danth

You have my attention. This looks pretty cool. I've definitely never seen a build like this. Have you tried it with real bricks? Just wondering how tight the tiles fit in between the bricks. And if the headlight bricks in the second layer really line up perfectly.

Damn, never thought I'd see a Talisman MOC! Very cool! I played this game way back in the '90s. Then played the online version a lot with some friends during the pandemic. I haven't found another game that quite scratches the same itch.

Agreed, sometimes a mech is basically just a brick built big figure (that probably looks better than a constraction fig anyway), especially the SW/Marvel "mechs" which don't make any effort to look mechanical in any way.

Agreed. I'm not sure I'm making my point very clearly... Agreed again. I really did not communicate what I meant very clearly at all! I mean that I see more mechs in Lego than mechs in other popular things. Does Roblox have mechs? Does Fortnite have mechs? Do Marvel movies have mechs? Does Star Wars have mechs (do walkers count?). I'm gonna say no. The closest thing to mechs that has ever been popular in the West is Transformers (and Gobots or whatever if we're talking about the 80's transforming robot craze). So why are there so many Lego mechs, and how do kids just "get" what a mech even is, and how are they desirable enough in Lego form to consistently sell? Maybe a "giant pilotable robot" is just an easily understandable, effortlessly cool concept that kids get and like, and Lego is the only company (outside of Asia) that understands how to capitalize off the concept?

They do. People are buying all the non-mech sets too right? Otherwise Lego would only be making mechs. Totally agree! I don't think kids dislike mechs. I'm just wondering why mechs are a much bigger thing in modern Lego sets than, like, anything else right now.

This seems to be a Lego-only thing, strangely. I think it's more that people will buy Lego no matter what, mechs included, than any kind of "mecha craze". As big as anime has gotten outside of Japan, I think the mech genre is one of the least popular now. Mecha movies in the West don't even exist outside of Pacific Rim and, what, Robot Jox? You'll get an occasional powersuit in sci-fi movies. Even the Star Wars franchise shies away from anything but clunky walkers. I think Lego designers really like mechs. They make total sense in Ninjago sets at least. And SW and Marvel fans will buy anything so it doesn't matter if they make sense in those themes.

Yes and...yes? I prefer Johnny to Indy, but...well, I'd have to see how bad the DB sets would be in comparison to Monkie Kid. 😁

I always assumed Monkie Kid was an audition for Dragon Ball.

These look nice, other than relying heavily on stickers. The boat has six 2x2 round tiles with the same sticker repeated which is insane. There is no reason those couldn't be prints. Hell, looking at the anime design, I think those curves in the ship could have been built with bricks/tiles anyway.

There's a new angular windscreen piece in the leak of the latest SW Snowspeeder. It might even be in trans yellow with black printing. Or maybe it's just clear over yellow parts. Regardless, it'll be nice for Space MOCs if we get it in cool trans colors.

And now I notice that in your 60374 redesign you centered the windscreen. I like how that turned out.

I put together the McLaren Solus Speed Champions set recently. It was 9 wide, but the windscreen and driver were centered with jumpers. Basically nothing was asymetrical. I thought that was pretty cool.

I like to think that intrepid heroes inside Lego are sneaking us new Space minifigs however they can, piecemeal if necessary, to slip them past the TLG bigwigs who hate Space. Similar things have happened before.

👍Thanks for the heads up. Those trans pink parts look promising.

Ohhhh right. Thanks!

I'm not as excited about the Prize Machine as I was. Many of the minifigs are...surprisingly disappointing. The Fabuland figures could have been ACTUAL Fabuland characters instead of people in costumes. I was hoping they'd use Chima or Animal Crossing heads or something. I'm really sick of Lego blowing chances to give us something awesome and amazing and instead giving us a reference. Like, just give us the actual thing! I love the viking helmets but they look weird with the dark green (teal?) masks. Like, I'm not sure what that's supposed to invoke. A ninja viking? A norse thief? Also the dark green makes it look more like a seaweed face wrap than a mask. Are these kelp zombie vikings? I have no idea. They look great without the masks, although it doesn't feel good to leave a fig "incomplete" in order to look good. The other knights are okay but I'm not fond of those helmets. Literally any other helmet is better. The pirate with the red hat is great, but the other one (Imperial?) looks like she desperate needs a hat to complete the look. Someone else said she looks like part of a marching band and I agree. I do appreciate that they're trying to give us new/different things here. New factions, different colors. I just feel like the execution is off. The Paradisa figs at least are pretty cool. The Spacemen are fine but I'm not super excited about the gold color (but that was already a given). I'm not sure who the black shirt lady is but the symbol on the shirt looks familiar. Lego fan or employee?

That's the idea, I guess. But in reality...the Invader's technic pins were on the front ship, while the other Blacktron sets had the technic holes on the front ship. So you couldn't actually swap the front ship from the Invader to the other sets. You can put the Alienator front ship on the back of the Renegade/Battrax facing backwards, but that seems weird and unintentional. The Battrax front connection used only a single pin, while the Renegade and Alienator had two pins. You should still be able to swap them...except the Battrax main body had other parts that might get in the way of the Alienator and Renegade front ships...I haven't physically tried it, but I'm not convinced you can swap them. So while there was some interchangeability between sets, it doesn't seem super well thought out or even intentional.

Actually this thought has been bouncing around in my head for a while and this is probably as good a thread as any for it: Blacktron has recently been described -- especially in the wake of the Renegade remake -- as being "modular" and "industrial". Like it was THE theme that was modular, and none of the other ones were, and it was super industrial for some reason, even though nobody can explain what this means. I don't think it was more modular or industrial than any other Space theme. The Classic Space theme was modular since at least 1981 when the All Terrain Vehicle had an ingenious gimmick for dropping off its mobile lab. And then in 1982 with Cosmic Cruiser splitting apart and then 1983 with Galaxy Commander splitting into three modules. In 1985 the FX Star Patroller and Gamma V Laser Craft could recombine with each other since they shared the same detachable command vessel design. (EDIT: I might be wrong about this; I think the Laser Craft front can attach to the Star Patroller rear but not sure about vice versa.) These are just a few pre-Blacktron examples. It continued after Blackton as well, all the way to Galaxy Squad. So it wasn't so much that Blacktron was modular as Space was modular. As for Blacktron being "industrial", everyone repeats it but nobody has explained what that means. But look at the main Exploriens starship if you want industrial; it had gratings everywhere and built in magnetic cranes and basically looked like a flying factory.

Funny how you thought this was so important that it had to be posted here, facebook, and reddit, but now you just want to drop it. 😆 The point I was making was new to the discussion and therefore still salient.

Sorry, I'm a dummy and totally made it sound like I was talking about Guarded Inn, but I was talking about Tudor Corner. I do have the Guarded Inn set though! (The Legends version.)

So I just looked that set up and...it appears to have no stickers? Now I kinda want it.

I would not expect them to incorporate vehicular modularity into a base. I think the modularity gimmick wasn't a Blacktron thing, it was a Space Vehicle thing. Alien Moon Stalker had it, Solar Power Transport had it, Star Defender 200 had it. It was in all themes, but not really utilized in the bases.

Awesome! Like a better version of Town Square (1592).

Giant Space baby is live!