LEGO Super Heroes 76011 Batman: Man-Bat Attack Review.

Continuing with our review of the DC Universe Super Heroes set Reviews, today we are going take a look at  76011 Batman: Man-Bat Attack. The main reason for picking this set up was for the Nightwing Minifigure. 
Lets have a look at the set details and then move on to the review.

Set Number: 76011

Theme: DC Super Heroes

Set Name: Batman: Man-Bat Attack.

Part Count: 184

Minifigures: 3

Australian RRP: $39.99

Featuring: Batman's Batcopter and Nightwing's Glider.

The front of the box shows Man-Bat unleashing dynamite over Gotham City while Batman, in his Batcopter and Nightwing on his glider as they take control over the situation and tyr to stop Man-Bat from hurting the innocents down below. It has been a while since we had a Batcopter released, the last one was in 2007 with 7786 The Chase for Scarecrow.

The Back of the box shows you the features of the Batcopter. Including opening cockpit, rotating blades, flick fire missiles and a working winch with a hook.

When we open the box we find 2 numbered bags, an instruction book, sticker sheet and a comic.

Here is a close up of the sticker sheet. There are 2 stickers to apply in total.

I did a gif image so you can view all the comic pages. They run for 10 sec per page.

Bag 1 and it contents. This will build 2 Minifigures and the main body of the Batcopter.

Batman has printing on the front and back of both his torso and head. If you have any Batman set you most likely have this one, only difference would be his Type 2 Cowl. With the new The LEGO Movie coming out and co-staring this guy, it's the cheapest way for you to get this Batman.

Man-Bat has front and back printing on both his head piece and his torso. He is using the Series 8 Collectable Minifigures Vampire Bat mold, but with different printing and color. Man Bat came in his own little baggy.

*Clear minifig head Is Not Included in the set.*

Here we have a quick step by step build of the Batcopter body. The cockpit is very spacious to allow for Batman and his cape.

Bag 2 has a few bits and pieces. This will complete the rest of the Batcopter and also build Nightwing and his glider.

This guy here is the main reason I got the set. I missed out on the original Batman series in the mid 2000's while I was in my dark age, and I was just itching to get this minifig. Nightwing aka Dick Grayson aka Robin Has double sided printing on his face and torso. I love his red and black new 52 design.

*Clear minifig head Is Not Included in the set.*

The Batcopter's tail and two rotor blades are now completed. The cockpit is roomy inside to allow for Batman's cape but because of his Cowl he still needs to lay back for the windshield to close.

A step by step build of Nightwings glider. I really like the sticker print design. It really gives the glider some character.

The glider completed.

Here it is with Nightwing in position. The glider will not stand on its own. I had to use my own clear head piece to get it to stand. Even if you take off the trans orange cones, the fin piece wont allow for it to stand upright. So it will always be in a laying down position. This completes the set. It felt Strange to build this last, we normally do these types of things first.

The spares for this set. I had to go through my instructions to see if I had left off a 1x1 trans yellow plate. I expected 1 but not 2. It is an extra on top of an extra :-)

Some final images of the set.

Couldn't resist.

Overall this was a neat set. The Helicopter has a nice slick design and looks heaps better then the original 7786 model from 2007. But what this set lacks, is any purpose that the 2007 set had. It seems like overkill to have a Batcopter, Nightwing and glider to battle a stand alone Minifigure with just 2 sticks of dynamite. 
I have always had a soft spot for this version of the Batman Minifigure and with The Lego Movie coming out soon I'm happy I wont need to chase one down for my Son. Batman is not going to be in any of the Movie licensed sets, if you don't have him yet it's best to get this set. Nightwing is just Awesome! Great printing all round. Man-Bat is nice but with his arms the way they are you can't do a lot with it.
It was a nice touch to add the wing piece as the Batcopters tail. It almost gives it that retro feel to it. I know the support beam helped to give it that look.
I enjoyed the build and felt like it would have been a very quick build if I didn't need to take photos for this review. There are no special build techniques involved that are complicated and any child could sit there and build this set with no difficulty what so ever.
It's a must get set if you need Nightwing in your collection. The Batcopter and glider are fun to swoosh around the house, so you and your child wont be too bored playing around with this set. I have to go dig out our Joker copter so my Son can chase me around the house. :-D

Thanks for stopping by and having a read. I hope you enjoyed the review!
 

Let us know in the comments below, what your thoughts and opinions are on the set.

Until next time this is Tan Tile... Swooshing around the house... Swwooooooooosssshhhh Pew Pew Pew :-D

LEGO Super Heroes 76010 Batman: The Penguin Face Off Review.

