Tereglith

Hello, eurobricksers. It's just me, friendly old Lex Luthor, hijacking an account to tell you about some modifications that I've made to my powersuit. Surely I'll be able to take down superman now that I have.... KNEES! Dramatic pose by Tereglith, on Flickr These knees, previously denied me by the cruel Lego designers, will allow me to destroy superman once and for all. But more importantly, they also allow me to do cool poses! Observe: here I am getting in touch with my 70's side, with more aplomb than ever before! (thanks to my knees) Disco Lex by Tereglith, on Flickr I can now take down Superman with a move this old Japanese man taught me - It's called the Crane Kick, impossible to defend against. What? Karate Kid? Nope, never heard of it. Crane Kick by Tereglith, on Flickr I can squat! Or at least bend down. Sort of. It's handy for discharging waste materials from the dorsal vent, anyway. What? Why are you looking at me like that? I can squat now! by Tereglith, on Flickr I can even emulate my favorite rum mascot, Captain Morgan: Captain Morgan by Tereglith, on Flickr But knees aren't all I've added. My longer arms mean that I can now lift things more effectively! (and throw them at Superman, of course) Benchin' a cube by Tereglith, on Flickr I have a gyroscopic balance system for when that annoying Man of Steel steals my shins, too. Very funny, Superman by Tereglith, on Flickr Perhaps most importantly, once I've grabbed Superman, I have the ability to threaten him with the gun without putting him down on the ground again! I lost more battles that way... I can finally threaten him! by Tereglith, on Flickr All in all, I think this new design just cuts a much more dashing profile. The old one was cute, but this one really reflects how awesome I am, don't you think? A more dashing profile by Tereglith, on Flickr Part of it is the gravitas of the dark green in the torso. And check out how well balanced that puppy is! Torso by Tereglith, on Flickr It's a lot taller, as well. In fact, it's as tall as the Seattle Space Needle! Ha ha, just kidding - that's my solid-platinum scale replica of the Space Needle that I keep in my bathroom. It pays to be rich. Size comparison by Tereglith, on Flickr Well, I think now that I'm done showing off, it's time to take this suit out for a spin and fight Superman one last time. I've gotta win this time, right? You're a jerk, Superman I hope you had as much fun looking at these pictures as I did making them. Knees open up a whole exciting world of possibilities. And yes, that is really my Superman figure holding up the powersuit with no trouble or digital manipulation at all. When you get the balance right, minifigures can hold a whole frikkin' lot. Try it at home! This MOD mainly came about as I was playing with the set after building it and was consistently stymied by its lack of knees. It was cute, and I still think it's a great set, but I wanted to make it better. So I went to my LEGO collection and made some thighs. But then the legs were proportionally way too long, so I built the torso to be bigger as well (and in the process finally got my money's worth out of 4192 Fountain of Youth). But then the arms were too stubby, so of course I had to re-do the upper arms as well, and by the end it was almost entirely new except for the hands, feet, and shins. The final count is 284 pieces for the new version, hence my topic subtitle. I don't consider this quite finished yet, but I'm not sure if it ever will be. I'd need to find the two instances that I own of this piece to bring the shoulders up to snuff (they'd go on the axles sticking out of the torso instead of the balls) and I'd need to buy like six more of this piece to make things more secure, as the equivalent axle-and-ball constructions I have right now have an unfortunate tendency to fall apart if moved too vigorously. Anyway, thanks for looking/reading. Larger photos and more poses can be found on my flickr, just click any of the pictures in the post. I'm open to suggestions for how to further improve the armor, so C&C are welcome. Lex would love to know what went wrong.

Another great review! I love how thorough these are. Although I hardly ever go after the collectible minifigures - I can never find them for less than $4 a pop - I still enjoy seeing them and looking at the craftsmanship that LEGO puts into them. I can't help but think that the Sleepyhead figure was put out for one reason only - to give people 10th Doctor hair! The resemblance is really striking.

