Today we take a very quick tour of the content of the LEGO Marvel set 76232 The Hoopty, a box of 420 pieces currently for pre-order on the official online store at the public price of €94.99 with effective availability announced for October 1st.

The announcement of the set by the manufacturer last July did not unleash passions, most of those who then discovered this product derived from the film the marvels expected in theaters next November were mainly content to note the incredible price of this little box.

It is indeed difficult to criticize the product on its merits, it features a ship whose scale is necessarily reduced and proposes to obtain the main cast of the upcoming film, namely the three expected heroines.

The (or the) Hoopty seems to have a rather original look in the few shots of the trailer where we see it briefly, the children's toy offered by LEGO is a summary respecting the general appearance of the ship in a slightly more crude way but it This is already the lot of many other ships in all ranges.

No creative bias specific to this box, the usual LEGO mechanics are simply applied to the letter. The thing is also assembled and furnished in ten minutes and there is obviously nothing here to live an extraordinary experience in terms of construction.

The interior of the ship is properly furnished taking into account the space available with three locations to pile up the minifigs, a mini-laboratory which can also accommodate the three cats provided and a bed at the end of the corridor. It's basic, but we can salute the effort of not offering a simple empty shell and of offering relative playability in the absence of enemies to shoot with both Stud Shooters integrated at the front under the hull.

Access to the ship is from the front by lifting the entire upper section of the hull and its attached canopy, it's practical and little hands can easily enjoy the place. We feel that the two rear fins and the reactors have not benefited from all the creative genius of the designer, it is overall very summary at this level even if the symbolism is there.

Not a single metallic piece in sight, the official product visuals, very contrasting, almost seemed to promise the most distracted something other than the somewhat sad gray delivered here. However, we must be honest, the "lifestyle" photos of the product confirmed the real color of the product, so there is no deception on the merchandise if we go a little further than the first images present in the set sheet on the official online store.

There are, however, a bunch of stickers to stick on this little ship, with 13 stickers in total, or one sticking phase for approximately every 30 pieces installed. These stickers are all on a transparent background with a glue which will leave some clearly visible traces and repositioning is almost impossible without leaving a mark under the sticker concerned. Some of these stickers seem almost superfluous, it will be up to you to decide whether or not to install them when assembling the set.

For €95, LEGO simply includes three minifigs in the box: Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers), Photon (Monica Rambeau) and Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan). It's frankly meager if we take into account the announced price knowing that two of these figurines use neutral legs which no longer cost LEGO much. Someone at LEGO must have imagined that the film will be a hit and that fans will in any case jump on this derivative product which for the moment is the only set officially announced around the film.

These three figurines are, however, new and rather convincing: each of these three characters has already been released at least once as a figurine by LEGO but the trio benefits here from an update of the appearance and outfit of each of the heroines to stick as best as possible to the costumes of the film. The pad prints are well executed, the faces are very appropriate both in terms of color and facial expressions, and the haircuts seem well chosen to me.

Minimum service for Captain Marvel and Photon: nothing on the arms or legs. I will only buy this box anyway because Ms. Marvel is a character that I like and I am really satisfied to see that the figurine is very accomplished here with a superb outfit whose pattern runs on the torso and legs without a false note.

I forgot, LEGO includes three cats including Goose the Flerken and his two little kittens without much interest, in any case not enough to justify the public price of the product.

Everyone will agree to conclude that this box is much too expensive for what it really has to offer despite content which could have seemed rather correct with a more contained price, but even the possible addition of a character such as Nick Fury would not have changed much of this observation. In my opinion, we will therefore have to wisely wait until this box is available at a much lower price elsewhere than at LEGO, which in any case will end up happening one day, or at least take advantage of a future operation to double Insiders points before to crack.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at September 21, 2023 next at 23:59 p.m. Simply post a comment below the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. Avoid “I’m participating” or “I’m trying my luck”, we suspect that this is the case.

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.

Today we take a quick tour of the content of the LEGO Star Wars set 75354 Coruscant Guard Gunship, a box of 1083 pieces available on the official online store since September 1, 2023 at the retail price of €149.99.

To put this derived product in its context, it should be noted that it is indeed a LAAT type ship (for Low Altitude Assault Transport) as LEGO likes to regularly decline it in the form of playsets and even in an Ultimate Collector Series version on occasion, but this version has nothing to do with those seen so far in the manufacturer's catalog.

