The Yearly Look Back, 2017 Edition

Let's take a look back at the past year. 

I'm up five posts from last year, still under my high of 176 from 2015 but higher than any other previous year.  I'm holding my "slightly more than three posts per week" average for the fourth year in a row.  I'm also closing in on 1,000 posts.  Which, going by my monthly averages, should be in the middle of July 2018.

The Central MA gaming group continued to meet this year.  We managed eight games together, which is more than previous years.  I'd like to return to a public presence in 2018 for the group, since most of the games this year were held at my house.  At some point I'd like to implement my "Game Store Grand Tour" plan and cycle through several game stores to get us in front of more people.

I managed 94 reviews this year; 4 clone bricks, 6 Kre-O, 12 non-building block, 12 Mega Bloks, and 60 Lego.  That comes out to an average of 7.83 per month.  Which is an decrease of 0.42 reviews per month.

I'm well past 700K views, which is roughly another 100K views since last year.  Thank you to everyone for that.  My Flickr stream is over 2.2 million views which I must thank everyone for as well.

I got to attend PAX East again, finally met Dark Clouds Blogs, and we had our Minifig Scale MFZ Game.  I also got to attend PAX Unplugged which was a huge success.  I got to meet more great MoF0s, see some old friends, hopefully make new ones, and play a fun game.  

See you next year!

Purity: Mega Bloks FFJ93 Pokeball Ekans Review

Let's do another Pokeball set review.

Box.  MSRP is $6.99 for a $0.30 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Parts 1.  Printed head piece.

Parts 2.  All those Ball Joints!

Build.

Size Comparison.

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-).  Not sure it's a table ready Frame out of the box, but it's a good place to start.

Review: 40206 Santa

Happy Boxing Day!  I hope that everyone had a merry Christmas or whichever holiday you choose to celebrate.  I also hope that you celebrated it with your family or whomever you preferred to be celebrating it with.

This is a Christmas set that dates back to 2016.  I picked it up in the Seasonal section of Stop'n'Shop.  Apparently it is available at other locations.

Box.  I paid $11.99 which gets us a $0.08 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Parts 1.  Bricks, Plates, and Slopes.

Parts 2.  Plates, Slopes, Modified Bricks, Ball Joints, Tiles, Modified Plates, and a Bracket.

Parts 3.  Plates, Tiles, Slopes, Lampholders, Clip Plates, and white Flame Pieces.

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+).  A decent enough set but since it's old and seasonal I don't think there's a good chance of picking one up..

Review: 10401 What is at the End of the Rainbow?

This set is from the new "Building Bigger Thinking" line.

Box.  I paid $4.99 for this at Toys'R'Us which yields a $0.06 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Parts 1.  Some average stuff here except for the Light Blue
2x2 Mod. Brick and the 60th Anniversary Printed Tile.

Parts 2.  Several different shades of blue.  Plates, Tiles, Slopes, Unicorn Horns, a Unikitty Tail, plenty of interesting things.

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 this has a decent parts selection I feel it's more of a color splash set instead of a core build one.

Purity: Mega Bloks FFJ94 Pokeball Paras Review

I'd normally avoid a set like this but I like the color and the parts.

Box.  MSRP is $6.99 for a $0.26 Price per Piece.

Instructions.

Container.

Parts 1.  Those Claws are nice.

Parts 2.  Those Ball Joint Plates aren't
compatible with Lego ones, but they
are double sided.  The Pins are nice too.

Build.  I figure it's a Brawler.

Size Comparison.

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-).  Not a great score but it looks like a table ready Frame out of the box.

Sales Alert

Six days to go!

Target is running a 20% off select Lego sets sale this week.  At this rate the Lego aisle will be empty before Christmas.

Toys'R'Us has some deep deals, you just have to search for them.  I'm also not sure if they're online only.

Looks like Kohls has some things on sale too.

Walmart has some good pricing too but be aware, the stores I've been in have been hit pretty hard.

Good hunting!

Non-Human 28

Feeling lazy again after a busy weekend.  Feast your eyes on these.

Prototype Recon Walker by Gus Indo.  Short and squat and tough looking.

BlackTron Special Forces Heavily Armed Turtle by ~Brick.  Very hot.

Turf Troop Support by rockst34dy.  I like the color blocking on this one.

ESC Light Armor Support by superesc.  Another build with

a mailbox as the core but, this one is a chicken walker.

ED-209 4 U by Grantmasters.  A great build
with a parts picture and a partial breakdown.

Random Mechs 21

I'm feeling a little wiped out and lazy, so here's a picture post for your Friday enjoyment.

