Jay’s Brick Blog and The Rambling Brick are back with another episode of our collaborative Podcast, EXTRA PIECES. As we close out the year, we’re turning our eyes towards 2024 and the new year and the past week has seen most of the January 2024 releases revealed, and it would appear that there is space for everyone!
You can find the podcast on your favorite Pod Player – or click here
In today’s episode, we cover some of the newly revealed sets coming in the new year: LEGO City, Friends, Creator and DreamZzz as well as explore what the new Space strip that has appeared in sets across themes mean.
Now, I’m not going to lie: I haven’t spent a lot of time playing Minecraft. That said, I cannot deny what it means to the generation of kids currently growing up, even those in their early 20s, for whom it has been an integral part of their upbringing since 2009. That said, I was intrigued when some of the latest wave of Minecraft sets crossed my desk.It’s been a while since I have taken a look at any of these sets, and I’d like to thank the LEGO Group for sending these sets over ahead of time for review. I thought I’d start small, and take a look at 21251 Steve’s Desert Expedition: apparently the first LEGO Minecraft set where the action takes place in the desert biome.
The set has 75 pieces and comes with a Steve mini figure, as well as a baby camel and a flying Phantom. This year we are seeing a slight clawing back of the unfortunate price bump seen in 2022, and this set is one of those that represents the return of the small boxed set to the $9.99USD; $AUD14.99 pricepoint (compared to last year’s $17.99AUD for fewer pieces).
Over the past year, we have seen some of the most intriguing LEGO Dragons released to date conincidentally coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the release of the first ever LEGO Dragon. The upcoming Lunar New Year, the Year of the Dragon, is bound to give builders the chance to explore the possibilities of LEGO Dragon design even further.
And we are off to a great start, with 80112 Auspiscious Dragon revealed at the recent Shanghai trade show. This 1171 part set will be released on January 1 2024, costing $AUD149.99 /USD89.99 /€79.99 /£69.99. I find the sets celebrating the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival as it has been relabelled this year, to be amongst the most appealing and enjoyable to put together. As such, I was excited to be given the chance to take a look at it prior to its release in the new year. This is certainly one of the most spectacular Dragon Builds that I have seen appearing in a set in recent years.
Read on as we take a look at the way this new set comes together…
After the release of the LEGO® Icons 10329 Tiny Plants earlier this month, today, we see the second major Botanical set for 2024 revealed:10328 Bouquet of Roses. Arriving just in time for Valentines day, the set promises a while slew of intriguing recolours and neat parts usage. This 822 part set will be released on January 1, costing $99.99AUD/59.99 EUR / 54.99 GBP / 59.99 USD /24990 HUF / 499 CNY / 79.99 CAD.
Now that December is under way, German retailers Lucky Bricks and JB-Spielwaren have unveiled the majority of releases for January 2024 (and just a couple for March 2024 as well). The LEGO Builder App has got in on the act with these reveals as well, and there seems to be a recurring theme: SPACE. I was a childhood Space fan, and LEGOLAND Space with its red and white astronauts tickled my interest in just the right way back in 1979. Fast forward to 2024 and we see sets featuring LEGO Space Branding on the box, but also across multiple themes. How wide spread? We have seen it across not only City, but also Technic, Duplo, Dreamzzz, Friends, Creator 3in1 and Classic.
The branding takes the form of a diagonal silver cutoff, featuring the Classic Space LOGO with a purple planetoid and a red shuttle swooshing around it, and appears across the featured themes.
As a kid growing up in the 70s, I was a little excited about the idea of space travel. I missed the moon landing: The Apollo programme had drawn to a close, Skylab was preparing to burn up in the atmosphere above Western Australia, and we were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Next Big Thing in space travel – the Space Shuttle.
And so it is into this milieu that as LEGO® Minifigures were unleashed on the world, that we had worlds of Castle, Town and Space unleashed on the world. Past,Present and Future. One had a passing interest, one was the mundane and every day and the other captured my imagination from the moment I saw the catalogue that read “… coming in 1979.” I may not have had many space sets as a child, but the ones I had I could still assemble by heart after 40 years, as I emerged from my dark ages and returned to my childhood LEGO Collection. Of course, while 1979 was the release date in Australia and Europe, a limited range was released in The USA in 1978.
As I have continued to explore the worlds of LEGO Classic Space and beyond, I have seen it through old catalogue scans, battered box photos and crumpled, stained instructions, while cleaning the dust and grime off bulk lots of elements, assembling weathered spacemen and wondering if I need to get my glasses cleaned.
When I saw early mentions of Tim Johnson’s book “LEGO Space: 1978-1992” turning up for preorder on Amazon, I was excited. Tim is a passionate fan who grew up in a similar era to myself and, as a self confessed parts nerd and founder of the website NEW ELEMENTARY, he was always going to bring some interesting insights to the project.
I recently reviewed the Castle revival set 40601 Majisto’s Magical Workshop, available as a gift with purchase over the Insiders weekend as well as the upcoming Black Friday sales event at LEGO.com. With a buy in of US$250 / AU$400 / £220 / €250 / CAD$330, it has received some criticism from the point of ‘cost of ownership’ as well as the fact that perhaps some of the elements that defined the look of the Dragon Knights were no longer available – particularly the distinctive halberd, plumes and helmet. There were some elements that could have beeen printed, such as Majisto’s torso, and the addition of the Dragon Knight’s shield.
The old and the new.
I accept that there are reasons for these elements not being included…
This year we celebrate 30 years since the arrival of Majisto and the Dragon Knights. (to say nothing of LEGO Dragons) onto the landscape. The modern update of 6048 Majisto’s workshop as a contemporary gift with purchase has had many builders excited about its arival, and others just as disappointed, either by the omission of certain details (such as plumes in the Knight’s helmet, and decorations on Majisto’s Torso ), or the buy in price (>400AUD/250USD) as a gift with purchase on the LEGO Insiders weekend, or over the Black Friday shopping weekend.
I was really excited to receive this set to look at, from the LEGO Group, as I was keen to see how techniques used might differ from those used in the original model. While I may not have a copy of this 6048 Majisto’s Workshop I can at least take a look at the instructions, and see how this updated set might differ from the 1993 original.
I am also keen to take a look at the original models displayed on the back of the box, and see if they might be able to be put together with this set.
It’s the 60th anniversary of the first time that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes assembled in the debut issue of the Avengers Comic. Today, the LEGO Group have revealed its biggest Marvel set to date – the 5201 piece Avengers tower. Measuring 90 cm tall, this set also boasts 31 minfigures, includng Marvel Studio’s boss, Kevin Feige.
The set will go on sale to coincide with the Black Friday sales on 24th November, and will cost $USD499.99 / £429.99/ €499.99/ 759.99 AUD/4299 CNY/199990 HUF/669.99 CAD. Read on for more details, including the complete minfigure roster
Yesterday, I was a little bit excited to get my first glimpses of the Monkie Kid set 80054 Megapolis City. Celebrating the 5th year of Monkie Kid, the set is full of the eastereggs that we have come to expect from these large scale urban envoronments from MK. But the image quality was a bit poor: fast forward 24 hours and we have now got high resolution images, some are ‘lifestyle images,’others are renders of the box art. And while I was a bit excited yesterday, today I am turning it up to 11.
