ZO6

Seems like there should be plenty of room in the model to fit the mechanisms for pop-out guns, ejector seat, and other gadgets. It'll be interesting to see just how many functions they incorporate from Goldfinger: -Rotating license plates, smoke screen and oil slick seems unlikely (but maybe they would still have the rear lights flip up?), shredders that pop out of the hubcaps, fold down front grill to reveal machine guns, armor plate that rises to protect rear windshield, ejector seat.

A micro-scale Hogwarts makes sense. For the past couple of months, I've been trying to figure out what the D2C Hogwarts set would be like: -With the Great Hall and Womping Willow, we've already got some big pieces of the castle. So would the D2C set contain other sections of the castle, so that you could combine multiple sets together? In that case, it would seem pretty weird to sell a big D2C Hogwarts set that was not only incomplete, but missing some of the most iconic sections of the castle. -But what about making it so that the D2C set contained the entirety of the castle? Then you'd have duplication between the smaller sets (Great Hall, Willow) and the big D2C set. And in trying to cram the whole castle into one set, you'd end up with each individual section of it being less detailed. There's no way they'd be able to replicate all of the castle in one big set, yet have the great hall portion of it be as detailed as the stand alone version of that. -So unless the D2C set were $1000+, there's no way that TLG would be able to release a set that wasn't compromised in one way or another. Enter the possibility of a micro-scale D2C Hogwarts set. You would get a highly detailed, and complete version of the castle, without it costing a fortune. Plus you wouldn't have to worry about releasing a giant set that is incomplete, or that has duplicate pieces of stand-alone sets. If things go to plan, TLG can keep releasing sets (Chamber of Secrets, Clock Tower, etc etc) in the scale of the Great Hall and Womping Willow. This can go on for however long they want, and the Hogwarts castle will keep expanding and expanding. I don't see how this is anything but a win-win situation. Was I surprised by this news this morning? Yes! Was I disappointed even for a second? Yes! But when I stopped to think about it, a micro-scale version of Hogwarts makes sense. Boohoo, it comes with nano-figs instead of minifigs! Come on people, you can get minifigs in the other sets (Oh, and there's even a whole line of CMFs)! Let's wait until we get official pictures of the set before we start making final judgment.

Epic review! Nicely done. I was super excited about this set, and picked it up first thing on the day of its release. It took me about 11 hours to build, at a leisurely pace. I found it to be a fairly enjoyable building process. Overall I love this set. It looks great, and it's a lot of fun to play around with. I do have one problem with its functionality. Using the brake/wheel, it's really hard to get the train around the corner, down the little drop, and to the base of the hill climb. If I turn the knob in the intended way (in a circular motion, counter-clockwise), the wheel will push the train out of the station, but then the train will usually come to a halt before reaching the drop. If I'm lucky, it will make it around the corner, down the drop, but then not have enough momentum to engage with the chain-lift. It doesn't matter how quickly I make that wheel spin, it doesn't give the train enough speed to get to the lift. Luckily, while watching Jang's review of the set, I noticed his technique for releasing the train from the station. If you set up the crank at around the 9 o'clock position, then violently thrust it downwards (still counter-clockwise) to the 6 o'clock position, you'll get the most propulsion. Basically do those short, 45 degree thrusts, three times (once for each section of the train), and it will reliably make it to the chain-lift (and catch it, allowing it to go up the hill). I've noticed a lot of video reviews not showing their trains failing to make it from the station to the hill-climb. They'll cut from a close-up of the train being propelled out of the station, to a close-up at a different angle on the train going up the chain-lift. It would be nice if more people would acknowledge this problem, and help provide fixes.

Back in around 2004 I got the UCS Imperial Star Destroyer. It arrived at my house in its shipping box. As I was carrying the box (which was very large and weighed around 20 or so pounds) down to my basement to build the set, I slipped and missed the second flight of stairs. It was a hard fall, and I sacrificed my body to protect the Lego box. I broke a couple of toes (which later turned a disgusting black colour), but I was still so excited to build the set that I didn't mind my injury too much. Another story (I think this one was at the end of 2009): I built the Taj Mahal while I had a broken arm and shoulder. So I had to assemble everything using only one hand. I had to come up with a lot of creative ways to neatly stack all of those 1x1s! Took two full 12 hour days of building to complete. That was a pretty great Christmas...

