Leewan

Hmm... yeah, that sounds likely. In the movie, they seemed taller than the other characters, and the Hot Toys product page mentions he's taller than a regular Stormtrooper. So yeah, the set is actually faithful to the movie. However, the legs are still too long compared to the body. Maybe it's actually the body that should be longer, and not the legs that should be shorter ? Ah, sure, I speak as someone who owns other SW Buildable Figures, but if it's the first time you build one, you won't feel the same. This should especially be true for people who haven't built any CCBS set before, because if you're used to Constraction sets, you could almost build him with your eyes closed. Really ? I've never heard of that before, and fortunately didn't damage mine. I've just checked on the Customer Service website, and it's available if you choose the broken bricks category (under certain conditions). Maybe yo could try to order one from their website, and if they ask you for a proof, show them a pic the damaged part. I can provide a review of K-2SO, but not of Jyn Erso, as I don't have her. The second Rogue One wave has been released in Europe last week, and I'll try to get Baze Malbus by the end of the week (I'm really curious to see how he's built). If I do get him, I'll make a review. I'd also like to get the Shoretrooper, but not right now. Of course, that's only if VBBN doesn't beat me to it.

[You can click on the pictures to enlarge them] I had been planning to do this review for weeks, but the actual release of Rogue One : A Complicated Title A Star Wars Story forced me to stop procrastinating and actually write this review. General information : Set name : Imperial Death Trooper Set number : 75121 Number of parts : 106 Age range : 8-14 Price : 24.99€ / 24.99$ / 19,99£ Release date : September 30th 2016 Links : brickset / bricklink Packaging : The box of the Imperial Death Trooper has the same size as most of the "medium"-sized boxes (the other ones are thinner, and some, like Darth Vader and General Grievous' boxes are bigger). The front shows our Death Trooper on a beach, drinking a cocktail standing in front of flames and impact marks. It's probably (SPOILER ALERT) the planet Scarif. As usual, there are the Lego, Star Wars, Buildable Figures and Disney logos, as well as the recommended age range, and the set name and number (and that's all, since I have a European box). The back also shows the Lego, Star Wars, Buildable Figures and Disney logos and the set number, but more importantly gives us some information about the figure's size and its weapons : a missile-launcher blaster rifle, and, apparently, a SE-14 pistol. The side looks good too (at least one of the sides, since the other one shows mostly safety-related writings nobody reads), since it gives us a nice shot of the character (as well as, guess what, Star Wars and Lego logos). The boxes of the January 2016 wave already had these "character shots" on the side, and it looks like the 2017 sets will have them too. If you already own a Star Wars Buildable Figure, you won't be surprised to see the helmet of the Death Trooper shown at its actual size. And, again, the Lego, Star Wars and Disney logos. The content : Let's open the box, shall we ! Inside, we find Lego, Star Wars and Disney logos, Lego, Star Wars and Disney logos everywhere ! Okay, not really. There are three bags of parts (plus one separate bag for the helmet), a big CCBS body frame, the building instructions, and a transparent plastic sheet on which the pauldron is printed. I didn't know how Lego would do the pauldron, so I was surprised to see this plastic sheet. Fortunately, it was not damaged. The building instructions : The cover of the building instructions is basically the same artwork as the front of the box. There's then a warning page about the spring-loaded missile launcher, and a kid sorting his parts. Then come the actual building instructions, followed bar the parts list, and two pages showing the first three Rogue One Buildable Figures, including K-2SO who... dances ? The booklet ends with the traditional WIN page, this time sponsored by a Clockwork Robot minifig. The complete building instructions are available here. The parts : It's no surprise that you'll find a lot of black parts with the Death Trooper. There are, however, a few new ones : The helmet, the thigh shell (which he / she (hey, we don't know if our Death Trooper is a man or a woman, or if it's even a human) shares with the two other sets of the 2H2016 wave) and the pauldron are brand new parts. The torso shell, one of the two shoulderpads (the second is plain) and the 1x3 flat tiles have new printed decorations. Hooray for printing parts ! The round 1x1x1 bush appears in black for the first time. Here's a more detailed view of some of those parts : -Thigh shell Size-wise, it's close to some of the biggest CCBS shells, like the #8 shell, or the 2.0 torso armor. It's however much smoother and curved. We notice, though, that the position of the holes regarding the ball socket is different on these parts : there are three modules between the ball socket and the holes, VS only one module for the other parts. This part comes in black in each set of the 2016 Rogue One wave, but it will be available in more colors next year. - The torso shell : We have here the usual Star Wars torso armor, with a sand blue and silver pattern. However, although it's the third time we see this part in black, it's actually the first time it's used to represent an actual armor, and not a piece of cloth as in Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren. The pattern is rather simple, which could make this part more useful for MOCcing. Unlike the currently available minifig version of the character (which you can see here), the armor doesn't have grenades attached near the stomach. It seems that there are two variants of the suits (perhaps depending on the rank of the soldier), one with the grenades and the pauldron, but without the "scope" on the side of the helmet, and another one without the grenades and the pauldron, but with the visor (the minifigs in the