4641 Speed Boat

Not a long post today, but one for the sake of completism. At the same time that I bought Uruk-hai Army, I picked up 4641 Speed Boat. Picking up the set felt a lot like buying LEGO did as a kid: I had extra money in my budget, there were sets at the store that I could buy for that price, so I did. In actual fact, I was willing to spend a bit more money than I did... but LEGO is expensive these days and none of the sets that I was actually interested in fell below the budget thresh-hold--at least not without making it impossible to pick up the Uruk-hai Army. Nonetheless, I picked up Speed Boat. Why?

Well, as you can see, Speed Boat is not a particularly large set. One of my brothers got it for Christmas, so I've seen it before, and I knew it was "swooshable" (or whatever the maritime equivalent is... swoopable?) but ultimately forgettable. Even the fig is a relatively generic Octan fig. So why buy it? The answer is that for the price of less than three dollars, it was one sale and I didn't own it. LEGO is producing awesome enough sets these days that picking up sets on sale is less frequent than it once was--thankfully those "halcyon days" of 2003 or so are long gone--and LEGO is also more expensive than it once was. You can't even pick up a Collectible Minifig for less than three dollars most places. And with my own budget tightening, it was not only an opportunity but one I could afford. There was also a certain amount of "collector's instinct" involved. I've never been a LEGO fan who limited himself to primarily one theme: Castle, Pirates, Town, Space, etc. I've always aimed to have at least a little of everything--and more of some--and the fact of the matter is that City is at the back of the line these days. Part of this is because, although City has some new and awesome sets, it's just going over ground that they've covered for years and years: police and firemen and planes and race cars; at the same time, LEGO is putting out some new and wonderful stuff: Lord of the Rings and Monster Hunters and Collectible Minifigs, etc.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 097

9471 Uruk-hai Army

Although my lovely wife declined the suggestion that we spend all the gift money for our wedding on LEGO, in favour of things like cars and rent (which, I suppose, serve the LEGO collection in their own special way), I did get to pick up a little bit of new LEGO once we got back from our honeymoon. My priorities were quite clear: I need to expand my Lord of the Rings collection while they're still available in stores. To that end, while we were at a Target, I picked up 9471 Uruk-hai Army for $30 USD. My alternatives there were Shelob Attacks ($20) or Attack on Weathertop (which I already own). If Gandalf Arrives had been there, I probably would have picked it up too, but, alas, this Target lacked it.

The building centerpiece of the set is a wall-section, presumably a part of the Deeping Wall from Helm's Deep, guarded by Éomer on horseback and an Eorling archer with an (ubiquitous) catapult. (Fun fact: the Rohirrim don't actually call themselves Rohirrim or their land Rohan--those names are given to them by the Elvish-speaking Men of Gondor. The Rohirrim themselves call their land "the Mark" and their people "the Eorlings," people of Eorl--their first king.) The design of the wall is nothing spectacular, but LEGO didn't skimp with it either. Rather than being built with large 1x6x5s or other large panel pieces, it's made up of basic-sized bricks. Also impressive, design-wise, is the fact that it actually has a staircase built into the back; as a general rule, LEGO castles are notorious for leaving to the imagination how one ascends to the battlements. The bricks themselves include a fair number of the new "etched-in brick" 1x2s (all in light new-grey) and a number of sand-green bricks (mostly--but not completely--1x1s). LEGO also took the time to design a very respectable arrow-slit at the centre of the wall, and finer crenelations than any non-licenced LEGO castle I've ever seen.

Besides the wall-section, the building aspect of the set is concentrated on the siege engine for the opposing side. This a "giant crossbow" of sorts, which out-rigs a couple of flick-fire missiles as grappling hooks (presumably we are to imagine ropes behind them for the Uruk-hai to scale the walls with). As a general rule, I am not a fan of LEGO siege engines. I never found them as fun to play with as a kid as cavalry and infantry and I never had enough figs to man them properly anyway. As an adult, I generally find them to be overly "Technicky" and not a good source of great pieces. That caveat aside, I like this one about as well as I like any LEGO siege engine. The flick-fire missiles are well-used (something I would not say about 80% of the sets they come in) here (which also means "well-disguised"). Although it isn't a functional crossbow, it has the appearance of one, and there are few nice pieces here (mostly I'm thinking about the 1x4 printed tiles). Although I don't know that this engine will stay together as long as the wall--and certainly not as long as Weathertop--once I refit it with wider wheels, it should have a long life for a siege engine. Although the 4x4 round brick wheels used by the Knight's Kingdom (both I and II) are not always perfect, they are preferable, in my opinion, to the too-narrow 4x4 round plates used here (even capped with the 2x2 round plates).

And that brings us to the minifigs... Prior to this purchase, I have to admit that the vague sense I had of this set was that it was the "Helm's Deep Expansion" pack with a couple more orks, a couple more good guys, and a bit more wall--a résumé that didn't excite me much. If I thought about it, I would have probably assumed that it was overpriced and unexciting. What I didn't realise, since I don't really pay deep attention to the specs of sets I haven't purchased, was that it comes with six minifigs. That's one more minifig than Attack on Weathertop, and that set is twice the price!

Like the Rohirrim in this set, the Uruk-hai are a faithful and aesthetically pleasing adaptation of the characters from the movies. In neither case do I have any particular beef with these designs (though I don't think they are the only possible interpretations). My only real concern is that the humans are, as always in licensed themes, flesh-toned rather than yellow. Unlike Attack on Weathertop, however, this set makes the conversion easy, since neither of the Rohirrim have exposed skin on their torsos, which means a simple swap of hands and heads, and you have yellow-fig Rohirrim. Here they are pre-conversion. Note the excellent new helms (with printing for Éomer), excellent new shield, and excellent torso/leg printing.

