Today,we have another of our 2024 Creator 3in1 set reviews from Branko: 31149 Flowers in Watering Can. It’s available now, But is it for you? Read on to find out what he thinks…
When faced with the question ‘what LEGO set should I buy’ an easy answer would always be :”Go for a Creator 3-in-1 set, you cannot go wrong.” Until now. I cannot wholeheartedly recommend this set ‘31149 Flowers in Watering Can’, released on the 1st of January 2024, with 420 pieces priced at $AUD49.99 /USD29.99 /€29.99 /£24.99.
I firmly believe that this set is the right set for someone so I will set out what it has to offer and how it compares to other offerings from LEGO.
Read on to find out if this set is for you.
This review will consist of the following sections:
The New Year is here, and we are continuing with our reviews of January 1 releases. Today, let’s take a quick look at one of the Dreamzzz sets just released: 71475 Mr Oz’s Space Car
The car a middle school science teacher drives…
71475 Mr Oz’s Space Car has 350 pieces, and is priced at AUD49.99/$USD29.99/€29.99/CAD39.99/£24.99. Mr Oz is passionate about space travel , and this set brings us a car that is about as far from the ‘car that a middle school science teacher drives’ as it could be.
Today, I’d like to welcome Branko as a contributor to the Rambling Brick Team. He’s been providing some editorial assistance for a little while, and today we publish the first of his reviews.
When LEGO recovered from their near bankruptcy, they re-focused on what LEGO does well; building different things with the same bricks. For me that was highlighted best with the animal sets, and this Wild Safari Animals box reminds me a lot of one of my old-time favourites: 4884 Wild hunters. That is a very good start.
31150 Wild Safari Animals is the largest of LEGO’s creator 3-in-1 set launched in January 2024 and will set you back AU$99.99/£59.99/$64.99/€64.99 for 780 pieces (pretty similar across currencies at time of writing). The tent-pole of this set is the tall giraffe with flamingo and tree, both of which are already great, but in addition alternate instructions are included for a lion with butterfly or a pair of gazelle. With this set you should not be wondering if you should buy it, but rather, should you buy one, two or more!
This box is filled with pieces in soft colours that are usually quite rare (Medium Orange, Nougat, Medium Nougat, Magenta, Dark Pink, Bright Pink), a nice build experience without repetition, and five models that each deserve to be seen
Isn’t there anything disappointing about this set? Surely LEGO cannot release a perfect set right at the start of the year? Read on to find out; there will be animals, there will be LEGO pieces, there will be Pilates with impressive core control and there may be a crocodile and perhaps even a tiger (in Africa?)!
I’ll look at three mains aspects of this set to determine its worth; the finished sets, the pieces provided in this set, and the experience of building these models. For a set to be considered perfect it will need to score well in all these categories, as well as a final value-for-money adjustment.
It’s coming up to January 1st. This means two things in the Rambling Brick Household:
A new Botanical Set is awaiting review.
The Knoller-In-Chief and I have just celebrated another wedding anniversary.
As such, part 1 was able to contribute to the sense of occasion associated with part 2. This year, the new year Botanical release, hot on the heels of December’s Tiny Plants is the 10328 Bouquet of Roses. This 822 piece set brings us a dozen red roses, along with a little spray of baby’s breath to break up the sea of red. It goes on sale with on January 1st for $AUD99.99; $USD59.99; €59.99; £54.99
Was this just the activity to cap off the week that began with Christmas Day? let’s take a look.
The new City Space sets have a lot going on – between Mechs, Space Stations, ships heading out to the stars and purple crystals all around, there might be some form of narrative developing. But what if this is your first exposure to the ‘seek the resources, mine them and convert them into an energy source’ type of storyline? How do you know what’s going on?
There is one set that clearly tells the mining story in a single frame: the 4+ set 60429 Space Ship and Asteroid. It’s another $30AUD/$20USD set due for release on January 1, 2024.