For those wondering about surface area for the feet/landing gear: you'll want something that's 13" wide x 18" long. The rest of the Falcon will of course overhang a lot, but the feet will all fit within those dimensions. My story: I got to my local Lego store about 3 hours before opening on the 14th. At that point I was 5th in line. The store had 12 copies for sale. I talked to a lot of people in line, and everyone seemed liked genuine Lego fans who were going to build the set (as opposed to selling it). It took me approximately 18 hours to build the Falcon. About 12 hours of building on the 14th, and then finished the rest the following day. I like to make sure everything is perfect when I'm building, so it could definitely be assembled an hour or so quicker. Any faster than that, and I would say people aren't accurately keeping track of time (...or they're ridiculously fast). I was surprised that there is a large section that is currently empty, and could be used to add in another interior room. For now I'm storing the FA dish/accessories and extra blasters in that space. After having it assembled for a couple of days, I spent this morning modifying it a bit. Swapping out dark grey for light grey on the mandibles (taking pieces from the undersides of them and swapping them with the parts on top), filling in small gaps here and there, and doing other minor cosmetic changes to make it more like the OT Falcon. Pretty simple changes that are mostly personal preferences as opposed to flaws with the set. Overall I'm super happy with the set. It looks amazing!

I can confirm that the castle is 29" tall. If the height measurements in official Lego descriptions are correct, then Orthanc is 28" and Big Ben is 23".

Yes, I like to get all the moulded LEGO prints on the top of the studs facing the same way whenever possible. It has become a habit over the years for whatever reason (I guess mainly because I keep my sets built and on display for a long time, so I like them to look as good as I can). Also, I forgot to mention that I came across an error in the instruction manual while building. On page 360 (step #558), there are two white plates added that don't show up in the part call-out until the next step. Nothing major, but it caused me to do a double-take while building.

Took about 8-9 hours to build, at a leisurely pace. I like to savour the construction of a big set, but I'm also a perfectionist in that I like to get the LEGO print on the studs facing the same way, hide injection marks on pieces, and square up 1x1 tiles. Going back to the Ghostbusters HQ, the castle was a more challenging build. In the grand scheme of things though, this would be a medium difficulty. It could be easy to miss adding details here and there, and some sub assemblies can be a bit fiddly. Anyone newer to building Lego kits may have difficulty figuring out how certain pieces and assemblies are suppose to go together. Mainly there are hundreds of smaller pieces that could quickly and sloppily be added. Things will be crooked, but it won't affect stability. A lot of precision is required though if you want everything to look nice and tidy.

My images don't do a good job of showing it, but the castle is exactly twice the height of the Ghostbusters HQ.

Got my copy yesterday, just a couple minutes after my local Lego Store opened. They sold around a dozen or so more castles while I was in line for the checkout. I don't think I've ever seen a set fly off shelves like this; and it's especially impressive considering the price of this one. This was one of the most enjoyable large builds I've ever done. There was a lot of repetition of small things, but since each one didn't use very many pieces, I didn't mind. There were however many instances where I wanted to high-five Marcos Bessa and the design team, because very creative and satisfying building techniques were used. I found myself saying "Wow, this looks awesome!", many times during the build. While the Ghostbusters HQ feels a bit small considering it has 4600 pieces (mostly due to the double thick walls), this castle despite having 600 fewer pieces looks far more impressive (which is no small feat, as the GB HQ is massive and looks great). Minifigures shouldn't be a deciding factor when you have a castle that looks this great. It will be frustrating when I put this up on a shelf to display it, as I'll constantly want to take it off again so that I can poke around with the detailed interior. Luckily the castle can conveniently split apart into 3 sections (the main floor/mains walls, the 2-4th floor the tower), making it easier to transport. A note about the big grey front walls: these are built up of A LOT of pieces and have quite an involved build. Sure the big panel pieces could have been made up of individual bricks, but then the cost would likely go up even more. I never felt like big pieces were being over-used in this set; most of its size comes from the use of regular bricks. I'm super happy that this set exists. I'm really impressive with it. Love it!