Also note the sword the archer is carrying. In the instructions this belongs on Éomer's saddle (presumably this is his sword, which the books call Gúthwinë). I mentioned before that I like this new sword design--it is, to pun, quite sharp--but I'm not sure I like it for the Riders. LEGO sword design is, in any case, not an exactly replicating science, but this strikes me as more "hero-sword" (think Aragorn or Boromir) and less "Rider-sword." The classic "short sword" (in distinction to the chromed "great sword") is a better fit, but it belongs to a different aesthetic of minifig, and in any case is close to the same size as the new swords anyway. The "gladius" (it first came out with the Gladiator) is the best fit to my taste. That creates problems too, however, because that's the sword that Pippin (I refuse to call him Merry) carries in Attack on Weathertop. In addition to not wanting my Riders to carry mere Hobbit-swords, the gladius is just a touch too short for my taste--and extra 3 millimeters would have been perfect. Still, for the time being anyway, that's probably what I'll make do with--and I'll probably steal Pippin's sword to do it. I might give the Hobbit one of the Heroica swords from the Blacksmith set.

I'm quite pleased with the replacement faces I found. Éomer now sports a "Thresher" face from the Aquasharks line. It gives him a slightly darker hair colour, but I think the effect still works and it's light enough I could still give him blond hair and have it work. The other fig has a "Col. Colt Carson" head from the Wild West line, which ages him a little. That works me, though. He can be Gamling the Old, who, in the Books, was left in charge of the defense of Helm's Deep by Erkenbrand (whose army Gandalf goes to find since, in the Books, Éomer was never banished). You can also see that I've added another Eorling to the wall. Sporting a Bull Knight torso and classic "conical" helm, this new rider has stolen the head, spear, and shield off the Legionnaire and Highlander I recently acquired, making him fit in well with the two pre-existing Rohirrim. Note also the gladii they are carrying. All told, I was immensely impressed with this set--all the more so because I did not expect to be. I expected a decent set--all told, it's a great one.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 096

Wedding Loot

Despite the fact that my lovely wife vetoed putting LEGO on our Target registry, our wedding day was not without LEGO. The wedding favours have been mentioned before, but as it turned out, they were not the only LEGO involved with that day. Though no LEGO was on our registry, my family knows me well enough to indulge the habit a little. From my brother, the fare was minifigs of a variety I'd never managed to get my hands on:

(By the way, I apologise for the poorer quality of the pictures in this post--in addition to the usual excuses of photographer ineptitude, it was raining yesterday--hence the droplets on our friends.) These magnets were Toys R' Us promotional items, and as I have no car and Boston has no Toys R' Us, I would never have been able to acquire them--even though I'm a Castle fan. In a similar manner, as I've mentioned before, I never got the opportunity to acquire any Series 6 Collectible Minifigs. Knowing this deficiency in my collection, my brother got me these:

The Highlander and the Legionnaire were the two minifigs of Series 6 that I most regretted missing--and my brother knew this. My sister, on the other hand, probably has no idea at all what LEGO I have, lack, want, or need--but she does know I like LEGO and I like writing. So she got my wife and I these:

(The red in this photo is absolutely atrocious...) To my surprise--and glee--these Moleskine notebooks also come with a couple sticker sheets.

The reason for my glee is that I realised right away that although these stickers are (presumably) intended to decorate the pages of the notebooks, they also have minifig customising potential. Granted, this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I think the results are pretty good:

I am embarrassed to show this photo at all, but it gets the idea across. Both torsos and heads of these two minifigs are stickers cut from the sticker sheet. The effect may not be perfect, but it's sharper than most "do it myself" attempts and looks not unlike some of the very early minifigs, which often had torso stickers rather than printing. And as a way to rehabilitate some of the very worn, garage-sale heads that have been sitting useless in my collection, it's not bad. One just has to make sure to use the right head.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 095

The final scheduled post! I'll be back to normal next week.

Wedding Favours

Although this post is being written long in advance of its publication date, when it *does* go live, it will be going live just as my wedding wraps up--appropriately so, because today's post is about the wedding favours I designed for our wedding. I wrote a couple weeks ago about the fact that I've designed a few custom LEGO sets for my brothers as Christmas presents over the last few years, and I put this talent to good use for our wedding. As a result, an element of LEGO (reflecting just a wee bit of my character and quite a bit of my new wife's Do-It-Yourself craftiness/artsiness) has been introduced into our wedding, and we have distinctive, hopefully somewhat unique, wedding favours that, despite that, were not terribly expensive for us. They're also, in my opinion, rather cute. The individual guest doesn't get the pair of them, I'm afraid. Instead, the grooms and brides will be dispersed singly. The set was fairly easy to design. I suppose, more than anything else, they owe their design to some of the Christmas sets I've seen over the years, as well as maybe a touch of the LEGOLAND theme park "Miniland scale" creations (though this is a bit smaller). The chief interest in designing them was to keep them simple: simple instructions would be easier to make, and simple parts would be easier to accrue in lots of 75. The finished project makes it one of the "cutest" polybags ever (cuteness would be my wife's touch much more than mine). We'll see how the guests like them later today.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 094

With the wedding taking place this weekend and the honeymoon all of next week, this post and the next couple posts are being preloaded. Having never done this before, let's hope it works as planned... The guests in today's strip are in anticipation of that same wedding.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 093

Grandfather's Tale, Chapter XIII

It continues to be slow-going between chapters of Grandfather's Tale, but Chapter XIII is finished! Hopefully, with no more wedding or grad school over the summer I'll get to the next couple/few chapters somewhat more quickly, but I make no promises... In the meantime, here is the link to the Brickshelf folder (which isn't moderated as of posting.) ...and the rest of the chapter: 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11