As a collector, I'm a bit of a sucker for signing events and with London only an hour away by train I thought I'd pop in to Leicester Square today to see how this latest one played out.
70840 Welcome to Apocalypseburg! was released yesterday and a whirlwind tour of 3 Brand Stores, Paris, London and Orlando, has given LEGO fans a chance to meet Designer Justin Ramsden and Graphic Designer Paul Constantin Turcanu, shake their hands and have their sets signed.
Given how busy other events have been I decided to get there for 10am opening and do a bit of shopping while I sized up the queue. It was a really cold start to the day and I didn't fancy waiting outside – but I needn't have worried. Click through to find out why.
For my last look at the Minecraft Bigfig range I'm reviewing 21150 Minecraft Skeleton BigFig with Magma Cube. This at least looks a little different to the other two by it's very nature – but will that that be enough to set it apart? If you haven't already it's probably worth familiarising yourself with the reviews of 21148 and 21149.
The headlines are 142 pieces for £12.99 / €14.99 / $14.99, so the smallest part count of the three – though not by much. Let's see how it stacks up against its counterparts.
Now, to the second of our Minecraft Bigfig reviews and I'll be looking at 21149 Alex with Chicken. To be honest, I could almost cut and paste my previous review of 21148 Steve with Parrot as this is pretty much an identical product with a new skin, so if you haven't already, I'd advise having a read of that here.
You get 160 pieces for your £12.99 / €14.99 / $14.99 and there's little more to say. Click through to find out more.
Another year, another wave of Minecraft – however, the boxes I have here are a little different to the norm. These are not minifig scale playsets, nor are they inanimate Brickheadz. So what are they exactly? Well, they are called Bigfigs – only they're not the sort of Bigfigs that the LEGO community already know.
The boxes say Bigfig Series 1 – and there are 3 to collect - so quite easy to get them all, but equally worrying about how many series there may end up being. All 3 are priced at £12.99 / €14.99 / $14.99 and I'll be kicking off with 21148 Steve with Parrot.
Despite the rumours of Summer arriving, my part of England has recently been treated to heavy rain, claps of thunder and fantastic lightning shows, so what better set to arrive at my door than 70652 Stormbringer. The new wave of Ninjago has some great looking builds and this dragon caught my eye from the moment I first saw it online.
An RRP of £34.99 / €39.99 / $39.99 buys you 493 pieces. We all know that piece count isn't everything so what does this set deliver for the money? Find out my thoughts after the break.
70618 Destiny's Bounty from The Lego Ninjago Movie has to be one of the stand out sets of recent times so any further sets that start with “Destiny's...” in the title should be a super awesome must buy – right?
“Free The Dragons” is the latest sub-theme of Ninjago and a set called “Destiny's Wing” might indicate that it's an epic sized flying machine – yes?
No. In fact, 70650 Destiny's Wing is one of the smallest and cheapest sets in the new wave, and despite me poking a little fun at the grand title versus actual size, I rather like the look of this little thing. I've set aside the afternoon to do some building and this is first on my list. Is it worth you picking up? Find out after the break.
Following on from my 42072 WHACK! review, I'll have a look at it's counterpart 42073 BASH! today. This'll be mostly a skim through as it could almost be a cut and paste job, given the two set's similarities. If you haven't read the previous one you'll find that here. If you've already done that, then skip on past the break for a mainly pictorial and comparative piece.
Way back when (well, in 2016) I reviewed 42058 Stunt Bike as my first Technic outing for Brickset and I very much enjoyed the play element offered by the pull back motor and stunt ramp. This year, I've got two more small Technic sets to review in a similar vein and I'll start by looking at 42072 WHACK!
A Technic set that costs less than a tenner? A 2 in 1 build with some functions? Really? I'm looking at this tiddly sized box and have to wonder just how good it can be. A set like this needs to lure people deeper into a theme – and it can only do that if the build yields some level of satisfaction. I think this will be a big ask – so let's find out if it can deliver.
The summer NINJAGO wave is fast approaching so I best get my finger out and finish off the Sons Of Garmadon sets that I have here for review. Today, I'm looking at 70642 Killow vs. Samurai X that has an RRP of £44.99 / €44.99 / $49.99 for 556 pieces. Given that 70641 Ninja Nightcrawler has 552 pieces for a tenner less, the obvious question is why such a difference? Let's see if I can find out.
The Ninjago Sons of Garmadon wave has been out for a little while now, so it's about time we have a look at some more of the sets. After visiting the filming of the stop-motion film “Chasing the Mask of Vengeance” last October, 70641 Ninja Nightcrawler was the build that I was most looking forward to getting a hold of. With the box in front of me, I'm teased with 552 pieces for £34.99/€39.99/$39.99. It has to deliver something decent for that price surely? Will it live up to my expectations? Find out after the break.
