Minecraft: The Village 21128 Review Summary

This set is the largest yet in the Minecraft Theme and is the centerpiece of any Minecraft collection. For those not familiar with Minecraft, I think its important to know how this fits in and what its supposed to represent.

Villages are randomly generated structures composed of a variety of buildings (houses, shops etc), farms and roads that contain AI controlled villagers that you can trade with to buy rare items. The villages are also good sources of food from their fields. The villagers use emeralds as currency for buying and selling and the village can be attacked by AI control monsters that may wipe them out. Finding a village and protecting its villagers to allow you to trade is an important part of the game. The Iron Golem is a common creation to help protect it, and villagers can be "infected" and turned into special zombie villagers that you can try to save by turning them back with potions.

One interesting decision they designer made with this set was to represent sections of various biomes throughout the village. This set includes slices of snow, jungle, desert and the normal grass sections. This allows you to connect other minecraft sets to this central one and build out to other biomes. The entire set is modular and can be rearranged in an endless variety of ways.

I know the Minecraft sets get a bit of heat for using so many very boring old school 2x2 and 2x4 blocks, but this set does include a healthy amount of nougat colored blocks including a very large number of smooth 1x4 and 1x6 smooth tiles, 1x2 and 1x4 textured (brick profile) pieces, 2x2 jumper plates and very long 1x12 bricks along with assorted other pieces in this great color. Otherwise you get the usual Minecraft specialty pieces, printed furnaces, printed crafting boxes and the various brick built figure specialty components. There is also a treasure chest.

To start off with, the set comes with a lot of minifigures and mob builds, covering a very large variety. You get a Steve, Alex, two villagers in different prints, a zombie village (zombie with green villager mold head), regular zombie, enderman, creeper, brickbuilt iron golem, and a brick built pig and piglet. Its a nice mix, but its a huge miss to only include two actual villagers. The set really could have benefited from one to two more actual villagers, even if they were repeat prints to the existing ones. I certainly appreciate the addition of multiple monsters to represent attacks on the village that Steve and Alex (assisted by the iron golem) have to defend the villagers against, but considering there is currently no other way to get villagers, the town is simple too thinly populated for proper play or display. I hope that they release a set in the next wave that adds a building for the village and at least one or two more villagers. The rest of the figures are all standard and identical to those found in previous sets. Steve gets an iron sword and Alex a diamond pick-axe, there are no armor pieces or other weapons/tools which I also felt was a miss.

I personally like the set. Having said that, I am a big Minecraft fan and I understand that if your not, this set probably does not resonate with you at all. As a licensed theme, it is a big more expensive, but I felt like it was still in the realm of reason IF your a fan of Minecraft. I always liked the Minecraft themes because the blocky look and feel harkened back to my younger days building early Lego sets, while still letting me create custom sets that, while not highly detailed or realistic by our normal standard, are very much so when compared to thier source material in game. This makes me very happy with all the Minecraft sets, but again, I cant stress enough, if you are not familiar with and passionate about the source material, these sets probably seem very odd and pointless. I like the quantity and diversity of buildings and other structures, it gives plenty of play options and lots of space to re-enact elements of the game or display figures.

There were a few misses in the set though. The biggest was the lack of more villager minifigs. Again, I very much hope they fix this by releasing a set next wave that has more villagers and some additional structure for the village. Next, I felt the butchers shop had too plain of an interior. I also thought there was a distinct lack of torches to light all the various buildings and most of the main structures do not have clips to add torches (or to use the torches from the two street lamps). I also would have liked to see some more tools/weapons/armor options. Last of all, the bright green plates that show through to the inside of the two biggest buildings annoys me quite a bit, especially since it could have been mostly fixed with little effort.

Minecraft: The Village 21128 Review Part 3

In part three of our review, we move on to the farm and corral modules, composed of four detachable sections all from bag eight.  This bag also includes the second villager, this one in a brown coat, a brick built pig and four torches that all get used on a street lamp build.  The first module is a farm, a nice sized rendition of the game version with a central strip of water to provide irrigation and a strip of dirt on each side holding carrots, wheat and potatoes in various states of growth.  This section looks great, offers some great play features and matches the in game version fairly well.  It also includes a street lamp that uses the four torches and a red flower.  The next section is a corral with full fencing and a double door gate.  This also includes a green jumper plate inside to help with posing the pig.  The pig itself is the same build we have seen in previous sets and looks great with a printed head!  Next we have a very simple small plate with nothing on it except another red flower.  Last of all we have a small water plate with a central 2x2 plate of sand holding some sugar cane.  All together, these sections provide you with a great representation of the resource generation and collection for the village!

Bag nine gives us Alex with a diamond pick-axe, a creeper and a brick built piglet along with a section of desert with some basic terrain and a well building.  The terrain is mostly desert with a strip of gravel representing a road.  There is one cactus and three brown grass sections to add detail.  Another street lamp with four torches is also included.  The well is a nicely details little building with four pillars holding up a smooth roof.  The center has a block of trans blue to represent the water and it includes a pail with water in it.

