LEGO January 2014 preview

Since I receive inside materials from Lego and Mattel, I've seen the new sets for January.  This preview post took forever to write and spans the entirety of the new releases.

DUPLO

Three Duplo sets have “Creative” in their names: Creative Animals (10573), Creative Ice Cream (10574) and Creative Picnic (10566).  Creative Animals is retro, relying on brick-built animals, each with its own analogous color scheme.  A cool mix of basic bricks and printed pieces, I'm going to buy it for my soon to be 2-year old.  Creative Ice Cream has curved pieces and is one of the sets that seems to have this years' only new color that I see: Spring Green (what I call it).  It also has curved and 2x2 bricks in medium azure and hot pink.  Creative Picnic has purple grape brick and LEGO KETCHUP!  (I'm a ketchupholic). The lid to its box doubles as a serving tray.

Toddler Build & Fun Boat (10567) features the signature red Duplo rabbit and two actually-floating boats.  Farm animals (10522) has some nice pre-molded animals, preferable to that weird penguin from last year.

There's a police station Duplo set (10532) and a shop like the one a few years ago but smaller and pink (10546).  They both include those vehicles that I don't like.  I prefer the brick-built cars of yesteryear.  The shop is still cool, with Duplo bananas, a rare female figure, and magenta flower.  Big Farm (10525) has 100+ pieces and lots of animals, and another vehicle I don't like.  Sleeping Beauty gets a large set with purple and pink bricks.  Woah!  Pink 2x2 round bricks in Duplo scale!  The set includes the fairy godmother and a gold Duplo wand.  As bricks get more sophisticated, they seem to get smaller in size.  This wand may be thin enough to be swallowed.  I also thought I saw a 1x4 brick in the police set, which can also be thin enough to be a safety hazard.

DISNEY PRINCESS

There are six Lego princess sets, including two Little Mermaid sets (41050 and 41052), two Cinderella sets (41053 and 41055), a CGI Rapunzel set (40154), and a CGI Brave Merida set (41051).  This is a new theme for Lego, as it was exclusively Duplo when introduced last year.  The princesses are all mini-doll figures.  Sets feature medium lavender, pink, and medium and light blue bricks.  Ariel & Prince Eric set features a pink boat that really floats and a new brick type, it appears, a small minaret ornament piece that's gold and 1x1.  It has a castle but I can't see any door to get in.  Cinderella's dream carriage (41053) is a fairly decent representation of the roundness of the movie's iconic pumpkin-carriage.  Rapunzel's tower, called here her “Creativity Tower”, is wide but squat, and it looks like she can jump off to save herself without hurting herself too seriously.  The set says that while locked up, she gets creative and paints and bakes with included accessories (???).  The description also advises that girls have Rapunzel hit Flynn Rider with the included frying pan and tie him to a chair.  Uh, okay.  On the plus side, it comes with a Lego lizard!

However, it's Cinderella's Romantic Castle that will have all the girls bugging their parents!  It looks like a mini-isneyland.  There's a moat and all!  The castle has at least 6 rooms, lots of light blue, animal bricks, a fireplace, a glass slipper, a treasure chest, and almost 650 pieces!

One other notable: Cinderella's dream carriage has specially-designed gold wheels that look just like the ones in the movie!  Very cool unique piece that will never appear in any other set!

LEGO FRIENDS

There will be a whopping 19 Friends sets this year!  Awesome.  Everyone here knows my passion for this series, although now in its third year some similar structural design patterns that emerged are solidifying.

Animal assortment 4 includes a second turtle (41041), a tiger cub (41042) and a penguin, much better styled than the Duplo one (41043).  Lots of medium azure pieces.  The turtle is purple vs the first green one.  The lion set has those gold ornament pieces mentioned in an above Ariel set.  Penguin comes with a fish element and tiger comes with a chicken leg.  And, as with all the animals in sets 1-3, they all wear bows!

Mia's lemonade stand (41027) includes one of the coolest pieces for January: a light azure scooter (described by Lego as mint green).  Cool juicer.  Mia's raising money for charity.  Hope the government doesn't shut her down because of insane FDA regulations.  It's a children's stand, for crying out loud!  All other small Friends sets have animals, including Emma's lifeguard post (41028), which has a medium blue dolphin (and 3x2 lavender slopes) at a $10 price point, Stephanie's New Born Lamb (40129) with a lamb element, a medium lavender tub and medium azure ribbons & accessories.  A dog is included in the larger Sunshine Harvest set (41026), probably a $20 set, also with lots of medium azure and some medium lavender bricks.  Both that and the lamb set have some hot pink and/or rose pieces.

