In our third review of LEGO Overwatch sets, we enter a new environment: the Dorado Map. As I have previously discussed, while looking at Tracer vs WidowMaker as well as Hanzo vs Genji, I have not played much Overwatch, and so I have turned to my teenage son for information about the characters as well as the nature of the gameplay, and how they might relate to the LEGO Sets. Today, we world of the neo-wild west, where we meet Reaper, Soldier: 76 and McCree.

We will look at the minifigures, the builds, compare these with reference artwork, and see if the build has anything to offer the AFOL who is not an overwatch fan.

As we have seen with the other sets in the Overwatch series so far, the artwork on the box is fantastic: In the front, as well as callout featuring tracer, we see the three characters: Soldier 76, McCree and Reaper, fighting out over a hover truck, carrying a mysterious payload. In the background is a building, and market stall, as well as other buildings typical of the New Mexico Environment. The reverse of the box demonstrates the elements of the set, in an evening setting. The characters are labelled, and the truck is driving out through the arch of the building. A candle burns brightly in the window. On the side of the box, is a portrait of the characters as minifigures

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Now your favorite Overwatch® fan can build an iconic Dorado building and payload truck with LEGO® Overwatch 75972 Dorado Showdown! Based on the internationally acclaimed team-based action game, this Overwatch building set features an instantly recognizable building from the popular Dorado map and 3 characters, Soldier: 76, Reaper and McCree. With Overwatch weapons, Dorado building, and a payload truck like in the game, fans of Overwatch will want to build and display it for their friends to see, while youngsters will like playing with the vehicle and mini market building from the game. 

Includes Soldier: 76, Reaper and McCree minifigures.

Dorado-style building features 3 windows (2 with shutters), lamps, a lantern, a mini market booth and a doorway for the payload truck to pass through.

Payload truck features space for a minifigure, a generator payload that can be taken off and hidden wheels to simulate the payload truck hovering like in the game.

Overwatch® character weapons include Soldier: 76’s Heavy Pulse Rifle, Reaper’s twin Hellfire Shotguns and McCree’s Peacekeeper six-shooter revolver.

shop.lego.com

This set will be released on 1st January 2019, costs $49.99 in Australia, and has 419 elements. Upon opening the box, three bags two instruction books and a sticker sheet are revealed.

Let’s start by looking at the figures independently, and then we will look at the builds.

There are three figures in this set: Reaper, McCree and Soldier 76. As I was preparing to work on this, Harry suggested that I might watch the animated short ‘Hero’ – on the playoverwatch.com website.

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One of the animated shorts, HERO, is a tale of Soldier:76. It is set in New Mexico, and provides an insight to the world as it now is in the post-OverWatch era, a world without (official) heroes, as well as an indication for where the design styles seen in this set have come from. That said, I was still a little uncertain as to the origins of the characters we have here. I asked my game-playing son, Harry, to explain Soldier: 76 and the others for me:

Jack Morrison (AKA Soldier: 76) was one of the original members of the Overwatch Strike Team. He rose through the ranks to become Strike Commander. He and Gabriel Reyes (who later became Reaper) were both involved in the Super Soldier program, giving them heightened abilities; most notably, this resulted in Morrison becoming the only person in the entire Overwatchuniverse capable of running. Reyes also achieved a commendable rank inside Overwatch as commander of Blackwatch – the Black Ops division of Overwatch – where he eventually recruited Jesse McCree.

Harry: Advice to my Father 2018

The Soldier:76 minifigure is a great representation of the in game characterisation. There is great detail shown with his torso and head printing, with his zip up jacket, silver mask (What’s with his face/mask/visor Harry? He works as a vigilante now Dad, it hides his face, oh and gives him autoaiming abilities), but no printing on his arms or legs. His weapon of choice, the heavy pulse rifle appears to be disturbingly overengineered: it is made up of no fewer than eleven elements.

The other ‘good guy’ that we have a mini figure for is Jesse McCree – who looks for the most part like a traditional cowboy…

McCree was recruited from the Deadlock gang; after being arrested as part of some form of sting operation, Reyes approached him with a deal: let his skills rot in jail, or use them as part of Blackwatch. Why Reyes decided to put a man who unironically dresses like a cowboy, wears spurs, and wields a revolver as his firearm of choice in what was allegedly the stealth teamis one of the Overwatch universe’s greatest mysteries, but then again Reyes dual-wields shotguns so maybe Blackwatch was more into the Russian stealth approach of “no-one can raise the alarm if there’s no-one left to raise the alarm”.

Harry: Advice to my father, 2018

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McCree has a medium nougat head featuring single sided printing – with great detail that you’d expect from a hard shooting outlaw type. I love the detail provided in the facial expression, sideburns, stubble and beard. There is great double sided detail included for the body armour underneath his red poncho. The legs being a different colour to the hips enhances the printed effect of him wearing chaps. If not just for use in this game, I could easily see this figure fitting into a MOC based on Joss Whedon’s ‘‘Firefly.’ The McCree figure also has a hairpiece for when he deigns it appropriate to remove his hat.

The final featured figure is that of Reaper – the only character who has the privilege of appearing in two sets – this and 25975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar. Reaper is a fallen Overwatch/Blackwatch operative, who is now a member of the terrorist organisation ‘Talon.’

Gabriel Reyes was later subject to genetic experiments at the hands of Moira O’Deorain, Blackwatch’s medic and resident evil scientist. This gave him the ability to effectively turn into smoke for a short period, allowing him to move about stealthily which in-game translates to his ‘Wraith Form’ and ‘Shadow Step’ abilities. It also gave him a bit of a mental break, leading to his heel-turn on a mission in Venice in which he shot and killed a target they were meant to bring back alive, an event which precipitated the global uproar against Overwatch (which Morrison took the fall for as Strike Commander at the time) and eventually led to the Petras Act. After the fall of Overwatch, Reaper joined Talon and it remains unclear how much of the man he used to be remains under his mask; while he sometimes antagonises Soldier: 76 in-game, both Soldier: 76 and McCree comment on how different he is from the Reyes they knew.

