2013 Advent Calendar

One of the sets on display at the NY Toy Fair is the 2013 Star Wars Advent Calendar, full of great mini models.

Sungnymun Gate

LEGO recently announced the most recent offering in the LEGO Architecture line. The Sungnyemun is a National Treasure of Korea - this was one of the three entrances to the walled city of Seoul in the 14th century. Before being damaged by fire four years ago, the structure atop the gate was the oldest wooden building in Seoul - it is currently under reconstruction and will reopen later this year.

Brand Retail Store

As you may know, when LEGO opens a new retail store, they generally create an exclusive kit as a giveaway to people who purchase there on the first day. They've just announced a new kit, the Brand Retail Store, along with a list of where new stores will open (in the US) in the next year. If you can't make it to one of these, you could always build your own from the instructions on lego.com. While this is a cute set - I like the micro pick-a-brick wall in particular - I'm a little sad that it seems that they will have this same set at all new openings (at least this year). In past grand openings, the exclusive set has been something that reflected the location of the new store. Ash-274 has a gallery of many of these - a Liberty Bell for a store in the Philadelphia area, a famous lighthouse for Raleigh, the Frankfurt town hall, etc. It's too bad we won't see more of these little exclusives with local flavor.

Master Builder

If you sign up for the LEGO Master Builder Academy, for your $60 subscription you get five kits, access to online content, and instructions on how to build like a 'real master builder'. Anyway, one of the kits last year was 20201 - Microscale.

LEGO Minecraft

The upcoming LEGO Minecraft set chosen by Cuusoo users was recently announced at the LEGO World gathering in Denmark, and it is also showing up on such sites as Brickset, FBTB and the LEGO Cuusoo blog (and, amazingly, LEGO seems to have redesigned the press page of their site - I've complained in the past that they never seemed to post their press releases to their own site, so I'd get things like the official press release of the Tolkien theme, or the DC/Marvel themes via other fan sites). Anyway, I guess this counts as microscale. I don't play Minecraft, but these look like the Minecraft pictures I've seen. Mostly I see these as basic brick, plate, and particularly 1x1 tile parts packs. I'll be interested to see a parts breakdown to see if they are cost effective in this manner. That said, I'm sure Minecraft players will greatly enjoy this set and expand upon it from their collections.

Mini Modulars

Over on Brickset they note that set 10230, Mini-Modulars that was announced last year (at BrickCon?) is now available on lego.com. Apparently for the moment this is for LEGO VIP's only.

That's no moon

LEGO has come up with another interesting series for micro builders, the Star Wars Planets sets. The first series consists of 9674-1: Naboo Starfighter & Naboo, 9675-1: Sebulba's Podracer & Tatooine and 9676-1: TIE Interceptor & Death Star. Each of these sets has a minifig, a microscale vehicle, and, at probably the smallest scale ever in a LEGO set, and 11-wide planet (or space station). This is the most scale mixing we've seen in an official set since, I believe, 7468, Saturn V Moon Mission. The ships are nice - I particularly like the TIE Interceptor, but those planets will be interesting elements. I'm sure we'll see builders put these to use in forced perspective scenes in space battles. Probably the most obvious application I see, given that I just packed away my Christmas decorations, is to make a Star Wars themed Christmas tree next year, with micro ships and these planets as ornaments. There's apparently another series coming out this summer, so I look forward to seeing what those are like.

10230 Mini Modulars

10230 Mini Modulars will be released in 2012. More details and photos here and here.

Set 3300005 - Copenhagen

Set 3300005 - Copenhagen was an exclusive offering at the grand opening of a LEGO store in (of all places) Copenhagen this past March. Nori-gallery has pictures showing all sides, the packaging, etc. This is an impressive little set. They've gotten more elaborate with these store opening offerings, and even include unique elements in this set. At least according to Bricklink those printed bricks are exclusive to this set.



Purchase this set and see an inventory on Bricklink.

Black Pearl

LEGO recently released set 30130, the mini Black Pearl.

Burj Khalifa

21008 Burj Khalifa is another new set in the Architecture line.

Farnsworth House

The newest set in the Architecture line is the Farnsworth House.

Set news - Super Star Destroyer

This is probably everywhere by now, but I first saw it this morning on FBTB (it's other places, like the Brothers-Brick, as well). It looks like LEGO accidentally left pictures of an upcoming set, 10221, the Executor. Unless someone is pulling an elaborate late April Fools, this looks like a pretty awesome set.



BTW, I should note that the image no longer seems to be up on LEGO.com. I'm sure that any moment now, lawyers from LEGO are going to start contacting FBTB, the Brothers, etc, asking them to take down these images. Pretty much the same thing that happened with the Maersk train. What they need to understand is this - If I stand naked in front of my living room window, I can't really complain if people see me. If someone breaks into my locked house and sneaks into my bathroom to see me in the shower, well, for one they've got pretty sad lives, for two they are committing a crime. Posting any image on a publicly accessible webpage is the first case. Putting it behind password protection is the second case.

Set 20021

The Brickmaster program has been canceled, and so you can't sign up for a new subscription, but apparently those with subscriptions have another set, 20021, MINI Bounty Hunter Gunship. I'm sure most of us won't have the option to get this, unless they offer it in some other form, but you can build your own.

Merry Christmas

It looks like LEGO will be wishing micro SW fans a Merry Christmas with this year's advent calendar. Was this shown at one of the recent Toy Fairs?

On the fourth day of Christmas ...

Okay, I know, that's actually December 28, but the December 4 offering from the 2010 LEGO City Advent Calendar was this micro crane (here photographed by Dave Bond). This year's calendar features several micro vehicles - or perhaps they're meant to be fig-scale toys.

Dancing bricks

Brian Stark made a series of animations of the construction of the Architecture sets.

Clone Turbo Tank

Masked Builder posted photos of set 20006, Clone Turbo Tank, presumably for a set review, but I can't find his review. Anyway, this was an exclusive set for BrickMaster subscribers back in 2008.

Tossed salad and scrambled eggs

While looking around for other images of the Architecture sets a couple of days ago, I notice that BruceWayneLego made this Frasier MOC.



I have to say, I don't think I ever expected a MOC based on Frasier.

Live, from Rockefeller Center

It looks like the next set in the Architecture series will be 21007, Rockefeller Center.




No details yet on Lego.com - the first sets (the John Hancock Center, the Empire State Building and the Space Needle) were called the "Landmark Series" and the next ones (Fallingwater and the Guggenheim) were called the "Architect Series". Next up is supposed to be the "Discovery Series". Oddly, the Sears Tower set has disappeared from the Lego.com site, but is still there on Adam's BrickStructures page.

Edit - The Brothers-Brick came up with a better picture. Set designer Adam Reed Tucker is donating a signed copy of the set to Creations for Charity, a great charity where you can buy MOCs by some of your favorite builder and all of the proceeds go to kids. Apparently set 21007, Rockefeller Center, is going to be released in early 2011.