One of the ongoing debates in the MFZ community is the merit of buying sets for parts versus targeted buying of parts via Bricklink/owl, etc.
Basic sets are a good way to build up a supply of bricks, basic or
otherwise. That's why I recommend them. It may be a slow way to build
up the specialty bricks, especially for people new to the game, but it
pays off in the long run. You get the parts you need plus others that you will use later. Frames, terrain, parts for other frames, you're building a stockpile.
Bricklink is a good way to acquire the bricks you need right now. You get what you need and no more. So while you may get out of the gate faster you will have a limited number of parts to draw from later.
Either way, you acquire Lego and you start playing MFZ. Which is the reason why you're doing this in the first place. :-)
Having recently built up my collection from scratch using both sets and Bricklink, I feel like the latter is almost always the way to go. Looking through my Bricklink orders, I found that out of the thirteen orders I've placed through Bricklink, eleven of them came up well below the golden ratio with shipping included in the overall price. In these cases, I received exactly the pieces that I wanted, and nothing that I didn't. When investing in sets, I've noticed that I often end up with fair percentage of pieces that aren't particularly useful to building MF0 frames.
ReplyDeleteThere are, of course, some notable exceptions, like most polybags, which typically are built from parts that are all useful for frame building, or when you can get certain kits at a deep discount where the percentage of useful parts is more easily swallowed since you're purchasing the set on the favorable end of the golden ratio.
If you want to build only frames and you want to do it in a hurry, targeted buying is the way to go. If you want to build a stockpile of parts for frames, stations, and terrain, sets will be the better option. More often than not, a part you think you don't want today will turn into something useful tomorrow.
Delete