r/lepin

Pictures of the art for the new Lego Ideas campaign (Marvel x Star Wars) shown at New York Comic Con were shared today by @minisuperheroestoday on IG

Lots of comments are hyped about the "new Venom" but I recognized it immediately as a knockoff fig

Venom in the art seems to be identical to XINH XH1911 with the same sharp hands, head shape, eye print, and body print (muscle detail)

Thoughts on this? Has this happened before?

This set is clearly a brick-built version of Echo Base from The Empire Strikes Back, just without the official Star Wars licensing.

Overall, it’s definitely worth the price, although it does have a few odd design choices and some minor weaknesses.

If they really wanted to stay true to the original, the generator should have four sections, if I remember correctly. There are some nice details inside the bunker, but quite a few things had to be left out due to the limited space.

Also, when attaching some of the larger pieces—especially the big, single-piece rock formations around the bunker walls—I honestly thought I was going to break my fingers! 😄 I've never experienced such tight clutch power with a Barweer set before, although thankfully this only affected around 10–15% of the pieces.

The blue pieces also look a little out of place compared to the rest of the model.

But let's talk about the positives too! I really like how the defensive positions in front of the bunker have been designed, and they've even included the power cables running to the gun emplacements, which is a great detail.

One thing this set is seriously missing, though, is minifigures. So I'd definitely recommend picking up some separately to complete the scene. 🙂

Purchased from some random AliExpress choice seller on 9/25 and arrived on 10/6 (USA). It is a copy of LEGO 11382.

Paid $15 USD after coins and coupons since the seller was trying to feed the AliExpress algorithm with sales. All of their listings for the same set are now $50+ so I would recommend looking for another seller. The cheapest listings I can see now are in the $30-$35 range, which IMO is still a little steep.

Unusually, the package arrived in a box rather than bubble mailer. The bags were numbered and paper instructions were included, but I did not use them.

The good:

None of the bricks were missing, though there were also zero spare parts. Everything was 1:1 with the official LEGO instructions so I personally just used the LEGO builder app. Clutch was great, would say about 9.5/10 compared to LEGO. No mis-molded pieces. Only a couple pieces showed scuff marks or mold release stains, which were very easy to clean off with a magic eraser (this was a much lower rate compared tosome other sets I've purchased recently). Printing on the minifigure itself was good, as were the prints of the famous Hubble Telescope images on the stand.

The bad:

Obviously, the solar panels are missing. Additionally, the sticker sheet was missing (NASA logo, description plaque, panel decorations). Both of these would typically be slipped into the pages of the manual for protection, but they were for some reason not included with the set I received. This is quite annoying and the set does not look good without the panels. The printing on the EVA pack of the minifigure was also not well centered/aligned.

The resolution:

I contacted AliExpress customer service about the missing parts and sent pictures of the paper instructions indicating where the stickers and solar panels were missing. I requested for the seller to either send replacement parts or provide a partial refund and let me keep the set. AliExpress gave me the option for full refund with return or a partial refund of $10 without returning. I opted to keep the set and take the partial refund, which leaves me at $5 out of pocket for the set. I would normally try to bricklink the solar panels but there is currently only one listing, shipped from UK and almost $40 USD, which costs more than re-purchasing the set from another seller. Maybe I'll tear it down for parts or maybe I'll print my own panels. Hopefully someone else who purchased this set can give a review showing the solar panels they received.

Overall, I would recomend the set, but would personally not want to pay more than $25, even if the panels and stickers were included. The official LEGO version costs USD $140+tax.

£50 from YOURWOBB 1506pcs GoBricks

I'm 99% sure this is meant to represent the Texas Chainsaw Massacre House.

Parts quality is good being GoBricks, it's spilt into 3 bag sections so no sorting and the instructions are very clear. There's some nice interior detailing and it all goes together nicely. All in all I think it's a nice fun set for horror or haunted house fans.

Here's my little homage to Deadpool and Wolverine.

The build also doubles as a batwing (hence the light blue areas at the top) with a trail and a small bat drone at the bottom and orange bat drones on the wings.

I had heard of Nifeliz brand on YT reviews so when I saw it on Amazon UK, I got one. One thing that stood out was the overwhelming positive reviews on Amazon. However, all the negative reviews (for other sets as well) had one thing in common; missing pieces. Thankfully my set did not have any of that.

I paid £69 for it. The set has 25 bags + 3 trays + 1 manual + 1 bookmark (slide 11).

I have placed it next to my Lego Porsche 911 for size and shape comparison. The Nifeliz model appears to be a copy of the Lego model as the real life Datsun 240Z was loosely based on Porsche 911 (slide 9 and 10) styling.

