Review: Forever Clever PR3521-02 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Blue Battle Bike

Forever Clever is back again with another series of sets based on a different intellectual property.

Box.  I paid $5.00 at 5 Below, for a $0.10 Price per Piece.

Instructions & Stickers.

Minifig.

Parts.  Motorcycle Body, 2x4x1.3 Curved Brick, Slopes, Plates,

Tires, Slope w/Cutout, 1x2 Curved Bricks, Panel, Inverted Slope w/

Cutout, Jumpers, Tiles, Hexagonal "Round" Plate, Rims, Taps, Base,

 Lever, Round Brick, Brackets, and Inverted Large Cheese Slope.

  

Build.  Battlebike.  I managed to balance it without any sort of kickstand.

The Questions:

Can you build something -- a frame, station, or starship -- right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Is it below, at, or above the golden ratio?  At.  (0)  (The Golden Ratio is $0.10 per part.)
If you can't build a frame right away, or choose not to, does it have parts you should be able to put into use right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Does it have more than a handful of immediately useful parts?  Yes.  (+5)
Score: +15 (A).  Considering that the minifig and stickers take up a full eleven pieces of the 50 in this set, this is closer to a $0.13 PpA which downgrades the score to a +5 (B+).  Also, since you can't build much beyond modifying the bike from the set -- maybe a Station -- I'm having serious thoughts about bringing the score down even further.

Review: Gundam Converge MS-14Jg Gelgoog Jaeger (Shin Matsunaga Custom) [265]

Let's do a couple of Gundam Converge reviews to finish out the week.  I picked these up the other week when I was shopping in Miniso for junk food.  This set is from the 22nd wave of sets which was released in November of 2021.

Box.  I paid $8.99 at Miniso for this.

Parts.

Disassembled.  The head could be Defense or Spotting. The back vanes could be Melee, Movement, or Spotting. The gun could be Direct Fire or Artillery. The backpack could be Defense or Movement. The arms could be removed for White die damage.

Assembled.

Size comparison.

The Questions:

Is it below, at, or above $10 per Frame?  Below.  (+5)
Is it a good size to use in a game?  Yes.  About the same size as a Chub.  (+5)
How many parts does it have to represent systems?  Five.  (+5)
Does it have enough parts you can remove to represent White Dice damage?  Yes.  (+5)
Score: +20 (A+).  Basically a color swapped version of the prior review, which is good if you want to field two of the same design in the same squad without messing with them in some way.  I will say that the parts fit on this model was not great and I'm hoping that other people don't have the same problem.

Review Gundam Converge MS-14Jg Gelgoog Jaeger [264]

Let's do a couple of Gundam Converge reviews to finish out the week.  I picked these up the other week when I was shopping in Miniso for junk food.  This set is from the 22nd wave of sets which was released in November of 2021.

Box.  I paid $8.99 at Miniso for this.

Parts.

Disassembled.  The head could be Defense or Spotting.  The back vanes could be Melee, Movement, or Spotting.  The gun could be Direct Fire or Artillery.  The backpack could be Defense or Movement.  The arms could be removed for White die damage.

Assembled.

Size Comparison.

The Questions:

Is it below, at, or above $10 per Frame?  Below.  (+5)
Is it a good size to use in a game?  Yes.  About the same size as a Chub.  (+5)
How many parts does it have to represent systems?  Four.  (+5)
Does it have enough parts you can remove to represent White Dice damage?  Yes.  (+5)
Score: +20 (A+).  A possible Soldier build out of the box.

Terrain Workshop: Pirate Palm

I'll try and make this the last tree post for a while.  (That's a lie.  I have a bunch in the pipeline and I keep having more ideas on how to build Lego trees.)  This one is probably the simplest build so far, apart from the initial build technique.  It's also the first one I've named rather than given a number designation.  Flickr Page.

This starts, like TW: Trees 13, with a 2x2 Round Tile w/Hole.  An inverted 1x1x6 Solid Pillar Support goes into that with a Ship's Wheel w/Slotted Pin attached to that.  Four 6x5 Swordleaves w/Clip attach to the Ship's Wheel and that's it.

Six pieces is 1 Hit and it stands 23' tall in 6P scale.  The trunk is 2.5' thick and it's roughly 19' from side to side.  This is probably my most favorite build so far.  It's simple but uses some interesting parts and techniques to represent the idea of a tree in Lego.  I should have a few more of the Ship's Wheel piece around so I'll definitely build more of this design.

Review: 30560 Dots Pineapple Photo Holder & Mini Board Polybag

This is one of the old 2022 polybags.  I found this in a local "Playnow" toy store.  I've been trying to finish this review for months now but other reviews kept popping up or other ideas proved more interesting, so let's get this into the "Done" pile.

