piece used for the mech's hips (the one with three ball joints) and the silver fists are both old pieces. The hip piece is from the Technic sortiment (though I'm not sure how old it is - I once bought a set featuring two of these pieces, and yes, I also used them for robot MOCs), while the fist was introduced alongside the CCBS in the second wave of Hero Factory back in late 2010/early 2011. But still a nice review, though I would have wished to see a complete parts overview, especially since I'd like to know what the new torso pieces look on their own. (on that note, the reveal that the shoulder joints are an actual part of the grey torso piece is a bit of a letdown, as it limits the versatility of the piece I think)

That Promo-set looks pretty neat and comes with some beautiful parts. Also, I guess this means that the new Nexo Knights will be already available in January 2017?

I actually wanted to post a response for quite some time, but hadn't found the time to do so until now. In short my thought to previous discussions: - Personally, I prefer the grey/purple coloration, both from a thematic and aesthetic perspective. The purple brings some nice variation into the mix, and it's also a colour that deserves a bit more love. Grey is also useful. Furthermore, the head of the hooded minifig (the one with no conventional legs) is also pretty neat and will be extremely useful for me. - Aaron's special set looks pretty great! I like both the vehicle and the monster, and the Robin Hood-Bot (alongside with the tree) is not hilarious, but also a wonderful call-back to the LEGO Castle sets of my childhood. I even only just now realized that he has the old emblem on his torso! - I also just realized that this wave has lots of sets utilizing Mixel Joints. I really appreciate that.

That's a good idea. It could be really useful for spaceships and the like. Perhaps I can even utilize it in a Transformer MOC, alongside with the other parts the mechs offer.

Thanks for the feedback. I already expected that there wouldn't be any issues, but it's nice to get a confirmation on this.

Ah, I didn't even consider the fact that he's the really last hero guy we get, as I paid even less attention to G2's lore than to G1's. ' But I totes agree with you on the transparent hues. One thing that annoyed me about the regular-colored masks of the uptated Toa was how the silver part looked more like elderly hair than anything else - giving them a transparent hue would've looked a lot better.

Thanks for the hint! The combining feature is a nice touch, though I don't think it will really encourage me to get any of the larger sets just for that - though that doesn't mean I dislike the larger sets, overall I like the look of this wave more than that of the first year, mostly because the bad guys look visually more appealing to me. I also really like both of Lance's sets, and I'm pondering to get one of them (though I'm not sure which one). On that note, a question that may seem weird, but how wide is Lance's visor compared to Clay's? I'm mostly asking this because Lance's visor might be useful for a MOC of mine, but only if it's slightly thinner as Clay's visor, since that turned out to be too big (the space in question is a mere 2 studs big, in case you're wondering). Also, I have a semi-related question, my apologies if that is not the right place to ask: Is there any differences in the quality of the plastic used in the exclusive sets that come with the Nexo Knights Magazine? I'm asking this mostly because I've heard the Star Wars Minifig Magnets (the ones that weren't glued to their magnetic bricks back then) were not as good as the regular ones apparently due to being made in China, so I'm wondering if that may also apply to the sets in those mags. Should this not be the right place for this question, feel free to direct me to where I could get an answer, and thanks in advance.