Holy crap! LEGO has stepped it up like ten notches in terms of awesome licenses. If the LOTR sets even begin to approach the quality of the latest HP sets, I will be spending a LOT of money this summmer. Because these will be coming out around the same time as the Marvel sets, right? Geez. I'd better get a job. Utterly awesome news. I thought I was excited before about superheroes, but now... This line has so much potential, and I can only hope that they don't squander it like they have with POTC, basing almost all the sets off of the new movie and not capitalizing overmuch on the love people have for the first three. Hopefully (and the release dates of the movie vs. the sets seem to imply this) they take a more Indiana-Jones approach, where the first three movies are given their dues in a the first line, and then even after the new movie comes out they continue to get new sets in equal proportion.

It did subtract the %10, that was more of a small error I was pointing out (it was telling me to do something I'd already done). The main thing is this - look at the checkout button. AS A BUTTON, IT DOES NOT EXIST. There is no way for me to click it. And that's sort of a problem.

All right, I managed to get the "Add to Bag" button back by switching from Chrome to IE (ugh), but then when I go to checkout it doesn't allow me to check out! It's got the button all dimmed out and in addition it doesn't seem to think I've spent 149, even though I've spent way more than that. Someone at LEGO's web design department needs to get a whoopin'. Anybody know a way around THIS problem:

So I've got a credit card ready to go, sitting at my laptop, waiting for 12:00 and those nice Brick Friday deals (free shipping, free santa set, 10% off orders of $150 or more, 25% off certain sets). The witching hour rolls around, I'm perusing shop.lego.com, and I notice something odd - There's no way to add anything to my bag! AT ALL. I can add Imperial Flagship to my wishlist, sure, but adding it to my cart? No way, jose. The only things I found that could be added were a POTC battlepack (lame) and a tote bag (lamer). Expecting to get great deals and great sets, I'm naturally disappointed and peeved. So I want to know - is anyone else having this problem? I've included a screencap of a typical view from the Shop as my computer sees it - note the marked lack of an "add to bag" button anywhere. Is everyone else seeing this? Has LEGO acknowledged it? Is there any way to get around it? Am I getting freaked out too early since it's only a half hour into Friday? (the answer to that one is probably yes). I want to know!

The weirdest place I ever found a lot of LEGO was in the top shelf of my sister's closet. Much of the closet had remained uncleaned in the 17 years since my parents bought the house, and we were finding all sorts of relics from their past and from the previous owners - an old typewriter, really old clothes, some old papers. Then all of a sudden, we find a big blue bucket full of standard bricks! Even better, inside there were all the pieces and instructions to an Ice Planet 2002 set from the year before my parents bought the house! So either the kindly old couple that lived there before us were quite literally 'closet' AFOLs, or they had a very disappointed grandson at Christmas 1993 because his present was still in the closet!

These are pretty adorable. It's best not to think about the whole set as being $80, but rather as each individual one costing $16, which makes it seem a bit less overpriced. I've wanted to get into the modulars since CC came out, but I've never had the money or space, so these seem like a good option for me; 1/10th the price, 1/64th the size, 10/3rds the cuteness*. Plus, It's a great scale for MOCing my own modulars, something I've never been able to do at minifig scale due to lack of 1 by X bricks in any given color. I can see why some people aren't excited about them, but I am. *Note; this value has not been rigorously mathematically determined in any way.

This was a little eerie for me to look at, because of all the similarities to my own 221b Baker Street! The same books! The same walls! The same dimensions! Great minds think alike, eh? Anyway, excellent job on this. It's a much cleaner interpretation than mine, but that's the beauty of 221b - it can be so many different things, and this is a great version! I particularly like the extensive chemistry set and the uneven window curtains. Bravo!

