elves

71800 Nya’s Water Dragon EVO [Hands On Review] Everything Old Is New Again…

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The Ninjago Core range has provided us with a number of sets featuring Dragons, Vehicles and locations that may not have appeared in the Ninjago animated series. As such, a knowledge of the Ninjago Canon is not required to be able to enjoy these sets. 71800 Nya’s Water Dragon EVO is the smallest of the buildable dragon sets in the first half of 2023. That said, it comes with 3 minifigures and has terrific play value. That said… when I first looked at it I was reminded of something strangely familiar…

Read on for more: 71800 Nya’s Water Dragon EVO [Hands On Review] Everything Old Is New Again…

Minifigures

There are three minifigures: The Nya and Lloyd figures have been seen previously in Ninjago Core sets, with this version, featuring a shoulder pauldron, appearing in four sets in this wave. Lloyd’s Torso has appeared in a number of sets, with and without hair, but this version features the shoulder pad, a gold katana as well as the standard Ninja Hood

They face off together against a Bone Guard, based on the same format as the Bone warrior, but with a broad red hat, this figure also comes with a neck bracket, with several of the ubiquitous bone weapons attached.

The Parts

Dark Blue and light royal blue dominate the colour palette, with round plates and curved tiles dominating the parts. There is a collection of golden elements to add when the Dragon undergoes the EVO transformation, to power up. I really appreciate the contrast between the light and darker shades of blue.

Construction

The build starts off creating a serpentine form, with the lighter blue framing the dark colour along the sides of the creature’s body. The head looks brilliant, with the contrasting colour, while transparent light blue filagree elements give us horns resembling waterspouts – just perfect for this creature. I love the silver printed accents around the eye of the dragon.

The legs are attached at the hips and ankles by small ball and socket joints. The legs are fixed in shape, with the front longer than the rear – utilising the 45º angled plate introduced last year. The rear legs are more simply angled behind quarter circle plates. The front claws are brick built using a rounded plate and larger claw elements, while the rear ones involve several tooth elements. An articulated tail, trimmed with transparent light blue elements, finishes the base model.

The EVO aspect follows, building up golden shells on the front legs and wing-like blades, while a reddish brown saddle is added to the back, with a banner attached. This part of the build is previously demonstrated on the back of the box. A golden scythe completes the model.

The final appearance is simple and immediately playable. Unlike other dragons, this model holds its head yup relatively high – with posing slightly reduced. Having 3 minifigures in the set increases play options significantly. I have to admit, I looked for a couple of spare arrow elements and converted some of the bone shurikens into spinning tops – Spinjitsu V2.1.

But have we seen it all before? I was thinking this feeling terribly familiar – and then I flashed back to 2016, when LEGO Elves was on our shelves. The Elemental-based characters – Water, Fire, Earth and Air, take on Ragana, leading the forces of Darkness. While 41172 The Water Dragon Adventure presented us with some magical scenery, it doesn’t take much to give this water dragon an Elves Compatible version of 71800.

The Elves sets were wonderful for the way that they focussed on colourful scenery-based side builds, while Ninjago sets currently focus to a greater extent on conflict-based play. I was disappointed to discover that the Ninjago masks and Elves faces fail to line up properly…

That said, I really enjoy the whimsical curls that make up the dragon’s horns and the detail printed around the Dragon’s face.

Now, while the set contains plenty of play value, I also enjoyed the illustrations featured in the instructions, bringing us some of the story of how the dragon came to help Lloyd and Nya. This gives some context for the play while not being dependent on external media, which might not be readily available to all.

As a set aimed at a 6+ audience, it feels about right, and I give it 3.8 Arbitrary Praise Units out of 5, in particular due to the great minifigure count, as well as two of the core Ninja.

If you are interested in purchasing this set, consider using the attached Affiliate Links: the Ramblingbrick might receive a small commission on any purchases made.

I think this is a lovely small set with a great minifigure selection for younger builders. The Water Dragon is quite stable on its feet, and I am grateful that there is some variation in the shape of the front and rear legs, as I feel when the fixed flexion plate has been used used on the rear legs, it often makes the dragon feel as if it is facing head down.