Nice review! I picked up this set the morning that it was released and spent around 8 hours building it at a leisurely pace. As I assembled each section of the cave, I began to realize that this set was going to be massive. While many people are complaining about the price of the set, or that it has a poor price-per-piece ratio, when I saw the completed set in front of me I couldn't help but be impressed. Next to the recent modular buildings, the Batcave is significantly larger. Sure I would have liked to have paid less for the set, but I don't feel it's horrible value when compared to other Lego offerings. The set looks fairly ugly in pictures, but quite a lot better in person. The large 16x16 dark tan plate between Wayne Manor and the bottom of the batpoles is still very ugly, as are the exposed beams at the sides of the structures. Otherwise everything else looks really good, and pretty detailed. The bright colours of the minifigues, the vehicles, and other details help to distract ones eyes from the uglier portions of the model. I agree that the set is in a bit of a weird place - it isn't the most amazing looking thing ever, and it isn't the most highly playable kit either. I wouldn't say that it downright fails as either a display piece or a play set though. The recent UCS Helicarrier didn't have the good looks of most UCS Stars Wars models, nor did it have much in terms of play features. I don't think a model needs to be categorized as a display model or play-set and excel at one or the other to be a good Lego set. In the case of the Batcave, I think all the contents of the kit add up to make something special. I'm very happy with my purchase! (I do wish that there was a can of Shark repellant Bat-spray, and the actual Bat Computer) BTW, the Batcopter did show up a handful of times in the TV series. I've been re-watching the whole '66 series and I'm halfway through the 3rd season. The Batcopter showed up a couple times either near the end of the second season, or at the start of the third.

After having this set built for a few weeks now, I've got some more thoughts about it. Overall I still really love this set. It looks great on display, and there are tons of things to play around with too. I do have some new issues/complaints though. 1. The two side panels towards the front of the vehicle (the ones with the tan handle/clamp part) no longer stay open all the way on their own. They droop down so that they're only about 1/3 of the way open. The panels along the side at the back can of course be opened all the way, but the two near the front rely on friction to stay up. I imagine I could replace the friction pins with some new ones, but it'd be a nuisance to have to do this every couple weeks. Anyone else having this problem? 2. I wish there was an easy way to remove/replace the crane from the interior of the Sandcrawler. I don't have the biggest hands in the world, but I'm often finding that even with all the side panels open and the roof removed that I still have trouble fitting my hand in the vehicle sometimes. The crane sticks out so far that even by sliding it all the way to one side or the other it's still obtrusive. 3. The control room up at the front/top of the Sandcrawler is a huge improvement over the old one, but it still seems cramped. The floor of the control room has a massive gap all along its perimeter, so it could be increased in size by a stud or two in every direction. I have one final observation. I've noticed in a lot of pictures and videos that people have a massive gap around the front ramp when its raised. When you crank the knob in one direction to raise the ramp, the chain will slip when it's just about all the way up (this can still be corrected by turning the knob more to pull up this new bit of slack). However, by turning the knob in the other direction to raise the ramp, the chain doesn't slip and the ramp will raise up perfectly and not leave any gaps.

Did a really quick mod of the interior of the base camp. There is a lot of room when you pull out the tiles that the snowmobile parks on, so you could easily add just about what ever you want. I added two bunk beds and a long dinner table down the middle.

Amazing review, Rufus! I'd been peaking at (and drooling over) your WIP for a while, but it's nice to see the finished review. I picked up a copy of this set a couple days ago, and I agree with most everything that's been said about it. First of all, I want to get it out of the way that I really love this set. I'm super happy that it was put into production. With that out of the way... Had all the parts been printed, this would easily be right up there as one of my favorite sets ever. Stickers just feel like cheating to me, so they knock the ship down a couple of points. The technic stuff under the wings is a massive eyesore. It reminds me of the most recent minifig Millennium Falcon that was built on a big ugly square of technic frames. The rest of the underside of Benny's Spaceship is pretty nice and slick, but then you've got those blocky technic things in three different colours (if they'd all been one colour at least it would have really helped). Also, the big yellow windshield isn't held on very well. It popped off every single time I opened it. I decided to shave down the dark gray click hinge plate a bit so that the windshield would open/close more easily. Two of the 2x2 click plates could be substituted, but then you'd have to rework the construction of the command area under the saucer. Overall though the ship is great. It feels great swooshing it around too. Usually I don't care too much for minifigs, but I'm a huge fan of the classic space Uni-Kitty and Wyldstyle in this.

I picked up the new Arctic Base Camp yesterday and built it earlier. I really like this set. It feels like such a complete package - there are so many different vehicles (plus enough figures to man everything), and the base itself is quite nice. Pushing around the big tractor feels great - it balances on a rubber tire which is connected to the treads, so it rolls around super smoothly. There is a lot of room inside the base, but a large section is taken up as a parking spot for the snowmobile. I'm going to pull out the tiles for the parking spot and turn that half of the room into a sleeping area with some other accessories.

