Thursday 16 March 2023

"So you want to build a LEGO City but don't have the space? Maybe Micropolis is the answer."

You don't have to be a part of the Lego community for too long before you start coming across Lego cities.  In some cases, small children create random buildings from whichever bricks fall to hand, and cars drive along roads made of living room carpet.  In the UK, where space is often at a premium, a city may be a few skilfully designed buildings, or maybe it's a collection from the Modular series sitting on a shelf.  But across the pond, where everything is bigger, including spare rooms and basements, is where you'll find the epic layouts that can stretch 20 or 30 feet in both directions, usually built on tables so that their creators can crawl underneath and pop up in cut out areas to access the city centre.


One such layout is New Jang City, the creation of popular YouTuber, JangBricks.



Image: JangBricks



A fantastic looking city, but I dread to think of the cost!


But what if you crave a sprawling Lego metropolis, but don't have the acres of space (and indeed the thousands of bricks) that such an undertaking requires?  That's something that's been on my mind for some time, as I'm most envious of the fabulous layouts with city centres, shopping districts, suburban areas, ports, airports and more.  But I simply don't have the space.  However,  maybe there's an alternative...


A little while back, I came across TwinLUG.  TwinLUG is the Twin Cities Lego User Group, based in the Twin Cities in the USA.  If, like me, you've vaguely heard of the term 'Twin Cities' but can't place it (them?), it refers to the area around the confluence of the Mississippi, Minnesota and St Croix rivers in the state of Minnesota (1).  The 'Twin Cities' refers to the two largest cities in the vicinity: Minneapolis and St Paul. (2)


Back in 2010, they published what they called the "Micropolis" Micro City Standard.  Now I doubt whether they'd claim to be the first to build Lego cities at a micro scale, but they decided to create some guidelines that would allow their various members to create city blocks separately, but which would fit together as an integrated whole.  I liked this idea, and, despite being someone who is largely MOC-averse, I thought I'd give it a go.


Here are a couple of the group's creations...






Both images (c) their respective owners, with my thanks to the TwinLUG Flickr group




So I went off to BrickOwl, ordered up a few parts and they arrived a while back.  At which point I promptly forgot about them!  But having just come across the link to the TwinLug page again, I'm going to dig the parts out, put my town-planning hat on and become the Lord Of All I Survey.


After I've build the UCS Razor Crest which I just managed to pick up at a bargain price!


But just going back to the Micropolis standard, as you'll see if you click through on the above link, it works on the basis that one 16x16 plate is a quarter of a city block.  Two 16x16 plates are the bread in a Lego sandwich, and Technic bricks plus some regular System bricks, are used in the 'filling' to allow each build to be clipped to its neighbour.  There are rules for where the sidewalk (or 'pavement' for our UK readers) go, but the remainder of the block is then free for you to begin construction.


If you want an idea of the sort of thing that can be built at this scale, TwinLUG have a Flickr page dedicated to Micropolis, and you can see some of their fantastic creations, here.


Before I went off to BrickOwl to order the parts I thought I'd need, I assumed (3) that 16x16 plates would be common as muck and therefore cheap as chips (4).  Not so!  A few sellers have one or two for sale at around £1.29, but if you're buying in bulk - each quarter block requires two plates, although you could probably skimp on the bottom plate if you were only connecting to your own build - the price jumps a bit.  Forty plates would set you back over £110, and that's before shipping.


As such I've only bought enough for about two full blocks, but I guess that's enough to see if the bug bites.  I shall start construction soon.


But that's after the aforementioned Razor Crest, ill-fated (5) ship of Din Djarin, gets built.  I have a bad habit of buying these larger sets and then 'putting them away for later'.  Not this one!  This one get's built.  Look out for a review, soon!





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1. Minnesota is up the top, butted up against Canada, roughly in the middle (East to West-wise) of the USA.


2. Thank you, Wikipedia.


3. Never a good idea.  As they say, 'it makes an ass out of U and Me'.


4. Other similes are available.


5. Sorry.  Belated spoiler alert!

Wednesday 1 March 2023

"So is this a ten second car?" Review: Lego Speed Champions 76917 2 Fast 2 Furious Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34)



76917 Lego Speed Champions 2 Fast 2 Furious Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34)


The Fast & The Furious is a divisive franchise.  To some it's just chewing gum for the brain and candy for the eyes with virtually no redeeming features at all.  Corny dialogue, ridiculous cars and plots that have jumped an entire shiver (1) of sharks (2), it's Hollywood hokum writ large.