For the past couple weeks some friends and I have been trying to start up a DnD group, and I ended up being DM because I was the only one willing to read the red book (nobody except me knew anything about the game before we bought the red box three weeks ago, and my knowledge was very rudimentary). I hadn't been too interested in Heroica when it came out, but as soon as I started trying to explain the rules to them I remembered it again and swooped over to Wal-mart to pick up Castle Fortaan. While some latecomers were using the Player Book to create their characters, the rest of us played Heroica, using rules that I came up with after playing it by the Lego rules a couple times. I designed these rules so that elements of DnD can be added slowly and painlessly to the LEGO rules, which are simple enough to be understood by my little sister who has never touched a Dungeon Crawl game in her life. It worked pretty well. They don't necessarily make for a great game, but they taught my friends some stuff. Below are my Dungeons and Dragons Tutorial Mode Rules: Start with the normal LEGO rules. Add the following ingredients throughout several games to painlessly introduce rudimentary versions of DnD mechanics to new players: -Dungeon Master As it stands, Heroica doesn't have a DM. This is basically playing by Battle Heroica rules, but the player playing the monsters also narrates for the players. -Modifiers, Skills and Skill Checks Draw up an extremely simple skill table, preassigned to the different classes. Mine was: Knight: +1 Athletics, -1 Perception Barbarian: +1 Constitution, -1 Knowledge Wizard: +1 Knowledge, -1 Athletics Druid: +1 Perception, -1 Constitution If you have other sets with the Ranger and Thief, come up with two more skills and reshuffle accordingly. Try to make it make some sense, but it doesn't really have to. Just make sure that each skill has something in the game that it can be applied to. This must be introduced in the same game as... -Object Interaction The most important habit for DnD players to get in (according to my 4E red book, anyway) is interacting with the environment in ways more than just stabbing it. To that end, I told my players that everything made out of bricks, they could interact with when on the square closest to it. When they interacted, I came up with on-the-fly skill checks and results (although I had some prepared). This is where it gets really fun for the DM, and it's best if you come up with ingenuity to match your players'. A couple of examples from last night's game: -A player wished to tear the frog off the fountain. I asked for an Athletics check of four or better, and she succeeded, so she got to carry the frog around. With another athletics check of three or better, I allowed her to chuck the frog at a monster, killing it. -A player wished to read the paper on the writing desk, something I had prepared for. After he succeeded at a DC 3 Knowledge check I allowed him to read a letter revealing that something was hidden in the fireplace. -A player decided to dive into the fireplace because a perception check of 4 told her there was something fishy about it. (apparently she never thought to ask if she could extinguish the fire). She took one fire damage, but found the puzzle I had prepared in there. -A player wanted to eat the giant chicken leg. I asked for a Constitution check of three or better, and she failed, so I gave her a -1 movement penalty for three turns and made her figure wear the chicken on its head, because of her indigestion. Next game, she tried again and succeeded, so I gave her one temporary hit point (signified by a 1x1 red cylinder, and another good DnD term to learn) and a +1 movement bonus for three turns. With more sets, this can be expanded, and with an infinite number of micro-scale objects to be made out of LEGO, I think this is really the most robust element of the games. Everybody ran around trying to interact with everything, the obnoxious race-to-the-finish rule forgotten. In one game, somebody picked up the frog and tossed it into the king's square after killing him, making it the technical winner. -Puzzles They needn't be complex. As mentioned above, the path I made was that the players had to successfully read the Goblin letter, figure out that it meant the fireplace, and go into the fireplace. Once there, I had a crate piece with two 2x3 plates over it. Each had different bricks on it (representing two different possible sides of the die). Players had to roll, then decide which side to open. If they opened the one corresponding to their roll, they got its contents (either the Helm of Protection and a gold piece or the potions of Speed and Strength). If they chose... poorly, they took one damage and were booted out of the fireplace, never to return. It's not a particularly good puzzle, but it's nice and simple, and it'd surely be easy to come up with a better one. -NPCs I took the Dumbledore microfigure from the Harry Potter game and tossed him in a prison cell, where players could get useful information out of him if they were nice. I talked to them in my Potter Puppet Pals Dumbledore voice during the encounters. Again, not necessary, not pretty, but a good way to introduce the idea of talking to NPCs through the DM. -XP We used a similar point scheme to many others listed above. In one game, Dumbledore gave the characters a side quest, and that was worth half as much as the main quest for the player who completed it. ------------ These are just the rules that I came up with in one night, largely on a whim. I'm sure they can be expanded upon greatly be someone with better knowledge of DnD than me. I just thought that 'tutorial' is another useful application of the Heroica products, and it seemed to be a really good teaching tool for my group. The object interaction, in particular, was where this rules mod really shined. It made the game a lot less polished, sure, but it added that LEGO wackiness that's omnipresent in the video games yet kind of lacking in the board games. I recommend playing with it.