Welcome to the first LEGO set review of 2014.  It has been so long since I did a true set review, That I was a little bit out of sorts. Getting back into the swing of things proved to be difficult. My camera settings were all over the place from taking holiday snaps, that I needed to do a whole new round of light setting test shots before I could start. Once I got over that hurdle, I got cracking.  

Let's begin 2014 with the smallest of the new Batman Sets and look at 76010: The Penguin Face off. We will work our way up from smallest to biggest as we review this new series.

Set Number: 76010

Theme: DC Super Heroes

Set Name: Batman: The Penguins Face Off.

Part Count: 136

Minifigures: 2

Australian RRP: $19.99

Featuring: Batman's Scuba Vehicle, The Penguins Duck boat and Robot Penguins.

 

Yay! A new Batman set. With a new Bat suit in Dark Blue! Sexy! We finally get a nice cheap way to purchase the Penguin too. The duck boat on the front of the box reminds me, and every other 30+ year old of the 1992 film Batman Returns where we see something very familiar... assuming it had the wheels. 

Scuba Batman is on the case! The back of the box shows batman trying to knock the umbrella out of the Penguin's hand. Getting past the 2 dangerous robotic penguins that are controlled by The Penguin all while trying to retrieve the precious diamond that was stolen.
Both the duck boat and scuba vehicle have flick firing missiles.

When we open the box there are 3 unnumbered bags and an instruction manual. 

Here are all 136 pieces laid out. One of my Dark Blue flag pieces is different to the other 3 that I got. It has a rough surface like on a roof slope piece and the other 3 were smooth and shiny. I'd be interested to hear if you had alternate parts included in your set too.

When I tipped the contents of all the bags out, and set them up for the photo above I didn't notice this piece.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the bat symbol is actually printed on. Awesome!

Scuba Batman is an all new and exclusive Minifigure for this set. He has a Dark Blue Scuba Bat suit. The torso has fantastic print details on both the front and back. Batman also comes with printing on both sides of his head. I think this is the first time I have seen Batman's head printed over a black head piece. On The other side is a print of a scuba mask.

For anyone who missed out on the 10937: Batman: Arkham Asylum Breakout set for the exclusive Penguin Minifigure, or just could not afford the set will be extremely happy that they can now own The Penguin (AKA Oswald Cobblepot) in such a small and inexpensive little set. He comes with a single sided face print that is the same as the one in 10937 set. But he now has an all new double sided torso print. It has lovely details showing a nice warm fur coat over a suit and tie. He also comes with his trademark top hat and umbrella. Anyone that is after the short Dark Bluish Gray legs will also be happy to know that this is the cheapest set to get them in. The next cheapest set is 79003: An Unexpected Gathering.
    

Here is a quick breakdown of Batman's Scuba vehicle.  I'm still chuffed that the nose piece is printed.  Perfect for real under water skirmishes.

Cue in your inner Ernie and sing with me "rubber ducky your the one, You make bath time lots of fun..." Is it Stuck in your head now? Sorry...
A quick look and the step by step build of the Duck boat.

Here is a shot of the little snow/ice scene that finishes off the build. Included are the 2 robotic penguins both carrying some dynamite, while they guard the precious diamond their master stole.

Here are the spares we get with this set.

A couple of photos of the complete set.

When I first saw the images of this set online I was not all the keen on it. But after seeing it on the shelf at my local Big W I was more then curious about the set. The Box art doesn't really show you how cute and cool the Duck boat truly is. You need to have in hand to fully appreciate how damn cool the thing really is! You get 2 brilliant Minifigures that are only in this set. A couple of awesome looking brick built penguins and a sweet looking scuba vehicle that you or your children can take to the bath tub and play with, without worrying about any stickers! LEGO really thought that one through!
It was a quick and fun build and recommend it to any Batman fan out there. Or if you are a duck lover!

Thanks for stopping by and having a read. I hope you enjoyed the review!

As always and if you want too, let us know in the comments below, what your thoughts are on the set. I would love to hear your opinions on it.

Until next time this is Tan Tile... about to have bath time :-D

Melbourne's Brickvention 2014 Review

Hello Oz Brick Nation readers. Today is a very special day. Why?... Because today we have a new member to the OBN family. I would like to introduce you to Chris. A fellow Melbournian with the same passion for the little plastic brick, as  we do here at OBN. In his very first post he is going to give us his own account to Melbourne's very own LEGO convention called Brickvention. 
Lets hear a little bit about Chris before we get straight into the review...
    

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A couple of years ago in my late 20’s I rediscovered the joys of LEGO, and started buying a couple of the larger TECHNIC sets here and there, starting with 8292 – Cherry Picker. It was only after watching the Megafactories episode showing the LEGO factory that I realised just how much fun LEGO was again, and started with the 7498 Police Station. 