If you opt to use the increasingly irrelevent metric ‘Price per part’, it lives up to the 4+ reputation : It has around half the pieces of the 60430 Interstellar Spaceship, for the same price. At the same time, this set contains so much of the underlying narrative in such a small package that its real value can never be said to be in doubt. Read on to find out why…
Here at the Rambling Brick, photography has given us a lot of joy over the years – from travel, our earliest dabblings in Toy Photography, work with other organisations, and even with the family around the home. My father was definately an influence with regards to this: He has been giving thought to how he takes photographs for a while. I remember him getting a new Pentax SLR prior to a trip to New Zealand back in the 70’s, following on to a chain of EOS… both analog and digital, before settling in recent years on a mirrorless Fuji device. How things have changed over the last 24 years!
And so it was with some seriously nostalgic vibes that I approached this build.
31147 Retro Camera is part of the January 1 2024 Creator 3in1 range, which (for creator 3in1) is unique, as it is the first time in some years that no sets in the wave have been designed at minifigure scale (with the possible exception of 31152 Space Astronaut, which has room for a minifigure to sit down inside its head.) No houses. No Vans. No Shopping Strips or Amusement Ground Rides. Just real world objects (along with a 35th anniversary helicopter carrying truck), all competing for display space on your shelves.
It was 1979, February and I was now staring at the LEGO® Catalog for the 3rd consecutive hour. I was enarmoured with the new spaceships. Fast forward to 2014 and the time had come to patch the 918 shaped hole in my collection. The 928/497 Galaxy explorer may have been the Ulimate Space Playset of the era, but the one man spaceship just seemed to do all the right things for me. Zip forward another decade and it appears that LEGO City is heading into space in a new direction.
While I might have considered the 2022 NASA Artemis sets as bringing us most of the things that we needed in a Space theme, the models were rooted in a near-future reality that may well be achieved by the end of the decade. While the elements were there, some of the sets were rooted on earth. The other daunting prospect here was the cost of entry, with 3 large sets and one moderately sized one all starting at $USD 40.
This year we see LEGO City return to space, but it feels a bit different to the last time: it feels like the inevitable narrative time skip has occurred and we are now exploring the wider galaxy. We see recurring themes encountered in Classic Space: searching for minerals. Now we a re looking for opalescent purple crystals that can be converted into batteries; Investigating the genesis of life on Strange New Worlds and shipping it all back home. To say nothing of the big silver band sown the sid of the box saying “Space”
The astronauts have a variety of robots to help them, as well as a collection of new outfits and accessories. More on that in the near future.
I was really excited when the LEGO Group sent the new City Sets over look at. Then the challenging moment arrived: which one to look at first? The small one? The Big one? The one that sat somewhere in between?
And so I Opted for the 60430 Interstellar Spacecraft. With 240 pieces, but only one (exclusive) minifigure this space ship appeared to be one of the most swooshable in the theme. And it felt like it might be the model to bear the closest resemblence to Ye Goode Olde 918.
As Ninjago Dragons Rising approaches its second season, we look to the latest sets for a clue as to what might be coming up in the story next year. The largest set in this wave is 71809 Egalt the Master Dragon. This set has 532 pieces and 5 mini figures. It is priced at $89.99AUD/€69.99/USD69.99/£59.99/CAD89.99 [links to your local LEGO.com]
At this stage, little is known of the story or the role that Egalt will play in it, but there is one thing that is apparent from this model: The Master Dragon bears more than a passing resemblence to acertain missing Ninjitsu Master – eyebrows, Beard, Hat and Cape. What else is he hiding? Time will Tell!
Zian the Cat-Owl is an important ally of the Dream Chasers in the first series of LEGO DREAMZZz, and as such, felt like a missing piece when the first wave of sets dropped last August. Fortunately, with the second wave of sets, this has been rectified.
This set is due for release on the first of January 2024. With 431 pieces, it is the second largest set in the wave and, along with Zoey and Cooper, presents us with a number of the Grimspawn as well well asNight Hunter.
LEGO® DREAMZZz brought us some of the more interesting and creative sets during the course of the year, and the new wave is no exception. While covering a relatively diverse range of source material, the sets were relatively expensive, with no sets priced with an RRP less than $AUD34.999 [(Mateo and Z-Blob ; Bunchu Bunny]. The latest wave may be a little smaller, with only 5 boxed sets in the wave, but we have 2 sets under $AUD25, and none over $AUD150/USD 90. LET’s take a quick look the smallest set in the wave: 71472 Mateo’s Off Road Car.
