So what is featured? We get a Blue morpho butterfly, Hercules beetle and Chinese mantis on a decorated display stand. The stands are mostly based on treebranches and some other elements like flowers or mushrooms.

Parts selection

The parts selection for this set is quite good. Most bricks, plates, slopes and tiles are rather versatile and standard bricks. The colour choice is rather muted as well with a lot of (dark)tan parts. I consider this a positive because it adds versatillity for MOC usage.

Some bigger specific parts are used, like the dark green windscreens for leaves, but luckily the set doesn’t heavily rely on those.

Another great thing is the absence of stickers. All decorated elements are printed. There are quite a few parts recolored for this set as well, making their first time appearance. Like the rather recent leaf piece (3565) in bright green.

I wouldn’t recommend getting this set if you’re looking for a good partspack however. There are not really parts in bulk quantities present. So it’s not the best starting point for your own builds.

The building process

Like mentioned in a previous review, I prefer to use digital instructions over paper ones. This saves space on the table and makes building a set less messy for me. However, the quality of the online PDF booklets is not ideal. Because this frustrated me again, I decided to download the LEGO builder app. This was an even worse experience. I won’t rant about it too much right now, although I’ll no doubt get back to it in a future blog. It did impact my building experience so in the end this will be considered when grading the set.

The build itself was quite good actually! In bag 1 we start with the stand for the butterfly. This is quite a satisfying process. Wedge plates and modified tiles are used to great effect, fitting neatly to get the desireed shapes. The branch has a few neat tricks (like creating the angle towards the top and is quite interesting to learn new things for building terrain in MOCs.

Bag 2 continues with a rather lush Bromeliad flower. And before we get to the butterfly we first build an excellent little bee. The NPU choice to use a printed egg is a great pick!

The butterfly is mostly a mosaic style build. Not a technique that excites me, but once again, the combination of modified angled and curved tiles looks great in the end. Due to the subtle colour differences and shades, the instuctions were especially annoying here.

Bag 3 stars with the display stand for the Hercules Beetle. All 3 builds share the same basic shape for the base. But once you get building the branch or other decorative elements, all 3 are rather different so I never really got bored with repetition while building the set.

Underneath the branch 2 larvae can be found, with white croissants used for this.

We finish the stand in bag 4 with the blue mushrooms. These are representing Clitocybula azurea. After this we switch our attention to the beetle, building the main part of its body.

In bag 5 we finish the beetle with its limbs, wings and elytra. The set is designed in such a way that displaying is possible with wings spread out from under the elytra or having it closed.

The final model is the Chinese mantis. In bag 6 we once again assemble a treebranch for a display stand. This one is quite a bit more fragile compared to the others. Connections for leaves and flowers aren’t very strong and took me a few tries before everything stayed in place.

The large dark green leaves are added from bag 7. To be honest, I’m not really fond of the colour combinations with the leaves. Maybe having the smaller leaves in dark green would have improved this stand. The mantis itself is a rather simple yet elegant design. It features some of the funniest NPU choices like recolored swords and pistols on its limbs and eyes that are both fun and creepy at the same time. Which is true for most insects as well of course…

Display value

These are some great shelfsitters! The size is reasonable and they are a bit more easy to display in a cabinet or something like that. With the detailed display stands, it shows quite an impressive development in the way LEGO releases sets like this. More detail, more variation etcetera.

Value For Money

The set has been a LEGO exclusive in The Netherlands so far, which means no discount on this set (yet). RRP is €/$79.99 and £69.99. With 1.111 pieces, that’s a bit more expensive than I’m usually willing to pay (when considering Price Per Piece). It is however in a different price bracket than a lot of other Ideas sets over the last few years. I don’t have the budget or space for most of those so that’s a positive for me. And where I usually take sets apart within 24 hours for parts, this one was actually bought to keep on display. So what I’m trying to say, there’s some bias for me here. The set is right up my alley and because the things I just mentioned, I don’t mind the price. It’s not an irresistible good price, which is why it took me a few months after release to pick it up. It’s not terrible either.

Overall

This is a great set! Because of all the SNOT building and techniques, it reminded me a lot of the 21301 Birds set, one of my all time favourites for the building techniques. Only with an update in parts used. Where the birds used mostly traditional plates and bricks, this set has quite a lot of more recent (curved) parts to create more complex builds that have more decoration as well. Some of these new parts feel a bit redundant, but overall parts are used to great effect.

I think it’s the right choice to go for 3 big insects instead of 5. The ladybeetle might have been rather similar with the wings and body to the Hercules beetle so that doesn’t really add a lot to this set. The honeybee is done in such a nice way that I just wished there were 1 or 2 more, but I don’t miss a big one with these designs.