What do you think of this smaller Ninjago set? Do you collect all dragons of a certain price range? Does this one appeal to you?

Why not leave your comments below, and until next time…

Play Well!

The Figures of 10316 Rivendell

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We recently looked at the building experience for 10316 Rivendell – the upcoming LEGO Icons set. It is big, with over 6000 pieces and 15 minifigures (+6 statues)! I thought I would take a closer look at the new minifigures, and compare them with the original Lord of the Rings figures from 2012-13.

Continue reading →

Looking Forward to the rest of the year at the 2018 Melbourne Toy, Hobby and Licensing Fair

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The Rambling Brick, and Friends at the Melbourne Toy, Hobby and Licensing Fair.

The toy fair season is now starting to wind up for now: We have had Nuremberg. We have had New York. Now we have had Melbourne…

The Melbourne Toy, Hobby and Licensing Fair is a bit of a mouthful. Predominantly a trade show, taking place in Melbourne in early March each year, LEGO Australia have a strong presence. There has traditionally been little ‘big news’ coming out of the show, as visitors have not been able to take photographs at the LEGO® booth, a trend that was reinforced at Nuremberg this year.
 I had the chance to visit the Fair last weekend, and visit the booth displaying our favourite Danish Plastic Brick. Once I got past the big displays outside the booth, I had to put the camera away, and make do with words and memories.
After the recent New York and Nuremberg Toy shows, there is little to be seen in left field, unexpected presentations.  Unlike New York, there are no Direct to Consumer sets on display (for example: Hogwarts Great Hall; Ultron Hulkbuster).  There were also no Brickheadz or 40th Birthday Minifigure sets on display.  There were no sets associated with unreleased movies ( such as Jurassic World; Solo; Incredibles 2) , unless they were already on sale (Avengers: Infinity War went on sale the week before the toy fair).
There were plenty of sets on display that are already on the shop shelves, readily available to purchase in real life shops, or on line. And everything else that I saw already has an entry in Brickset’s 2018 database. However, there were some sets from the second half year on display, of which few details have previously been available, or for which some additional clarity was able to be gained. If you wish to avoid spoilers, look away now.  If you have read everything coming out of Nuremberg and New York, there may not be a lot that sounds new… but certainly a few points of clarification.

Continue reading →

Grossed out by Goblin Green? Let’s take the colour wheel out for a spin…

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In which I try to reconcile a colour that produces a disturbing personal reaction with some of my favorite sets of the year so far! Along the way we take a history lesson, explore the wonderful world of colour wheels, build a Wyvern and hopefully prepare to enjoy some frozen yoghurt…

IMG_7388It’s been a little while since my last post because I have been trying to reconcile something that has been troubling me.  Here in the Southern Hemisphere, we have just seen the start of spring.  A time that the weather starts to turn for the better, we feel the days getting a little longer and the grass starts to grow and trees start to bud.  It is of course still jolly cold. My problem comes from trying to reconcile springtime, with its new growth, hope and optimism with the name of Spring Yellowish Green. A light, bright colour whose name shouts optimism, but whose shade, to me, shouts sinister thoughts, nasty infections and recollections of a bad night at work.

Of course, not everyone has the perceives colours in the same way as other people.  I personally spent 5 years vigourously debating the colour of some towels with my wife.  I eventually conceded defeat and accepted that I was wrong. But not because discretion is the greater part of valour,  but because it became apparent that I experience a mild form of colour blindness . The junction of green, grey, blue is not a clear, well discriminated area of my colour perception. Rather, it is a hazy, muddy thing, where some colours stand out, and others blur together with imperceptible difference to myself, but to great embarrassment to my children, or frustration for my wife.  Whilst I only experience this lack of colour vision, the rest of my family suffer because of it!

