More Videos

AKA: Revenge of the Crab Droid.

Here are more videos of mecha building instructions for your viewing enjoyment.

Star Wars Crab Droid.  A quick, simple build.  Video quality isn't that great though.

Mech + Instructions #3.  Another build from Captain Hobby.

Custom Lego Crab Droid.  This one has music.  A more complex creation than the first crab droid video.

Lego Mech Armor.  Kinda simplistic.

Lego Crab Droid Tutorial.  More simplistic than the first Crab Droid video.

Terrain & Scenery 4

Here are some microscale builds for your enjoyment.

Skid Steer Loader by František Hajdekr.  This
one's a fun build and it even has instructions.

Nick's Micro Moonbase Module.  Yeah, it's a little large.  But wouldn't

it look awesome sitting on a game table?  Here's the original.

Eden Heights by Nostalgic Bricks.  Once again,
a large build but this could possibly be 7P scale.

Batmobiles by Irwan Prabowo.  C'mon, who wouldn't

want a bunch of Batmobiles on their gaming table?

Micro Hot Rods by Superesc.  These look really
neat.  A lot of character in a small package.

Black Friday 2014 Sales

Black Friday -- the day after Thanksgiving -- is one of the biggest shopping days in the United States.  To help drive sales lots of interesting deals are usually offered.  I'm going to post links to some of them.

Toys'R'Us has 50% off Galaxy Squad sets and Kre-O sets.
Walmart has 10664 Creative Tower for $30.00.
Target has four sets at 40% off.
Kmart has four sets at 40% off and all City and Friends sets are on sale.  Also, BOGO50% Mega Bloks.  And, last but not least, there are four sets -- Chima and Superhero -- on sale.

Some stores are also starting the sales early.  I've heard rumors of TRU starting the sale early for Rewards members.  Walmart also has a pre-Black Friday sale.

Good hunting out there.

Review: 30264 Frax's Phoenix Flyer Polybag

Between Hallowe'en and Christmas, a fair amount of polybags tend to be released onto the retail market.

Bag.  I purchased this for $3.99 at Target.  It has 32 pieces.  Price per Piece is $0.13, which is not that great.

Instructions.

Minifig.  I managed to incorporate some of these parts into the build.

Parts.  That's an interesting

spread of colors and pieces.

There just needs to be more.

Build.  IO Frigate.  I like this one.  It's evocative.




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: B- (-5).  Again, when a Star Wars set has a better Price Per Piece ratio, then you're in trouble.

Review: 30262 Gorzan's Walker Polybag

Between Hallowe'en and Christmas, a fair amount of polybags tend to be released onto the retail market.

Bag.  I purchased this for $3.99 at Toys'R'Us.  It has 34 pieces.  Price per Piece is $0.12, which is not that great.

Instructions.

Minifig.  I tried to use this in the build
but I couldn't figure out how to do so.

Parts.  This is a weird mish-mash of parts and colors.

Modified Plate W/Bar, Space Torch, Lever& Base, and

Mechanical Arm are all some of the useful pieces

in this set.  Only the quantities are rather limited.

Build.  Stompy.  I had fun building this.  MFZ Stats: 2Rd/2B/1Y/2W+SSR.

The Questions:
Can you build a frame, or frames, 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: B- (-5).  When a Star Wars set has a better Price Per Piece ratio, then you're in trouble.

Review: 30247 ARC-170 Starfighter Polybag

Between Hallowe'en and Christmas, a fair amount of polybags tend to be released onto the retail market.

Bag.  I purchased this for $3.99 at Toys'R'Us.  It has 54 pieces.  Price per Piece is $0.8, which is really good for a licensed set.

Instructions.

Parts.  Lots of those little fiddly bits we love.  1x1 Tiles, 1x1
Round  Plates, 1x1 Fat Round Bricks, Antenna, Lever & Base,
Lampholders, 1x2 Modified Plate w/Bar (open ends), and Jumper
Plates are just some of the good parts I see.










