ZO6

Man, am I ever digging these sets! I forget who made the comparison about these being like a Time Twisters/Adventurers/Studios mash-up (Oky?), but that was exactly what came to mind for me too. These sets looks completely wacky, and I love 'em! I think once TLC finalizes the parts, we'll have a slightly more coherent colour scheme and look (the current mish-mash is probably what's turning a lot of people off). The big castle currently reminds me a bit too much of the Troll's Mountain Fortress, but perhaps that will change in time. Overall, this theme looks like it will be a lot of fun. I can't wait!

While more than ever I regret having missed all of the previously released Batman sets, I'm so looking forward to picking up all these new ones. At first I was pretty disappointed with the look of these sets as they seemed like smaller and simpler versions of the old ones. After seeing the batch of newest pics, these sets are really growing on me. I genuinely like the design of these news sets! These seem like they'll look fabulous on display, but I'm a bit suspicious about the play features. I'm seeing a whole bunch of flick-fire missiles and little else on most of the models. Hopefully there are some sort of hidden functions and whatnot. Oh ya, and I suppose it's appropriate to give a shout out to the wonderful looking minifigs - I'm digging them. I look forward to seeing the rest of the Super Hero sets!

Thanks everyone! I appreciate it! A good friend of mine actually baked me a Lego brick shaped cake for today - t'was wonderful! I've treated myself to a whole bunch of sets over the past week (VW Bus, Fire Temple, Tantive IV, Fire Brigade), so I'm pretty satisfied with my current ABS intake! A shout out too to the others celebrating their birthdays today!

Holy snap! That looks amazing! Am I dreaming, or is it April 1st or something? Crikey that's a beautiful set! That far surpasses my expectations. It's huge and incredibly detailed. I'm so glad that I picked up the MMV and all the Kingdoms sets, as this will go along with all of them perfectly! I want to go on about all the fantastic details, but I'm essentially speechless for now. Thank you TLC!

Awesome, glad that we've got two stores in the GTA now. I picked up the Camper bus at Sherway the Friday that it came out - it's even better in person than in pics (a bit more fragile than I'd like, but that's the price to pay for great looks)!

I've held off commenting on this line until I could see half decent pics. After taking a close look at the latest patch of photos I'm really not very impressed with the sets. I'm fine with the colour scheme and the capturing dinos setup again, but these models simply look pretty uninspired. A few of these are nearly remakes of older sets, and the new stuff (copter and HQ) don't look all that exciting. None of the building techniques appear to be particularly interesting, and I can't imagine that these are hiding any sort of elaborate functionality. Final judgment will be reserved until I see good reviews, but as of now I'm underwhelmed.

Yup, the printed horses are wonderful. They really stand out from the standard ones! There is so much to love about the minifigures, but they simply look amazing. It's pretty neat that this theme featured noses on the figs, it really makes them unique. Got this for something like $175 + S&H (seller was within Canada which helped to save a little bit) off Bricklink. I personally think that's pretty expensive for this set, but it had finally become a must have for me so I caved in.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I too would love to see a Wild West theme return. I'd personally prefer for it to be an unlicensed theme, but at this point I'll pretty much take whatever I can get. The presence of any Indians would be a huge bonus.

The top notch reviews here on EB have always been my favorite aspect of the site. I'm glad to be a part of the teaching team, and it's always rewarding to help out others. Whether you're part of the Reviewers Academy or not, I encourage you to do a review if you have even the slightest inclination. Of course by joining the RA, we'll do our best to help you improve every aspect of a review! It's fantastic that we're at the 3rd anniversary of the RA already, let's keep it alive!

Yay, classic Bionicle! Thanks for doing this review, R8! I remember thinking the Bionicle stuff was so unique when it first came out. I picked up all of the sets and went to every event that I could. Thought I personally never thought anything ever topped the original 6 Toa, the Nuva were still fantastic. I happened to be at Legoland California around the week that these guys came out, and Tahu Nuva was the first of them I bought. Ah, how this review brings back memories...