But what does this have to do with LEGO Bricks? LEGO elements have appeared in almost one hundred distinct opaque colours over the years, to say nothing of the transparent, translucent, speckled and glow in the dark colours.  Well, distinct for some. For others they just blur together. You can find Ryan Howeter’s most excellent colour chart documenting LEGO colours, and their appearance over time, here. Much of the information regarding appearance dates for colours, as well as hex codes for colour pickers has been derived from this. The current colours in the LEGO Colour palette can be seen here:

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Current colours in the LEGO moulding palette. Image sourced from brickiest.com, courtesy of the LEGO Group.

In 2012, we saw elements produced in six new colours, and another was released shortly after: Aqua, Dark Azur, Olive Green, Medium Azur, Medium Lavender, Lavender and Spring Yellowish Green.  Olive green is the only one of these opaque colours that has been introduced after the Friends theme was released. Only one of these colours has ever evoked a visceral response in me, just by looking at it. And that is the colour I would like to talk about today. Continue reading →

Bring Adventure to the Skies over Elvendale: Aira’s Airship and Amulet Chase 41184

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Ever since I first saw the previews for 2017’s Elves sets, I knew there was one set I would want to get ahead of all others: Aira’s Airship and Amulet Chase.  This set features an Elven Airship, piloted by Aira Windwhistler; Emily Jones riding Shotgun Crossbow and Dukelin the Goblin, with his own magical flying post box…IMG_9983

There are two reasons I unpacked this set, and put it together quickly after bringing it home: the Goblin – this was my first experience with such a LEGO® character – and the airship, especially all of the new golden recolours.  And the curlicue.  It turns out however, that in my haste to get it put together, I failed to pick up on the elements in other colors which are relatively new. That said, these new golden elements could be well repurposed in to a steampunk construction. Continue reading →

Get a Grip: Enter the Goblins…Can They Hold Their Own?

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After a year exploring the relationships between the Elves and Dragons, 2017 sees the arrival of Emily Jones’s cousin Sophie.  Sophie is captured by the Goblins, and for further details, I suspect we will need to watch the Netflix LEGO® Elves Series. I have found the design of the minidolls has grown on me, over the years, and I don’t mind having them around the house.img_9913

The first half year sets feature seven different goblins.  I picked up a copy of 41184 Aira’s Airship and the Amulet Chase.  This set features Dukelin: A fierce looking, one eyed, spring yellowish green character, with navy blue hair and a similar coloured onesie.  The rest of the set is brimming with possibilities, so while I wait for them to come to fruition, I thought I would bring a short examination of the Goblin figure.

Continue reading →

Coming in 2017: The Future…

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Over the last couple of weeks, official photos of many of 2017’s sets have come to light: Creator,  Lego® Technic (celebrating 40 Years), Elves, DC Superhero Girls, City, Disney, Marvel Super Heroes, Nexo Knights, Architecture, Star Wars, and LEGO Batman movie.  I have lost count of the number of reveals that have occurred.

If you don’t like spoilers, look away now.

There has been a steady reduction in the number of unknown unknowns, with an increase in the known knowns, and clarification as to the nature of the known unknowns.

Some of the my highlights in the reveals seen to date:

LEGO® City has 40% female minifigures in the sets revealed so far. [Great for girls and their families who are not fans of minidolls]

city

The LEGO® Creator Expert 10255 Modular Assembly Square has so many great new pieces.

new-elements-10255

LEGO® Friends is no longer restricted to the bright pastel palette, and some more traditional colours are coming into play in 41311 Heartlake Pizzeria.  There are 3 male minidolls, and 6 puppies to add to the collection in the sets revealed so far for 2017.friends

LEGO® DC Super Hero Girls will add a some additional heroism, and villianism(?) to our minidoll collections.

dc-shg

This year’s Creator Ocean Explorer 31045 has grown up into next year’s Technic Ocean Explorer 42064

oceran-explorer-creatoroceran-explorer-technic

The Creator Mighty Dinosaurs 31058 looks like a terrific landscape parts pack:

creator-dinosaur

Elves continues with Goblins, and Emily’s little sister Sophie. More great fantasy landscapes and transportation

elves1elves2

LEGO® Ninjago sets seem to be a little darker this year… mainly in palette

ninjago

The LEGO® BATMAN Movie will bankrupt many of us with great looking sets and TWENTY, yes I said 20 Collectable Minifigures to collect…

batman-movie1batman-cmf

 

These are the things that have made ME look up and take notice. Many new sets have been previewed on other LEGO® News Websites lately. What has grabbed your attention?