I’d recommend this set to anyone interested in nature builds. Also if you want to learn more SNOT techniques etc for MOCs this is a great set to get inspiration or ideas from.

So these are my thoughts on this set. So what do you think of this set? Are you buzzin’ to get your hands on it? Share your thoughts in the comments!

I’ve bought quite a few of these botanical sets over the years myself. Until this one I sorted them out straight away, not bother building. But this time I wanted to have a look myself what these sets are all about. Are they any fun to build?

So what do we get? We get 9 tiny plants in ‘terracotta’ pots. Instructions are divided in 3 booklets and 1-3 people can build these simultaneously. Every booklet has 3 pots, small/medium/large in size. Each time the pots of similar size are constructed with the same techniques. Only some small details like color choices (invisible from the outside) make a slight difference between them.

The full list of included plants:

• False Shamrock (Oxalis Triangularis)
• Jade Plant (Crassula Ovata)
• Laceleaf (Anthurium andraenum)
• Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula)
• Red Sundew (Drosera brevifolia)
• Yellow Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia flava)
• Britton’s Liveforever (Dudleya brittonii)
• Eastern Prickly Pear (Opuntia humifusa)
• Pincushion Cactus (Mammilaria crinita f. zeilmanniana)

In total the set consists of 758 pieces, divided over 6 numbered bags. The Recommended Retail Price (RRP) is €/$49.99 or £44.99.

Part selection

So this might be my favourite criterium to judge a set. And I really can’t think of many better sets. There’s a lot of recoloured parts, parts in bulk quantities or rare parts included. In this picture you can see all newly recoloured or rare (included in 3 sets or less) parts. It’s quite an impressive amount! and quite universally usable as well.

Other than new and recoloured parts, bigger quantities are also what defines a great parts pack. Below is the list of parts with the biggest quantities in this set. Unsurprisingly it’s a lot of Dark Orange.

image taken from Bricklink

So I assume these pictures give a good glimpse this is a very valuable addition to any builders parts collection. There are a lot of options for terrain building, structure etc. Some these parts are also especially added to please MOC builders since they are used invisibly like the unprinted Sand Green round 2×2 tiles. This is of course a well known practice from set designers to help colleagues or themselves out for introducing new parts and it’s great we can benefit from that.

Building process

Where I’m thrilled about the part selection, I’m not really about the building techniques. My initial thought when the set was revealed, was that most parts were used for the pots and the plants almost seem an afterthought.

Sadly, I’m still of this opinion after having built the set. The False Shamrock only takes 6 building steps in the instructions, including the pot. The Pincushion Cactus with 34 building steps is the most advanced when judged in the amount of building steps. And with the repetition in the pots, most of this set wasn’t very interesting from a building perspective.

Comparing the 9 models to pictures of the real life versions of these plants, some of them could have been represented better by going bigger.

Maybe 5 slightly bigger plants with some more variation in sizes would have been a choice I would have preferred. That would however also make it less of a desirable parts pack so there’s just no pleasing me perhaps.

I did think the building techniques on the biggest pots were really clever and the way a round shape was achieved was very satisfying. Previously I had my doubt about the need for a 1×2 SNOT brick with a centered stud on the side (part 86876). It felt to me a technic brick with pin could achieve the same. In this set however it’s used in such a way that really shows the neccessity of having this part as well.

Display-ability

Despite my criticism on the comparison between the real life plants and this sets, it does look rather cute. And thankfully they won’t expire and look dreary if you forget to water them.

The NPU choices like hats and butterflies give them a compelling look and this set might be acceptable when displayed in the house for non-AFOL partners. I can totally see this set being just as popular as earlier botanical sets  and have a broad appeal to new to LEGO fans.

The Cost

Just the set itself, displaying the 9 plants in your home seems worth the RRP of €/$49.99 or £44.99 to me. It looks nice and compared to other botanical sets in the same price bracket there’s enough value for me.

A simple Price Per Part analysis will be quite positive with 758 pieces, with less than 7c PP. However, I tend to judge more on how useful parts are to me and my MOC’s. And like I tried to show in the parts section of this review, there’s a lot to appreciate and an extraordinary value in all the rare and new parts. Even though I ended up finding it for €38.99 at a local retailer, I was already considering buying it at the regular price. To be honest, I’m also considering picking up a second one.

So I’d say: this is a fair priced set, well worth the (RRP) cost. As always, be on the lookout for a better deal because it might save you a bit.

So what do you think of this set? Have you bought and built the set already? Or are you convinced after reading this review. Share your thoughts in the comments!

To be fair, I don’t think I should do a regular review, scoring pieces and building techniques out of 10 for this set. I quite like the set but it’s not great on these aspects. So I’d say an average score would be too low and this is an example for the total being better than the sum of its parts.

