I continue my survey of LEGO Super Mario Expansion Sets today, taking a look at one of the smaller sets, with a clever mechanism incorporated in the game play: Boomer Bill Barrage. This set has 132 pieces, and introduces a new character, as well as a challenging ‘swing platform’.

As with all of the LEGO Super Mario Expansion sets, you need a copy of the 71360 LEGO Super Mario Starter set (Adventures with Mario), in order to get the most play value out of it.

• 

• 

Again, like the Piranha Plant Power Slide – 71365 – the Front of the box highlights the contents of the box, while the back of the box demonstrates the box in combination with elements if the starter course.

The Elements

There are two bags of elements in this set: the first brings us the making’s of Shy Guy. There are several distinctive elements introduced here: the 3 stud wide leg element – larger than the 2×2 element used for the Goomba’s or Koopa, seen in 71365. We also have the obligatory 2×2 round barcode ‘Action Brick’ to scan with the LEGO Super Mario.Shy Guy’s face is made using a printed 3×3 round tile. This is one of the new moulds, making its debut in this theme.

Looking through the rest of the elements, we see several ‘landscape nodes’ the rounded edge plates which provide the outline of the course, as well as some printed domes – featuring aggressive faces. These become the face of the Boomer Bills. We also have some 10 tooth ‘splat’ gears in grey, tow ‘Swing plate’ action bricks: one is a 4×4 plate, with rounded corners, and a tile version of the same element.

Finally, there is a mysterious 4×4 cap element – which goes towards forming the head of our one up mushroom.

The Characters

As discussed, there are two characters featured in this set, neither of whom we have previously encountered: Shy Guy and the Super Mushroom. Building instructions are to be found in the LEGO Super Mario App on Android and iOS.

Shy Guy is just living his best life, waiting for Mario to knock him down, and scan him to get coins.

The Super Mushroom, when scanned, shows up on Mario’s chest screen, and provides him with a level of protection when he has a fall off any part of a ride – reducing his time out from scoring from 5 to 0.5 seconds.

The Boomer Bills fly in a circular path, guarding the platform allowing Mario to travel over the river. There is a clever mechanism whereby the platform only intermittentently drives the Boomers Round and Round!

The Layout

The set gives us a swing bridge, going across a river or lake. and as the bridge swings, gears on the bridge interact with the gears driving the Boomer Bills, making them spin around – potentially knocking into Mario.

In fact, there are two ways that you can play the game: put Mario securely on the ‘swing plate’ – you might get hit by the Boomers, but you won’t fall, however you could stand on the non studded version – and Mario will be in a much more precarious position.

Action Bricks

As well as stamping on Shy Guy, there are three other action tiles in this set: a Power Up from the Super Mushroom, and two ‘swing’ blocks: one a tile, another plate. Similar to the slider Action Brick discussed when we looked at the Power Slide, we see points as Mario turns, as well as reverses direction. There is a limit as to how long Mario can ride, before he stops scoring, however – when the music changes back to the normal ‘Mario theme’.

What does this expansion look like if played on its own? Why don’t you take a look…

This expansion pack adds a fun way for Mario to engage with the environment, as well as providing a variety of difficulties for different players. I enjoyed activating the spinning mechanism, and find it quite challenging, when Mario is placed on the tile of the swing bridge. It is not quite as challenging in the game as the Power Slide, but in my non-playing time, I find myself more likely to engage with the Boomer Bill Barrage. If I were to choose between the two, I would probably opt for the 71365 Piranha Plant Power Slide. But that’s just me.

71366 Boomer Bill Barrage has 132 pieces, and will cost 29,99 USD/EUR – $AU49.99/$NZ59.99, when it becomes available on August 1st.

What do you think of this expansion set? Do you need to get them all, or are you looking at just a few of them? The LEGO Group have kindly provided me with the complete set of expansion sets – and I will be presenting them over the next few weeks.

Until next time…

Play Well

This set was provided by the LEGO Group for review purposes. All opinions are my own.