Review: 41552 Mixels Berp

Here's the final Munchos Tribe review.

Bag.  MSRP is $4.99 for a $0.07 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Parts.  Plenty of Purple and Black.  Those Cherry pieces are going to be annoying to work with.  The Black Technic, Pin Connector Round w/4 Clips  jumps right out at me.  That will be the hips for a quad frame.  Everything else is fairly standard.

Build.  I went tripod instead of quad despite the piece I used for the hips.  I used the basket as a giant radar dish for 1Y.

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+).  Another max score and the set has some interesting parts.

Review: 41551 Mixels Snax

Continuing on with the Munchos Tribe.

Bag.  MSRP is $4.99 for a $0.10 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Parts.  More Lavender in this set than Purple.  A few Clip Plates, Bar Plates, Slopes, Brackets and Ball Joints.  Other than that, not much in the way of fun stuff.

Build.  I had a little fun with this 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?  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).  Not a bad score and the set has some interesting parts.

Review: 41553 Mixels Vaka-Waka

Let's start out the Munchos Tribe of the Series 6 Mixels.

Bag.  MSRP is $4.99 for a $0.07 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Parts.  Plenty of Slopes and Plates, a few Ball Joints, Brackets, and Bricks, some Grille Tiles, Clip Plates, and Bar Plates, A Large Jumper, a couple of Hinge Bricks, Headlight Bricks, and 1x2 Bricks w/Studs on side.

Build.  This is actually the second build I came up

with for this review.  It's more technically 

interesting, but doesn't look as good.

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+).  Not a bad set, but I think more of a parts kit.

Good Sets for Parts 11

Now that I've finally received my January 2016 Lego catalog, let's take a look through it.

70327 The King's Mech.  375 Pieces for $29.99.  Plenty of interesting pieces in Blue, Dark Blue, and Light and Dark Bley.

42048 Race Kart.  345 Pieces for $29.99.  Tons of useful Technic bits plus parts in Purple and Orange.

76048 Iron Skull Sub Attack.  335 Pieces for $29.99.  Affordable superhero sets are always something to talk about.

31047 Propeller Plane.  230 Pieces for $19.99.

31046 Fast Car.  222 Pieces for $19.99.

31044 Park Animals.  202 Pieces for $14.99.  $0.07 Price per Piece.

31045 Ocean Explorer.  213 Pieces for $14.99.  A $0.07 Price per Piece .  Creator sets are usually a good choice when it comes to this sort of thing.

71302 Akida Creature of Water.  120 Pieces for $9.99.  It's rare for a Bionicle set to be affordable.  This one has a good selection of the parts we like.

60118 Garbage Truck.  248 Pieces for $19.99.  $0.08 Price per Piece, which for a City set is astounding.

41116 Olivia's Exploration Car.  185 Pieces for $14.99.  Friends sets always have interesting colors.

No More Frames!

Dark Cloud Blogs posted last week on the MFZ Facebook page and the G+ group about wanting to see more Stations, HVAs, and Terrain from the MoF0 community.  He even came up with some new hashtags for this purpose; #MF0station, #MF0HVA, and #MF0cover.  So of course I had to jump on this bandwagon.

As a community we  put a lot of emphasis on Frame design and construction.  I've written about this in the past, and I'm as guilty of this as anyone else.  Of my last sixteen pictures on Flickr, only two were of Stations.  But, honestly, the concern for an established MoF0 or group of MoF0s should be how good the game table looks.  You already know your Frames are awesome, keep moving forward.  I've written about this too.  You want to attract more people to the game?  Have a rockin' table full of neat looking terrain.

This is something I've been trying to work on myself.  Recently I've started building on more interesting wall segments for Demo Games.












I've also experimented with some Alien Tree designs
to go along with the Sci-Fi Outpost terrain.  I have
another tree design I haven't taken pictures of yet.


The point of all this?  Stretch yourself as a builder.  Make some terrain more interesting than simple walls.  The rest of the players will thank you for it and bystanders will comment on it.  Let's get another hashtag trending, #awesomeMF0table.

