GRIEVOUS

First review. This is my most recent set, having only owned it for a few hours. Pretty cool set, overall.

Minifigures:

Kenobi - very similar to the one I have from the 9494 set, though he has robe printing on the legs, and while the set includes 4 lightsabers, none are intended for Obi-Wan. He's supposed to use either the "electrostaff" or the blaster, as per the scene in RotS. His shirt is also a different print than the 9494 version.

Grievous - this is my first Grievous, although I first started buying Lego sets as an adult back in the RotS era. I'm glad though, since this newer (Clone Wars-derived) mold looks a lot better than the older design. He does really look great, though his posability is a bit one-trick; the only really good look he can pull off is the "holding two, spinning two" lightsabers trick. Speaking of which, of course the four lightsabers belong to him. Metallic hilts, 2 blue and 2 green blades. He does look pretty fantastic holding them.

Wheel Bike - I have to admit, while this thing is pretty cool when it's assembled, the actual build isn't very engaging for someone like me who enjoys more brick-based building. This really feels more like a technic set and may as well be. It's not necessarily a good thing when the most fun part of the build should be the most boring (building the bladed wheel tread). But, as I said, the finished vehicle is great. The legs are just posable enough without being too wonky, and the wheel spins well. The rolling "mode" is less impressive, display-wise, than the walker mode, but overall it looks good.

Not really sure the set is worth $25, so if you want to wait for clearances, that might be best. Still, it's a very good rendition of one of the more kinetic scenes in RotS.

Lego

Ok, I'm a lego fan. Of course, I had lego sets as a kid (late 80s/early 90s), but recently, since fall 2012 or so, I've really gotten back into them. I've spent a lot more time in the Transformers fandom (see my older blog, Basement Invasion), collecting them as an adult since 2003, but for the past year or so I've vacillated between which was the better toy franchise. I've always enjoyed the construction aspect of lego sets, just as I enjoy transforming transformers, but one thing I love about Lego, especially in more recent years, is the universality of it. There're whole worlds, both lego-original and licensed, that you can collect that all share the same physical mechanisms (honestly, the only thing that's really holding Lego back in this regard is their stubborn insistence to keep their non-licensed minifigures, at least the "white" ones, yellow, so that they don't quite mesh with the more natural-looking minifigures from Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and so on). That's a very strong feature.

Anyway, this blog will largely serve to host relatively short reviews of various Lego sets. I'm not a died-in-the-wool AFOL, so you won't be seeing any Sea Cow or Sandcrawler reviews here in the coming months, but more mid-range to smaller sets that more typical people can afford. Hope you enjoy it!