Another fantastic review, Rufus! I adore these brick kits. I can buy these boxes and the pieces will just disappear in to models here and there in no time. To sweeten the deal, these kind of things seem to run at 25% off quite regularly, so it'd be wrong for me not to keep buying them. The models that you came up with look superb! Thanks for taking the time for putting together all those MOCs.

Fantastic review, Fangy! I your pictures, particularly that title pic. As much as I wish the NinjaGo theme would be made up of more sets consisting of structures, this is about as crazy of a polybag set as you can get! What a great way to get Zane and a bunch of those scimitars.

Brilliant review, Rufus! I think you've finally managed to tip the scales and make this my favorite SW of the summer wave. I can't relate to some of the minifigures at all, but luckily the ship is sweet enough to more than make up for that. I'm not sure if I like this or the old Cruiser more, but I suppose that's a good thing to have two ships battling for my love. Now if only we could get something like this in UCS form...

Great review, JimB! This is such a funky looking ship! It's hard to appreciate the size of it until you see it in person. Space Pimp....err...I mean Brick Daddy is such a fantastic addition to the SP3 minifigure roster.

Thanks for putting out this review, R8! Great to see these fantastic train sets getting some attention. The passenger wagon is a beauty. It's deceptively simple looking upon first glance, but it features so many lovely details.

Absolutely superb review, Cloney! Every time I thought you were maybe a bit too critical about something, your next comment would leave me in hysterics. While the 2nd Hogwarts Castle is probably my favorite, each edition has been memorable for one reason or another. I missed picking up this set, but reading through your review helped to make it feel as though it was in my hands. There were a number of little secrets that I didn't know about!

I'm definitely not as big of a fan of cheese slopes as everyone else here. I like my Lego to look nice and studded, not completely tiled and cheesed up. Cheese slopes help wrap up a build as opposed to encouraging further construction, I like to have studs available if I want to add something more. I can definitely see the usefulness of the pieces, but I do find their inclusion pretty excessive. While AFOLs in general love to use them in mocs, I don't think that children tend to use them as much. I was recently invited to be the official judge of a Lego building contest that was held in town. There were many age categories from 4-15, and while it was obvious that all the creations were built using pieces from modern sets (past 3-4 years), there were next to no cheese slopes used anywhere. Much like me, they probably find that cheese slopes present dead ends and thus don't incorporate them into their creations. I guess I could have simply summed everything up with - cheese slopes seem like an easy way to inflate piece counts, and I'd rather see more of that plastic go into other parts. As a side note: I've been buying a lot of 10+ year old sets recently, and many of them have nearly no extra pieces. Even the big flagship sets might only have a couple of extra pieces. With modern sets, you're guaranteed to get a whole whack of cheese slopes as extras. The more bags of parts the set has, the more extras you'll get. While most people love all this cheese, I never use the parts when mocing, so my collection of the little slopes is getting to be ridiculous. Extra note: Much Like Cloney, I was recently building an old set that included some BURPs. In this case though, they were made to look like they had vegetation growing on them by using 1x1 bricks. I was pleased to see a good 20 or so of these bricks used to decorate the rocks, as I'd much rather have 1x1 bricks at my disposal than cheese slopes. Third note: I guess one of the things that helped to fuel my attitude towards cheese slopes was when I bought the Tower Bridge. Sure I knew going into the set that part of it's 4300 piece count would be made up of like 600 cheese slopes, but you don't realize how ridiculous that is until you start building the set. Adding all of those cheese slopes really hurt my enjoyment of the build. I like to build sets at a leisurely pace to really enjoy/savour the moment, but fiddling around with all of those cheese slopes just kind of grinded progress to a halt. I kind of liken cheese slopes to stickers - they're more about style than substance.