Purity: Mega Bloks CNF52 Minions Scooter Escape Review

I've been interested in this for a while but the price has never been right.  I finally bought it for $5.98 on Clearance.

Box.  MSRP is $9.99 for a Price per Piece of $0.26.  Ugh.

Instructions.

Minion-fig?  :-)  This one comes pre-assembled.

Parts 1.  That 1x2 Tile w/Vertical Bar is interesting, as is the 1x1 Trans-Clear Round Tile, the tiny Bar Clip, the 1x1 "Apollo" Round Plates, the "Short Bar", and the Bar Connector (Black piece, center top).

Parts 2.  I really like the Roundels with the Union Jack printed on them.

Parts 3.  That 1x3 "Jumper" plate is really interesting.  As is the "seat" for the scooter that has a two studs and a Horizontal Clip on it.  The piece that hold the front wheel of the scooter might make for an interesting foot for  mecha.

Build.  I tried to make something but all I came up with was three crummy Stations.  I might have been able to make a better missile launcher Station if I spent more time working on it.


The Questions:
Can you build something -- a frame, station, or starship -- right away?  Yes, sort of.  (+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-).  There's nothing to recommend this set.  I only bought it for the Union Jack pieces.

Ijad Lexicon

This is something I've compiled over many trips through the rulebook.

Ahu = <noun> God Place, lit. “Breath/Word Place”.

Auah Auijadé = <phrase> "All the people's words" or "Ijad words".

Auchiejh = <noun> Dagger.

Aushad = <noun> Torrent.

Bhadal = <noun> Community, Self Determination.

Boleh = <noun> An animal.

Eshaku Ghanatehé = <phrase> Eshaku's Ghanat.

Ghanateh = <noun> Four legged animal.

Ijad = <noun> People.

Ojebed = <noun> Gust.

Puketeh = <noun> Tiny (1 meter max. length), stalking, predatory animal.  Has four limbs.

Uhmetwan = <noun> An animal.

Ujekeh = <noun> An aquatic creature.

Utechteh = <noun> Migratory animal, livestock.

If I've missed anything please feel free to let me know.

Random Mechs 17

It's Friday and I'm feeling lazy.  Enjoy some random mecha.

"Dikke Dennis" by sjefke de kok.  I see some interesting techniques here.

Rn-04 Getreu II by FateHeart.  This is a fantastic

build and of course downloads are disabled.

SK7 "Eagle" by SenSeiSei.  I like the way this looks but

I'm unsure of how well it would hold up in a game.

Mitsubishi Arm Suit [Type 20] by .Tromas  Despite being made with Hero Factory Ball

joints, this looks like it might be in scale with MFZ.  Another disabled download.

AxxU Series Mechs by Colin.  A series of three mechs with
different armaments and slightly different upper torsos.

Review: 30285 Tiger Polybag

Available at Toys'R'Us.

Bag.  MSRP is $3.99 for a $0.06 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Parts.  Plenty of Orange.  Also plenty of Plates, Slopes, and 1x1 Technic Bricks.  A few Ball Joints, Friction Pins, Clip Plates, Barbs, New Hedlights, and one Jumper.

Build.  A small frame about 4P

scale, 2Rd/2Rh/1B/1Y/2W.

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+).  A fun set with plenty of parts.

Review: 30349 Sports Car Polybag

This is currently available in Target in the Seasonal (Valentine's Day) section.

Bag.  MSRP is $3.99 for a $0.09 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Minifig.

Parts.  That Frame part in the upper right corner just ruins this set for me.  The Motor Brick is nice as are the Mudguard Tiles and the 1x1 trans-color Round Tiles.  I've been needing one of those 2x2 Studless Slopes for a while so that really helps too.  Wheels and Rims are never really useful, but there are plenty of Plates, Tiles, and Slopes that are.

Build.  I managed a small IO Frigate.  2Ra/1B/1Y/1G/2W.

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?  No.  (-5)
Score: +10 (A-).  Enh.  A parts pack at best.