And what other treats may there be to celebrate to 10th anniversary of ‘the really cool sets catering for AFOLs’ such as the first modular building sets, 10181 Eiffel Tower, 10182 Hobby Trains and of course 10179 Ultimate Collectors Millennium Falcon. I’m sure there is much left for us to see.

What are you looking forward to?

 

Play well

 

 

Play On: Updated Adventures in Elvendale and LEGO DC Superheroes Mighty Micros Apps

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Sorry about the relative quiet on the blog this last week: if you have been following the Rabling Brick on Instagram or Facebook, you would have noticed that I am currently away, and I have taken some minifigs with me… And then something happened:

There I was minding my business, and browsing the iTunes store, and I checked out this weeks updates.  Two excited me.  These include updates to LEGO Elves: Elvendale Adventures and LEGO DC Superheroes Mighty Micros. I reviewed both of these apps earlier in the year, and while both were enjoyable, Mighty Micros appeared to have a couple of bugs in it.  Elvendale adventures was satisfying, but had limited content.

Elvendale Adventures 2.0

This is touted as a major upgrade: At the end of version 1, the Elves confronted Ragana Ragana the Evil Elf Witch who had kidnapped the Queen Dragon. There was some exciting dialog at the end of the four Elemental sequences, with Ragana capturing the dragon’s essences.  I was hoping our new sequence would result in a greater revelation as to the underlying story.  The levels involved here are of a higher difficulty than the previous levels.  Some of the tiles to collect have special powers: one type clears portions of a row, another changing all of the tiles adjacent to a certain element: great for collecting that element, not so helpful if you have two or three of these elements close together, because they will turn the other to a simple elemental piece,losing its power, and ability to be collected. Both of these pieces are required to be the second or later tile collected in a move.  Multiple ‘power pieces’ can be collected in the course of a turn, and this becomes necessary as the number of tiles needing to be collected increases significantly at the higher levels.

Oncompleting the leves, there are none of the conversation bubbles that occurred in version one, and unfortunately this continues through: when the levels are completed, there is no dialog, or expostition of the storyline.  Which is a shame, because it did make completing the singleplayer game well worth while with version one.

A further upgrade in 2017 is also teased.

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The opening screens have been updated

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Some of the new action from version 2

All in all I enjoyed the upgrade to the game, but I do feel that removing the cartoon dialog boxes has detracted from the overall experience. My other gripe with the game is that while you are selecting the level to play, it is a little difficult to discern the ones you have completed, compared to those to be done. Still, if you like a casual game and have finished the first version, this will give you a couple of hours of diversion. All it will cost you is time…

LEGO DC SuperHeroes Mighty Micros 1.1.198

LEGO DC Superheroes Mighty Micros has one of the most unwieldy names of any App that I have seen.  But it is fun, fast moving and a little bit amusing in all the right ways.  It has

mm1
Hopefully I can unlock this soon!  Let me know if you manage to.

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Stickers!  I am a little over stickers!

also been a bit bit buggy: I have been failing for months to unlock the final ‘sreet layout’ – this version promises bug fixes, as well as enhancing game play through the addition of stickers to unlock with achievements, including activities in the BatCave, as well as number of crashes into witches hats/ studs/ lamp posts and goodness knows what else.  I am yet to unlock the elusive final level to complete… but if if fixes this problem, it will certainly be worth the bandwidth required to download it!

But will the addition of some additional achievements to unlock enhance its long term playability?  It will become all about the grind, which could become fairly uninspiring for all but the most determinined completionist.