I've always been a bit surprised that there are no reviews for the two largest sets from the Indian subtheme here on EB. I know that these sets are generally less popular amongst the AFOL crowd, but personally I've always been intrigued by them. Rapid River Village looked to have a large amount of play potential (for which I'm a huge sucker), and the minifigures also seemed really wonderful. I recently took the plunge and bought a MISB copy of the Legends re-release of the set off of Bricklink. Join me as I take a close look at this often overlooked set! Info Set# - 6763 Name - Rapid River Village Theme/Subtheme - Western/Indians Year - 2002 Piece Count - 343 Minifigures - 7 Price - MSRP $70US Links Brickset, Bricklink, Peeron, Brickshelf Box The Legends line re-release of this set features a smaller and arguably less exciting looking box than the original. Still, the front seems nice and clean and really highlights the model well. The stitched leather look around two of the sides is quite nice, and the bright colours in sections of the set really pop out. The Indian chief in the lower left is kind of cute, and he appear in the top right as well at his actual size. Alternate model! Hurrah for that! I miss the days of seeing what kind of crazy stuff you could build with the parts in the set. Here's all the contents of the box - which was completely stuffed! This is one of those extremely rare cases where every square inch of space has been used up in the box. I guess since this was a re-release, TLC wanted to use as little cardboard as possible to keep down prices. I approve! Instructions The picture on the front of the manual is the same as on the box. Even though the instructions were packed in a very full box for 9 years, they are in perfect condition. I guess TLC did a better job of packing boxes back then, eh? I love this picture on the back on the manual - there is so much mayhem and craziness going on. It makes me want to build the set as fast as possible so I can get in the action. As per usual with older instructions, you add loads of pieces every step, and you get to find what and where they go on your own as there are no piece call-outs. I think this made building sets a lot more fun than just adding one piece every page. Colour differentiation is also perfect. Parts The set contains 7 bags of parts - 4 large and 3 smaller ones. Here are the largest pieces. I apologize for the inconsistent background colour, but the parts themselves should still be easy enough to identify. Now for the smaller parts. Mostly basic parts, but that's fine by me. Thanks to the use use of three baseplates, this set takes up a lot of real-estate. Everyone loves tan plates, and having one with a river running across it is very nice. Though there is a decent amount of unused space on the baseplates, I'm glad that they were used as they help to give you a unified village. Warning, a great many AFOL's eyes will be greatly offended by this picture! Love 'em of hate 'em, this set contains 5 BURPS and 3 LURPS (they've always been a part of my Lego building experience throughout my life, so I really don't mind them at all). Oh-la-la, aren't these nice!? The teepees in the Indian subtheme have always caught my eye. They no doubt played a large role in my desire to acquire this set. They're made out of a really nice cloth material and feel expensive - I like! There are only three printed pieces in this set, but these shields are beautiful. A fairly rare piece nowadays, this set also includes a neat little canoe. A very unique piece, this hollow stump has only appeared in 5 sets - all of which are part of the Indian subtheme. This set is the only one of the bunch to include more than one of the piece. A minifigure can be put in a sitting position and tuck nicely into the stump. Also, pieces can be clipped onto 5 spots around the top of the stump. Minifigures The set contains 7 wonderful minifigures. These were amongst the most detailed figs when they were first released in 1997, featuring intricate prints and bright colours. They are essentially also the only minifigures ever to feature printed noses. These little guys are yet another reason why I had to get my hands on this set. To sweeten the deal even further, you get two horses that feature absolutely wonderful prints. Both of these horses are exclusive to the Indian subtheme. The Build Now for my favorite part - building the actual set. You start things off my constructing the teepee. The two supports are joined together at the center by a technic pin with ball. The tow log pieces get put into place - these were a little tricky to get in the correct spot as they have to be oriented just right for the studs to line up. The teepee will remain empty, though it's nice that there is at least room inside for whatever you want. The fabric is wrapped around the supports to create the teepee. This is a painless process yet the material is firmly held in place. That awkwardly placed ladder becomes a rack of sorts to store weapons and accessories on - I'm not complaining as it's always nice to have extra ladders. The red jumper plate on the pair of black bricks will become a fire. The first section of the village is now complete. I like that this area was not cluttered up too much and allows the minifigures plenty of room to roam around. Next up is the construction of the second area, and a watchtower. Note that there are a few green and brown 1x1 bricks attached to the BURP to spruce it up a bit. You just know that if this set had been produced within the past 4 years it would have used cheese slopes instead. I prefer the bricks. The watchtower is finished at the point. I'm sure any minifigure would be overjoyed to have a ladder at his disposal to help him get to the top! The red and yellow parts of the supports, along with the features are nice details. The base of a second teepee, and fire are also built. Here's the second area now complete. The medicin man gets his own custom tent and shield, plus a personal bodyguard sniper in the lookout. Either of these first two sections might not be too terribly exciting on their own, but when you combine everything together at the end, the set becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Now begins the laying of the foundations for the third and final section of the village. This section is where all the fun happens. 