For others it's adrenaline-fuelled escapism at its finest; a film franchise that started out with a semi-serious thriller which then screamed - at about 150mph, and with a more-than-feasible number of gear changes - into a series of tongue-in-cheek, global scale heist movies via at least one questionable diversion (Tokyo Drift, I'm looking at you) (3), all shot through with a rich seam of automotive porn.


But with ten films in the series, plus one spin-off, and global takings of over six-and-a-half billion dollars though, you have to conclude that someone out there likes these films.


Me?  I love 'em! 


So when, in 2022, the Lego Group - specifically, theme lead, Chris Stamp -  decided to expand the Speed Champions range and delve into the cinematic world for some inspiration, they picked two of the biggest sagas to begin with - James Bond and Fast & Furious.  Thus it was that we got 76911 007 Aston Martin DB5 and 76912 Fast & Furious 1970 Dodge Charger R/T.  Interestingly (to me, anyway), both of these cars had already been released at a larger scale, and in both cases, the prevailing opinion was that the Speed Champions versions were a signifiant improvement on their predecessors.


Back in 2018, 10262 James Bond Aston Martin DB5 appeared as part of the Creator Expert line, and for £130 you got a fairly blocky, slab-sided car that looked somewhat boss-eyed.  Dom's Dodge Charger, meanwhile, showed up two years later in the Technic range as set no 42111.  I can't speak for anyone else, but I've been serious about Lego collecting and building for eleven years now and this is, by a country mile, the worst set - of any theme - that I've ever owned.  The build is grim, with parts having to be added to the interior after the roof has gone on, requiring fingers that are both small and double-jointed.  It makes little use of Technic as a medium - there are few traditional Technic functions and the 'wheelie stand' is faintly ridiculous.  Worst of all, the finished model looks awful.  Compare this to 10265 Ford Mustang and 10304 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 1969 from the Creator Expert / Icons theme, which are utterly gorgeous, and you can only wonder what might have been.




The blocky, bug-eyed DB5




Dom's Dodge Charger - dodge it indeed!




The Charger at Speed Champions scale - much improved




A DB5 as it should be - curvy!





The Ford Mustang - possibly the prettiest Lego car ever.





If you've got the Mustang, you have to buy the Camaro!


But ever since Dom's considerably better looking Charger appeared in its Speed Champions guise, fans of the series have been clamouring for a minifigure of Mr Toretto's partner-in-crime, Brian O'Connor, and a set of wheels for him to drive.  And for most, there was only ever one choice of car.


Brian, as portrayed by the late and much lamented Paul Walker, has driven many, many vehicles in the series.  The first film has the lurid green Mitsubishi Eclipse that he rolls up to his first race in, and the bright orange Toyota Supra which he hands over to Dom, as he owes him ' a ten second car'.  In later films, he drives classics such as a Mk I Ford Escort RS2000, a number of Nissan GT-R35's and the Toyota Supra Turbo that marks his farewell from the franchise (it's ok to cry), but the star of the show was always going to be the car connoisseur's car - the Nissan Skyline GT-R 34 from the bordering-on-slapstick 2 Fast 2 Furious.  You can see how he found the car, turned it into a street racer and ended up in Miami, here.


And that grey Skyline is the one that Lego, thankfully, chose.  Have they got it right?  Is it a street racing hero or a Saturday-night-in-Tesco's-car-park dud?  Let's take a look...


Opening the box we get two bags of parts, numbered (unsurprisingly) 1 and 2, a chassis element and a sheet with - count 'em - 23 stickers.  To be fair, anyone who has built a Speed Champions set will know that a high sticker count is par for the course and is usually worth the effort and frayed nerves that it takes to get them on straight.  Some people choose to ignore the stickers on sets but that would look a little odd with the Skyline.  While many of the stickers are replicating things like indicators, badges, dials and gauges, there are some sizeable ones that create the blue stripes down the side of the car.  Because not even the Lego Group is harsh enough to ask builders to try and line up a couple of stickers on the curved rear wheel arches, these element are printed, so you really do need to apply at least the stripes.  And if you're going to put them on, you may as well go the whole hog, right?  Trust me, it's worth it.