Bag.  I paid $6.99 at "Playnow", for a $0.06 Price per Piece.

MSRP is unknown as it was a giveaway in March of 2022.

Instructions.

 Parts 1.  Plates, Half Oval Plates, Quarter Circle Plates, Brackets, Wedge

 Plate, Paper Holder Brick, Quarter Circle Tiles, 5x6 Swordleaves, and Tiles.

Parts 2.  Round Tiles, Tiles, Quarter Circle Tiles, and Plate w/Arm Up. 
 

 Build.  IO Frigates and HVA.

The Questions:

Can you build something -- a frame, station, or starship -- right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Is it below, at, or above the golden ratio?  Below.  (+5)  (The Golden Ratio is $0.10 per part.)
If you can't build a frame right away, or choose not to, does it have parts you should be able to put into use right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Does it have more than a handful of immediately useful parts?  Yes.  (+5)
Score: +20 (A+).  Honestly, this feels like more of a parts pack than a starter pack.  Still full of useful bits though and it's nice to see the older Brackets again along with my favorite part.

Review: 30652 Doctor Strange's Interdimensional Portal Polybag

After that deep dive into terrain building let's take a break and do a review.  We've actually been talking and speculating about this set on the MFZ Discord since it was announced at the start of the year.

Bag.  I paid $4.99 at Walmart, for a $0.11 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Minifig.

Parts.  Quarter Circle Plate, Translucent 4x4 Macaroni Tile, Plates, Rounded

 Plates, Cheese Slopes, Pyramid Tiles, Quarter Circle Tiles, Translucent

 Inkwells, Round Plates, Bracket, Large Cheese Slope, Translucent

Round Bar Handle Plate, Translucent Dishes, Brick, Tile w/Studs,

Translucent Bricks, Headlight Bricks, and Translucent Minifig Head.

  

Build.  Station.  Representational art of a Transit Gate?  An actual portal?

The Questions:

Can you build something -- a frame, station, or starship -- right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Is it below, at, or above the golden ratio?  Above.  (-10)  (The Golden Ratio is $0.10 per part.)
If you can't build a frame right away, or choose not to, does it have parts you should be able to put into use right away?  Yes.  (+5)
Does it have more than a handful of immediately useful parts?  Yes.  (+5)
Score: +5 (B+).  It has some nice pieces but I feel like it needs one more of everything that has an odd amount for it to be really useful.  I already buy two of every polybag anyway but I shouldn't have to.

Terrain Workshop: The 4x4x4 Formula

I had a bit of an epiphany the other morning on the drive to work.  Terrain Workshop: Trees 10 and Terrain Workshop: Trees 11 both feature similar starting points. They each have four base pieces and four arch pieces.  The number of leaves -- and other assorted pieces -- is where they differ.  But, that leads us to the design I built the night before that fateful drive to work.

It starts with four Log Bricks, which then lead to four 1x3x2 Curved

 Top Arches, topped by four Plant Leaves 4x3.  That's twelve

pieces which is 2 Hits.  In 6P scale it would be 12' tall, with

a 5' thick trunk, covering roughly 20 feet from side to side.

This design follows the four (trunk) by four (branches) by four

formula (leaves) of the build in TW: Trees 11.  My epiphany

was the thought that you might be able to plug any number

of parts into that formula to make a decent looking tree.

Let's try it and see.

Four 2x2 Plates, four Inverted 75 deg Slope 2x1x3, and four Round Plates w/3 Leaves.

Four 2x2 Round Plates, four Continuous Bow Arch 1x5x4, and four 6x5 Swordleaves.

Six different parts, two different trees, one design formula.  What's really necessary for this to work is that the combination of the first two pieces gets you above the Height Minimum for Cover -- which is 3 Bricks.  Since it's made of twelve pieces total it will always be 2 Hits to destroy.  And if you build it the right way, it should be Cover until it's destroyed.  You should also be able to use fairly common pieces to generate terrain with this formula.

You don't have to limit yourself to trees, either.  This is a science fiction game after all.  Four 2x1x2 65 deg. Slope, four 2x1x1.3 Curved Slope w/Recessed Stud, and four Plant Leaves 4x3.  I see this as a piece of sandstone with coral fronds growing off it.  I probably should have used a different base color though.

Going back to trees-- and common pieces -- four 3x1 33 deg. Slopes, four

2x2 Bricks, and four 1x6 Plates looks like somewhat of a Cubist nightmare

but it is still viable as tree-shaped Cover made out of fairly common parts.

And, and, and(!) to tie this into an existing table-setting to show this technique can work in multiple ways, let's build something for Alien Planet.  Although that may be cheating a bit because Alien Planet has a pretty open design space.  Anyway.  Four 2x2 Wedges by four 1x1x5 Brick w/Open Stud by Curved Plant Stem w/2 Thorns & 2 Swirls.

