I love a good spaceship. I love LEGO Spaceships more. With the first manned Artemis ship set to fly to the moon any day now [Update: delayed until March 2026] we are entering a new era of manned spaceflight, bound to spark imaginations around the world, looking outward with an enthusiasm unseen since the shuttle program. And in the background, sciece fiction continues to reach for the stars.
Author Andy Weir includes enough plausible science in his work to make you feel that what you are reading isn’t ‘What?’ so much as “When?” The Martian was a compelling story of Survival in a harsh, alien environment. His latest book, 2021’s Project Hail Mary was released to much acclaim and is due for release as a Motion Picture starring Ryan Gosling in March 2024.
Some how, it seems to be inevitable that would be a LEGO Set to go along with it.
Set 11389 LEGO ICONS: Project Hail Mary has 830 pieces and one minifigure. It will go on sale on the first of March 2026, priced at 179.99 AUD/ 99,99 USD / 109,99 EUR / 99,99 GBP.
Hi Folks, just a quick post to acknowledge that this weekend, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of our first post. What started as a whim one Saturday afternoon blew out over the following 10 years to over 1300 posts on WordPress (including this one), more than 2080 posts on Instagram, and an indeterminable number of posts on other platforms, which I just haven’t got my head around.
This journey would not have been possible without the support of our regular team members – Ann, the Knoller-In-Chief who lays out the elements in our reviews for your enjoyment and Branko, who joined me a couple of years ago when the number of sets coming by to review was outnumbering the number of hours in the day. I also need to thank my children – Harry, who writes up our game reviews, and Tash, who has accompanied me to LEGO events, ensuring that I remember to hydrate and occasionally eat. She is also responsible for the update to Bailey Fullarton’s original logo for the site. I would also like to thank all of you who have followed me, whether in recent times, or for the full decade. What’s your favorite memory from our content?
Over these past 10 years, we have seen the LEGO Company moving from its focus from children’s toys, to marketing toys and sets to just about everyone. You used to be able to count the number of ‘adult-focussed’ sets released each year on one hand. Now I struggle to keep up each month.
We have seen an explosion of third party IP from Star Wars, Disney and Super Heroes to include franschises from Film, Football and Video games.
When I started writing, Space and Castle had all but vanished and NEXO Knights was just beginning. Nexo Knights has gone, but Castle and Space sets still come our way from various directions.
We have seen different technologies put forward: Mindstorms; Spike Prime, Powered Up; Super Mario, Vidiyo, and Hidden Side. Some of these have been embraced by consumers. Others have fallen by the wayside.
Creator 3in1 has embraced detailed creature builds, with studs becoming an almost optional extra.
Why am I still here?
Over the years, we have thought about the LEGO Group’s Past, Present, and Future.
My love of LEGO comes from trying to understand what makes it all work, and how it has come to go this way. Over the years, we have taken a few deep dives, particularly with the storytelling themes in years gone past. Occasionally looking at other statistics within the World of LEGO Bricks. My writing style has evolved, for better or worse, but this does represent nearly 20% or my total life span.
Over the years I have had the joy of joining the LEGO Ambassador Network, meeting fan communities and Fan Media from around the world, and traveling to events around the globe. I am fortunate to have been given the opportunity to meet designers, historians and leaders within the company. I am grateful for the friendships I have formed around the world as the result of my love of the brick: building with LEGO takes on a whole new meaning.
Extra Pieces – the podcast we have made with Jay’s Brick Blog should be back this year. A lot has been going on making it tough to record new content recently. Look for it on your favorite podcast platform. [ special shout out to Jay for his support over the years.]
Finally, I still love LEGO toys, Old and new. I am looking forward to the future, and can’t wait to see how the forthcoming SmartPlay rolls out.
This will be a year of celebration. Over the course of this year, I hope to bring a couple of building challenges along: we missed out for a couple of years there. I also intend to finish up a couple of series that I began a while ago. I would love to know the types of post that you have enjoyed reading here, and what you would like to see more of.
Why don’t you leave your favorite Rambling Brick memories in the comments below,
In the mean time, if you are new, follow the Rambling Brick by signing up to our mailing list, or following us on Facebook or Instagram. YouTube and TikTok get occasional content, but rarely anything exclusive. Finally, thanks for reading this far, and for your support. And thanks to Ann, Branko and my kids for their support and encouragement.