Imperial Trooper Battle Pack, for example, don't have the grenades nor the pauldron). This Death Trooper seems to be a blend of these two versions, unless a third one exists. Perhaps the designers of this set had to work with preliminary artwork, or perhaps did they take some freedom from the actual armor to make the set more interesting. - The shoulderpad : One of the two shoulderpad has a simple grey pattern printed on it. If you look closely, you'll see my reflection. - The helmet : To put it simply, the helmet of the Death Trooper is magnificent ; some details are printed, and some are molded. There is some kind of scope on the left side of the helmet. Again, this detail exists on some variants of the armor, but is absent from some other ones. It might sound surprising, but the helmet is actually made from (at least) three parts, two of which are dark green (one of them in particular is used for the visor). Because of that, the ball socket is dark green, and not black like the rest of the helmet. There are no sitckers in this Death Trooper ! Subsequently, the three 1x3 flat tiles (which represent here small pockets) are printed. The pattern seems to be faithful to the design seen in the movie. - The pauldron : In the movie, some Death Troopers ("Specialists", if I believe another toymaker) wear a wide pauldron that seems to be made from leather. We're more used to see fabric on Constraction Sets, but Lego chose to use here flexible plastic. At least you can't complain about the lack of opacity of the part. The pauldron is printed on a sheet of transparent plastic, then pre-cut. The build : If you have already built a Star Wars Constraction set (I think of sets such as Captain Phasma, but also Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker or Kylo Ren), of if you have seen the building pictures above, the building won't be much of a surprise. The only true originality can be seen in the way of attaching the pauldron (which could be difficult for the younger builders), which we first attach at the left shoulder, then at the neck with two holes. Some could find difficult to finish the building without leaving fingerprints everywhere. That's the problem with black Lego parts ! The complete set : The Death Trooper is tall, very tall. It's mostly due to his / her (too ?) long legs. As you can see here, removing the friction add-ons of the ankles partially solves the issue. In the future, some new kind of foot with a ballcup with rubber inserts could be useful. The new thigh shell help making the character smoother, but cause two problems : they limit the range of motion of the knee, and leave the inside of the thigh visible (I asked my brother, who's 11, and it's the first thing he noticed). The arms are also limited at the elbow. Even if it's not the first time it happens, it's a bit of a shame, because they can prevent making poses where the Death Trooper is holding the blaster rifle with two hands properly (added to the fact that the pockets add some thickness to the torso and limit the poses with the blaster even more). By the way, be careful if you want to make poses where the Trooper holds his blaster with two hands, you could unwillingly activate the mechanism and shoot yourself in the eye (or loose the missile, or scare your pet... yeah, one of those things happened to me). Getting back to the articulations, the pauldron follows the movement of the arm very well, and doesn't limit the movement of the shoulder at all. The pistol is designed to be able to be attached on the side of the leg, but the handle is slightly too long. Solve this would either require a new part, or completely remake the pistol (which I haven't been able to do, but I can't say I tried too hard). There's also a weapon on the left arm, since it's equipped with three small guns, cleverly made with claws for minifig. It's brilliant ! It's a simple, yet very effective solution. The back of the character is quite simple, with the usual cylinder near the bottom (I've never understood what they were used for), and a wide CCBS shell covering most of the back. Conclusion : The Death Trooper is an interesting set... if you stop at the waist. The legs are too long, poorly articulated (compared to the previous sets), and have been seen on many others sets before (new leg shell aside, of course). The helmet is splendid, and the character is very well armed, but in the end, the set seems bland. Its main flaw, I think, is that it belongs to the third wave of Star Wars constraction sets, and thus hardly brings novelty after the twelve sets based on the other movies released previously. Parts-wise, we don't get a lot of novelty either, although the quality of the new parts and prints makes up for their quantity. However, most of the parts are black, and with a similar inventory, we could prefer Kylo Ren, especially since he has a mechanism (like Jyn Erso and K-2SO, the two other sets of the first Rogue One wave). Now, here's a shot of my Imperial forces :

I've made this : It adds three points of articulation at the ankle. If anyone's interested, you can get the lxf file here. (Note : my design actually uses this part, which doesn't exist in LDD, so I used a regular connector instead. It's attached to the Technic brick with a axle/pin with friction.)

Here's the link. Congratulations to the winners !

There will be three RO figures in January. We might still get more OT characters later, though.

I've just finished building him, so there you go :

It's something I've been wanting to build for years. Actually, I once made a little (and awful ) HF diorama for an exhibition built on a 48*48 baseplate (that was in 2011), and also some (virtual) environments for Toa of various sizes, which were inspired by the MOCs that were posted on the BIONICLE Facebook page. I don't know if they would absolutely need to be larger than modular buildings. Sure, building on a 48*48 baseplate offers more room, but if you want to display a single character, I think a 32*32 baseplate should work fine. Now, if you want a full-size diorama with several characters fighting, you'll have to go big, that's sure.