But before you reach for the sticker sheet though, or indeed the car itself, first you have the minifigure of Brian O'Connor, as played by Paul Walker.  It's a simple minifig, with regular grey legs and a torso that represents a crinkled white t-shirt.  The printing covers both the back and front, and additionally, the arms are dual printed to represent the sleeves of the shirt.  The head only has one face print, which is somewhere between 'smug' and 'concentrating'.  It also has some 'designer stubble' (4) which fits with O'Connor's on-screen look.  The hair looks a little too 'bouffant' though, although the colour is a pretty good match.  On the whole, though, not bad at all.



Brian 'Big hair' O'Connor


On to the car itself, and it's something of a Curate's egg, that is to say, good in parts.  Although 'excellent in parts with just a few let downs' is probably closer to the mark.


The colour scheme of blue and grey is absolutely on the money when compared to the original which is pictured on the back of the box. The designer has done a fantastic job with the extremities of the car - both the nose and the tail are remarkable in the way they mimic the big Nissan.  The front grille, with the iconic GT-R badge, the front splitter, the brick built stripes and in particular the use of smoky clear 1x1 wedges to replicate the headlights are a joy to behold.  Similarly, at the rear of the car, the use of minifigure neck brackets to cover a trans-red piece, just leaving the stud visible is an ingenious way to create the two smaller rear lights.  The big rear wing, made from just a handful of parts is maybe a little chunky compared to the source material, but we're just quibbling now.  A fat silvered exhaust pipe and a couple of stickers representing the numberplate and the Toyo Tires (5) logo round out a neat back end.





The Skyline from the front...




...and from the rear.  Love those lights!


Talking of equipment and manufacturer's logos, Brian's GT-R has a line of them down the left hand side of the bonnet, from HKS to Sparco via JBL and a whole bunch of others that I don't recognise.  These are conspicuous by their absence, as the top surface of the front wings are left as exposed studs rather than a smooth surface that could have had a sticker applied.  Whether this was a conscious design choice, or whether it was just going to be too much time and money to agree all the various licensing deals I don't know.  It's a minor omission at the end of the day that most people won't worry about.  


Meanwhile the interior is packed with detail.  A printed seat element, stickers galore representing dials and gauges, a roll cage and three canisters of nitrous oxide for that all important Millennium Falcon-style hyperspace boost.  The cabin is completed with a smoked glass windscreen and rear glass, although faking the rear quarter lights with black stickers spoils the look a little.  Again - minor niggles. Some trans-blue tiles under the chassis that hint at the under car lighting are a neat finishing touch.


So far, so good.  In fact there's not much to complain about at all, other than the bonnet.  The R34 has a very distinct sloping bonnet.  It has a high boot lid, and from there the car's lines taper down slightly along the tops of the doors before diving down to the headlights at a pronounced angle.  The designer has jacked the rear axle up by a plate to give a subtle lift to the back of the car, but there's nothing that can be done about the ruler-flat bonnet.  To an interested bystander it's not a problem at all, but to the many people buying this set because they're fans of the original car, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb.  To be fair, at this scale there's very little that can be done to remedy it.  Having a look online, there are a good number of MOCs and modifications which achieve varying degrees of success, but none (that I've seen) successfully replicate the bonnet.


Let's just hope for a LEGO Icons version at the Mustang / Chevrolet scale at some point in the future.  Now that would be a day one purchase!



Nice underskirt neon!  Shame about the flat bonnet!



The original in all it's over-the-top glory!


Overall, then, a great set, which will sit happily alongside Dom's Dodge Charger (6) and, at less than £20, represents something of a bargain.  Which isn't something you get to say about Lego sets very often these days.  It's a fun build - around 90 minutes if you're taking your time to line those stickers up properly.  Some interesting build techniques as we've come to expect from the Speed Champions range and a finished model that looks plain cool.


Highly recommended.


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1. I assumed it would be a 'school' of sharks, and according to some sources it it, but apparently a 'shiver' is also a valid collective name.


