Terrain & Scenery 17

How about some neat pictures to look at for Friday?

Sentient Alien Plant by Ty-Ro.  These would look

fantastic as part of a game on an alien planet.

Nano-Chopper Instructions by GoIPlaysWithLego.  This looks fantastic.

Megalith Temple by legoalbert.  Nanofig scale for this one.

CIRCorp APC "Thunderstorm" by x‿x.  In 7P

scale this would be roughly the size of a box truck.

Alien Flora Grove by TenorPenny.  Great use of color in this one.

Review: 40413 Mindstorms Mini Robots

I received this as a "free" giveaway with purchase a few weekends ago at my local Lego Store.  Maybe at some point it will make it into the standard retail pipeline.

Box.  MSRP is $19.99 for a $0.06 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Parts 1.  Rims, Plates, Tires, Stud Shooters, Technic Axle and Pin

Connector Perpendicular Double Split, Axle Plate, Technic Thick Lift

Arms, Axle 5.5 w/Stop, Technic, Thick L Lift Arm, Bricks, Inverted Slopes,

Technic Fairing Panels, Technic Brick w/Pin Holes, Slopes, Bionicle

Sphere, Projectile Launcher, and Mod. Brick w/Studs on 2 Sides.

Parts 2.  Angled Connectors, Plates, Studless Slopes, Axle/Pin

Connector 3L w/2 Pin  Holes, Tiles, Ball Joint Plates, Corner Plates,

Bar Plates, Axle Plates, Brackets, Technic Double Pinhole Bricks, Clip

Brick, Pinhole Plates, Curved Slopes, Minifig Radio, Axle w/Stop, Pin

Connector 2L w/2 Pins & Center Hole, Axles, and Projectile Arrows.

Parts 3.  1x1 Technic Bricks, Turntable Bases, Hinge Brick Tops, Thick

Liftarm w/Axle & Pinhole, Angled Connectors, Bar Plates, Plates, Tiles,

Pin Connectors, New Headlight Bricks, Clip Plates, Hinge Plates, Hinge

Brick Bases, Axles, Angled Corner Tiles, Corner Tile, Large Cheese

Slope, Inverted Pinhole Plates, Round Tile, and Technic Ball Joints.

Parts 4.  Lightsaber Bar, Turntable Tops, Large Round Jumper, Plates, 

Axle/Pin, Thin Liftarms, Studless Slopes, Tile, Jumper, Pin/Pin

Connector, Axle/Pin Connector, Wand Bars, Round Plates, Hinge

Cylinder, Heart Tiles, Tile Clips, Brackets, Rounded Plates, Axle

Connectors, 1L Pin Connectors, Levers & Bases, and 3L Friction Pins.

Parts 5.  Plates, Tile Clips, Notched Axle, Pin, Friction Pins, Cheese

Slopes, Minifig Bucket Handles, Stud Shooter Triggers, Round Tiles,

1L Pin Connectors, Half Bushings, Round Plates, and Bar Clips.

Build.  Frame and Station.

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+).  While it has a lot of useful parts in Teal, you should be able to make a fair amount of functional builds from a set this big.

Purity: Mega Bloks FVK68 Pokemon Brionne Review

It seems like 5Below has switched to carrying Mega Bloks and other clone brick sets over Lego.  It kinda sucks as they were a good source of polybags but it's also good because we get Mega Bloks sets at an affordable price.

Box.  MSRP was $9.99 for a $0.13 Price per Piece.  I

purchased this at 5Below for $5.00 which is a $0.06 PpP.

Instructions.

Parts 1.  Angled Plates, Half Spheres, Plates, Wedge Plates, Slopes, Round Bricks, Brick, Tiles w/Bar Up, Jumpers, Large Jumper, and 1x3 Slope w/Bar Hole.

Parts 2.  Leaf Canopy, Leaves, Domes, Half Round Plate,

Round Tile, Half Round Double Sided Plate, Half Round

Double Sided Ball Joint Plate, Half Round Ball Joint Plate,

Half Round Plate, Ball Joint Plates, and Ball Joint Sockets.

Parts 3.  Half Domes, Wedge Studless Slopes, 1x1 Domes, Round Double

Sided Studless Plate, Round Tiles, Double Sided Studs, Round Plates,

Connectors (These are like Round Bricks but open at each end with axle holders

inside) Round Plate w/Bar, Bar w/Stop, Bar/Bar Holder, Elbow Bar, and Plates.

Parts 4.  Flippers, Printed Dome, Round Plate w/Bar

Underneath, Double Sided Round Plate, Rubber Flanged

Piece, Tree Trunk Bricks, Round Tooth Plates, and Cone.

Build.  Frame, Pokeball, and 1 Hit piece of Cover.

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's a nice set but I feel like you need two copies to build anything worthwhile.  Score on the 5Below price is +20 (A+).

Review 3: 71361 Super Mario Character Pack

I can't seem to stay away from these things.  I blame Atavism for asking about the Shell Piece on the Discord channel.  :-)

Bag.  MSRP was $3.99 for a $0.?? Price per Piece.  (The bag lists 23 pieces but I count 20.)

Instructions.

Parts.  Shell Piece, 4x4x0.6 w/Reduced Knob Plate, Antenna, Round Bricks, Printed Large Cheese Slope, Large Cheese Slope, Feet Piece, ??, Stickered Tile, Brackets, and 1x1 Round Bricks.

Build.  Frame.

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?  No.  (-5)
Score: -5 (B-).  Same as before, there are some neat pieces and prints but the Price per Piece is horrible.

Non-Human 34

Another lazy day prior to Thanksgiving.

Support Drone WB16 by DevidVII.  This has some great techniques, and disabled downloads.

Mechanic and Utility Bot by Brick Player.  More neat techniques.

Heavy Lift Ornithopter by General Farok.  Based on
the Dune IP but looks like it's the right size for MFZ

Octopus Bot by MorlornEmpire.  This is seriously neat.

Tankigrade by DonutsFTW.  Kinda large,

but who cares when it looks that cool.

Random Mechs 27

Feeling kind of worn out lately, so here's some cool mecha to look at.

Hunters by Pixel Ogre.  I don't usually go for builds mounted

on bases but, the printed pieces add a lot of character to this.

Grasshopper_03 by Mladen Pejic.  This looks

really slick and yet simple at the same time.

ODS.9 Guardian by Steebles 1908.  Really

nice use of stickers and cloth to spice this up.

Mobile Ball mecha rb-80 by Peter Ray.  Not sure if

it's super fiddly or super greebly but, it looks cool.

New Arm by Pixel Ogre.  Nice use of a weird part for the core.

Lego Ideas 8

Let's change pace a little and look at possible cool and useful submissions on Ideas.

Japanese Spider Crab.  Looks like it will have a bunch of joint pieces which are always useful.

Centaur Warrior.  This thing is gigantic, you should be able to make a few Frames and some Cover out of it.

Gas Truck & Crane.  Technic and System parts, a great combo.

Space Race Roller Coaster.  This looks like a fantastic set for terrain.  It probably has some great greebles hidden away too.

I've backed all of these sets.