A couple of years later now, my collection comprises over 250 sets, and over 100,000 pieces, and is rapidly growing. With 3 young children under 4, I’ll be able to share this joy with them over the next few years, and their DUPLO collection already comprises over 1000 pieces.

I mainly collect Modular Buildings, Creator City, Star Wars, and Technic at the moment, but have bought the full range of Galaxy Squad sets from last year, which, in my opinion, are amazing, as well as some Legends of Chima. I’ve started running out of space to display sets, so I’ve been gradually breaking down sets into pieces and sorting them, which in itself is a massive task. 

I first heard about Brickvention 2012 from a work colleague, just after the 2012 Brickvention had happened, and made sure I got tickets early for BV 2013. Brickvention 2014 sold out in about 2 months (tickets go on sale October 1 every year), with approximately 20,000 tickets sold to the event. Adult tickets this yea were $12 and children (4-14) were $6 (free for under 3).

We bought tickets to BV2014 for the first public session, which is now 9:00am on the Saturday morning, and this year my wife and I took our 3 kids with us, who are 8 weeks, 2 years and 3 years old…challenging to say the least, especially when holding one of them whilst taking photos with the DSLR camera. The queue when we got there looked long, but it moved very quickly and we were inside within 20 minutes or so. 

This year’s BV had a very diverse range of LEGO scenes, ranging from Star Wars to City to TECHNIC, Harry Potter, GBC’s (Great Ball Contraptions), Lord of the Rings. Interestingly, there was very little, if not any, Legends of Chima or Ninjago scenes. I’ve heard from AFOLs a lot that the Chima sets are very much aimed at younger LEGO fans, but, having bought a couple of the 2013 sets on clearance after Boxing Day, I was very impressed with the builds and the attention to detail in the minifigures.

The centrepiece of the event was a huge train layout in the centre of the exhibition building. Trying to get a photo of this was next to impossible due to the massive size and length of the display.

One of my personal favourites was the Star Wars theatre, complete with an iPad filling in for the screen, showing one of the Star Wars movies. The theatre was complete with an X-Wing that had crash landed into the side of the building!

My daughter’s favourite, a princess house of course!

The most eye catching creation was the Golden Gate bridge, and it is truly an amazing feat of LEGO engineering.

Each of the actors who has portrayed James Bond was captured in a LEGO mosaic, in great detail, to coincide with the “Designing 007” exhibition, which is currently showing next to the Royal Exhibition Building at the Melbourne Museum. The best Bond, in my opinion, is below!

 

There was also plenty of LEGO to purchase at the end of the exhibit, with multiple sellers attending the event, including Shopforme, ToyBricks, BTTW, and I’m Rick James Bricks. I would recommend that you do your research on prices before attending the event though…

Brickvention is a very well run event, and is run by hundreds of volunteers who give up there time over the event to ensure the event runs smoothly.

In summary, Brickvention is a must attend event for fans of LEGO of any age. I would suggest that if you are interested in attending next year’s Brickvention that you join the Brickvention Facebook page for updates throughout the year, to ensure you don’t miss out on next year’s Brickvention. Alternatively you can also join the Brickvention mailing list on the Brickventures web page (http://www.brickventures.org.au) 

Anybody can exhibit at Brickvention, with applications opening in the second half of the year. Applications are reviewed by the Brickvention committee for suitability. 

BV2014 has inspired me to start creating MOC’s, and I’m slowing coming up with ideas I hope to build and display at BV2015!

You can see more of my Brickvention photos on Flickr, send me an email and I'll send you the link.

Chris.

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A Fantastic Review Chris! Thank you very much. Chris will also start doing some LEGO set reviews in the future too so keep a look out for them as well. Some Big sets coming from Chris!
Again we say, welcome Chris to OBN family!
 

Testing a New opener image template for Future LEGO Reviews

Today I have been busying myself in preparation to begin doing more LEGO reviews.
All day I have been working in Photoshop trying to make a template for the first image of every review that I do.
It will be a data image that will show the set and details of the set that will be reviewed.

I just wanted to post this up so I can see how it will look live.

So What do you think? Like it? or hate it? I think it's going to work out very nicely :-)

See you all soon... expect to see this set  reviewed very soon.

Tan Tile Out!

London Toy Fair 2014 LEGO 2nd half of the year Round up.

It's London Toy Fair time and http://brickfanatics.co.uk/london-toy-fair-report/ have got some details for the 2nd half of 2014 LEGO sets. here are some quick points to whats to come. Hit the link above for the full report and pricing..