2. In case you're unfamiliar with the term, 'jumping the shark' is generally regarded as the point at which a popular TV series or film tries something utterly ridiculous in an effort to retain viewing figures.  It originates from the US TV Series 'Happy Days' when the Fonz jumps over a shark on waterskis.  To clarify - the Fonz is on waterskis, not the shark.  You can read about it here.


3. Though it did introduce fan favourite, Han, so it's not all bad.


4. Is designer stubble still a thing?


5. I know it ought to be spelled with a 'Y'.  It's an American thing.


6. No, they never appeared on screen together, but it matters not.

Monday 20 February 2023

They seek them here, they seek them there... Why is one particular Lego product so hard to find?

Picture the scene.  You've just walked into to the gleaming palace of wood, metal and glass that is an Apple store.  All around are shiny examples of cutting edge technology and bleeding edge design (1), laptops, iPhones, iPads and more accessories than you can shake a stick at.


But you walk past all that, as you just want a simple connector cable.  Less than ten quid, it's about as cheap an Apple product as you can buy.  But you search in vain.  So you catch the eye of one of the polo-shirt clad assistants and enquire...


"Hi.  I'm looking for for this connector cable please, but I can't seem to find it."


"Ah yes," replies the staff member who may or may not be a genius. "We don't sell them here."


"Err, sorry?"


"We don't sell them.  Here."  With a sweep of their arm they indicate the shop in case you were in any doubt as to where 'Here' was.


"You mean you're out of stock?" you enquire.


"No.  I mean we don't usually sell that item in our shops."   


"But it's an Apple product." you protest,  "where am I supposed to buy it from, if you don't sell it in Apple stores?"


"Ah," says the assistant with a knowing look.  "Other places..."


"Other places?  What other places?"


"I really couldn't say," says the operative. "You'll just have to hunt around and maybe you'll get lucky."


With that they're gone, off in search of a customer who wants to buy something expensive.


Sounds ludicrous.  But now replace "The Apple Store" with "The Lego Store" and replace "cable" with "Polybag".


Not so crazy, right?



There are many tribes in the Lego collecting world, and one group choose to follow a more challenging path than most.  Not for them the pifflingly easy task of 'Just go to a Lego store (or other retailer) and buy a Lego set'.  Oh no. For this band of hunter-gatherers, the chase is as great as the prize is small.  I speak of none but the Polybag collector.


I've been collecting and building (2) for about 11 years now, and while I don't set out to acquire polybags, they're a kind of 'hazard of the job'.  You pick up polys as unexpected GWPs and sometimes, yes, the Lego Store does have them on the shelves, tucked away.  And if they interest me, I'll pick a few up.  As a result I've ended up with a large plastic crate full which comes in handy for Secret Santa, children's birthdays and so on.  But in the grand scheme of things, my collection is pitifully small and consists only of the easiest to find, common or garden polybags. 


Yes, you do find a few in Lego stores, but you're more likely to find them elsewhere.  For me, it's the local Tesco superstore.  I was in there recently and happened to come across a box that looked like it had just been put out.  As such, I came away with one each of: 30655 Technic Forklift with Pallet, 30633 Friends Skate Ramp, 30638 City Police Bike Training and 30641 Creator 3-in-1 Panda.  I was in the shop again about a week later and there were only a handful left, so clearly they're popular, even if £3.50 for a handful of pieces isn't the greatest price-per-part ratio.  And it suggests that unless you're constantly on the lookout, they can come and go before you've even realised it.



30633 Friends Skate Ramp



30655 Technic Forklift with Pallet



But sometimes you'll see mention of a polybag on a Lego fan site - Brickset recently ran a piece on 30652 Doctor Strange's Interdimensional Portal - and nobody has a clue where to find it.  Indeed they linked to the 24 polybags so far released in 2023, and while a few were GWPs, some were magazine cover mounts and a few, like the ones I found, had turned up in stores, plenty more seemed to be very hard to find.


Maybe that's the appeal.  Maybe polybag collectors like the difficulty in tracking them down, making the final purchase that much more fun.  Ok, I get that.


But what's in it for the Lego Group?  What's the point of designing, creating, packaging and distributing a product that you're, seemingly, deliberately hiding from your customers?  Or at least making it very difficult for them to find?