1 rock piece down, 5 to go (that must be a record amount of BURPs and LURPs to be used on a single 16x32 baseplate). There is substantial growth in very few steps. Note that once again, there are a number of green and brown 1x1 bricks used to liven up the rocks pieces. Ah, some of the fun stuff. On the left is a secret door into a cave of despair (Alright, that sounds a bit rough - lets call it the cave of mystery). Above the ladder (Another ladder! These minifigures are going to be pleased as peaches to have this kind of access!) is a little contraption to support or release a trap door that will soon be installed. The overlapping of the massive blue sloped parts helps to make it seem like the water is rushing downstream...or that there are rapids. Making progress - 4 rock pieces down, 2 to go! With the top of the ridge plated up, you can hardly tell that the 2x2 brick at the weird angle is part of some sneaky trapdoor releasing mechanism. That tiny corner of plate is all that holds the trapdoor up, but it works surprisingly well. I haven't had any problems of loads being prematurely dropped. Yes, this is still the same set, only a bunch more pieces have been added. The grey panels above the trapdoor will be used to hold and guide a fire and snake into the pit of mystery below. I'm not sure if the designers had this in mind or not, but I find that the round grey 1x1 brick is useful for resetting the trap door after it has been triggered. Over on the right is another one of those devices for use in conjunction with a trapdoor. All the ladders and rock pieces have now been used up. The second trapdoor is also put in place, though the tiles on top make it slightly less inconspicuous than the first one. Oh well, if the tiles help to send a minifigure to his watery doom than I suppose that's what counts. The big black slope and the leaf will also be part of yet another play function/trap. Totem pole! This gets built as a submodel and then attached to the ridge. The bright primary colours contrast nicely with the surroundings. Done! The final bits added here really help to make this seem like a natural piece of landscape. I'm not sure what kind of birds those two grey parrots are meant to represent exactly, but their presence is welcome anyways. Complete Set The three sections can now be connected via 4 grey 2x2 bricks resulting in the finished model. Isn't it wonderful? The village is physically quite large, and there is a lot to see and play around with. Let's take a closer look, shall we? Here's a look at the back of the village. The large blue slope is around 3 bricks high at the start - this allows the canoe to basically slide down to the curved river bit on its own. The back corner - the green and blue bricks behind the BURP were put there by me to be out of the way. They can be attached to their respective horses when saddles are not used. The view isn't terribly pretty from here as the village is mainly meant to be view from 2 sides. Still, the space behind/inside lots of the BURPS and LURPS could be used to have the minifigures hide out in. Here's a look inside the case of mystery. As I've highlighted in a video, this is mostly just a large area where minifigures can be hanging out and then have the ceiling collapse on them as part of a play feature. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I really love how many ladders are provided in this set! I know it's not hard to use one's imagination and have minifigures scale any sort of heights on their own, but it really is thoughtful to have ladders available. A view from above to help give a sense of the size of the set. Here are some videos of the play functions: More: The model can also be configured differently by relocating to watchtower section to the side. Not only does this give you a change of scenery, but it can also make the set significantly easier to display! Final Thoughts Design/Build: This set does a fantastic job of giving you a nice looking large village to play around with. You can just imagine massive flat plains continuing out at the front while the back is parts of a huge ridge. The build isn't terribly exciting at first as you're just building teepees and other small structures. Once you build the bulky third part and join everything together though, you just feel like you're getting so much content. Despite the now primitive building techniques, the set still has a nice organic look and feel to it. There are loads of nice, if albeit simple-ish details. Overall I think the set looks great. Pieces: For the most part the set is just made up of regular bricks and blocks. The stand outs are the fabric teepees, and the lovely river baseplate. Many will be turned off by the abundance of BURPS and LURPS, and possibly even by the stump pieces. However, for myself and perhaps some others, these parts are just fine. The minifigures were pretty groundbreaking in their day, and even now they still stand out do to their details and bright colours. I'm not normally a minifigure lover, but the figs in this set were almost worth the price of admission alone. Playability: The big selling point for me! This set has got a great combination of providing play value both in which you use your imagination for, but also with an abundance of traps and functions. The ridge section is particularly packed with things to play around with. This set is a lot of fun. Verdict: The future of sets focused on Indians seems pretty bleak. I've been lead to believe that this subtheme wasn't terribly popular when it was first released, and it seems as though there might be too much controversy for TLC to be able to do something similar again. It's hard to imagine Indian based sets being done much differently or better than these, so we'd best be grateful for what we got. I am extremely pleased with my purchase of the Rapid River Village and think that it's a wonderful set. As always, comments and questions are more than welcome. Cheers!

