Star Wars Lego: Escape the Space Slug

This is a promotional kit released for May the Fourth events in 2016. Not having been to the invitation-only events, I've bought it second-hand from eBay, because it is sweet. It is a vignette of a scene in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, where Han, Leia, Chewie and C-3PO aboard the Millenium Falcon take refuge from Imperial pursuers in an asteroid field, and land in a cavern that turns out to be the mouth of a giant space slug.

Let's have look at the box:

Looks good, but a bit small. And is that a teeny tiny Millenium Falcon?

Why, yes, it is the smallest Lego 'Falcon ever! Can't wait. Time to open the box.

 Looks like a lot of dark tan and grey. I'll have a bit of a rummage.

There's the instructions, and one bag of bricks. Building time.

Here's the first bit, the asteroid. Lots of dark tan. It's a bit tricky to interpret the instructions, because so much is tan-on-tan, but there's nothing particularly difficult about the construction. Putting all the little bits together to create the more textured look was fun.

The second section is the slug. The mouth is on a hinge, and opens and closes fairly well, although the clip on the tongue stops it closing completely.

 And that is the Falcon! I feel like I can't overstate how tiny that thing is. It's hardly larger than a two-by-two. The transparent blue is nice, it really gives the impression of speedy engines. Final step, clip everything together:

And isn't it lovely?

I do really, really like it, but because it's an exclusive, it's seriously expensive. One of these, new in box from eBay, would set you back the best part of three hundred pounds. Mine was already opened, and still cost me ninety. I don't regret it, but it was a lot of money for not that much kit. That said, there's something extra about knowing it's an exclusive. And it was a brilliant build. Maybe if it had seen a regular release, I would be happier. But I stand by my earlier statement, it is sweet. Both in the cute-sense, and in the awesome-sense, but not in the sugary-taste-sense.

That is gorgeous.

Marvel Superheroes Lego: Outrider Dropship Attack

Today I'm reviewing a set I got for Christmas, and made up before photographing. This is the Outrider Dropship Attack set from Lego's Marvel Avengers: Infinity War wave.

As you can see, it consists of a small ship with two Outriders, opposed by Captain America and Black Widow.

For context: Outriders are troops sent by Thanos to retrieve the Infinity Stones. This set is for their assault on Wakanda, where Vision went to have the Infinity Stone in his forehead removed safely so it could be destroyed.

Here's another look at the box.

I managed to miss the second Outrider piloting the dropship, so I was a little surprised when I started rummaging through the pieces and found the second set of plain black legs - I couldn't find Cap's navy legs straight away either, which did lead to the fear the set was wrong. Boy was I glad when I worked it out.

Shown between Cap and the Outrider on the box is the blue Infinity Stone. I'm pretty sure this represents the Space Stone, which was actually taken out of the Tesseract in Loki's possession on the Asgard refugee ship earlier in the film. Each of the six Infinity War sets have an Infinity Stone, and they don't strictly correspond with scenes from the film, due to Thanos' claiming of the stones being sometimes not particularly set-worthy, and in one instance completely off-screen. The six sets give a good flavour of the film without being as unappealing for children as, say, a ship full of corpses (frankly, I'd be put off too), so I think this is a nice compromise to give the chance to collect 'em all.

This set has four gems and two gold settings. As you can see in my first picture, I've given one of them to Cap to hold onto.

The main build is, of course, the dropship.

It unfolds to give space for both Outriders, and folds up again for a more aerodynamic look. It has a pair of stud-shooters, those tricky little lever-and-socket pieces that fire a little piece of plastic at high velocity, and so come with a warning graphic to tell little hellions not to shoot each other in the face with them. I'm not sure how useful this is, but does nothing for the equally vexing but less litigation-worthy problem of the studs getting pinged across the room and never seen again.

There's a reason sets with stud-shooters have plenty of spare studs.

The dropship has five stickers. Four are used to give the twisty teal markings clearly visible on the box art. The fifth is semi-concealed within the ship:

A very nice little control panel. The Lego Group has fairly frequently done control panels as printed pieces, but they also use stickers for them quite a bit. The piece the sticker is applied to is a four-by-one with studs at either end and smooth in the middle, so perhaps it would have been a little too tricky to print to be worth it? Regardless, the panel looks very good, even if I did apply the sticker off-centre.

The other Outrider has his own hidden surprise:

Whoops, he's got the Stone! As I said earlier, there are four stones and two mounts. The stones are actually made of a softer plastic, and come as a ring with all four still attached. They're fairly easy to twist off, and there's no really stub left over. Might be a little challenging for the younger builder, but the stones themselves look very neat. TLG could have used the old diamond design, but this new design better captures the oval shape of the Stones, and gives a thinner stalk to insert into the golden mounts. I think it looks less flashy and more mystic, which would be exactly the right image.

Finally, we have the four figures:

The Outriders have a very effective gold-on-black print, and have a neck bracket to attach four extra arms each. This gives them a very chunky feel, and make them a little difficult to fit into the dropship. Cap has two small shields gifted to him by T'Challa, aka Black Panther, as his iconic circle shield was lost in Civil War. Black Widow has also changed her appearance drastically as a result of that film, now featuring blonde hair and a largely green outfit. To my mind, this makes her nigh unrecognisable when rendered in Lego, but that would be the fault of the film producers rather than TLG.

For a small set, four figures is generous. As with the Stones, the main characters are nicely scattered through the six sets, so adding two little troopers is good to see.

Overall, this is a very good little set. I'm very happy with it, and enjoyed building it.