The Lego Group has form when it comes to making products that it tries to keep out of the hands of those who want it.  There are the ultra-limited edition items, such as the minifigs produced for Comic-Con which instantly appear on the after-market at insane prices.  There are - or at least were - the region exclusive sets, such as those produced for the Chinese New Year.  Fortunately TLG listened to the cries of anguish of those forced to pay over the odds and declared that regional exclusives would be no more, and so now sets like 80111 Lunar New Year Parade are available from Wyoming to Watford.  Well, ok, not Watford, because that was closed last year.  And not Wyoming, as I've just checked and they don't have a Lego store.


Wisconsin then.



80111 Lunar New Year Parade - somewhat easier to find than has been the case in years gone by.



Other throttled-back products include the infamous 'Mr Gold' who appeared as part of Series 10 of the Collectible Minifigures range back in 2013.  People who had been collecting and swapping since Series 1 back in 2010 found that a complete collection was suddenly a whole lot more difficult, given that Mr Gold was included in the series, but only 5000 were being produced.  Great for the people who found them, but a right pain for those who didn't.  Fans were not backward about coming forward with their complaints!



The elusive Mr Gold, bane of the Minifigure collectors life!



None of which explains why TLG do it though, particularly with polybags.  Maybe they're just being playful, maybe they're just being bloody minded.  Maybe they want to encourage a 'I'd better buy it while I see it.' mindset in Lego fans to keep those cash registers ticking over?


The Lego Group claim to pay no attention to - and not to intentionally encourage - the after-market.  They have a funny way of showing it.


In the USA there seem to be a number of likely spots to find polybags, such as Target, Meijer's and Walmart, while Scheel's and the Lego Discovery Centres also seem rich hunting grounds.  Meanwhile, the UK either has very slim pickings, or the polybag collectors are keeping very quiet about where the loot is to be found.


Maybe I need to start looking a bit harder...




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1. Or, depending on your point of view, over-priced nonsense for technology fashion victims.


2. More collecting than building.  Need to sort that out.

Wednesday 8 February 2023

LEGO Gifts with Purchase: A blessing or a curse?

Everybody likes a freebie, right?  Of course - who wouldn't?  But sometimes it's not as simple as "Here - have some free stuff."  Sometimes there are strings attached.  I talk of nothing but the Lego Gift with Purchase, or GWP as they're often referred to, and they come in a number of varieties.


But first, let's consider why Lego offer GWPs.  Lego is a popular product, and you can purchase it from many retailers, both physical and online.  The LEGO group offer both of these options, with a number of official Lego stores around the globe, and official Lego websites in a number of territories.  And one thing you can bank on with both of these 'official' channels is that the products are going to be full price. (1)


Now. A Lego set will have two prices.  First there's the 'trade' price, which is the figure that the Lego Group will sell to a retailer like John Lewis (2), and the RRP, or Recommended Retail Price which is the price that you'll see on the shelf in the Lego Store and on Lego online, and which many retailers also use.  Let's say that Lego set X has a retail price of £100.  Chances are a major retailer will be paying £50 for that set. (3)  So if they sell that £100 set, then Lego have received £50 and the retailer has received £50.  Both need to take their costs out of their respective £50, but unless the businesses are being run by muppets, then both companies should make a profit.


But before an eager child ever got their sticky mitts on the set, Lego had already lost out on a potential £50 by selling to the retailer at the trade price. I'm going to pluck a number out of thin air here, and say that the Lego Group's manufacturing, distribution, advertising and whatnot costs come to £30 for that set.  So by selling through the retailer, they've made £20 profit on a £100 item.


Consider now, that same child with the same sticky mitts, picking that same £100 set up in a LEGO store...  


Costs are still exactly the same, at our assumed £30, but if they sell it for £100, then that's £70 profit as opposed to £20 profit.


Let's pay a visit to a typical Lego Group boardroom, where some execs are sitting round a beautiful Scandinavian table:


_______________


Exec 1: "Ok. Moving on to the next agenda point.  Do we prefer selling our products for a small profit or for a massive profit?  All those in favour of massive profits?"


All other Execs raise their hands.