I was all geared to up purchase Fire Temple from the NinjaGo theme, when all of a sudden the Dragon Fortress appeared on Bricklink for this same price that it was brand new 8 years ago (which also happens to be 5 bucks cheaper than the NinjaGo set). How could I, a massive fan of the Adventurers line possibly pass up a deal like that!? Read on as I dive into a MISB copy of the Orient Expedition flagship! Info Set# - 7419 Name - Dragon Fortress Theme/Subtheme - Adventurers/Orient Expedition Year - 2003 Piece Count - 732 Minifigures - 9 Price - MSRP USD 90, GBP 70 Links Brickset, Bricklink, Peeron, Brickshelf Box Alright, it's hard to tell in this picture (and I'm sorry for that), but this box is huge! Anyways, Lego boxes during this era were a tad boring, what with the blue stripe running around a couple of edges. This forces the picture of the actual model to be smaller than it could be. In this case, the picture of the set itself is quite fun - there's lots going on and the angle of the shot shows off the fortress quite well. Around at the back are a couple of alternate models as well as a little frame showing that the set contains a board game. The alternate builds here are pretty good, particularly the one on the left. Along the top of the box is a picture of all of the minifigures lined up. This is before it became standard practice to have the minifigures displayed on the boxes, so it's a nice treat. Contents The box is one of those ones where you lift up the front to get inside. Luckily you don't need to tear any tabs to lift up the front of the box though. You're greeted by 4 of the largest bags of parts you'll ever see. The bags are numbered, though again this was a very rare thing back in this day. Removing the bags reveals the raised baseplate, some large plates, and the instructions and board game which are underneath everything. You'll have to wait a bit to find out what's in the white box (well, maybe not too long ). Here is what's left. The mysterious white box contains all the minifigures, accessories, and pieces to build the truck (as seen in the next picture). The three largest sets in the Orient Expedition line all contained pieces to build a gameboard, as well as the supporting cards for it (while many of the other sets just contained the cards). At the top right are two plastic flags - I was hoping these would be cloth, but the plastic will probably hold up better overtime. Then of course there is the instruction manual, mini-catalog, and a flyer for a free Lego catalog. Instructions The picture on the front of the manual is essentially the same as that on the box. Johnny Thunder seems to have a pretty large hole in his map, but luckily he seems to have already found the Dragon Fortress and thus the map probably will no longer be needed. The back of the manual has a little map of Johnny's journey so far. The Dragon Fortress is the last stop. The weird animated JT figure is kind of creepy. Here's a page from the manual. Generally quite a lot of pieces are added per step, and call-outs for them are not present most of the time. It's not always obvious what kind of piece is added, so sometimes you have to think about what makes sense in order to proceed. A neat feature is that whenever a play function is added, there is also a little picture to demonstrate it. Colour differentiation is about halfway between the current kind of 'hard to distinguish' and the old 'no problem' instructions - so overall it's ok. Parts As mentioned above, the little white box contains all nine minifigures, the dragon, the accessories, and the pieces required to build the truck. Something about having these parts in a separate box seems pretty classy! I'm sure it would have helped reduce the wear on all the parts, especially the prints. Here are the contents of bag #1. The large parts on the left were loose in the bag, while the stuff on the right was in two more bags. Already we can see that there are a lot of really useful parts in the set. The contents of bag #2. Again, the large parts are loose in the bag, and there are also two more bags of pieces inside. The contents of those two bags can be seen on the right. Between bags #1 and 2, the central structure can be built. The contents of bags #3 (top pics), and #4 (bottom pics). These all get applied to the large raised baseplate and complete the build. Also floating around in the box are these five plates. You'll see in a bit that this set is built up largely by modules and them combined together. Finally, here is the raised baseplate. Though this style of baseplate has been used in a number of other sets, this printed pattern is exclusive to this set. I set these aside as not only are they pieces of interest, but also to give you a sense of the wide variety of shapes and sizes, as well as the colours present in this set. In terms of doors alone, you get a whopping 4 large ones, and 2 of the smaller ones! There is a large abundance of arches in various sizes and colours - always handy to have. Same deal with the sloped parts - lots of 'em! Building walls is also a cinch as you get 14 tan and 18 red pillars. There are a respectable amount of log bricks (8 of the 1x2s, 10 of the 1x4s), and even two types of fence pieces. 