This Coruscant Guard Gunship is indeed inspired by the very brief appearance of the ship on screen in the 7th episode the 6th season of the animated series The Clone Wars, the capture below being arguably the best view of this gunboat available (0:52 in the relevant episode).

It is obvious that LEGO knows that this ship is very popular with fans and that we must try to regularly offer a new version without tiring potential customers and this variant, admittedly anecdotal, was perfect to put the cover back on without having too much seems to insist.

It should also be borne in mind that this is a simple toy for children, developed taking into account the constraints linked to this target clientele, and not an ultra-detailed model. And the result seems quite convincing to me, even if the product takes the usual aesthetic shortcuts and certain details inevitably fall by the wayside.

A toy intended to be manipulated obliges, the internal structure of the vessel consists of a frame based on Technic beams which guarantees the necessary solidity of the construction. It's well designed, fun to put together and the toy looks great. The two cockpits can accommodate minifigs that will have to be slightly lengthened so that the helmets do not come up against the two canopies, the scale of the ship is obviously reduced to make it an easily manipulated product and the designer has also integrated a handful of transport which falls into the bowels of the machine when it is not used and which therefore knows how to be relatively discreet.

No special arrangements in the hold of the aircraft, we will console ourselves by noting that there is still room to install a few minifigs and simulate a landing. The two side doors are well designed with a mechanism simple and strong enough to withstand the onslaught of the youngest fans and the two panels placed at the front just under the two cockpits are movable but they do not really allow access to inside the ship.

Both wings are equipped with Stud Shooters vaguely integrated into an outgrowth which in my opinion lacks a little roundness, it's perfect for having fun even if this simplification does not really pay homage to the reference ship. It was difficult to envisage the presence of transparent or slightly smoked half-bubbles at the end of the wings, the risk of them falling off during slightly agitated phases of play was undoubtedly greater than with the solution used.

We could discuss for a long time the obvious simplification of the ship, especially if we compare it with the other sets that feature the classic Republic Gunship already marketed in the past, but LEGO has changed scale here, as has been the case for two years. in many sets of the Star Wars range, and approach and you will have to deal with it anyway.

You have to stick a few stickers to make the ship conform to the version seen on the screen, but there are only five stickers. As often the background color of these stickers is not perfectly matched with the color of the parts in Dark Red on which they take place and it is a bit of a shame. I note some slight differences in color between the pieces in Dark Red, but nothing catastrophic.

The endowment of minifigs here is both interesting and a little disappointing: even if the figurine is successful, Padmé Amidala is not in the pretty outfit seen in the episode concerned, it lacks the senator from Scipio Rush Clovis who would have easily been able to be part of the cast, Palpatine's pad print doesn't line up perfectly between the torso and the skirt and the white area on Commander Fox's torso frankly turns pink because LEGO still can't print a clear color on a dark colored piece.

The manufacturer has necessarily noticed this defect during the production of the figurines but no one will have deemed it useful to try to invert the colors with red pad-printed on a white torso. The design of the figure provided, with his kama vaguely printed only on the front side of the legs and his arms that lack pad printing, is anyway a bit rough compared to the character's outfit on screen, I would have gladly exchanged some details for a more accomplished finish of this minifig. The official visuals once again promised us a perfect finish, there is reason to be frankly disappointed when unboxing.

The two Clone Shock Troopers of the Coruscant Guard are very successful on their side, that's always a bonus. We. will also welcome the fact that Palpatine's skirt is stamped on both sides, it's always better than having one face that remains neutral as is often the case on miniatures that use this element, and that the character takes advantage of two very appropriate facial expressions.

I think that this toy is on the whole successful, with a ship rather faithful to the reference version if we take into account the chosen scale and the necessary adaptations to make it a solid product. There's plenty to have fun with, this gunboat will be able to end its career on the shelf without having to blush (it's already very red) and the few figurines provided are interesting despite the technical faults noted.

The subject covered is anecdotal, but we know that the most assiduous fans of the animated series The Clone Wars never get tired of getting merchandise. It's not worth spending 150 € right away for this box, it will necessarily be available at a more attractive price in the weeks and months to come.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at September 18, 2023 next at 23:59 p.m. Simply post a comment below the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. Avoid “I’m participating” or “I’m trying my luck”, we suspect that this is the case.

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.