Seeing as the production and distribution of The Avengers and Iron Man 3 officially moved over to Disney a few months ago, and the extent to which Disney is currently partnered with Lego, it would make every kind of sense for this to happen. And I hope it does ! The figures alone...

This is great! You really got the style of the new Hogwarts sets down. I like the Room of Requirement and the Infirmary especially, and your Chamber of Secrets is very clever. If I'm not mistaken, the thing White Cat pointed out is the head of Salazar Slytherin statue, right? Nice beard. The Ravenclaw common room is mentioned as having many airy wall and ceiling hangings. It would be kind of hard to incorporate anything like that in such a tight space, put perhaps a blue or grey cape could do the job? That behind a bust of Rowena would spruce the room right up. Also, Aanchir: Canonically, the Hufflepuff common room is in the basements, right near the kitchens, because Hufflepuff is associated with the platonic element of Earth. It would be higher up than the Chamber of Secrets, but multiple underground layers are sort of a pain.

A full ten days ago, I ordered from Toys 'R' Us both the Tripod Invader and this set. After what was apparently a tortured ride through the bowels of the US mail system, they finally arrived at my doorstep today - just in time for my camera to have taken a ride to Washington DC with my relatives. So if you demand pristine pictures, or pictures that are good at all, skip down to the bottom and just read my thoughts on the set. If you are ready to brave their badness, however, simply scroll down... Set Name: Jet-copter Encounter Set Number: 7067 Number of Pieces: 375 Number of Minifigures: 3 (two Alien Pilots, one ADU soldier) Cost: $39.99 USD Box: The box is surprisingly large, definitely not in line with the current trend in some lines of box miniaturization. It's very bright, with intense but 'cool' colors. I think that LEGO must have read a survey somewhere that says kids are attracted to lime green, because it's a major component of the design like it has been for World Racers and Power Miners too. The box is only about half-full of five bags, an instruction booklet, and two sticker sheets. Stickers are applied to the Jet-copter, but not to the Alien scout craft in this review. Instructions: The instructions are printed in a single small thick booklet, only one main step per page. The background is decorated with a subtle arrangement of the fictional alien writing that is also seen on the various stickers for the other alien sets. Color differentiation is good. The instructions go very slow, usually only one or two types of piece added at each step, making the piece callouts somewhat unnecessary. Build: I didn't take any pictures of the build. It's fairly straightforward, with only a few large sub-builds. They have the decency to tell you right at the start of that section that you'll be building TWO of the alien scout ships, avoiding the typical annoyance when you reach the end of a section and find it saying "2x". It was dividided into bag one (scout ships and figures), bags two (the copter's body), bag three (the rest of the copter), and a large bag with all the biggest pieces. It took no more than forty-five minutes to complete straight through. Alien Ships: These little guys are the first part of the build. They contain the new windscreens, four new 4x1 studless tiles in trans blue, and a bunch of purple 1x1 round studs. They're larger than I thought they would be, each fairly appreciable on its own. The cool gimmick these two have is, of course, that you can fold up the sides, click them together, and get this: Which is even more surprisingly large. It's about thirteen studs across. I don't really see the tactical advantage of this move in an aerial dogfight, but for a toy, it's really cool. Jet-Copter: At about 34 studs long, the Jet-copter is really sizeable as well. It's nice and sturdy, capable of being held from almost any place on it, from the tail to a wing to a single skid. This makes it quite swishable. The rotor is sturdy as well, but sadly wobbly when spinning quickly. To get it to spin steadily it's best to apply torque as close to the center as possible. The flick-fires in the wings are extremely poor as missiles. (poorer than usual, that is). They have been left where they landed after I did my best to fire them. A quick glance beneath the blue panel reveals why - a seemingly clever mechanism greatly decreases the efficiency of the launching, sapping energy from your 'flick'. Luckily, the copter sure isn't helpless without them. In addition to the four missiles, the copter has four front-facing heavy machine guns, two trans-orange antenna shooters (heat rays?), and two expanded