Builds.  I managed to get two right out of the gate.  The
first is a Vic Viper-ish Frigate for IO.  The second is also a
Frigate for IO but this looks more like a generic starfighter.

The Questions:
Can you build a frame, or frames, right away?  Yes.
Out of the bag you can make two IO Frigates.  (+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: A+ (+20).  Depending on how long this one sticks around, we may have a winner here.

Purity: 91740 Mega Bloks Hot Wheels Twinduction Review

I bought a few of these Mega Bloks Hot Wheels sets on Clearance right after Hallowe'en.  I wasn't expecting them to be marked down but I had been wondering about them and grabbed them when I saw the price.

Can.  MSRP is $9.99 for 63 pieces.  Price per Piece is $0.16, which is
not good.  The can is fairly sturdy and re-usable which I always like.

Instructions.

Parts 1.  The mono-body, one more time.

Parts 2.  Those exhaust vents look interesting.

Parts 3.  Those exhaust pipes will make good weapons or sensor
probes.  the Black 1x4 Modified Plate will be good for greebling.

Parts 4.  there are some interesting Modified Bricks and

Tiles in this set of parts, along with regular Plates and Tiles.

It should be fun to experiment with those "flame" Tiles.

Build.  Another IO Frigate.

The Questions:

Can you build a frame, or frames, right away?  Yes.  Another cop-out IO Frigate.  :-)  (+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, but not very many.  (+5)
Does it have more than a handful of immediately useful parts?  No.  (-5)
Score: B- (-5).  Like most licensed sets, this one gets hamstrung by the cost.  Getting it on Clearance like I did raises the score to a A-.

Purity: 91720 Mega Bloks Hot Wheels Fast Fish Review

I bought a few of these Mega Bloks Hot Wheels sets on Clearance right after Hallowe'en.  I wasn't expecting them to be marked down but I had been wondering about them and grabbed them when I saw the price.

Can.  MSRP is $9,99 for 62 pieces.  Price per Piece is $0.16, which is
not good.  The can is fairly sturdy and re-usable which I always like.

Instructions.

Parts 1.  Another mono-body piece.  I'm guessing that all the sets
of this size are going to be constructed around one of these.

Parts 2.  Um.  Those body sections might make

for a base of a Frame or IO ship, but I can't

figure out how to use them at the moment.

Parts 3.  A whole bunch of Plates and Tiles.  Those translucent
black pieces in the lower left corner are actually 1x2 Studless
Slopes w/Angled Ends.  There's also 1x2 and 2x1 Cheese
Slopes.  All these parts should be good for greebling.

Parts 4.  Wheels, Plates, an old school style 1x4 Hinge

Plate, and that molded steering wheel piece.

The Questions:
Can you build a frame, or frames, right away?  No.  (-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, but not very many.  (+5)
Does it have more than a handful of immediately useful parts?  No.  (-5)
Score: C (-15).  Like most licensed sets, this one gets hamstrung by the cost.  Getting it on Clearance like I did raises the score to a B.

Purity: 91719 Mega Bloks Hot Wheels Bad To The Blade Set Review

Well, that is a mouthful of a title.  I bought a few of these Mega Bloks Hot Wheels sets on Clearance right after Hallowe'en.  I wasn't expecting them to be marked down but I had been wondering about them and grabbed them when I saw the price.

Can.  MSRP is $9,99 for 51 pieces.  Price per Piece is $0.20, which is not good.  The can is fairly sturdy and re-usable which I always like.

Instructions.

Parts 1.  When I looked at the "actual size" picture on the side of the can and the relatively low piece count, this is what I feared.

Parts 2.  Parts like this are great for large scale greebling, but they drive up the cost of the set.

Parts 3.  Now we get to the small pieces microscale builders really like.  Those fin tiles are pretty cool as are the 1x1 brackets.  The double female plate is really neat.