The positives:

1. Stunning model: The color scheme (red, black and silver + brown and light olive green for the interior) work really well together. the Red with silver parts stand out amongst other sets in my collection.
2. The shaping: The model has managed to capture the shape of the car (Datsun 240Z) really well. The curve of the roof, slope of the windscreen etc make this car stand out even more.
3. Packaging: Having built sets from CADA, Lego, Mattel and Lumibricks; Nifeliz is miles ahead of all of them. Its better in instructions than Cada and in terms of quality of the instruction manual its ahead of Mattel and Lego. And unlike Cada or Lumibricks, you wont have to open more than 2 bags at any given time. It is clearly mentioned in the manual (slide 13) even if the stage has more than 2 bags (slide 12).
4. Good building techniques: It was a joy to build this set. Esp the how the front and rear shaping was achieved without any custom pieces. This set is not too easy like a similar Lego set or too difficult like a CADA set.

However its not all rainbow and sunshine

1. Part quality: The part quality is NOT on par with Lego. The parts feel light and have a tiny bit of clutch issue. In 5% of the parts, the clutch was either too strong or weak. The axle pieces have very low tolerance so they are a pain to work with. But its not a deal breaker as these issues are rare.

If you can find this set, do buy it if you like Lego 1:10 style of cars from their icon series (Lambo Countach, Porsche 911, Shelby Cobra and the newly launched Jaguar E-type). This is a great variation.

Oktoberfest is in full swing, and we got the chance to build what is, in our opinion, the most beautiful Pantasy set we’ve had so far. It’s a multi-story Bavarian tavern, with the pub on the ground floor, a performance area for the musicians on the first floor, and the kitchen on the top floor.

The exterior design is fantastic, especially with the new flower elements and the black timber framing, while the interior is just as creative, with some brilliant printed pieces.

The cable management for the lighting still has a few minor issues here and there—some sections are a little fiddly, and a few wires are still visible. I also still wish the lights could be powered by something other than having the set plugged directly into a power source. But there’s no denying that the lighting creates an amazing atmosphere.

This is an ad from AliExpress for this set but I can't find it. It's kind of cool I like it I like to build it or get it if they have it available. Like I said I can't find it has anyone had any luck for this? I've already tried AliExpress word differently so many times I all I get is not what I'm looking for.

Just got this finished up! I have it in green as well, that I think I’m going to do the Miura MOC with… this came out pretty good!

I love my new table for organizing and building my sets! It’s super comfortable to use with Speed Champions, and even with this bigger set, it works really well.
Now I just need to try it with a big LEGO Technic set. I think it’ll work great for that too.
And the best part? I don’t have to steal my wife’s Tupperware anymore! 😂

Intro

I bought this set off of Aliexpress for about $30 (Shipping to US). The set was shipped quickly and it took a little over a fortnight to arrive. The set comes with 1458 pieces, two stickers, and three printed parts.

Building Experience

The set comes with a paper instruction manual and also has a free PDF online. I used the physical manual to build the set. I didn't have any issues with the manual. The colors were fine and the images were a bit larger than the dense manuals I'm used to. The build was split into four main parts with five bags used for each part. The bags are not ordered meaning you need to open all five bags (Over 300 pieces) for each section. This slowed me down a little bit but wasn't too much of a hassle. I had no issues with the clutch power as the pieces were very close to Lego tolerances.

I was very impressed with the engineering used in the design. The whole cat is built sideways and takes full advantage of double sided plates and various SNOT pieces. Because of this the set has very few anti studs and looks great from almost every angle. The part usage was also incredible. The designer used various molds for shaping including parts like snakes, wings, horns, fish, umbrellas, and various foliage. This made the set very fun to build and very visually interesting. The design was very complex and dense using mostly smaller pieces. Even the Snitch surprised me with it's engineering to get all the faces lined up with each other.

The set has three prints and two stickers. The printed parts were the eyes (thankfully) and the ruby book runes. The two stickers were for the pink book. The stickers were clear backed and go over multiple pieces which isn't the best. I liked how the set mainly uses sculpted rather than printed details.

Issues

I did have two minor issues with the set. The first is that one of my bracket pieces arrived as a disfigured lump of plastic. Thankfully I had a replacement from my personal collection. The second issue I had was that two of the pieces were different than the instruction manual. Although it wasn't a huge difference I decided to swap the incorrect pieces out for a few of my own to get the slightly better shaping (See image included above).

Finished Build

The Finished build feels great. It is stable and easy to move around without anything falling off. The feet and head have a few degrees of rotation, the waist can rotate fully, and the arms can articulate more freely. As mentioned earlier the build looks great from nearly every angle. It uses a fun variety of pieces to add texture and shaping. It also uses pieces that Lego has yet to make like brown mixel joints and gold Technic pins. The only section that could look a little bit better is the arms. The red Technic pins stand out which brings attention to the holy Technic joint.

Final Thoughts

I was very surprised by how great this set was. I feel like this is what a good alt-brick set should strive to be. It checks all the boxes, creative idea, great price, well engineered design, and a fun build while being very close to Lego quality. Maybe most importantly this set does what Lego has yet to do. It uses double sided plates for seamless snot, It recolors pieces like the mixel joints to get a nicer look, and it's sold at a fraction of the price. This is now my favorite alt-brick original.

If you have any questions or thoughts I'd love to respond to them in the comments. Also if you have your own recommendations I'd love to build more alt-brick originals that are fun, complex, and enjoyable like this one. Hope you all have a great day!