_______________



It is therefore in the Lego Group's interest to shift as many units through their own stores (and websites) as possible.  Sure, they're not going to turn down business from other retailers - getting them to do the heavy lifting for a modest profit is always going to be welcome - but a Lego Store sale is a profitable sale.  But if Joe Customer and Josephine AFOL can potentially get that set at a slight discount elsewhere, why would they pay full price in the Lego Store?


Enter the Gift With Purchase!


"Hey little Lego fan.  Look what we've got!  It's a Lego set that you can't get anywhere else!"


A GWP is usually a small set, rarely more than 100 pieces  But put it in an official box and say it can't be bought anywhere else, and that's like catnip to a Lego fan.  The value of the pieces is probably no more than a pound or two, but that official packaging, combined with exclusivity, means that common sense goes out of the window...


Head:  That £200 set is on offer down the road for £160.


Heart:  Yes, but there's an exclusive GWP if I buy it at the Lego store.


Head:  But that GWP is probably worth about £4.00, and we could save £40!


Heart:  Hush!  Exclusssssive GWP!  We must have the precious!


Cue large profit for the Lego Group.


As mentioned, GWP's come in a variety of flavours.  The main ones are:


A) Spend some money, get a thing.


Spend over the advertised threshold on any Lego products (4) and get a free set. This is fine.  There are no catches, other than the minimum spend, and you get the thing.  Assuming that you really, really want the freebie, it's not too difficult for the typical Lego fan to find something they want to buy.  However, the spending threshold has, of late, started to rise at an alarming rate.  We'll look at this more in a moment.


B) Spend some money on specified themes, get a thing.


Spend over the offer threshold on one or more predetermined themes and you get the gift.  This is where the problems start to creep in.  Whereas with (A) you can buy anything in the store and - provided you meet the qualifying spend - you get the item, now you're restricted in what you can buy.  And what if it's a theme or themes that you don't collect / have an interest in?  Well then you've got a problem.  The only upside to this is that often the GWP is linked to the qualifying themes, so if you don't collect, say, Friends, then you're probably not going to be interested in a Friends GWP.


C) Buy a specific set, get a thing.


Often linked to the more expensive sets, these promo items are often designed to tempt those who may be wavering or, more likely, waiting for the cost of the set in question to come down.  Take, for example, the recent 10307 Eiffel Tower.  At £554.99 it's what might be charitably called a considered purchase.  Add the fact that you'll need to find enough space to display a set that's nearly five feet tall and it's understandable that many potential purchasers were intent on keeping their purses and wallets firmly shut until a customer-friendly retailer hopefully offered the set at a discount a few months down the line.  But wait!  What's this?  40579 Eiffel's Apartment is available as a GWP if you buy now!  Only available for a limited time.  Sounds like a whole load of purses and wallets being opened!



Image courtesy of Brickset


Eiffel's Apartment - only 228 pieces, but it will have shifted a few Eiffel Towers



But at the end of the day, these are all free sets, right?  You pay your money, you get the thing you wanted, and on top of that you get a extra item - occasionally multiple items as many freebies 'stack'. (5)  Yes, this is true, but the Lego Group are a canny bunch, and they know just which bells to ring to get an AFOL salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs.  And with Lego prices increasing, GWPs coming along with alarming regularity and FOMO being a serious problem for the Lego collector, it's becoming increasingly difficult and stressful, if not impossible, to pick up all the GWPs that you might want unless your surname is Rockefeller.


As an example, a number of GWPs were announced in January, one of which was titled 'Houses of the World 1'.  It's a microscale build of a Central American house and it looks great.  Definitely the sort of thing that I'd like to pick up.  However, problem one:  The threshold was £220!!!!  Problem two, it was available in January when, like most people, I wasn't exactly flush for cash, and problem three, the '1' at the end suggested that this was going to be part of a set.



Image courtesy of Brickset

40583, Houses of the World 1: £220 is a pretty high purchase threshold.  Shame.


At present we believe that there will be four in the series which means that if you want the set, you're looking at a spend of nearly £900!  Which is crazy.  For many people, a £200+ spend is a once-a-year blowout, not 'I'll drop that every three months.'  Naturally, the cry that goes up whenever this sort of thing happens is "Why can't Lego just sell us the set?  Why does it have to be a GWP?"


May I remind you about the profit discussion we had earlier?