The set contains 152 pieces. The horse is the rarest piece in this set (included in 3 sets in total) and the newer flat lid for treasure chests is my first set getting it in. The ornamental carriage wheels can be interesting for some but they’ve been around for quite a while. Other than that there’s no bulk of pieces, or anything noteworthy among the rest.

The build process is fast and furious. There’s really not much to it and I was thinking to myself: ‘is this it?’. But you end up with a beautiful horse drawm carriage audiences of all ages can enjoy. It’s suitable for play for children and display for adults. And that’s a quality we don’t often see in sets. Most often one of the two is sacrificed for the other.

There are 3 minifigures included in the set, a driver and 2 passengers. The driver has a carrot for the horse and the passengers have scarves around their neck. So for me this seems to be extra on most GWP’s and makes up for the earlier mentioned shortcomings in pieces and building process.

So overall this is a great GWP to me. In the Christmas spirit I’d happily overlook some details and just enjoy the set as a whole. If you plan on spending this kind of money on LEGO in the near future I’d recommend doing so while this set is available, I’m not sure there will be a better promotion this month.

This set was of course designed by Chris McVeigh aka Powerpig who released 2 books on LEGO Christmas ornaments before becoming a LEGO designer. So we are in safe hands!

As usual, with opening a new set I hope to finally find my first paper bags. Unfortunately it’s still single use plastic I found in this one. Parts are divided over 3 bags without a number. With a piece count like this it’s not really an issue to find the needed parts, so no problem there.

Part selection

The set consists of 182 parts. There are no special or printed parts in this set, but the parts provided are just solid versatile parts. So an 8 out of 10 for me.

Build process

The baubles are rather elegant to build, the used slope parts make them fit together really nice. I don’t want to spoil your building pleasure so I won’t show exactly how it’s build. If you are not going to get the set with a purchase you can always check out the online building instructions. The building technique for all 3 is the same and before I had finished the first bauble I stopped using the booklet myself. In a bigger set the repetetive nature would become annoying, but with a set this size I could tolerate it quite well. It was just a nice and quick build and the pleasing colour scheme variations made it interesting enough. So for building process I’d also give an 8 out of 10. Nothing extra special, just solid.

The price

With a spending threshold of €70/$70/£65 it’s not crazy good value like some other GWP’s we had this year. But it’s certainly not bad either. With the current prices with inflation from the last 2 years taken into account, I’d say the threshold is just reasonable and fair. A 9 out of 10 for me.

Display-ability

These are rather nice to hang in your Christmas tree (if the branches are sturdy enough to hold them). These weigh a bit more so it probably won’t work for everybody. But if they do, they’re quite easy to clone so it should be possible to have a nicely decorated LEGO themed Christmas tree with this set (and a few extra).

If you are considering a LEGO purchase, I’d recommend picking this one up before the 14th of December or stock runs out.

So what do you think of this set? Have you also picked it up or plan to get it? Share your thoughts in the comments!

It’s a small and inexpensive set with 70 pieces and a RRP of £8.99/€9.99. At first glance that might look like a terrible price per part, but take into account this set has 2 Seals, both adult and baby and a Minifigure with an extra hairpiece things might be a bit different than the numbers show.

So what’s it all about? The set consists of 3 builds: the snowmobile, a camera and an icy environment for the Seals. None of these builds are very technical. That’s also not what I was expecting from a 5+ set. None of the builds rely on big parts like Ugly Rock Pieces, big panels or big bricks. In other words the parts aren’t really specific and allow for many different purposes. For me that’s a big advantage buying this set mostly for the seals and adding the parts to my bins for MOC building. Another big positive is the absence of stickers. The only decorated slope has a print. The minifigure is nice. It has a newly recolored backpack and hairpiece and a torso that’s exclusive to this years Arctic sets. Also included is a helmet that can be alternated with the hairpiece.

Parts: 9/10

The builds are really simple, most AFOLs will complete this set within a few minutes. There’s some interesting choices though. Instead of just adding a camera piece the designers included one that’s a nice little build. Also the L-shaped Technic Liftarm that’s used for tracks is a clever choice. It allows for movement for play, but is also a kind of rare and rather new element so it adds value for AFOLs.

Building techniques: 7/10

Playability 10/10

In conclusion:

You get a few cute new animals with a few small builds. It’s a perfect gift for LEGO fans of all ages. Whether used as a parts pack or play set there isn’t really much to argue against this set. For the price and age range you basically get what you can expect. Maybe even a bit more than that.

This is a great inexpensive set. However if you have a bit more patience than me, and wait a few months, you’ll probably see some discounts on sets like this.

Value for money: 9/10

How do you like this cute Seal Battle Pack? Are you Crazy about it? Share your thoughts in the comments below!