Month: April 2012

Exactly a year ago, I posted a photo of my three LEGO Death Stars. Today, I can share a photo of the fourth. How can I justify all of these? Well, according to Wookieepedia, there were at least 4 death stars in existence at one point or another.

So maybe the answer of how many LEGO Death Stars is too many is: one more than I have at the moment.
🙂

I managed to pick up 5 more LEGO Shadow ARF Troopers to add to my collection. I considered grabbing more, but somehow, this seemed a “reasonable” number to buy.

New arrivals: I had placed this order before the Toys R Us deal I bumped into this week. I have an excessive amount of battle packs now!

I finally picked up LEGO Fairytale and Historic Minifigure Set #9349, 20% off at Amazon. Something about this set seems really unique, and at around $2 per minifig, a great deal. I’ll likely keep it boxed for now, so no full review:

I made a quick stop into the Rockefeller Center LEGO Store this week to check to see how their stock of Marvel Avengers sets was faring. Here is what I found:

The main entrance to the store:

The large windows that look out on Rockefeller Center:

Rockefeller Center:

It was very crowded:

Tons of people:

Technic sets:

Lots of Star Wars and Cars:

Still a sliver of Pirates of the Caribbean sets:

I am always amazed that they offer three huge Star Wars sets for sale at once. That Death Star has been around forever, and still very popular:

The new Marvel Super Heroes Avengers sets. Still a bunch in stock:

Ninjago, with plenty of red boxes:

City:

More City, with a lone Alien Conquest set on the bottom right:

“Other” LEGO stuff:

Some interesting pieces on the pick a brick wall, including dark tan tiles:

Very useful dark gray pieces:

Black tiles:

More dark gray:

Trans clear cheese slopes:

Dark gray 1×1 bricks

For most of March, Toys R Us seemed to be running a Buy One, Get One 50% Off sale. I was able to grab a few sets in the brief moments they were actually in stock on Toys R Us’ website.

I added two more Pet Shops to my collection. This is such a useful set – I certainly imagine a row of brownstones in my modular town, and can modify the Pet Shop itself so that it can represent different stores.

I finally got the Volkswagen T1 Camper Van at a good price too. Looking forward to building this set. I had picked up the VW Beetle set a few months back too.

And I only recently took notice of the Shuttle Expedition set 10231. With the space shuttle program now done with, I assume this is the last Shuttle set we will see. I had to add one to my collection when I found it at such a good discount.

Here is a photo of each set:

Here is my haul from Toys R Us this week, where I found good prices on some sets I really wanted. I grabbed two each of the three lowest priced Super Heroes Avengers sets (one is not seen in the photo because I had built it already), plus loaded up on more Star Wars battle packs for army building.

Now, to find the time to open them all!

Here is the second set in the new LEGO Marvel line that I was able to get my hands on, #6865 Captain America’s Avenging Cycle. It’s a small set, priced like a battle pack at $12.99 with 72 pieces. The main features are the minifigs and motorcycle.

Let’s take a look:

The box, with the Super Heroes theme:

Contents of the box: 2 bags, instruction booklet, sticker sheet, and frame to the motorcycle:

Some “gold” LEGO pieces in this set. To me, they always feel a bit cheap, especially those long thing pieces. Bendy plastic feels cheap.

I am NOT a fan of stickers on LEGO. I don’t apply these:

The real (and only) highlight of the set for me: the Captain America minifig. He came out really nice, I like how LEGO went with a darker blue for the pieces. The shield is really nice – that makes the figure extra special. Overall – pretty impressive.

The back of the minifig. LEGO even went through the trouble of doing one line of printing on the back of his head:

I am unfamiliar with these characters (because I haven’t seen the movie), and when I looked them up, I can see why. They are described as: “Alien General” and “Alien Foot Soldier.” Gee – great character names there, I can already tell they won’t win in the movie with names like that . The printing on them is kind of cool, as is the gold color to their head. It is impressive how good LEGO has gotten with this. But… these don’t seem like very interesting characters, making them forgettable in such a small set.

Back printing, including back of head printing:

Captain America’s cycle:

The cycle has that large red frame on it – honestly – this looks like a Playmobil cycle to me. I am not a fan of these huge molded LEGO pieces. But… it’s a motorcycle, so it’s useful:

The entire set. Maybe I need to see the movie to find most of this compelling, but it seems entirely forgettable for me, except for the Captain America minifig:

The remainder of the set, an alien vehicle and cannon:

Overall: if this is the only way to get Captain America, then the set is worth the price for that alone. But beyond that, unless these aliens are SUPER compelling in the movie, my gut is this is going to be one of the less popular sets. When you look at Wolverine’s Chopper Showdown which I reviewed recently, you see how much more compelling it is to have three cool (and known) characters in a single set.

LEGO Marvel Avengers sets arrived at Toys R Us. A look at the endcap display, which still has the Ninjago banner above it. Also funny that they paired it with Atlantis sets:

Some of the pricing – always with the TRU markup:

Hulk’s Helicarrier Breakout:

Quinjet Aerial Battle:

The other endcap, City sets:

A center display packed with Star Wars sets:

They are still trying to unload series 5 collectible minifigs:

And they still have Harry Potter, Alien Conquest and Prince of Persia sets:

Some DC Super Heroes sets:

TIE Fighter anyone?

A lone Pharoah’s Quest set:

Very few Ninjago sets in stock, likely wiped out from several weeks of Buy-One-Get-One 50% Off sales. A couple red box sets too:

City:

City:

I’m going to start taking photos of the DUPLO stuff too:

More DUPLO:

I was shocked at how badly placed the Friends line is. Not in the “girls” section of the store, and at the tail end of the LEGO section, next to DUPLO. I bet if these shelves were more prominently placed, they would be half empty:

I was excited to pick up the first wave of Marvel Super Heroes sets from LEGO. Here is my review of set #6866, Wolverine’s Chopper Showdown.

A small set, with $200 pieces, priced at $20 with 3 minifigs. Of the smaller Marvel sets, this one has the best selection of minifigs – three very cool characters.

Here is what you get in the box:

Lots of dark red, gray and black:

A lot of dark red, one of my favorite colors for LEGO bricks, including a whole bunch of cheese slopes. Here is just a selection:

For a set that is supposed to be put together by 6 year olds, I was surprised this page didn’t show an inventory of the pieces needed to make the motorcycle:

Whereas another page was devoted entirely to placing one basic brick:

Here is the finished helicopter:

Somehow, it looks better in person than in photos.

Not an amazing design, but it gets the job done:

Magneto’s helmet, likely made in China or Mexico:

Magneto, sans cape. Looks good overall, the helmet came out really nice:

Back printing for Magneto:

Magneto has a double-sided face:

Wolverine’s motorcycle. A nice design:

Wolverine came out nice – the hair is comical, but accurate. The costume came out well, and the claws are very cleverly done:

Back printing, with his face mask pulled back like a hoodie:

Double sided face:

Deadpool looks awesome. Great job with the printing:

The swords look great:

Mega gun:

Overall a nice set for $20, with great minifigs and lots of playability: