Build Journal: Alien Spiked Tree

I tend to experiment with pieces while sorting.  I'm always looking for new ways to use odd or non-standard size pieces in builds so that they don't end up sitting around in storage.  Any more than normal, that is.  One part I don't really use much is Tires.  I only have a few settings that use vehicles as scenery and I don't build that many vehicle-based Frames.

This started out as a tablescrap I built in July and kept around because it looked cool.  I think the Minifig Claw pieces came from a bunch of Dimensions sets I parted out.  Now, it has sixteen claws and a 37x18R Tire for a total of 17 which means it would take three Hits to destroy.  But, it's  under the Height Minimum for Cover so all it does is impede the progress of Frames without Green dice.





I set it aside because my group isn't meeting right now due to COVID 19 -- also because that's the majority of my Minifig Claw pieces -- and put it in my Terrain Bin.  Besides it being too short for Cover another thing that bothered me was that it was seventeen pieces.  I can be a little OCD at times.  Then, driving home from work the other night, it hit me.  I figured out a way of making it a full three Hits and making it tall enough to function as cover.

A 2x2 Round Brick will fit into the bore of that Tire and have almost enough contact friction to hold it in place.  A 3x3x2 Cone fits nicely under the Tire and brings it far enough off the ground that the top section now counts as Cover.  So now you have a piece of Cover that takes three Hits to bring under the height minimum.  What I was missing in my calculations was that anything underneath that third Brick minimum doesn't really matter.  Once the top section is destroyed it ceases to be Cover.

Size comparison.

Flickr page.

I hope this helps inspire people to look at parts

they have set aside as "unusable" in a new light.