Parts 4.  I really love those

angled tailplane/wing pieces.

Creations.  Another IO Frigate.  This
one's really swooshable though.

HVA.

The Questions:
Can you build a frame, or frames, right away?  Yes.
I put together an IO Frigate and HVA.  (+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, but not very many.  (+5)
Does it have more than a handful of immediately useful parts?  No.  (-5)
Score: B- (-5).  Like most licensed sets, this one gets hamstrung by the cost.  Getting it on Clearance like I did raises the score to a B+.

Spotlight: Cole Blaq

This is a bit of a variation on my usual Spotlight post.  I'm just going to talk about some of Cole's recent creations.  All of these use a majority of the metallic shaded Lego pieces so therefore look very robotic in nature.  I was tempted to post them in numerical order, but I'm going to stick with chronological order.  Unfortunately he's disabled downloads so the pictures in this post are going to be a bit different than usual.

  Titan FX.05.  The start of this interesting series of builds.  What catches my eye is the inverted samurai helmet at the front of the torso.

 Titan FX.04.  A variant on the all popular Tachikoma design.

Titan FX.02.  The asymmetrical nature of the body makes this one a little more interesting than the others to me.

 Titan FX.03.  I know that is a collection of guns on the back but, this one looks like a repair bot to me.

Titan FX.06.  The sphere in the middle of the torso makes this one look like a spy bot.

  Titan FX.01.  This one's a slight bit different from the rest, using 3rd party parts and off color parts.  And maybe a bit more threatening.

 All in all a very interesting set of builds.

Cliques, Outside Influences, and MFZ

There was a bit of a trainwreck on the MFZ FaceBook page yesterday after someone posted something that was marginally on-topic at best and insulting at worst.  The discussion over its "worthiness" broke down pretty quickly and the post was removed.  We even lost a few members from the FB group over this.  One of the things that's coming out of that kerfuffle is a discussion of what is an applicable inspiration to share with the community.

People have a habit of posting things to the FB group that they consider "on topic" by the dint that they include Lego.  A lot of times these aren't really on topic and would really be better suited to posting their own personal FB feeds.  Just because something is made of Lego doesn't automatically make it relevant to MFZ.  There also seems to be an idea that building techniques for larger scales can be used at the smaller scales that dominate MFZ.

This ties into another issue.  There's always been a bit of backlash on the multiple MFZ social media sites about the different scales people build at for MFZ.  While I've never actually seen a battle report on the Hangar for a minifig scale MFZ game, there is a small section of the MFZ community that likes building at that scale.  They tend to be found in the Flickr group and are vocal on the subReddit.  Also, there is a larger portion of the community that likes building in 4P scale.  I'm a member of the second but not the first.

There's usually some shouting, "That's not in scale!" whenever someone posts a creation that isn't expressly labeled as being 7p scale.  I'm as guilty of this as the next person.  There's some overlap with the Size Creep Argument in this as well.

As much as you, I, or anyone may feel that the minifig scale builders are people from outside the MFZ community looking for hits, +1s, upvotes, etc., we should still give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's not be overly exclusionary, as some other gaming communities may be, and give these people a chance to fall in love with this game the way we have.

And, let's be a little more careful about what gets posted to the FaceBook group.  since there's no "safety valve" over there the focus has to be little tighter on exactly what is relevant.

Non-Human 15

I'm feeling a little lazy after this weekend.

Orange Walker by Chris Maddison.  Why have
I not blogged about this yet?  It's adorable.

CK-7.4 by Genghis Don.  There's some great use of grey
and silver pieces to present a unified look with this mech.

Damn...Steps by Jesper Girl.  I suppose at some point
I would have to blog about Lego-built Daleks.  :-)

Cerberus by Max.  Another unfolding mecha,

similar to Boxbot or Pumpkin-bot.

Dronex by (FLAVIO).  The color really pops in this one.