Modulex Drone by Gamabomb.  Super fiddly, but I like the way it looks.

Cyclops 010 by kidthor.  Full of interesting techniques and it has a cool look.

Mech by Marc Reid.  The highlights
on this one really make it stand out.

Lockon Ravager by Vitor Faria. 

Oh yeah, completely badass.

Terrain troopers - DKT7 "Drones" by Devid VII.  Wicked

fiddly, but cool looking.  Downloads are disabled.

Double Set Challenge, Revisit 4

Here we go for Round 4.  This edition starts with Creator Turtle and the Go Kart Racer polybags.

Here's both packages.

Build.  A Frame (2Rd+d8/1G/1Y) and Station.

Here's the leftover parts.

At $2.99 and $3.99 respectively, that's roughly $7.00 for a Frame and a Station.  Extrapolating that out, it's $21.00 for a Defender size Squad (3 units), $35.00 for an Attacker (5 units), and $49.00 for a Primary Attacker squad (7 units).  You also have plenty of leftover parts to convert into SSRs or other Attachments.

The next set of polybags I'm experimenting with is the Hot Rod and the Ninjago Airboat polybags.

Here's both packages.

Here's a Frame  (2Rd+d8/2Y) and a Station.

Here's the leftover parts.

At $3.99 and $3.49 respectively, that's roughly $7.50 for a Frame and a Station.  Extrapolating that out, it's $22.50 for a Defender size Squad (3 units), $37.50 for an Attacker (5 units), and $52.50 for a Primary Attacker squad (7 units).  You also have plenty of leftover parts to convert into SSRs or other Attachments.

Once again, all four of these sets are currently available in stores.

Hopefully this post gives people ideas for new creations.

Sales Alert

Fourteen days left 'til Boxing Day!  Here's a few deals I scrounged from the net.

Target has select City, Friends, Duplo, and Creator sets on sale at 20% off.

Select Lego sets 30% off at Toys'R'Us this week.

Barnes & Noble has 30% off select Lego Star Wars sets for today only.

Good hunting.

Demo Kit Starter Set

So with Pax Unplugged happening a little over three weeks ago, talk of Starter Kits, sources for parts, and other such talk ramped up in frequency again.  This led to me thinking a bit about the topic and I came up with an idea, a Starter Demo Kit.  What do I mean?  a set made so you can run demonstrations of the game.  Eight Frames -- four sets of teams of two -- four small walls, four large walls, a Station, a Ruler, and enough dice to play.  It would also be a group starter kit, allowing a group of friends to start playing right out of the game.  It could also -- possibly -- act as a starting point for someone wanting to  build a squad.

This is the Frame design I'm going to use, Soren's Conscript.  They won't be in those exact colors, but the Attachments will be the same.

These are what the

walls would be like.

This is a quick mock-up of the Station.

Here's a group picture,

along with a Ruler.

Keep in mind these are all mock-ups and not the final items.

Now, this isn't going to be cheap.  I'll be sourcing all the parts from Lego Pick-A-Brick so I won't be able to look for the cheapest option.  Why?  Because it's a single source and I don't have the time to invest in looking through individual Bricklink stores.  Right now the math is putting this at $150 USD and that's before I factor Shipping costs.

So what does everyone think?  Yes?  No?  Special Snowflake?  Thoughts?  Criticism?  I'm going to put at least one of these together just to see if it can be done and what costs and lead times are like.  The final goal is to sell these at PAX East if there's any interest at all.

Review: 70629 Ninjago Movie Piranha Attack

This is outside my piece count limitation for Lego reviews but it's another new for 2018 set and it looks like it has some good colors and parts so I'm gonna give it a shot.

Box.  MSRP is $19.99 for a $0.09 Price per Piece.

Instructions & Stickers.

Minifigs.

Parts 1.  The Large Round Jumpers are neat, as are the Bar Bar Holders.

Parts 2.  The Bracket and the
Car Hoods are fun pieces.

Parts 3.  Some large Sand Blue pieces
here.  The 2x2 Round Bricks w/Pin
Holes are cool.  As is the Offset 1x4.

Parts 4.  More Sand Blue.  Rocket
Fins, Technic Bits, and 2x2
Tiles w/Center Hole are good.

Parts 5.  Apollo Studs, Large Round
Jumpers, Inverted Studless Slopes,
Barraki Eyes, and more Sand Blue.

Build.  A quick Frame and two,
one Hit pieces 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?  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+).  I'm sure a better builder could wring something more interesting from this set.