Last of all, bags 10 and 11 build the butcher shop, another rectangular building with peaked roof similar in design to the library.  This building also hinges open down the middle but includes two doors and a small fenced in area to hold an animal.  The interior is very simple with some benches and a table.  The coloring and material usage for the walls is slightly different than the library and there is no attic floor, but the roof is otherwise the same.  No figures are included in this portion of the build.  This building suffers from the same problem as the library in that the hinge construction includes a two green 2x4 plates (one on each side of the hinge split) to hold it all together which runs through the wall and is visible from the inside.

The last bit of instructions shows you how to assemble everything in the default layout using the 2x4 jumpers you built in step one.

Minecraft: The Village 21128 Review Part 2

As we move on to the next set, bags two and three build out the Black Smiths shop.  Bag two builds the terrain and most of the walls, forge and hinging system.  Bag three finishes the interior, front, roof and also contains Steve with an iron sword.  This clever building has a flat roof and an open floor plan around the front corner of the building.  There are a couple windows, two stacked, removable, printed furnaces and a forge with lava.  The best part of this building is that the roof and front hinges up on a fairly well hidden Technic hinge system.  It functions well, has enough friction to hold its position, looks good and makes it much easier to access the inside of the building.

Next up is the Library, built from bags four and five.  This is one of the three larger buildings in the set and splits open length wise for interior access.  This is an attractive building with simple terrain, windows, one door and an attic.  The attic has a spider web and hanging below it into the main room are three removable bookshelf blocks.  The building also has a printed crafting box, a table and some benches.  The surrounding terrain does include some mushrooms.  Bag four builds the terrain and walls along with some of the interior, bag five builds the bookshelves, roof and an Enderman figure.  The roof is finishes with 1x4 and 1x6 smooth tiles and the peak has 2x2 jumpers to give a polished finish.

Bag six builds some snow covered stone/gravel terrain with a small waterfall, some ice, mushrooms and a support structure for the building that is constructed in the next bag.  This is a fairly straight forward build that is raised up higher than the previous ones to create a hill.  Bag seven builds the simple structure that goes on top of the previous terrain and also includes two torches, two emerald blocks to mine and a brick built Iron Golem.  There are 2x2 jumpers under the building for the emerald blocks to be mined from and clips next to the entrance to the building and down below where the emerald blocks are for the two torches.  The terrain forms a sort of staircase up to the entrance and there is no actual door.  The structure is very simple, three walls with windows and an opening in ceiling to access the the roof with its nicely build railing.  This is meant to represent a regular house or guard tower.

Minecraft: The Village 21128 Review Part 1

Being a big fan of Minecraft and Legos, I have set out to collect 100% of the Minecraft Lego sets.  I was very excited to hear about the new D2C 21128 The Village and picked it up on release day at the Lego Store in the Mall of America.  When pictures and details first got out, the general impression online seemed a bit negative, but I have found that the Minecraft Lego sets in general seem to attract a bit of the attention, people either love Minecraft the Game and the Legos make perfect sense, or they haven't played the game and the sets just do not appeal to them.

Villages in the game are a very iconic piece of the experience and I was curious to see how they would tackle it.  Would they do more abstract open models?  A modular system across multiple sets representing different parts?  I am happy they chose to go all in and release a large scale, heavily detailed (for Minecraft) set that trys to capture many of the key elements of Villages.  And after buying and assembling the set, I have to say overall my impression is positive.

The box is a standard Minecraft set design with the main build on the front, an alternate layout with the buildings opened up on the back and all the minifigs and micro builds displayed across the lower left front.  The box is made of the heavier cardboard and has an attractive look and feel.

Inside you will find two instruction manuals.  One contains the main instructions from start to finish for the primary layout shown on the front of the box.  The other book is thinner and has alternate build and layout ideas.

You end up with 11 numbered bags and one bag for plates, plus the bag for the instructions.  Of interest was the variance in bag numbering style.  A few bags had the traditional style of numbering with the large bold black number with white outline, but most bags had a design I was not familar with that had a white stripe with a smaller black number printed on it.

The build starts with the market hut, a simple design with a tablet to display wares for sale on (an eye of ender, iron bar, cake and apple).  A chest with emeralds in it (as currency).  A small hut with a stepped red and white roof and a jungle tree with vine that attaches to the roof of the hut.  It also includes on villager and has you build 8 2x4 dirt block jumpers, one 2x4 sand jumper and one 2x4 snow jumper which will be used later to attach various modules.

More to come soon!