Picked up Benny's Spaceship today at a local Lego store in the GTA. The build was enjoyable and the finished ship looks amazing. I'm geeking out so hard while looking at it/swooshing it around (it's really big, but there are some good spots to grip it underneath for flying action). It felt like I was applying stickers every couple of pages, but there are also a handful of printed parts - including 3 slopes with the classic space logo, and a bunch of computer slopes. The main cockpit windshield isn't held on very well, so I shaved down the click hinges a bit so that the piece is easier to flip up/down and thus doesn't pop off every second.

I went into my local Lego store on Saturday to pick up the Ewok Village. On display was the Sandcrawler. It looked way nicer in person than in pictures. It seemed smaller than expected, but really detailed and all the angles fit together well (any gaps are very minor). I came home with the Ewok Village, built it, and love it. But then I couldn't get the Sandcrawler off my mind, so I went back on Monday and bought one. With all the pieces dumped into a giant pile, it took me about 12 hours to build and a leisurely pace. For it being a big brown box, it's pretty awesome. It looks great on display here in my place, and I can't stop playing around with it either. I'm slowly making modifications to the interior, but it's definitely not a set that needs to be modded. I like the tech specs that are in the manual, but would have preferred the plaque treatment for it as I'm unlikely to have the book laying around to read whenever I want.

I haven't bought too much asides from exclusives for a while, but I'm really temped to pick up this whole Arctic wave when they're released. I'm not sure if it's my love for The Thing (the movie) that's somehow attracting me to these sets or what. TLG seems to be really generous with the huskies and polar bears with this line too which is nice. And I wonder if that little outpost in the Ice-Breaker set can be easily made to attach to the one in the Base Camp?

These look like so much fun! I was a big fan of the old Time Twisters/Cruisers as they had loads of interesting parts and play functions, and as mentioned these new sets definitely have similarities. I really like these crazy spaceships and mechs, and having a second "normal" model to build would be a massive bonus. If I were to buy a whole line of sets next year, it would certainly be these..

Massive shout-out to those who keep taking the time to put out these great reviews. EB wouldn't be the same without you!

Great review, and very thorough! I like the look of the set a lot. It shares some similarities with the Portal of Atlantis, but has enough differences to be unique. Some of the various functions seem like fun; I'm a fan of traps that are a bit more elaborate than the standard flick-fire missiles. The piece count is pretty massive for a non-exclusive; lots of the parts are in fantastic colours too (gotta love all those transparent parts, as well as all the light orange). This set had been on my must buy list for this year, but having dramatically cut back on the amount of Lego I'm buying these days means that this will unfortunately have to be a pass.

Beautiful! Having such a substantial piece count on a relatively compact building has really allowed for the details to be packed in! Like many others have said, I too haven't been this impressed with a modular building since CC and GG (and I've been a big fan of all the buildings in the line). I can't bring myself to watch the designer video or look too closely at the pictures - there seems to be so many neat details, and I want to discover them on my own as I build it.

I went to my local Lego store about an hour before opening yesterday to make sure that I'd be first in any line that formed for the set. When the store opened, there was just one other person - who along with myself immediatley went straight for the crawler. The box is definitely a thing of beauty. The grainy texture with glossy details immediately make it it look and feel like a high-qulaity product. The build was enjoyable, taking around 5 hours at a somewhat leisurely pace while watching movies. I made sure all my batteries were getting charged up and ready to go in the meantime. The finished truck is georgeous. Definitely the best looking Technic set that I own, and arguably the most stylish model ever made. I've been playing around with it pretty much non-stop. Even though I watched lots of videos of it in action, it seems slower in person than anticipated. On the other hand, I'm pretty pleased with its performance - I've been putting obstacles all over my apartment for it to run over, and it's doing a pretty good job. I'm noticing the tires slipping on the hubs frequently which is unfortunate. I'd also like the mod the steering so that the turning radius is a bit tighter. Otherwsie I'm extremely satisfied with the whole kit. My number is 03315.

Brilliant review, Rufus! This is an amazing kit all the way through - from the deluxe box, the informative manual, to the ability to choose which of the 3 models you want to build. TLG really has done a great job with this release! All 3 versions of the car look good. I think if the flying version had more baloon styled tires it would look better, but then again they might be too big. This review goes to show once again that we can never judge early pictures too critically. I admit that I was a bit skeptical about the model from the first pics that came out, but after seeing the models from all angles I am quite pleased with the design. I am particularily delighted by the inclusion of the printed pieces - they make this kit extra special. Shame about the typo, but even if it doesn't get corrected down the road it still adds some charm. I'd have been happy with just the car in this set, but the minifigs are a fantastic addition too. I'll be picking this up as soon as it arrives at my local Lego store (buying 3 is tempting, but I'll have to start with 1).