Today we are very quickly interested in the content of the LEGO Star Wars set 40658 Millennium Falcon Holiday Diorama, a small box of 282 pieces which will be available at the retail price of €29.99 from October 1, 2023.

We're not going to lie to each other, this little product vaguely derived from the animated film LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special available on the Disney + platform since 2020 should have been a promotional set offered subject to purchase and it does not really deserve that we have to go to the cash register to afford it.

LEGO has recently been able to please fans of the Harry Potter range with the very successful promotional set 40598 Gringotts Vault, this new box could have suffered the same fate and be offered for example on the occasion of the launch of the next (very) large set of the Star Wars range.

That being said, the proposed staging still allows for a nicely executed piece of the Millennium Falcon's interior that, once stripped of its festive decorations, can potentially serve as the backdrop for a more "serious" diorama.

This is the only advantage of the product, the rest being made up of a few festive decorations without much interest worthy of a bad Advent calendar. It will eventually be necessary to recover the pretty tile which covers Dejarik's table in three versions of the Millennium Falcon since 2015 or buy a retail copy to give this interior a bit of character but the construction offered here seems to me to be a good start overall.

We will also and above all note the presence of a manual of the perfect Jedi with a nicely pad-printed cover but with the Tile interior without pattern, it is the only really interesting accessory of the product.

As for the various characters provided, only Rey Skywalker and Finn are worth seeing with their ugly Star Wars-themed Christmas sweaters.

It's always that extra to come and feed an already well-filled collection of Star Wars figurines in festive outfits and these two minifigs which join those already delivered in the past in various Advent calendars such as Darth Vader and Poe Dameron (75279 Advent Calendar 2020), the Mandalorian and Grogu (75307 Advent Calendar 2021), C-3PO and R2-D2 (75340 Advent Calendar 2022), Palpatine and an Ewok (75366 Advent Calendar 2023 ) have at least the merit of being original with pretty pad printing on their respective torsos.

We get in passing Chewbacca, BB-8 and a Porg, no particular effort has been made on the aesthetic level for the three characters to participate more actively in the party.

30 € for a box of this caliber is obviously a bit expensive knowing that there are only two new characters on arrival and that the staging is rather minimalist. We are not going to complain about being entitled from time to time to a product a little more second degree than usual in a range that often purrs with great fanfare of reissues and products without real flavor.

Anyway, in my opinion, there is more interesting content here with 282 pieces than in an Advent calendar of 320 pieces filled with uninteresting mini-things and sold for 37.99 € and the scene could easily end up on the corner of the convenient during the holiday season.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at September 16, 2023 next at 23:59 p.m. Simply post a comment below the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. Avoid “I’m participating” or “I’m trying my luck”, we suspect that this is the case.

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.

Today we take a quick tour of the content of the LEGO Ideas set 21343 Viking Village, a box of 2103 pieces currently available for pre-order on the official online store at the public price of €139.99 with availability scheduled for October 1, 2023.

It is therefore a question here of assembling a portion of the Viking village comprising a forge, the farmhouse of the head of the place and a watchtower. It's not yet a real village but it's a good start for anyone who would then like to expand the area with a few buildings reusing the different techniques offered. We can almost conclude that it is a Structure thematic and (vaguely) historical with well appointed and easily accessible interiors and a very acceptable overall build finish.

The diorama is divided into three separate sections but LEGO only provides one instruction booklet. To assemble the set with several people, it will therefore be necessary to turn to the digital version of these instructions available within the official application.

The construction process is quite linear, starting with the base of each of the modules and then alternating between the walls and the furniture to finish with the roof. No base plates, the base of these modules is entirely part-based. No stickers in this box, so all the patterned pieces you see in the photos are stamped.

The interiors are well laid out considering the space available. Do not expect to play in the different constructions of the village, even if the roofs of each of the buildings are easily removable. At best, you can come back from time to time to admire the interior of the premises. The outskirts of the village are embellished with a pontoon which inevitably calls for the presence of a boat. The LEGO Creator set 31132 Viking Ship and the Midgard Serpent, which is the subject of a wink in this box via the stone engraved with runes in front of the forge.

This set from the Creator range, marketed since summer 2022 and which is still available from LEGO at the public price of €119.99 (and for many cheaper elsewhere), will do the trick even if the level of detail of the latter is a little behind that of the new village. The secondary construction of the Creator set, a Viking house, may also be able to expand this new diorama.

