X-Mas 2015: Ninjago and more

Another great holiday for our Lego collection!

Building with the 2015 Lego Pirates: Imperial Soldiers’ Bastion

I got pretty excited when I saw the new 2015 Lego Pirates line, and over a couple of weeks I managed to collect all the sets in the line (including the Junior set), except for the new pirate ship, The Brick Bounty.  Here’s what they look like together, built as the instructions show:

But I quickly developed ideas for a single, greater bastion to command the coast for the Imperial Soldiers.  After a few nights of building, I was pleased with how the build came together.  I took quite a few pictures – check them out below:

The pictures above show the bastion in a non-combat setting.  The cannon (both large and small), however, are stocked for a battle:

Here are a few views of the minifigs, row boats, and creatures that I included on this build:

       

And here are a bunch of pictures of the bastion during a battle:

    

 (Meanwhile, two frogs infiltrate the treasure room…)

All in all I really enjoyed the build, and the entire thing is built almost exclusively with the sets from the 2015 Pirates line.  I did have a few spare bricks laying around from a trip to the Lego store that did find use in this Bastion, notably the ladders and some dark red bricks.  I also had a good number of pieces left over from those Pirates sets, should inspiration strike for connected structures…

This bastion was actually the second I built from the same source material.  Before I acquired all of the 2015 line (excepting the Brick Bounty of course) I also built this smaller fort:

For both builds I tried to remain relatively consistent to the aesthetic of the original line, while trying to capture more vertical presence.

Some fun birthday set building

 

More Mobile Frame Zero

Finding Llyan (in Heroica scale)

Building for Fun: Mobile Frame Zero

It’s been a while since I built free-form just for fun, without a plan.  I made these up last night, inspired by the Lego-based tabletop wargame Mobile Frame Zero (check out the link to the right!).

New Year Hobbit Hole

For the holidays this year I received an awesome Hobbit Lego set, Bag End.  It is full of a lot of neat features and pieces, and I am quite the fan of the Dwalin and Balin models.  And the new brick separator that comes with the kit!  Here are some models of it put together:

 

Enjoy!

Happy Halloween

Lego Heroica: Oh the possibilities!

During a recent visit from a good friend, we took a chance on Lego Heroica.

 

And then we got really into it and played for hours.

The basic rules and layouts are a good place to start, but it is incredibly easy to make up your own.  Which we did for many, many games, especially after adding a few additional sets.  It would have been helpful to write all our house rules down, but….maybe next time!

We also had the thought: it might be a great opportunity to make a Prydain map set and game!

New non-licensed Castle Lego!

So no pictures today, but I just wanted to express how relieved I am to see that Lego is still making (and hopefully going to continue to make) non-licensed products.  I mean this specifically in reference to my favorite theme, Castle.  When they pulled the last line of Castle sets I thought it was because of the LOTR lego coming out, but perhaps it was just that line’s time to go.  I miss Lego-created classic theme sets, Castle and Pirates foremost among them (but also Wild West and Space).  I grew up in the age of Blacktron, Space Police, and M-Tron, and that’s what Lego will always be to me.  Not the licensed product lines.