Thank you guys. (: I've seen this one, yeah, and I'm actually currently working on my own version. I plan on making two versions, the first one as a single part, and another one as two parts that can be attached together (so the upper half won't really be able to connect to the old one, I'll rather redesign the G1 Vahi). They will both be designed for the G2 head. I want to use it for a diorama of the Protectors summoning the Toa for an exhibition late November, so you can expect to see it in the next couple of months. Well, yeah, I guess, but it will take some time. I have to make the Vahi in priority, and then I'll work on some other parts, which include armour and add-on pieces (both requests and personal ideas). I have too many things to do and too little time.

Wow, it's been almost a year since my last update ! I've worked on a few parts in the meantime, mostly on solutions to eject G1 masks like the G2 masks. In March, a Shapeways member called Slaifir sent me a message asking if I could make an adapter for G1 masks that works on G2 heads. Here's what I did : (Note that I've made two versions, one that can be ejected, and one that can't) Attached to a G2 head, they look like this : The idea is good, but the mask is too far away from the head. To (partially) solve this, I've made a smaller adapter that works with the '01-'03 masks only (in green, here) : I've also made a whole new head that works with the G2 brain piece : The problem with this is that the eyes are a bit too high. I have to change this, and add some details, but at least it works. I've made a video to demonstrate how it works. I've made other parts, that you can see in the flickr album, including what must be my favourite design so far : A bow, that actually shoots Technic axles. I made it very quickly, a day or two after having seen the Men's individual finals in archery at the Olympic Games. It's really a fun part to play with.

Yeah, absolutely. I simply had a shorter timeframe in mind, with a break in 2017, and a comeback in 2018. However, you make it sound like there won't be any SW sets after 2017 (or did I misunderstand your idea of proper CCBS sets ?). I don't think it will be the case, there are still plenty of characters to do. Unless the theme isn't successful enough. Another possibility (which is much closer to a wish than a realistic hypothesis) is that the next big bang theme, which should be launched in 2019, if Lego keeps following its three-years-run "rule", is a Constraction theme, and they stopped BIONICLE to focus on the development of this theme.

Of course they do, they are already used in plenty of system sets, I don't see why this would stop now. I was thinking Lego could do something like what they did with Racers : the theme was getting less and less popular, and the last proper sets appeared in 2012. In 2013 and 2014 there were only polybags, and in 2015, the theme came back as Speed Champions, which is, IMO, much better than the old Racers theme. If Lego would take their time (but not necessarily wait until 2020 ) to come up with something really good and give a new breath to Constraction. I just wish it would be an original IP, not a licensed theme. With Mixels coming to an end next year, they could very well try something that combines both systems. Anyways, although I'd be a bit sad if we get nothing but three SW sets next year (plus three or six more in September 2017 ?), I definitely feel a break would be good for the Constraction genre.

If you want a custom build, this should be your best option : If you want to use a classic CCBS bone, something like this could do the job : It requires to cut a flex tube, and the pauldron might rotate on the pin (I haven't tested this build with actual pieces), so I prefer the first solution.

25€/$, like the other sets. But this is off-topic.

Yup. The rules precisely state - Entries created in LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) are allowed in this contest. _ I've already entered with one MOC (which is actually a quite old MOC on which I've simply slapped a MoCo ), and plan on entering with at least one more MOC. Also, I've partially built the JtO Makuta (I don't have all the required sets). This guy is huge !

It's truly a shame to see such a wasted potential (for both HF and BioG2). However, I don't think this apparent lack of investment in the story from Lego is really because they don't have enough faith in constraction. At least not entirely. I rather feel they fear constraction themes would directly compete with their big bang IPs if they had a more developed story. They certainly invest a lot in additional content (commercials, video games / apps, TV shows) for Ninjago, Legends of Chima, or Nexo Knights, and they want a return on investment. Which is logical, and it would be ridiculous to blame a commercial company for wanting to earn money. I wouldn't be surprised it that meant limiting the depth of the stories of other IPs that needed a lesser investment, especially when it's a constraction theme, which belongs to a niche market, and thus wouldn't make profits as easily as a system-based theme. I think it's intentional. Faber said it himself : " We wanted to mirror present day but in a tech build-up. In some way inspired by the humor of The Incredibles by Pixar."

The contest is officially launched : http://www.lego.com/en-us/rebrick/contest-page/contests/lego-bionicle-contest Good luck everyone !

This is a fake. Here's a link to the actual tweet : https://twitter.com/...113975187374080

I wish there were at least one final set, if we can't even get a single wave in 2017. But it couldn't be Makuta anyways, not with the contest. Now, with this contest, I realize they give us the opportunity to make our own version of the final Bionicle set. Maybe it's better that way. Everyone has their perfect Makuta, everyone is happy. I wish we would've spent more time on Okoto. I like the setting, I like what Ryder Windham did. It was not perfect, but I enjoyed the G2. Thank you to Lego, to the designers, and to Ryder Windham. Maybe they did a lot for those who live in the US. Those who don't might legitimately feel Lego didn't do enough to promote the theme. The only displays for Bionicle sets I've seen were in a Lego Store. The first novel and graphic novel will soon be published in France (which is waaay too late), but I believe they won't even be released in other European countries. I've never seen a single commercial for BioG2 on TV (although I don't often watch TV, so I may have missed them).