The different sections of the set can only be combined in one way and it is not possible to rearrange the places other than in the planned configuration. The set is therefore very modular but not modular. As the entire diorama is surrounded by water, it only works visually when all the modules are present.

The diorama is cleverly designed for display and to offer something interesting to admire from any viewing angle with its two side sections angled at 45°. The counterpart to this aesthetic choice: the set will take up space on your shelves with substantial measurements, 46 cm wide by 26 cm deep and 24 cm high at the highest point.

If you are looking for the 2103 pieces of this new set which seems to offer a rather attractive content/price ratio, they are there: the product uses a slew of small elements which are in the rocks of the surroundings, the walls of constructions and the many decorations "typical" of the period concerned.

It's almost as if the designer tried to bloat the product inventory to the extreme with subsets that might not deserve as much breakdown, but we won't complain, it's still more building fun. I would have added at least a small boat to take advantage of the maritime or lake side of the product, there is nothing provided to exploit the surroundings of the island.

The endowment of minifigs may seem basic at first glance with only four characters, but each of these figurines has benefited from obvious care with very high-flying pad printing and accessories that have not been neglected.

The torsos and legs are lined with pretty patterns, the faces are very detailed and the patterns of the shields provided, both delivered in duplicate, are sumptuous. The supplied helmets are equipped with horns, you can easily remove them if this detail bothers you. This product has no "historical" or educational value anyway, it is a simple adult toy that vaguely evokes Viking culture as it has been popularized since the XNUMXth century. If this explanation is not enough for you, you will only have to consider it as an attraction of Puy du Fou.

For those who have a feeling of deja vu: the torso of the blonde warrior delivered here is also that of the blonde fighter in the set 31132 Viking Ship and the Midgard Serpent, that of the village chief also equips a fighter from the same Creator set. Only two of the four faces delivered are new, that of the archer and that of the character with orange hair, the other two are that of Santa Claus and a rather common female face in the LEGO CITY range.

Let's not beat around the bush, this product inspired by the winning creation of a competition organized on the LEGO Ideas platform has been rather well received by fans and I think it is justified.

This set ticks all the boxes, or at least all my boxes: the main attributes of the construction that served as a starting point have been retained, the product offers a very entertaining assembly experience and it embeds a few features that allow you to to make the pleasure last a little, the public price is contained even if the inventory may seem substantial when it is mainly a question of many small elements and the minifigs provided are very elaborate.

There is therefore no valid excuse not to crack, even if the theme addressed will not appeal to everyone.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at September 15, 2023 next at 23:59 p.m. Simply post a comment below the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. Avoid “I’m participating” or “I’m trying my luck”, we suspect that this is the case.

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.

Today we are quickly interested in the content of the LEGO ICONS set 10318 Concorde, a box of 2083 pieces which will be available on the official online store, as an Insiders preview, at the retail price of €199.99 from September 4th.

This product had received a rather favorable reception during its official announcement a few weeks ago, but the latter was then supported by a series of official visuals highlighting the product and it is therefore time to check if the promise is kept. Spoiler : this is not completely the case, you will understand why below.

You have probably already noticed that this Concorde with LEGO sauce is neither in the colors of Air France nor in the British Airways version. It's a bit of a shame, the Aérospatiale France / British Aircraft Corporation livery of the model 002 provided here being a bit too dated.

We can imagine that LEGO and Airbus did not wish to offer a livery in the colors of Air France which would inevitably have recalled the crash of July 25, 2000 and we will therefore do with this vintage version, the main thing being that the LEGO model is relatively faithful to the reference aircraft.

This is the case except for a few details, in particular at the level of the nose which is here in my opinion a little too round and voluminous like an ice cream cone. For the rest, the exercise seems to me generally rather successful for a model of barely more than 2000 parts and 102 cm long by 43 cm wide intended for the exhibition.

The assembly process cleverly alternates between building the internal mechanism that will later deploy the landing gear and stacking white bricks to form the wings and cabin of the aircraft. We don't get bored, the sequences are well distributed and we start with the central section of the plane and then finish with the extremities by installing the engine blocks in passing.

The mechanism for pulling out the gears circulates inside the cabin, it ends up in the tail of the plane which therefore serves as a wheel for a little fun. LEGO insists on the possibility of testing the proper functioning of each section of the mechanism during the assembly phase of the set, it is wise and it avoids having to disassemble everything if an axis has been incorrectly inserted or positioned. Only the central and front axles are concerned by this mechanism, the tail wheel must be deployed manually. One could also have imagined a synchronization of the movement of the landing gear with that of the nose of the aircraft, this is not the case and the latter must be handled separately.