Harry: Seriously Dad, couldn’t you just look it up yourself?

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This is another character with a single sided head print with a skull mask, as well as a details print of his black body armour, underneath the cloud. The hood completes the effect. Again, this figure does not have any arm or leg printing. The dual shotguns are both constructed using the standard overwatch gun, with some additional pieces. This gun element is an interesting element in its own right, and we will take a look at it in a future post.

I really like the minifigures in this set, and you can feel that key aspects of their characters are well communicated in their designs: the sinister shadow that is Reaper, the more virtuous Soldier 76, and the morally ambiguous, but working for good, McCree.

The Build

Bag one gives us a relatively small but interesting build: essentially a small market stall, a string of lights and the mysterious Payload. That and the Reaper and McCree minifigures. Other than the Overwatch Gun element and the printed trans light blue health back, there are no particularly new elements in this part of the build, although the single stud brackets, upward and downward are both present in multiple copies. Trans yellow gems and yellow ‘polo’ studs are used to form the lights.

The brackets are used in conjunction with the. ‘X-Plates’ to form the payload: an effective use of alternating light blueish grey and transparent blue three stud in diameter radar dish.

There are lots of cherries and bananas to fill the crate with in the market stall. At the end of this step, it is suggested to connect the string of lights to the top of the payload… a suggestion that will change in times to come…

The second bag brings us the elements for the hover truck, as well as the figure of Soldier: 76. As you can see, there is a significant number of dark red elements to be seen here. While the 2×3 wedge bricks have been seen in this colour in the past, here they have new element numbers (6253641,6253648). Dark red has been a difficult colour in the past – particularly thought to be a little more brittle than many other colours. Changes have been made to the formulation over the last few years, and perhaps some other changes have been introduced to the mould to improve the strength. The 4×3 plate with bow(6253651) appears to be new in this colour. Likewise the bright yellowish orange 1×8 modified plates with door rail.

This bag is spent putting together the hover truck. Embacing the design sensibilities of mid 20th century truck design, combined with a sophisticated hover drive, I really like the form this truck takes. A couple of stickers are used to add detail here – printing would have been nice, but they aren’t too challenging to get straight. There are some good examples of SNOT techniques in use here, as well. There are so many things that I love about the design of the truck:as well as the aesthetics of the mid 20th century design, the hover effect owes its existence too a couple of wheels hidden away underneath, obscured by the hover jets. The design of the wheel arches from mixed radius curves is also very effective!

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The final build is used yo put the building together:

As you can see, there are a good number of tan elements, as well as light blueish grey, and plenty of 1x1x2 2/3 snot bricks in LBG. The 3×1 plate with 2 offset studs makes its LBG debut in this set

Construction of the building is simple enough, but there are a few interesting techniques to be gained from the use of the SNOT bricks.

As you can see, the building is not very deep – only four studs. The use of the 1×1 brackets at the base of the curves of provide some great inspiration for haw these new elements might be applied. I am now starting to see ways in which this element can be employed in future builds. [future may well refer to tomorrow…]

The raised winds provides a great vantage point, as can the door frames located at each end of the upper floor…

How do the models compare with those seen in official artwork?

The truck used for the payload appears in the animated short ‘HERO’, and as you can see, most of the major design cues are carried over into the model.

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With regards to the minifigures: it is probably here that it becomes apparent what sort of difference it makes not having arm printing, especially on Soldier:76

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Finally, as we consider the building: it does not set out to be a specific building seen in the short, but it certainly captures the character of the buildings within the Dorado map – have a look at these examples from the Overwatch website: the stuttered windows, short terracotta roofs as well as the glowing lanterns and rows of suspended lights. The model captures key aspects of the architectural landscape, without falling into the trap of realism, which would add unnecessary expense to this set.

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In Summary:

As a non-overwatch player, I entered this process expecting that I would not necessarily get a lot out of it – I had not previously heard of the characters, the map was unfamiliar, and the building did not look like a substantial build.

However, I was pleasantly surprised. My previous experience within the Overwatch range of LEGO sets has seen the minifigures all being eminently detailed – and leaving me asking questions about them – wanting to find out more. Multiple figures, some with ludicrously sized guns, always improves the play experience with the finished model. While I may not relate specifically to the payload quest described in the game, I can appreciate the design and building techniques used in the truck – I am tempted to remove the hover jets, and replace them with regular wheels, and incorporate it within a farm MOC, although it could become the farm of the future…

As a LEGO set, with 419 pieces, the value is not as good as some sets. However, as a licensed set with three principal characters, coming in at $AUD 50 for 419 parts is not terrible value.

While this set relies on a knowledge of the game to fully appreciate the included characters and builds, it still has something to offer the typical LEGO fan, through the use of the design techniques in the building, as well as the truck itself. The exquisite minifigures merely serve as a bonus in this set. I award this set four arbitrary praise units out of five.

Have you been following the my journey into Overwatch? Has it influenced your thoughts of the sets? They are due to be released on January 1, although they can already be found in some markets. You can read about Tracer vs Widowmaker here, and Hanzo vs Genji here. What do you want to know in the coming reviews? Why not leave a comment below, or send a message to the Rambling Brick on Facebook. I’ll be back in the New Year with the remaining reviews.

Until next time, Play Well!

This set was provided by the AFOL Engagement team at The LEGO Group for review purposes. However, all opinions expressed are my own.