3 of the 4 sets that I'm reviewing for this anniversary special also contain latters - I'm sure the minifigures really appreciate these! One thing that I really like about this set is that one of its play functions is quite elaborate and even requires gears to function. I've rounded up all of the accessories together for your viewing pleasure. Lots of weapons, tools, jewels, some printed parts, and even some gold chrome stuff. Minifigures Here are all of the good guys. From left to right we have: Jing Lee (aka The Wanderer), Johnny Thunder, Dr. Charles Lightning, Pippin Reed. Save for appearing in a polybag, Jing Lee is exclusive to this set - and she's a beauty. Johnny and his uncle are essentially the same as when they first appeared in the Desert subtheme (Johnny has a slightly different face, but unless you're looking close you won't notice). Pippin has a new face design for the Orient Expedition line, and frankly now she looks like a little girl instead of a beautiful woman. The bad guys + 1 neutral. From left to right: The Guardian (exclusive), Emperor Chang Wu (exclusive), guards x2, Sam Sinister. I absolutely love Chang Wu's cape, and the guard's hats. Holy heart failure, Batman! What an amazing looking dragon! This is the treasure that Johnny and his gang are after, and i don't blame him. The Build The first thing that you build is the truck. The construction of this starts off with pretty standard affair as far as Adventurers vehicles goes. As per usual, you've got the moulded cockpit piece, a front grill, but this time you get two crates at the back! Next you add some make-shift suspension. It's this feature that sets this truck apart from other vehicles in the theme. It's simple but fun. Here's the completed model. It's kind of reminiscent of the vehicle from the recent Pharaoh's Quest Scorpion Pyramid. Though the PQ truck has got better aesthetics, I find this one more fun to mess around with thanks to the suspension. It's got oodles of storage space at the back, the map can be tucked into a slot in the cockpit, and the chain at the front can be used in part of a play feature as demonstrated later. Now construction can start on the fortress. The first several steps have you building up the walls and adding doors. The little fenced in area with the jewels acts as a hiding spot for them and will be covered up by the throne in the next step. The throne is pretty simplistic, but it's also appropriate enough. The technic beam will be used in conjunction with a trap door as seen in the next picture. The red inverted slopes and grill bricks are nice details that will be hidden by the roof and only seen again when viewed from a low angle. Two traps have been added - the trapdoor and the rock chutes. I had always been under the impression that the trap door was simply something that a minifigure would stand on and fall through, but it turns out that you actually place two round 2x2 bricks on it and drop them on unsuspecting figues below. Luckily the walls have been built up high enough so that the trap door can actually drop the bricks on a figure below instead of just swinging down slightly and smacking them in the head (Scorpion Pyramid, I'm looking at you again). Some roofing has also been added to 3 of the 4 sides of the fortress. Yay, a ladder! All too often minifigures have to defy physics in order to reach higher levels of structures, but not in this fortress! The other parts added her are the last before the roof goes on. Here's the first look at the front of the fortress. The addition of the dragon heads from the old Dragon Knights theme on the roof and at the front are a nice touch. The flags and poles plug into a pair of headlight bricks, and the lanterns attach to the bottom corners of the roof. Looks nice! I really like the crossbows on either side of the structure as opposed to some clunky catapults. The plates and flags on the doors look great. Unlike the roof for the second floor, the top floor gets coverage for all 4 sides. At this point the sand green cone in front of the trap door should have the gold helmet on it, but apparently I forgot to add it until the end. I know I said that this set is mostly modular. It also makes use of the baseplate that was miss-used in a number of castle sets from the past decade. You're probably worried at this point that things are now going to go downhill. Fear not! Luckily a good 3/5th or so of the total pieces have already gone into building the central structure. The pieces that get added to the baseplate, as well the little corner modules that will be built are well utilized and make for a large unified structure in the end. Three sets of stairs are added - the main ones at the front, and two small ones on either side. In this case, the main stairs have no dastardly function. The construction of the two torches of either side of the steps is pretty neat. A couple other parts are added later on, but