Having used up all of my available bench space last year to display my Botanical sets – gaining respite only by packing them up during the course of some renovations. I’m sure they will come back someday. that said, to take stress of the benches, the LEGO Engagement team kindly sent over a copy of their Flower Wall to check out. Now the idea of a lattice with a collection of flowers designed to be attached on the wall is appealing. And the system is designed to be expandable by attaching multiple lattices together – and don’t just decorate them with the included flowers, but also add in those from another set. To encourage this creativity, they actually sent me two copies of the set to play with. But more on that soon.
The set has 879 pieces and is priced at priced at AUD149.99 / 89.99 USD / 89.99 EUR / 79.99 GBP, the 11503 Flower wall is due for release on February 1 2026.
The set comes with 9 numbered bags, and an instruction book which gave a quick run over the flowers depicted in the set.
Things have been a little quiet on the Star Wars and Super Heros helmet cowl and bust collection lately. With 14 Star wars helmets released between 2020 and 2025; six marvel masks released between 2020 and 2025 and two Batman Cowls released in 2021, it has been a bit of a drip feed: a couple a year, with a small name plaque. Limited enough to be able to collect them all, and all imminently displayable.
Today, we get our first Helmet from The Lord Of The Rings – the Sauron’s Helmet. The set will released on March 1 and have 538 pieces, and unlike any Helmet series set before, it also comes with a Sauron minfigure. the set is priced at 129.99AUD / 69,99 USD / 74,99 EUR / 64,99 GBP .
Sorry about the interruption to this series: Our local major event intervened. Brickvention 2026 was great fun, and just a little bit exhausting. Today, we complete our reviews of the January 2026 Botanicals releases, and present the final installment of our interview with Senior Designer Theo Bonner, in which we take a moment to discuss the pink roses bouquet, and why it wasn’t just a clone of the red roses; see what made a collection of designers get up and take a look at what their colleague had achieved, and ponder whether the Botanicals sets just don’t feature enough Spinjitsu. Or do they?
Then we will take a closer look at the Flowering Cactus, another of the 2026 Botanical selection. This set has 482 parts and is aimed at builders aged 9 and up. It is priced at $AUD99.99 / $USD49.99 / 59.99 € / £54.99.
In our review of 71513Nightmare Scorpion Digger we briefly explored how a smaller portion of Technic sets are for something other than cars. Here we can celebrate such a not-a-car set, with 42218 John Deere 1670H Wheeled Harvester, a small set with 117 pieces for AU$14.99/£8.99/US$9.99/€9.99
Run out of bench space to place your bouquets of LEGO Botanicals on? The latest lattice design from LEGO Botanicals is designed to hang on your wall, displaying a whole new collection of flowers, or, if you like mixing up with some of the previous bouquets.
Built from 879 pieces and priced at AUD149.99 / 89.99 USD / 89.99 EUR / 79.99 GBP, the 11503 Flower wall is due for release on February 1 2026.
LEGO® Education has revealed 4 sets designed to encourage creative problem-solving for kids aged 7+. These sets are the first LEGO Education sets to be marketed at the home market, rather than directly to schools.
The box has been cunningly disguised to look like some sort of a board game, with most of the “LEGOness” hidden behind beautiful printed artwork depicting luscious retro-futuristic space-scapes and polar vistas, and a smattering of bricks tucked in for good measure. To say nothing of the Build-Solve-Invent Mantra tucked in the upper right-hand corner.
There is, of course, another path to sales success: two of the sets are space-themed and bring us a new range of City-style Space Explorer Minifigures, with an exciting new colour scheme! These figures build on the aesthetic last seen in the LEGO CITY 60446 Galactic Spaceship- itself presenting as an update of vintage space theme FUTURON.
LEGO Ninjago was released back in January 2011, and continues to go strong, with the occasional reboot and narrative refocus, Ninjago embraces a combination of the source materials that might have once occupied both LEGO Space and Castle, albeit with its own special twist.
To celebrate this milestone, there is a lot going on this weekend: from an Activation at Brickvention 2026 in Melbourne, where there will be a display of EVERY NINJAGO MINIFIGURE EVER, to stores and themeparks around the world. Read on for more…
If you are a person of a certain age, then Pokemon might have been an integral part of your upbringing. I wasn’t. But my kids were – they grew up with the mid-noughties version. As such, Passionate, old school Pokémon fans now have the opportunity catch them all… or at least the first wave of LEGO Sets. Three sets for Adult Builders have been revealed ahead of the range’s launchat the end of February.
There is a set for every sized desk and budget, by the looks of it.I have to admit, I really like the look of these sets. But at the end of the day, Pokemon are for other people. you gan read on for the press release:
