CITY

Nightmare Scorpion Digger 71513, an issue with construction [review]

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LEGO set featuring the Nightmare Scorpion Digger 71513 with mini-figures, a crystal, and spiders, highlighted with colorful pieces.

Branko woke up from a dream wondering if Construction Equipment was on the way out. He couldn’t get back to sleep until he came up with the answer…

In January 2026 LEGO will release another wave of Dreamzzz sets and the balance between ‘dream’ and ‘nightmare’ seems solidly to have swung towards ‘Dream’. There is only 1 set out of 5 in the wave that is considered a nightmare, and it is the smallest of the lot at that. Cue “Nightmare Scorpion Digger 71513”, coming in at 505 pieces for AU$79.99/£44.99/US$49.99/€49.99. This is not a small set, it’s just the smallest of the lot (read more on that here).

The sets in this series are all associated with animals, and some machinery, but it struck me that this particular one is very strongly related to construction equipment. In recent years fans of Technic have been complaining a bit about a reduction of the number of construction equipment sets, so this left me wondering. Has construction gotten into bad books? Is digging holes no longer considered cool?

Join me as we have a quick look to see if Technic fans are objectively correct in their gripe, and then we will cheerfully ignore that and have a look at how construction equipment is used to create this particular nightmare creature.

This set was generously gifted by LEGO, but the expressed opinions are my own.

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Fire finds its future: History and 60414 Fire Station Review

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Regular readers would be aware that I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at the LEGO City Space sets this year – and they have brought just about everything you could ask for from a LEGO Space theme, with the possible exception of a revival of vintage colour schemes and monochromatic spacemen. I recently discovered some more LEGO CITY sets in the bottom of that shipping box – those from the Fire Brigade. It has been a few years since I looked at this CITY Subtheme. However, since LEGO City has undergone a design renaissance over the last couple of years, I was keen to see how things might have changed and approached it with an open mind. However, at the end of the day, my inner space fan has found myself wondering if it is hinting at something else…

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There is Space for Everyone in 2024’s LEGO Catalogue…

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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.

Lets Take a look…

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Seal Battle Pack or Family Pack?60376 Arctic Explorer Snowmobile [Hands On Review]

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Earlier in the year, we all got terribly excited when we got our first look at the so called Otter Battle Pack: With 2 otters lurking in a stream, while a human maintains the national park on their quad bike, all at an exceptionally reasonable price.

In the second half of the year, the LEGO Group have brought another similarly priced set to the market in line with the Arctic research/Deep Sea subtheme, this time with seals.

And does this set have much to offer, and is it reasonable to call it a battle pack? Let’s take a look.

I am writing this review on a train, during the start of the European summer, so apologies if the photos are not all up to scratch. I know there will be more reviews to do when I get home, so I’d better get something done while I am travelling!

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What I discovered from LEGO City: Volcano Starter set: LEGO is a responsive company.

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A Lot of Discussion has taken place this year about the representation of society’s diversity in LEGO sets.  A good deal of this has been centred around set 60134: Fun in the Park. At $AU55 it represents 14 mini figures: equal numbers male and female, and one baby. There is also a stroller, a wheelchair and a bicycle.  Figures are represented at a number of ages: young children, older children,  young married couple (Are they married?, are they even a couple? Is it their child in the stroller? So many questions. Things used to be so simple!), and older people, as well as some grounds keeper/park maintenance staff, both women, and a hot dog vendor.

But I don’t want to talk about this today.

Also recently released are the new CITY Volcano sets: a combination of volcano adventurers, scientists and ‘volcano workers’  whom I presume to be scientists in safety gear.  The thing that caught my eye about this set ahead of anything else was the mix of minifigures: two male and two female. There is a scientist ( designated a woman,  a quick head swap could change this, but why would you want to?) a ‘volcano adventurer’ , and two volcano workers: male and female. Continue reading →