 

In Conclusion

Both of these games have been great little time wasters with different limitations: Elvendale Adventures is teasing to much towards unknown content at this stage at the end of the day, and LDCSHMM being to hard to pronounce or spell, plus the game feeling like it was only about 85% finished.  These new updates improve functionality and hopefully allow the bugs to get ironed out.  Time has prevented me from attempting to unlock the mystery street map at this time: we will see how we go with time.

Now if only the LEGO Marvel Superheroes Mighty Micros could be simply produced. I would never get productive work completed again…

 

Play well

 

Play Well

 

Dragonshead revisited, revisited.

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Regular readers of this blog will be getting a little tired of its self referential nature.  Sorry about that. New readers may find this to be a useful place to start (or not…)

The Story so Far:

I Like the Elves Dragons set, especially the  Fire Dragon’s Lava Cave Set, but I am not a fan of the dedicated Dragon’s head mould, except for the obvious reason: great colors, printing, fits lot of detail into a small space. I looked at the Red Creatures Creator set, which was never really found in Australian Shops, as it gave me some ideas on how to approach a Dragon Head.  In order to get a good supply of FYOBLO curves, bows and small arches, I picked up a copy of the McClaren P1 Speed Champions set.  I found my self working through 5 drafts of dragons head, before being properly satisfied.  Except that left me with some Light Stone Grey on view in the dragon’s snout.  So I go a copy of Super Soarers (31042) because it had some FYOBLO brackets in it.

Now read on.

So I got myself some Flame Yellowish Orange/Bright Light Orange (FYO/BLO) brackets.  They are inverted compared to the ones that I got in the McLaren set. So I needed to rebuild the dragon’s snout a little in order to accommodate the changed directions of brackets: this moved the cheeks back, and revealed a coloured plate holding on the 2x2x2/3 bow that makes up the forehead: so I replaced it with some small plates.

I also substituted two 1×1 tiles on the cheeks with 2x1x2/3 baby bows, just in from of the eyes, enhancing the curved structure of the head.

Head clueHere is the main hidden structure of the snout of the dragon, just in case you feel possessed by a desire to try recreating the effect. Other color palettes may allow different solutions, and I think that would be fantastic. Please share them here or on the Rambling Brick Facebook page.

The Final Result:

I’ll let the images speak for themselves.

 

Play Well

When is a car not a car? When its a Dragon parts pack. [McLaren P1 75909]

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Flame Yellowish Orange(Lego Group) also known as Bright Light Orange (Bricklink) is the color of the month here at the Rambling Brick.  Recently, I looked at the Ultimate Axl is all his flame yellowish orange, gold printed glory.  This follows on from looking at the Elves Fire Dragon set back in May. Today, distracted by it’s brightly coloured box, full of glorious curves, I picked up another of the Speed Champions: the McLaren P1.  One of the 2015 Speed Champions sets, I was able to find it still on sale at my local Myer during a recent 20% off sale.

When I looked at the Ford GT, I was particularly annoyed by the number of stickers required in order to make the model look complete.  I have made a conscious decision not to use the stickers on the McLaren, because I have not bought it to use as a car.  This set appealed to me because it contains such a variety of flame yellowish orange pieces (OK this description is getting awkward.  Lets change over to FYO/BLO) , including cheese slopes, regular slopes, plates tiles and bows.  All that seems to be missing to me are a couple of Mixel eyes, and ball joint to allow the construction of a brick built head for my fire dragon.

I love the Elves Dragons.  They are all colourful, and have their own personalities, associated with their personal (dragonal?) elements. However, all of their heads are cast from the same mould. Approximately 5.5 studs wide, 6 studs long and 3 blocks and a plate high, there is no doubt that these 2 parts  – jaw and face – link to gather to form a dragon head. Otherwise, there are 2 studs in the top of the head, to attach crystals to, and attachments for 2 horns (2.8mm rod connectors).  So: Limited customisation.

So… the FYO/BLO parts pack… err racing car… caught my eye, and filled me with a desire to brick build a head for the fire dragon.  That’s the plan any way.  Will I succeed, or will I be distracted by a really nifty car build?  Let’s find out… Continue reading →