Lego Race Car Transporter 31113

 This 3-in-1 Creator set allows you to make a Car Transporter with 2 small race cars (bonus points for singing an old advert about a red car and a blue car having a race whilst building), a Tug Boat or a Mobile Crane.  To be honest the Mobile Crane is more of a HIAB but as that is a niche "industry" term I can understand why it is marketed as a crane.  

Only 1 of the 3 models can be built at one time.

Each model comes with it's own manual to make building easy but only the main model of the Race Car Transporter is built in Bag Order.  To build the Crane or the Tug Boat you will need to sort both bags out before starting but as this is a relatively small set this isn't an onerous task.  Because of this I pre-sorted from the outset and had already decided that I would be using the Transporter as an addition to my City display so I started out by building the 2 smaller options first and then disassembling.

The clutch between the bricks remains strong even after building and disassembling a couple of times.  Although I would recommend having a Brick Seperator to hand to save your finger nails.

Overall this is a good set that allows for multiple builds using different techniques.  Even better as it is Lego you can build the instructed models and then break it all down and use the bricks to make whatever you can imagine.

Many thanks to the Amazon Vine Program for a review copy of this product.  The opinions expressed in this review are my own and do not reflect the opinions of Lego or Amazon.  This is also an honest and unbiased opinion based on my experience with the product and is not influenced by it being a review copy.

Number Of Pieces: 328

Approximate Price Per Piece £0.08

Build Time:
Crane - 30 Minutes (Breakdown time: 15 minutes)
Tug Boat - 25 Minutes (Breakdown Time: 10 Minutes)
Car Transporter - 40 Minutes (Sorting Time: 10 Minutes)

 

Crane

 

Tug Boat

 

Lego Lucky Cat 40436

 The iconic Lucky Cat wave is a running joke between myself and my husband.  Couple this with my borderline obsession with Brick Headz and this was a no brainer.  Even better you CAN make the cat wave which I wasn't aware of until I built the figure.  Yes, I did squee like a pre-teen when I found out.

Fairly standard Brick Headz build and appearance when constructed.  Really pleased with how he looks built up and put with my small collection even if stylistically he doesn't really fit with the Hallowe'en theming I have going on.

Cute and iconic figure that I am very pleased to have in my collection.

Number Of Pieces: 134

Approximate Price Per Piece: £0.07

Build Time: 20 Minutes

 

Lego Pirate Ship 31109

 I was really pulled in to this one from the pack art.  To me Pirates are one of the things that Lego is all about and because the sails on the ship are brick built this one really interested me.  Unfortunately, it is a 3-in1 build and the optional builds just looked so awesome on the box that I knew I would not be able to decide which one to build for display which led me to buying multiples of the kit and I have to say I'm really glad I did.  The resulting scene from building all 3 will look incredible when I get around to doing more than just plonking them on a shelf.  Even better, I have a LOT of left over pieces which will either go in my stash or get used for some accessories to go with the display - the jury is still out on which way I'm going to go with this one.

There are 2 books in the set.  The first one covers the build for the Pirate Ship and the Tavern and the second covers the build for Skull Island.  Only little glitch was that whilst the Pirate Ship follows the bag system so is relatively speedy to put together the Island and the Tavern do not follow the bags so you need to pre sort all the bricks before starting.  I decided to sort by colour in to tubs which took 30 minutes per build and is included in my build times below.

The overall functionality and look of all 3 options is so detailed.  It's little things like the skull on the Island lifting up to give access to the cave that make these incredible fun.  The Pirate mini figures are fun and I need to give a special shout out to the peg leg on the Captain - made me laugh each time I built him.  Even better you build the Shark and he is genuinely fabulous when constructed.

Overall this is right up there in my Top 10 Lego kits.  Whilst I knew it was going to be fun to build I didn;t expect all 3 options to be so incredible.  Very, very happy AFOL over here.

Number Of Pieces: 1264

Approximate Price Per Piece: £0.07

Build Time:
Pirate Ship - 3.5 Hours
Tavern - 4 Hours
Skull Island - 3.25 Hours

 

Tavern

 

Skull Island

 

Lego Skull Sorcerer's Dragon 71721

 The pack art for this one really drew me in and as I already had the Skull Sorcerer's Dungeon it would have been churlish of me not to buy it to flesh out the boardgame option.  Admittedly, I've never tried to play it but that didn't stop me wanting to get all the sections for it - nice marketing Lego Group...lol.

When I started building I hadn't realised that it came with some nice little scenes to construct before you get to the main even of the dragon.  These are nicely detailed and, even better, include a wonderful stone mini figure that made this non-mini-fig collector exceptionally happy.  Talking of Mini Figures the bad guys that are included with this Ninjago set are top notch, in fact they definitely rank in my favourites - Cole, Kai, Lloyd and crew are okay but the bad guys are really where it is at on the Ninjago kits and these are second only to Fire Fang.

The dragon himself looks fantastic built and is actually really sturdy when built.  I was surprised at how tough he is and definitely great for play.  I love the little rubber band mechanism that allows you to house a "spider egg" in the rib cage of the dragon and drop it like a little bio-bomb.  Great little feature that adds to gameplay and also adds a nice bright pop of colour to the model when on display.

He is really large when built and the wingspan is impressive.  The cloth wings keep it light and look good when fitted.

On the whole super impressed with the finished model.

Number Of Pieces: 1016

Approximate Price Per Piece: £0.07

Build Time: 2.75 Hours

 

Lego Slave I - 20th Anniversary Edition - 75243

 Whilst I am a fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, I haven't been able to build many of the ships as The Boy has decided that they are going to be all his.  I did twist his arm in to purchasing this particular model and he really isn't keen on it so I finally managed to get my hands on a Ship build.

Really glad that I did as this was a lot of fun and it is surprisingly stable when built, I did expect it to be pretty fragile.  Even better technic beams are used to create a collapsible handle on the base of the ship so it is really easy to pick up and it makes swooping it through the air so unbelievably simple - yes, yes, I may be a grown up but I still had to fly it for a little bit.

The mini figures are really cool.  Of course, with it being a ship there is not a lot of option to display them on the model but I think I figured something out that works for me.  For some reason I really struggle to get mini figs to stand up on my shelving so I always want to try and fit them on my builds then they don't get lost.

Overall it looks really effective built and the colour choices with the dark mint against the burgundy really work well and give a good rendition of the ship.  However, there is a slight disparity in the colour of the burgundy round edging pieces with the left being a shade darker than the right.  Not really noticeable unless you have it under good lighting (my display is very poor lighting at the moment) but I know it's there and it annoys me.

Other than that this was a really fun build with very few stickers.

Number Of Pieces: 1007

Approximate Price Per Piece: RETIRED PRODUCT

Build Time: 3.25 Hours