we've essentially finished placing pieces directly onto the baseplate. The central structure will later fit directly over the part with the black arches with brown bits on top. Here's the first of the two front modules. For the most part I'm not a huge fan of catapults, but I don't actually mind this one - it looks decent and actually functions pretty well. The second module is basically the same as the first, but this one is outfitted with a barrel to hold fireworks (don't worry, they won't be flick-fire fireworks or anything ). The two modules are put in place. These are effective at covering up the pits in the baseplate without being too large and distracting. The little bit of vegetation helps to add some contrast in colour. Next up, two little gatehouses are built. Here's the construction of one of them - the second is the same but mirrored. Not only does this look pretty neat, but it also serves a vital role in an elaborate play function. The second gatehouse is built, and they are both attached at the rear of the baseplate. Some steps beside each gatehouse are also added - these provide access to the central structure. Almost done! It's time for the removable wall which hosts the guardian and two keys. Front and back view provided. Here's the inside of the wall. The idea of the Orient Expedition theme is that Johnny Thunder and his friends are supposed to collect three golden items - a sword, shield, and helmet. They are to present/equip these items on the guardian, and he will then allow them to have the two keys at his side and...whoops, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll go into more detail about all of this in a bit along with a video to demonstrate the play function. The wall fits into the rear of the fortress as seems at the right. This leaves a large area in the center of the baseplate for the placement of the dragon. The central structure can now be attached, thus leaving us with the completed model. Thanks to the extra stuff that was added to the baseplate, the central structure sits up pretty high giving the set some decent height. The removable wall section integrates pretty well and fills in that lower gap nicely. I love those big flags with the dragons on them. I really like the flow of this set - basically every section of the Fortress has access to it. You've got the big staircase leading up to the front door, then on either side you've got some steps down to either the firecrackers or catapult. From the main chamber, there are steps to both of the gatehouses. I guess then Johnny and co. would have to go back out through the front and down the main steps, then go around the fortress to get to the rear doors. Then with the rear doors, you open them up to reveal the guardian. Once you've dealt with him and the gatehouses, you can then slide out the wall to reveal the dragon under the main structure. Removing the seat from the throne reveals jewels underneath. That's be awesome to be so rich that you're literally sitting on top of money... Other play functions in video form: Complete Set Once again, here's everything all together. I think this is one of the greatest looking System sets ever made. Final Thoughts Design/Build: This set is breathtakingly beautiful. Pictures cannot do it justice. It's much larger than it looks, and it just seems like next to nothing was compromised when it came to designing this set. The build is hugely satisfying. Though it's modular, it always feel like whatever you're building is substantial and special. TLC can make really great Asian structures when they want, and it's a shame they wouldn't give us more. As mentioned, I feel as though this set is one of those pinnacles in Lego history. It was expensive when it first came out and it's only getting substantially more pricy - the monetary penalty to acquire this set though is worth it. Pieces: This set contains a huge assortment of pieces in a wide range of colours! Every huge bag of parts contained something awesome. This set is sure to please everyone, and if it doesn't then you have no soul. The dragon and flags in particular are things of beauty. You get a generous helping of minifigures, with a few of them being exclusive to this set. Playability: It's not until you get this set built that you realize how much play potential there is. It's got more straightforward features like catapults and trapdoors, but it also has one of the most involved and elaborate play functions around. Bringing the Guarding the golden items to receive the keys to the gatehouses, then using the gears to release the wall, and finally using the truck to pull away the wall to reveal the dragon. Fun! Verdict: It doesn't matter if you're one of those people who likes their sets for messing around with (like me), or if you pride yourself in displaying your collections, or if you build crazy MOCs out of pieces sourced from sets - Dragon Fortress caters to all. The Adventurers theme went out with a huge bang thanks to this set. My highest Recommendation! As always, comments and questions are more than welcome. Cheers!