So to return to the original question, are GWPs a blessing or a curse?  Well if they happen to coincide with a planned and budgeted-for purchase, then fantastic!  You just got an extra set, free and for gratis.  But if you're looking at a GWP and you're thinking "What do I need to buy in order to get that?" then I'd suggest you walk away and maybe look at the aftermarket instead.


Case in point. January 1st is the traditional release date of that year's new Modular building, and in 2022 it was 10297 Boutique Hotel.  Plenty of people rushed to buy the set as happens every year.  Then, about a month later, up pops a GWP: 40532 Vintage Taxi.  Nobody ever actually said that the Taxi was designed to go with the Hotel, but many in the community made that leap, and suddenly everyone who had pulled the trigger on day one felt a bit miffed that those who waited were rewarded for their patience.



Image courtesy of Brickset


The Vintage Taxi.  Not technically designed to fit with the Boutique Hotel, but the Lego Group don't mind if you make that assumption.



I'd already decided to wait as, because I still retain my staff discount from John Lewis, I know that the Modulars tend to arrive in JL in April and I can save a significant amount of money.  So instead, I tracked down a mint copy of the Taxi from the excellent Brick-A-Brac web store for a not-unreasonable £26.99.  Ok, it wasn't free, but taking into account what I saved, I was marginally still up on the deal.


With many retailers offering sizeable discounts if you're prepared to be patient, by keeping a watchful eye out, sometimes you can pick up a GWP that you'd set your heart on without paying through the nose.  


I can't see the Lego Group ever stopping the idea of a GWP, although times are changing.  Now, exclusive sets pop up as a 'VIP reward' on the website.  You can currently exchange 2,700 VIP points for the World of Wonders set, which contains four microscale builds of famous landmarks: The Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Parthenon and the Al-Khazneh Temple at Petra.  All well and good, but you obviously you still have to have earned those points, by spending in the Lego store or on the website.  At current rates, 2,700 requires a spend of £337.50!  Suddenly, a £220 threshold doesn't look so bad.  Oh, and by the way, if you do redeem those points, it gets you a voucher which you can redeem - within 60 days - on your next lego.com purchase.  So you have to spend even more, just to get your free set!



Image courtesy of Brickset

World of Wonders.  Yours for just £337.50.  Plus an additional purchase.



Suddenly, these GWPs aren't looking quite as 'free' as you might have originally thought. And it makes you wonder just who runs the Lego promotional programme.  Machiavelli?




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1. Ok, occasionally the Lego Group will reduce the price of sets, but examples of this are few and far between.  If you want to find Lego sets on offer, then you need to look elsewhere.  In the UK, John Lewis, Argos and Zavvi are your friends.  They regularly offer discounts, or 3 for 2 deals that can make an overpriced set affordable, and a reasonably priced set a bargain.  Keep an eye on the Brick Fanatics website, who are great at highlighting offers like this.


2. The price that a retailer will buy at can vary.  Bob's General Store, which offers maybe three different Lego sets will almost certainly be paying more for their stock than someone like John Lewis, who will be buying - and selling - tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of Lego sets each year.  That sort of throughput means you can negotiate a better discount.


3. I should point out that these numbers are for illustrative purposes only - I've only got a vague idea of what a major retailer pays for Lego.  It's been a couple of years since I worked for John Lewis and things change rapidly in retail.


4. Exclusions occasionally apply, but by and large, most Lego products qualify for these sort of GWPs.


5. For example, there may be concurrent offers running - spend £50 get A. Spend £75, get B. Spend £200, get C.  But if you spend £200 you don't get just C, but A and B too.  It's nice when that happens.  

Thursday 19 January 2023

"Pocket-sized and pocket-priced space fun!" Review : LEGO Creator 31111 3-in-1 Cyber Drone

As I write, news is just emerging that the Lego Group have decided to abandon the DOTS range.  Launched in March 2020, it seems like another 'Three years and you're done' sort of theme.  It's difficult to tell what the driver behind the decision might be - with relatively simple pieces across the theme, it was unlikely to have been the mostly costly to develop.  No apps, like Vidiyo, no elaborate worlds to create like some more story-driven themes.  Maybe it didn't sell that well.  Or maybe it was only ever intended to be a short-term thing.