versions of the new ADU pistols. These are extremely aimable, a neat feature. For those of you keeping count, that's TWELVE weapons. Clearly these guys aren't to be trifled with. If the aliens aren't pumped full of lead, burnt to crisps, or blown to smithereens, they can be captured in a stasis pod. In a nice touch, this pod is compatible with the Earth Defense HQ pod room. It attaches to the Jet-copter with a click-hinge. It's secure, but odd. I prefer the copter without it. The ADU trooper has a manic smile on one side, and a sqiggly-mouth, one-eyebrow-raised face on the other. I guess all those guns on the front give him enough confidence to not have a scared face. If he's separated from his copter he'll wish he had a scared face, though - he doesn't come with a sidearm of his own! The cockpit doesn't have a hinge; it's attached by three studs beneath it, and easy to remove and put back. Ratings: Design: 7/10. There are enough annoyances and weird bits (like the pod when attached, the open sides of the UFOs, the flick-fires) to pull down the score some, but overall I like it. I know some have called it 'megablocksy', but I don't think so at all. MB designs are characterized by clumsy overlapping plates interspersed with overly-specific <insert that tiresome argument> pieces (If anyone wants to call the large pieces in this set <insert that tiresome argument>, I would advise them to read through the larger Alien Conquest topic for Aanchir's thoughts on the subject), while this set is designed in a very LEGO-characteristic manner. The UFOs in particular are well-designed to be modular when together, yet fully independent when apart. Playability: 10/10. Connect and unconnect the UFOs! Fire the missiles (not very far)! Spin the rotor! Adjust the skids! Put the alien in the pod! Put the pod on the back! Make it fly around and around! Make it shoot the UFOS! Make the UFOs shoot it! Make it shoot the tripod (not included)! Make it shoot your other spaceships! Make it shoot your cat! The possibilities are endless. Swooshability: 10/10. The high number of grab points and sleek design make it a natural swoosher. Price: 8/10. A lot of the pieces are tiny, like all the purple studs, and once put together the jet copter seems somehow small, even though it's big. Maybe that's just me keeping it next to the enormous-for-$20 Tripod set, but it feels a little less substantial than $40 should. I suspect it's the lack of minifigures. Which reminds me... Minifigurres: 6/10. Only three figs for a $40 set? Not good. Two of them are absolutely identical? Even worse. All of them are available in cheaper sets? Worse still. This set has a lot of good points. The minifigures are not one of them. They're cool figures, don't get me wrong, but unless you're building an army or doing an interplanetary version of The Parent Trap, having two identical pilots isn't too useful, and the ADU guy is run-of-the-mill for this line, with a very generic face. I wish he was mustache guy instead. Mustache guy is cool. Pieces: 10/10. Old, useful pieces in new, awesome colors? check. New useful pieces in old awesome colors? check. Awesome useful pieces in awesome useful colors all around? double check. Even if you don't like the design, this set is a great parts pack, especially if you're a neo-classic spacer. Mmm, blue. Total: 51/60, or pretty darn good. I've noticed that this is a pretty polarizing set; people either seem to love it or hate it. I fall on the 'love it' side, and if you fall on the hate it side I hope I may have convinced you otherwise, even though all I know I've convinced you of is to never buy a digital camera for $19 at Wal-mart.

Will do. I just took the pics and am uploading them now. However, you should definitely carry on with your review. My usual Lego-photographing camera is now in DC with a family member, so I had to use an extremely limited, cheap, bare-bones camera. The photos are extremely, for lack of a better word, crappy. I look forward to seeing your review appearing after mine.

Bad kids' movies are dull because the adults making them assume that the kids' sense of aesthetics are less refined. Good kids' movies get made when the adults making them don't underestimate their audience. That's why Pixar can appeal to kids while still getting nominated for best picture. But this isn't the Entertainment and Culture forum, so back on track. Compliments all around to those who have been making the recent reviews. Interesting how many first-time reviewers this wave has brought out of the wood-work! My very own jet-copter should, if no further delays are experienced (and there's a reason I say further . Silly Florida postal system.), be arriving at 3:30 EST tomorrow afternoon, at which point I will endeavor to join their ranks.