This really is the surprise hit of the year for me. As I've said before, when I first saw pics of it (prelims of course), I wasn't too thrilled and just passed it off as "meh". After seeing the video when it was first leaked a few weeks ago, the set blew me away and became a must have. I haven't felt this giddy looking at all the details in a set for a long time! I love it!

Just going off of the lack of any news regarding the continuation of the theme. Unless the rumoured 'Dino' line happens to be to be the follow up, then realistically the earliest we'd see Quest return would be the middle half of next year (this also assumes that this supposed Dino theme comes out for "January"). However, if the Dino theme ends up being non-related to Quest, then I honestly don't think our chances of getting a follow up to Jake's adventurers would be too good until 2012. I doubt TLC would want to have too many in-house adventure type themes going at once. Fingers crossed for more Quest in some form or another.

Happy Birthday, Pandora! Glad to hear you've been enjoying the day so far, hope the rest is equally as fantastic!

Hmm, I'll have to wait until pics and reviews before I make any real judgments. But at the moment I'm disappointed with the shift towards more vehicles. Ninjas are supposed to have awesome hideouts and lots of structures with wonderful asian architecture. I guess it's hard to get much swooshing out of a lovely temple... Anyways, I look forward to seeing pictures.

Alas, it does seem as though Jake and company will have to wait until their next adventure. With any luck we could see 'Quest' return as a summer wave next year, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. This year's theme was certainly fun while it lasted, so here's to their return!

I wonder if this will be taking the place of Pharaoh's Quest for next year, since we haven't heard anything about the continuation of the theme? I liked a lot of the sets from the Adventurers Dino theme 10 years ago, but I never got into the Dino Attack line. I'm most interested in seeing the structure based sets in this rumoured theme. Bring on the pictures! (btw, thanks for sharing the news, Oky)