To recap; four base pieces, four middle pieces, and four top pieces gets you --

 as long as it's above the Height Minimum -- a 2 Hit piece of Cover.  I hope this

helps people with future terrain designs for MFZ: Rapid Attack.  Flickr Page.

Terrain Workshop: Trees 3 Revisit

After the "Road to Nowhere" game I got a chance to experience my tree designs in action.  With some of the tree designs meant to be bigger, old growth trees, them having the same amount of Hits as other -- smaller -- tree designs doesn't make much sense.  So I took a couple of days afterwards to try and figure out a way to improve them.

I made a different set of changes to this tree design, hence the separate

post.  Well, kind of.  The changes are more apparent in the taller

 version.  Here's the post about the original version for comparison.

I added four 1x2 Plates in Reddish-Brown, attaching them to the side

arches.  I also added two 1x4 Plates in Dark Tan to the top, under

the Double Curved Slopes 4x1x2/3.  This is a total of six new pieces 

which adds 1 Hit, making the new total 3 Hits.  In 6P scale this tree

is still 15' thick and 18' tall.  The leaves cover roughly 40' edge to edge.

The taller version is where I deviate from the original version.  We start with

four Quarter Cylinder 3x3x5 w/2 Arch Tops, linking them with four 1x2 Plates

on the arches.  Then we stack the updated version of the tree on top of that.

We then add in four Plant Leaves 6x5 on the upper set of arches. This is a total

of twelve new pieces, adding 2 Hits, changing the total to 5 Hits.  In 6P scale

this tree is 15' thick and 34' tall.  The leaves cover roughly 50' edge to edge.

Here's a size comparison photo to show the height change in Tree 3.2.

If the Half Round Plate 3x6 w/1x2 Cutout in Reddish-Brown ever

becomes available in more than one set I'll probably revisit this again.

I hope people like these modifications and it helps

with creating your own terrain.  Flickr Page.

Terrain Workshop: Trees 2 & 4 Revisit

After the "Road to Nowhere" game I got a chance to experience my tree designs in action.  With some of the tree designs meant to be bigger, old growth trees, them having the same amount of Hits as other -- smaller -- tree designs doesn't make much sense.  So I took a couple of days afterwards to try and figure out a way to improve them.

The one on the left is the revised version of the build from

Terrain Workshop: Trees 4.  The one on the right is the

revised version of the build from Terrain Workshop: Trees 2.

I added two 2x2 Round Plates, sandwiching the Plant Leaves 6x5

between them, then added four Round Plant Plate 1x1 w/3 Leaves

to the 6x5 Leaves.  This is a total of six new pieces which adds 1 Hit,

making the new total 3 Hits.  In 6P scale it is now 20' tall and 10' thick.

The new Plates w/3 Leaves also add a splash of color to the design.

This update adds two 1x2 Plates under the Curved Slopes 2x2x2/3

and four 1x1 Round Plates w/Flower Edge on the 6x5 Leaves.  Which

makes a total of six new pieces, adding 1 Hit, changing the total to 3

Hits.  The new Flower Edge Plates are used to -- again -- add a splash

of color to the design.  In 6P scale this tree is still 10' thick and 21' tall.

Here's a size comparison photo to show the height change in Tree 4.1

I hope people like these modifications and it helps

with creating your own terrain.  Flickr page.

New Demo Kit

For a period of time I was working on putting together a new kit for demonstrating Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack.  While I was happy with the pieces I had already assembled, I wanted something smaller.  I wanted something that would fit in one tacklebox tray and be easily portable, while still having all the pieces I needed to run demo games.  Eight years ago I put together this one but in the long run it's just too bulky.  I changed to a different one in 2017 for PAX Unplugged that was a little "roll on, roll off" luggage bag.  Better, but I still wanted one I could just grab and go.

This is the newest version on the table at PAXU 2022.

Two years ago I had started building new Frames to feature in this demo kit.  The Havok, Helix, and Hermes frames were all built specifically for it.  I wanted something similar to the core MFZ Frames in looks, but without the old IP. Each set has their own design language yet they all share the same concept -- clearly visible, color-coded Systems.

Havok

Hermes

Helix

I also have two Gundam Converge figures as part of the kit for a fourth squad.  Which allows me to present a non-Lego alternative for units while running demo games.

I also made a Station for this kit.

It has a Ruler too.

I swiped the smaller walls from my old kit and made a few larger ones in the same style.  Retiring my Art Walls was a bummer but I needed modular walls that would fit into the kit.

 The small walls are six pieces which is 1 Hit.

Large walls are twelve pieces which is 2 Hits. 

This is what it looks like all packed away.

I hope this helps people who are thinking about putting together their own Demo Kits.