Great job on your first review! I fully intended to pick up this set anyway (once it appears in brick-and-mortar stores in my area), but it's nice to see some of the details up close. That's a very impressive collection of blues that you have

Thanks to the whims of Florida's climate, my delivery of the Jet-Copter and Tripod has been delayed two business days, so I won't be getting them until Tuesday. (Sunshine state. Ha. Ha ha. ) I know I had sort of claimed the Jet-Copter review, but that was when I thought it was going to be arriving today. Although it would be fun to have my first frontpage, I'll relinquish the review to whoever else gets the set before me ( )

Even though it was something of a letdown that I have to wait a few days to get them, I'm not too bummed. Any time you can get summer sets in April is a good time! I'm very glad about the Jet-copter too. I don't know why it's generated such comparatively little excitement; I almost wonder if people are scrolling down, see the Earth Defense HQ, know it's the flagship set, and then don't bother with the relatively puny helicopter below it. It has signficantly fewer "I want"s on Brickset than the rest of the theme. Very odd. In any case, I think it looks and will be awesome, and I will be certain to show the rest of the forum whether or not it is when I get it (which the TRU thing says should be between the 28th and the 5th).

It should be easy enough to find a large, detailed digital version of the Mappe online; you could use that. As for the inclusion of features like UU, I think the scale of this model is much too small to do anything other than a gray tile for Ankh-Morpork. However, given the strength of this model, I would be very interested to see how you might handle a micro-scale AM as per the map at the front of Night Watch.

I watched The Ten Commandments on and off last night on ABC, as it lasts for four and a half hours with commercials. I don't think it really needs any explanation from me... except to point out that it can be either a running gag or a drinking game that Moses' full name is actually "Moses Moses". Seriously - once you start hearing it you can't stop.

You might want to check that again - it says they're not available for in-store pickup (you can't order it and have it shipped to your local branch), but the "available in stores" thing is very much green-check-marked. But it does say local availability may be limited, hence my uncertainty as to whether they'll be on the shelves at my local store. EDIT: Back from my excursion. Apparently the right hand knows not what the left hand is doing at TRU, as counter to the website's information, it wasn't in stock. I talked with a very nice attendant, who went back to the store computer and looked at the data for other branches; no dice. However, she allowed me to order Jet-Copter Encounter and Tripod Invader from the computer right there, complete with free shipping, so those should be arriving within the week.

I'm going to a brick-and-mortar TRU tomorrow, so fingers crossed that they'll be there. If they are, I should be able to whip up a review for one or both of Tripod Invader and Alien Defender by Easter (unless anyone can do it faster ).

What a great representation! I particularly like your Great A'tuin - it's very stately and surprisingly organic looking. And those elephants are adorable! The disc itself is very well-done too. Making micro-scale terrain is hard, but you pulled it off pretty well. May I also commend you on getting the geography absolutely correct! The only thing I might change would be to put in a bit of tan rimwards of the Circle Sea to represent the Klatchian Desert. Once again, excellent job! I look forward to more Discworld MOCs!

I'm currently listening to the soundtrack to Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon. It's 72 minutes of celtic-influenced big-orchestra awesome. There's one point where I'm pretty sure an electric guitar and bagpipes are playing at the same time (during track 3). I also recently got the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, which singlehandedly (single-discedly?) made me a Daft Punk fan, and the The King's Speech soundtrack, which is quite pleasant and ends with some good old-fashioned Beethoven. (Incidentally, I feel that any of these three compositions and/or Inception ought to have won the Golden Globe and/or Oscar for Best Original Score. Especially over The Social Network, which seems rather one-note. Literally. It's just that one brooding note.)

It is, but 'priced fairly' doesn't necessarily translate into 'affordable'. $90 is still a good chunk of change, even if what you're getting for it is worth it.