A fun little detail, LEGO has also provided some "accessories" used only during assembly to hold a section in place or allow you to work vertically. All the parts used for these temporary supports are orange in color, you will not be able to miss them or confuse them with elements permanently installed on the model. Over the pages, we install or remove these sections, the process is quite unusual but very practical. On arrival these temporary supports remain unused, you can do with them what you want.

You have already seen it on the official visuals, it is possible to remove a short section of the fuselage to admire a few rows of seats. the functionality is anecdotal but it has the merit of existing and it will impress your friends. The assembly is perfectly rigid, the wings do not bend under their own weight or that of the engines and the model can be removed from its base and easily handled. Watch out for the two little ones Tiles quarter-circle placed on and under the fuselage, they only hold stuck between two tenons and they come off easily.

Don't spoil yourself too much about the different construction stages if you have planned to buy this product, all the fun is once again in the few hours of assembly with some good ideas and an assembly process that is paced enough not to overdo it. focus on the few slightly repetitive phases. The pages of the instruction booklet are embellished with some information on the aircraft, you will not come out much more learned on the subject but it is entertaining.

The real problem of the product is elsewhere and it is not new or reserved for this product: the white parts are unfortunately not all the same white. From certain angles and with the right lighting, I count up to three different shades on the fenders and it's ugly. The official visuals have obviously been extensively retouched to erase this aesthetic defect, in real life the real model will lose some of its luster when it comes to displaying it on the dresser in the living room. It even seems that some parts have slightly yellowed before time, it will be up to everyone to assess their level of tolerance regarding this technical defect but I would have at least warned you.

For my part, I still cannot understand how a manufacturer who has been in this business for 90 years does not know how to properly tint his parts so that they are almost all the same color. This product is no exception, regulars of the Sand green or Dark Red know that it is already complicated with these specific colors but we are talking about white here. Creamy white, off-white but white. The effect is all the more visible on the wings as it is reinforced by the separation between the different parts, with a line that circulates between the different colors and which delimits each of the elements concerned.

The cockpit, whose nose can be more or less inclined like on the real Concorde, benefits from two nicely executed canopies with pad printing (a little too white) on the main glazing and a protective glass installed on the mobile part of the nose which is supplied directly injected in two textures. The latter is delivered in a dedicated paper packaging, the other is simply thrown into one of the bags of the set with the risks that we know.

We will also note some alignment problems at the level of the red line which crosses the cabin horizontally, it is alternately embodied by red parts or by pad printing on white parts which is not perfectly positioned on the elements concerned to guarantee a perfect connection. This detail will probably not be a problem for hardcore fans of the plane or LEGO, but we are still talking here about a white model at 200 €, attention to detail should have been in order.

For those who are wondering: the pad-printed windows are consistent with the reference aircraft, the Concorde was well equipped with smaller windows than conventional airliners.

The small base provided, which takes up the aesthetics of the base of certain classic models of the plane, does its job: it makes it possible to present the device with a slightly dynamic staging and the stability of the whole is at all test thanks to the perfectly balanced positioning of the support. It's up to you whether you want to display the Concorde in the flight phase with the landing gear retracted and the nose straight or in the take-off phase with the landing gear extended and the nose tilted. The small vintage-looking plate placed on the front of the display is pad-printed, there are no stickers in this box. This plate distills some facts about the plane, it's vintage and it's fitting with the proposed livery which is far from being the most recent.

Like many of us, I was pretty excited about this product so far following its official announcement. I once again let myself be convinced by the pretty official visuals which promised a model with a finished aesthetic, it's not the impression I have having this Concorde in my hands. The designer has done his homework and the returned copy is in my opinion frankly very honest, but the main technical defect of the product comes in my opinion a little to spoil the party. Many will however be satisfied with this Concorde which, observed from a certain distance, will do the trick, installed for example next to the Titanic.

Note: The product shown here, provided by LEGO, is as usual involved. Deadline fixed at September 13, 2023 next at 23:59 p.m. Simply post a comment below the article to participate. Your participation is taken into account regardless of your opinion. Avoid “I’m participating” or “I’m trying my luck”, we suspect that this is the case.

Update : The winner was drawn and notified by email, his nickname is indicated below.