Set Review - Mikey's Mini Shellraiser 30271

When I first discovered this set on Brickset many months ago I was thrilled.  The TMNT line has done nothing for me.  But microfy anything and I'm in.  So when I received an alert that this was available, I was thrilled that I hadn't missed it.

So I ordered a few and started building one.  As soon as I dumped the pieces out I felt disappointed.  Of course, I could see right away how it would look like the full size set.  But as I mentioned in my last TMNT set review, this new Nickelodeon series is not at all what I was expecting.  I wanted more old school stuff.  Does that give away my age?  Sit down kiddies.  'Bout the time ol' grampa Dag was in junior high, I used to come home from school (uphill in the snow, both ways) and sit in front of my television, manually turn on the machine, manually turn the knob to channel 13 and watch me some heroes in a half shell.  And we liked it that way!  It's all different now and different is bad! </old man rant>

So anyway, the real disappointment was seeing how simply the Shellraiser was put together.  The main body consisted of a pair of 2x2 yellow bricks.  The big set has so much more bling and blang on the front that I figured a couple of plates with some olive green in the middle would have been appropriate.  And maybe the designer lobbied for that.  But given that the part count was already up to 47 there wasn't much wiggle room left for more parts.

But if they'd been looking to shave pennies, they could have lightened up on the extras.  All the expected 1x1 pieces are extra'd, but so is the red tap and the small wheel.  Maybe they have been in some other sets but I'm not familiar with these pieces as extras.  There's a total of six extras, could have been four.

But what's really missing (if you want to microfy the whole set 79104) is Dogpound's pizza delivery truck.  I slapdashed one together to give Michelangelo something to ram his little RC toy into.  A total of 22 more pieces, not quite enough to make another worthwhile polybag.  So maybe it needs another vehicle but I ran out of inspiration.  Or my muse ran out on me.

If I'm counting correctly, this is only the second TMNT polybag.  I don't count the Flashback Shredder promo.  In that regard, this might be a hot item to pick up.  That coupled with the micro aspect (in my mind at least) make this a must have set.  Plus, you get a turtle for less than secondary market value.  If you can't find the set at retail, then you'll have to settle for $10+ on the grey market.

And if minis aren't your thing then maybe you'd like to check out the latest releases from LEGO:

Set Review - Kraang's Turtle Target Practice 30270

When The LEGO Company first leaked that they were releasing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line, I was pretty excited.  I had supported the project(s) on Cuusoo and watched the shows as a kid.  I was especially looking forward to the Turtle's van.  This was going to be pretty cool.

But then they released the sets.

What was this garbage?  The van looked like crap.  And there were these characters and vehicles I don't remember.  Some of it was familiar but the rest was like a bad dream.  Then the truth came out.  This was not the TMNT I remember.  This was a rehash from Nickelodeon.  Well, nice try.

The line has released six sets and a polybag, all in 2013.  Another seven sets are planned for 2014 so apparently there has been enough success with it.  My polybag came from Target for $3.99.  At 36 pieces that's not incredible but it does have a minifig.  The package art immediately disenchants me.  I see the same octagonal base and the same supports as two other reviews I've done.  I wasn't really excited about it then; less so now.

The idea is that Kraang (or is it The Kraang) sets up some fake turtles on a bench.  He (she? it?) then uses them for laser target practice.  There are two major flaws with this.  First, turtles are more roundy than square.  The use of round pieces throughout the turtles would have been a bit more correct looking.  Second, lasers don't knock you over like a ballistics or a flick-fire.  They more just burn a hole through you and everything else.  The science is all wrong here.  Calling a flick-fire a laser is sort of like calling a banana almost like a human.

So what is there to be excited about here?  Well, let's see.  There's an extra magenta cone.  And nine extra pieces in total.  And a bunch of bitty microbuild pieces.  In fact, I think I'm just going to part this guy out into my builder collection.  It's not really worth the storage space as a set.

Maybe some of the rest of these sets are better (click the pic for product links):