Gwathlo of Order of Morning Star

Life Sized Stove

Exploring the jumper plate-like characteristics of the 'Frozone board' (32627) led me to discover its real life counterpart one morning when I spilled freshly brewed espresso on a stove-top: perfect knobs, unlike the ones I had to clean the coffee from.

Imperial Star Destroyer

This small Imperial Star Destroyer was a lot of fun to build. The large hook/grappler kind of resembles the trapezoid of the ISD bridge. It is found in the 'Batman bag' (Mini Accessory, No. 10 – 6266155| 40598).

The next LEGO® Ideas set to be released is 21321 International Space Station. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the ISS as it has been maintaining a continuous human presence in space since November 2000. It seems apt that it is being enshrined as a LEGO Ideas set this year.


The selection of the ISS as an Ideas set was via a slightly different route as a mark of the 10 years anniversary of LEGO Ideas (originally LEGO Cuusoo). This time, the LEGO Ideas team looked back at all the submissions that had reached 10K but had not passed review, and selected four for fans to vote for to make the final decision. The ISS by by fan designer Christophe Ruge won the public vote. The new LEGO Ideas International Space Station is rated 16+, contains 864 pieces and priced at US $69.99 / CA $99.99 / DE €69.99 / FR €59.99 / UK £64.99 / DK 549DKK from LEGO stores and online from February 1st.
Let's take a look at those new elements...

One of the new concepts that LEGO® has released this year are the Friends Play Cubes - compact, portable little sets that are part of a collectible series and can be stacked together.  Each Play Cube set costs US$9.99/ £7.99/ 9.99€ and there are five to collect in Series 1.

The Build

The model represents the playable vehicle from the game, piloted by Hammond, a hamster. Depending on the situation on the battlefield the mech can transform between two different modes.

Gun-Mode

It seems that 2020 is not limited to bringing us 362 Transparent Blue Opal, but also 364 Transparent Medium Reddish Violet with Opalescence. We are calling them new colours because they have been given a LEGO Colour ID but it seems that adding the Opalescence effect is not likely to classify this as part of the "one colour in, one colour out policy" as far as we can tell.



One of our readers, BrickoMotion, mentioned that the 1x4 Panel in Transparent Medium Reddish Violet/ Trans-Dark Pink from Disney' 43173 Aurora's Carriage was "weirdly colored" and it seems it was also pearly and iridescent. They were right, so let's take a look at this second new colour.

Following on from the introduction of new LEGO® hues over the last couple of years, it seems that 2020 continues the tradition. In 2018, 107 Bright Bluish Green/ Dark Turquoise returned, 2019 gave us 353 Vibrant Coral and now 2020 brings 362 Transparent Blue Opal.

Each Christmas, The LEGO Group give their employees all over the world a special gift set. Since this year is the 20th anniversary of LEGO® Star Wars, it seems they have decided to incorporate the theme by designing a Yuletide X-Wing complete with R2-D2 sleigh and Yoda's igloo. The problem with employee sets is that they are are not released for purchase although inevitably a large amount seem to find their way to the secondary marketplaces.



Recognised LEGO Fan Media (like us!) are lucky enough to also receive one and so we thought we would take a look at this exclusive set with the aim of reassuring you that if you want to build it, that is almost entirely possible thanks to the scarcity of exclusive elements in it.