These 'specialised' themes do seem to come and go, whereas the more 'back to basics' sort of ideas just continue, keeping the company going (1) and, presumably, allowing the Lego Group to experiment with the more outlandish themes in the hope that one of them proves to be a profit-generating unit shifter like Ninjago.  One of the stalwarts of the Lego portfolio is the Creator 3-in-1 series.  Ranging from just a few pounds to the pinnacle of the current range,  the £114.99, 31109 Pirate Ship, there is something for everyone.  Buildings, ships, cars, animals and much more besides, these sets are great parts packs, and come with - as the name suggests - three different builds to spark the imagination of even the least creative builder.  


That'll be me then.


Thanks to my Brickset Secret Santa, I received a parcel of delightfully rattly things at Christmas, and one of them was 31111 Creator 3-in-1 Cyber Drone.  And this morning I got building...



Image courtesy of Brickset



The Lego Creator, 3-in-1 Cyber Drone retails for an extremely reasonable £8.99 and comes with 113 pieces, including a Cyber Drone Robot minifigure.  He (she? it?) comes with silver legs and torso, featuring the classic Space logo, plus some greebling back and front, white arms and blue hands.  The head is a very cool trans-blue with a single face print and some electronic circuitry printed on the back.  Difficult to tell whether he's a 'goodie' a 'baddie' or just a robot.  It (let's stick with 'it' for the sake of simplicity) doesn't have the friendliest looking face, but with no trace of a Cyberdine Systems logo, I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt and assuming it doesn't intend to overthrow its human creators and enslave them with its plastic fists. (2)






The set comes with a mix of parts that are mostly in the black, bluish-grey and orange colour palette, with a few white and trans-blue elements thrown in too.  There's also a windscreen element (3) which will come in useful for those who like to MOC small planes / spacecraft etc.


Each of the three builds comes with its own instruction manual, so let's kick off with the main build, the Cyber Drone.



Manual for main build - the Cyber Drone


This is a neat little aircraft that takes about 15 mins to build and uses almost all of the parts in the box.  It's a compact, futuristic-looking plane that's eminently swooshable and fairly robust - no loose parts that can get knocked off if you get a little enthusiastic with it.  Understandably, for a model of this size, there's not much in the way of features or functions: the two engines can be rotated, in the manner of a vertical take off and landing sort of craft, like the renowned Hawker Harrier jump jet, and the windscreen tips forward to allow you to place the pilot inside.  And that's about it.








Second up is, according to the Lego website, a "super-fast hoverbike".  



It's a hoverbike - you get to decide how fast it is.


This used maybe two-thirds of the available pieces and I have to say the finished article, which took about ten minutes to make, looks pretty cool.  It reminded me of a cross between a racing kart and the ships that feature in the Wipeout video game series.  Again, no features to speak off - you can adjust the angles of the rear fins, but that's about it - but it doesn't detract from the fun.  For an alternative build, good job, Lego designer, George Gilliatt!







Lastly, in a change from things that fly, we have a mech.  



The Cyber-Mech.  For when you need to stomp!


This comes across like a playful (and more colourful) version of the power loader that Ripley used to fight off the queen in Aliens.  Standing around four inches tall, the legs spin (but don't move - you can't make it walk), while both arms are articulated with ball joints,  The left arm has a hand of sorts while the right arm is, I would imagine, some sort of laser drill.  Again, this model uses about 70 of the 113 parts and takes about ten minutes to construct.







I really liked this set.  The fact that it was a present rather than a purchase was undoubtedly a bonus, but that aside, it's still a great little pack.  All three designs could easily be modded, or enlarged with the addition of your own parts and kids (of all ages) will enjoy putting it together.


So if you're looking for a reward for good behaviour on a Saturday morning trip to the supermarket - or even if you want something for the children - this is a wallet friendly set that has a cool minifigure, plenty of play value and will be a good addition to the parts collection (4) when you've tired of zooming it around the room.





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1. Keep it down at the back, Bionicle fans!


2. Let's hope, anyway.


3. 6244793, Cockpit 2x5x2 w/shaft, fact fans!


4. Or of course you could deconstruct it, put all the parts into a ziploc bag and put it carefully back in its box, like any sane person.