Themes ranging from

City will have a new sub-theme "Arctic - Secrets of the Ice" blue and orange colour scheme. Included in the theme will be Huskies! Snowshoes, A new articulated polar bear. Also on display was the new white bullet train (similarly styled like the Horizon Express) and a new train station.

Super Heroes For Marvel there is an X-Jet: with Cyclops in his Astonishing X-Men uniform. Storm is in her debut black outfit. Magneto has white slicked back hair.

There will be 3 Guardians of the Galaxy sets. 76021, 76019, 76020. 

In the DC world, With the Batman/Superman film switching their release date they’re moving the product range from 2015 to 2016 . And inserting a new range for 2015.

Star Wars A New Dewback.
There is a new Advent Calendar with a Xmas tree droid and Darth Vader Santa.
Imperial shuttle and mini tie fighter.
Imperial Star Destroyer comes with a microfig of the Emperor.
A Ghost ship from the new Rebels TV Show
An AT-AT similar size to old one but different leg construction.
and a new Snow Speeder.

TMNT both TV Show and movie sets.
Turtle Van Takedown, Big Rig Snow Getaway, Turtle Lair New figs: Leatherhead, Spiderbytez, Kirby Bat, Karai.
Styled Turtles for the TMNT movie sets, much darker. Splinter with short legs?

Hero Factory will be subterranean spider theme. Some pieces look glow in the dark. (It's like another language to me hit the link above for more detail)

Ultra Agents 2014 Spy storyline. Every box you get a different mission with an online comic. Works with augmented reality to create your own comics. Agents Blaize, Phoenix, Bolt, Burns. Enemies Terror.

Collectable Minifigures,  Series 12 is due October 2014. Each comes with a code to unlock something. Simpsons will all be unique minifigs in the series.

Mixels Not sure about the Australian release dates are but for the UK Series 1: March, Series 2: June, Series 3: September

Legends of Chima,  The continent splits and a piece of chi falls into the chasm and reawakens some of the legendary tribes. Mammoths! Including a big fig! there will be Sabretooth Tigers, a Phoenix tribe and Vultures. There will be Giant AT-AT style mammoth set.

Ninjago. Terminator style theme continues and there is a Dojo set that hasn’t been released. Going to continue the theme into 2015 and beyond.

LotR/Hobbit  There will be a Smaug similar-sized to the Castle dragon. The Witch King minifig glows in the dark. The Elrond fig looks like the polybag figure. The bargeman’s son comes in one of the sets (3 buildings, an addon to the Laketown Chase)
 
Technic will have digger licensed from Volvo which will contains power functions. This will be the biggest Technic set released this year.

 That is just a quick walk through of what sets are coming in the second half of 2014 but if you need more details head over to Brickfanatics for some pricing and set numbers for most of the sets. 

My hit list will be
Super Heroes, TMNT, City, LotR/Hobbit, Collectable Minifigures... Ahhh who am I kidding I'll be looking at them all. Even Chima sound pretty damn awesome! and Sound like some very interesting new elements are coming our way :-D Cant wait to see some images...

 ....News source via Brickfanatics...

 

Yes I am still here!

Hello everyone! A very belated Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday that involved plenty of time to do some LEGO building.

I cant believe it has been 23 days since my last post. Time has just flown by!
A few things got built over the holidays in-between traveling home and going up to our farm property.

I was able to sit down and build 10237: The Tower of Orthanc. It is such an impressive build! I had so much fun building it. I kept a micro cloth handy to wipe off the fingerprints at each and every step which made the build take even longer but more enjoyable at the same time,  it made it feel like I was building something very special.... and it was! It's my tallest set yet!

I also had the time to build 10228: Haunted House. This was another fantastic set to build! With impressive details inside and out. This is one set every LEGO fan must get their hands on before they are all gone. It has to be one of my top 5 favorite sets to date. The other 4 I have built and own, in no particular order are: *** 10185: Green Grocer, 10210: Imperial Flagship, 10237: Tower of Orthanc and the 10194: Emerald Night Train.

I hope to get back into full swing by the end of the month. I will have a new routine in the mornings now with Jaspa stating Kindergarten on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I hope to have more free time but I also hope not to have free time... If that makes any sense? I will be child free for 2 days in the week for 6 hours each day and I hope to find some part time work to help with some house bills and some LEGO purchases :-D. But finding work between 9:30am to 2:30pm for 2 days a week is very slim.

Anyway I hope to get some more reviews out soon. I have a few Polybag sets I would like to get done and some of the new Hobbit and City sets too. So stay tuned....

Tan Tile.... out!

*** Links via Brickset.com