If, like me, you're a CMF collector, you've probably also appreciated the variants that LEGO have been releasing as boxed GWPs in recent times. Hot on the heels of 5005249 Easter Bunny Hut comes this, 5005250 Party Banana Juice Bar. It's a Banana Suit Guy, and as we saw one not that long ago in Series 16, is there a need for another so soon? Is there anything that makes this one special? Slip on ahead for the lowdown.
21314 TRON: Legacy had an early release at the flagship London Leicester Square yesterday, and for those happy to take their chances with the weather and the queues, there was an opportunity to get their sets signed by fan designers Tom and Drew, aka BrickBros UK.
Timed on a Thursday before Bank Holiday Weekend, I was curious to see how things would work out numbers wise. I've been to quite a few signings before – but all at Bluewater, and the weekday events there have meant that everyone who turned up managed to get their sets signed without struggle and had plenty of time after to talk to the designers. Naturally I felt compelled to steam up to London to find out how it would compare.
There's only two types of biker in this world – those who've had an accident, and those who are about to have an accident. Fortunately, 70639 Street Race of Snake Jaguar is here to let you have the thrills and spills of motorcycle madness, incorporating some ninja fighting along the way, and all without resulting in a trip to A&E.
With an RRP of £24.99 / €29.99 / $29.99 we're looking slightly above entry level stuff here, so it needs to shape up with some good play opportunities and fun builds. 70638 Katana V11 impressed me and it set a high bar so this one needs to follow suit. Let's open up the throttles to find out if it can.
30404 Friendship Flower had a very short window of availability on Valentine's Day but it's making a quick comeback for Mother's Day as a free offering with any purchase over £15 in store, certainly in the UK at least. I'll update on other territories as news comes in.
I was able to grab one a couple of weeks back, and while I'd not be one to usually love a Friends set, this doesn't fit the mould at all, so I thought I'd post a mini review.
75887 Porsche 919 Hybrid is the second endurance racer in this wave of Speed Champions and it needs to stack up favourably to the 75886 Ferrari 488 GT3 Scuderia Corsa to make it worth picking up as well. In the real world, the car is interesting as it has both a conventional petrol engine and an electric motor that work together. In our world of bricks however, that doesn't really count for much – it just has to be worthy of the Speed Champions title. Let's have a look to see if it qualifies.
The new Speed Champions wave has certainly shown some diversity with the classic 75884 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback and 75885 Ford Fiesta M-Sport WRC and this has made me take more notice of the theme than usual. Unfortunately, Huw has beaten me to the punch by reviewing those two already, so I'll be looking at a pair of endurance racers instead, starting with this, the 75886 Ferrari 488 GT3 "Scuderia Corsa"
At a first glance it appears to be more of the usual formula but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing. There's a lot of love for Speed Champions and I'm quite looking forward to building it. The price (I believe at time of writing) is £12.99 / €14.99 / $14.99 and there's 179 pieces for your money. Let's motor on and investigate further.
It seems a long time ago that I was buying the first Ninjago sets ever for my youngest lad, and a lot of fun we had with them too. Fast forward 7 years and we find the theme is getting better and better all the time with constant reinvention, helped of course by the fact it has it's own TV series.
The first wave of 2018 sets are all about the “Sons of Garmadon” – a biker gang with a mission to resurrect Lord Garmadon while our Ninjago heroes attempt to stop them. So what better way to kick off these biker themed reviews than with a boat!
At £14.99 / €19.99 / $19.99 70638 Katana V11 is the smallest Sons of Garmadon set and it offers up 257 pieces. It's not going to break the bank, but is it any good? Let's find out...
Next up in our series of Minecraft 2018 reviews is 21141 The Zombie Cave. You could say this is the sister set to 21140 The Chicken Coop as it is pitched at the same price of £19.99 / €19.99 / $19.99 for the same box size, but you do get a few more pieces – 232 in all.
There have been several zombie sets released in the Minecraft range before, so should we really care about another? I've built it in an attempt to answer that very question. Read on to find out after the break.
The two entry level Minecraft 2018 sets that I've built to date have proved both fun and enjoyable. 21140 The Chicken Coop looks to be no exception, and since its reveal back in November 2017 it's drawn a lot of positive comments with many a Minecraft fan being eager to get their hands on it. At a price of £19.99 / €19.99 / $19.99 it's in a sweet spot for impulse buying and for 195 parts it's better value than the entry level sets if we look at price per piece.
Can it ruffle a few feathers and appeal to those who've never bought into this theme before? Does the price per piece tell the whole story? I've just built my copy and I'm here to report on my findings. Here we go...