Visit to Mall of America: Lego Store and Brickmania

I had a chance to stop by the Lego store earlier this week, something I have not had a chance to do in a while.  I also had heard about the Brickmania store and wanted to check that out too.  I was hoping to grab some of the new Summer 2016 releases but alas they did not have ANY of them out!  Just by pure luck however, the Minecraft Village D2C set was released to VIP members that same day and was available in store for me to buy!  So there is the most expensive set off my top 10 list for the summer bought and ready to put together!  Was also excited to check out the pick-a-brick wall as I had never really tried it out in the past.  Now that I am starting to do some of my own designs, I have been building up a collection of parts and the wall became a huge focus point for me to flesh out key pieces.

To start off with, here are some pictures of the actual store, which combine a classic Lego Store front with a bit of a entertainment and spectacle piece:

Always an impressive site!  I wish I had gotten more pictures beyond just the large scale builds on top.  There are some brick built murals around the outside and a building area with seating and tables with bins of parts to build on.

Nearby there is a 3rd party store called "Brickmania" that had a great MOC of Stalingrad in the window along with a couple glass shelves full of custom military equipment (mainly World War II).  Most in minifigure scale but also some micro builds to use in a table top game they have.  Inside they had the military sets for sale along with accessories and other custom parts, designs and accessories.  They also had large number of rare out of print sets available for sale on the walls for typically inflated prices.  I was very impressed by the store front and they had some truly amazing stuff in there for AFOLs and other hardcore collectors.  

You Tube Channel Activated!

I put together the start to my You Tube channel.  So far it just includes a short video of my Train Layout.  I hope to post more over the next week or so!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6aKkg-OsiS8W_AM1mkNVeg

Lego City Layout: May Update

I did not do too much on the layout over the winter, I mainly focused on Lego Minecraft and Star Wars sets.  But over the last few weeks I have had a chance to add a few things.  The biggest change has been adding the Brick Bank, the first Modular building I have had a chance to build right into the layout.  It went in next to the Pet Store with another alleyway between them to make up the extra space that building the modular onto the road base plates causes.

I also did some more sidewalks and added a pond with a small waterfall and some foliage to one of the empty corners.  As some of the new 2016 Summer wave sets come out, I have spots setup for some of them and plan on removing a couple of existing sets that just do not fit in, either due to scale, theme or detail level.  My next couple focus areas are going to be the "Wilderness" area with the log cabins and camp ground and also the beach/water front zone.  Here are some pictures to show the progress:

Summer 2016 Release Priorities

I have started to see signs online of people getting their hands on Summer 2016 sets a head of the June release date, so I have been scouring local stores trying to find some that have gotten out on the shelves.  So far no luck, but I am heading down to the Twin Cities tomorrow and will check out the Lego store in the Mall of America and depending on my luck there may try and hit a Toys R Us somewhere too.  Here are my thoughts and priorities for this waves sets:

City Airport Sets:

I will end up buying all of these just because I am a big aviation fan and am slowly accumulating sets to make an airport diorama in Lego, and so I am especially looking for ground/support equipment and relevant minifigs to detail it out.  I want 60100:  Airport Starter Set mainly for the minifigs, I do not particularly like the helicopter in the set.  60101:  Airport Cargo Plane looks like a decent build and fits in with the air cargo center I want to build to link up with my railroad, has a nice little ground vehicle.  60102:  Airport VIP service adds something I do not have, a smaller jet that looks decent.  The limo looks a little bizarre but will work fine.  60103:  Airport Air Show:  I am VERY excited about this.  Great looking planes, lots of awesome minifigs, a decent hangar and some ground equipment.  This is a dream set for me.  60104:  Airport Passenger Terminal.  I think the terminal looks awful, but the jet seems solid and there are some nice ground vehicles so I will be buying it mainly for those.  I have 3182: Airport from 2010 that I think has a MUCH better terminal and control tower.  I might use some of the terminal components from the new set to add on to the old one.  

Other City Sets:  

I think the Volcano sets look neat and I might buy one or two on sale but otherwise they do not fit in with any of my plans.  60134:  Fun in the Park - City People is a huge priority, I love everything about this set.  60132:  Service Station is also high on my list, it looks solid and fills a gap in my city layout for a gas station.

Creator Sets:

31051:  Lighthouse Point looks great, I already have the last Creator light house but I love lighthouses so will pick this up too and then decide which one to put in my layout.  31052:  Vacation Getaways looks amazing and I am very excited to pick it up.  31053:  Treehouse Adventures looks ok, I will get it to check it out but do not know if it will fit into my layout.

Minecraft:

21127:  The Fortress looks like fine and I am dead set on buying 100% of the Minecraft sets so this is an easy choice.  21128:  The Village is another top priority.  Its everything I could want in a Minecraft set and I look very forward to buying it and reviewing it.

Wish me luck this next couple days!

General Site Update: May 2016

Its been a while since I have had time to post.  Two kids, work and life in general tend to take up most of my time, and during the winter, the Lego room is a little bit colder than I like.  I have been doing some refocusing of my hobbies to make more time (and resources) to concentrate on Lego and hope to keep this blog going with considerably more regular updates.  I am also playing around with doing a You Tube channel dedicated to Lego also, so hopefully look forward to some more material going forward!