Heartlake Juice Bar (41035) is one of those design patterns that make it seem less interesting than other buildings.  It's a lot like Butterfly Beauty Salon (2012) and Corner bakery (2013).  Comes with a new character, Naya, not to be confused with Nya from Ninjago.  Unimpressive, but it does have lime green ¼ awning parts and light yellow plates.  Most of the sets in this wave are in bright spring-like colors.

Stephanie's Beach House (40137) like Hertlake high (2013), gives builders a lot of light yellow bricks (probably called “medium Yellow” by TLG).  It's a cool design, features a windsurfer, a dock, a patio, stairs to a 2nd story entrance, and three rooms.  As with most larger Friends sets, this one is loaded with accessories.  The medium yellow brick assortment is greater and different compared to Heartlake high, which relied on only a few brick sizes and the 1x6x5 panels.  Hopefully, this color will be plentiful enough to be practical to add to one's palette to make custom buildings. Stephanie's house is a lot smaller than Olivia's house (2012) so it is more attainable to people with smaller budgets.  Comes with Kate, not part of the ensemble cast of 5, but still pulled off having her own solo Lego set!

Sunshine ranch (41039).  it's main color scheme is rose and white, which go well together here, but I've never seen a real barn this color.  The barn claims to have an apartment!  Anyway, it's spacious inside and looks like it has 6 rooms, including stables. New figure: Liza, the only Caucasian supporting character in January's sets.  That's 10 of 19 Friends sets.  I see at least three horses; one is a foal.  Six of the remaining 9 sets in the line for later in the year I'm predicting will be animal assortments 5 and 6.

LEGO CITY

Cops & robbers has been a perennial theme in City for a while.  Most of these sets re re-worked versions of typical police sets.  Crook Pursuit (60041) is the typical bandit on foot chased by a motorcycle cop.  High Speed Police Chase (60042) is a cop car vs bandit on motorcycle.  For a twist, they added a second crook, a woman.  Criminals are equal opportunity employers.  Prisoner transporter (60043) is a wagon with bars that a second crook on an ATV can attach a chain to break the bars and free his accomplice.  The feature is demonstrated on the packaging, but even though the one helped break the other free, the cop minifigure is still smiling!  The mobile police unit (60044) is a lot like the surveillance truck, which was a lot like other ones dating back to about 2002.  I like the angular arrangement of the video monitors.  The crook has a ball and chain accessory.  This and the transporter are modular build for easy construction.

Police Patrol (60045) features some aquatic vehicles that don't float and a tiny lighthouse that has a hidden compartment for the crook to stash his stolen goods.  Helicopter surveillance (60046) is a huge chopper with a tiny hideout for the crook, the smallest yet, as inflation leads the price points to include fewer bricks.  I've noticed this trend of shrinking sets for the money in city a lot, and creator sets too.  City has been exceeding 10 cents a brick, making them some of the most expensive sets per brick in the last few years.  It does have a lot of those “brick bricks”, 1x2 brick with engraved brick patterns.

The police station replaces the old one that had a long run.  It has a lot of structural and layout similarities, but a more modern look. 854 pieces, probably a $100 set.  The situation is a real mess: a crook somehow got to a second floor cell and attached a tow line from his truck to it, pulling it off so his accomplice can escape.  Meanwhile, one sneaks out the roof hatch and another digs an escape route through the toilets!  (This I have to see rendered in Lego!)  It's a mass breakout!  What kind of security do they have in this place?  What are the cops doing?!  Tanj!  Even the Mobile police unit stereotypes things; according to TLG: “just make sure he [the baddie] doesn't escape while the policemen drink their coffee!”  The set has a small cop car & motorcycle and a helicopter- 4 vehicles in all- and a K9 dog.  This, and all the sets, are heavy in white bricks and blue is an accent color.

There are plenty of Lego City vehicles.  Race Car (60053) is very curvy & sleek and in Italian colors (but it's an Octan car).  Comes with a trophy brick.  I really don't see much in the way of new custom bricks.  That's fine with me.  There's enough variety already that they can do without a lot of new specialized pieces.

Other vehicles include Light repair truck (60054) with a traffic light/ street light to repair, Monster Truck (60055).  These three will retail about $10.  In the $20 range are Tow Truck (60056), Camper Van (60057) SUV with Watercraft (60058).  Camper vans are always cool.  This is at least the third in recent years, including the Friends one.  This one features a really-floating canoe.  Every time I see the phrase “Camper Van”, I can't get the song “Take the Skinheads Bowling” out of my head.  Look up the song if you don't know why.  Comes with a guy & girl minifigures.  Says they can sleep in the van.  They better be married.

I really like the logging truck (60059).  Comes with those Lego spruce trees that are so rare these days!  Comes with a lumberjack and chainsaw to saw down the tree!  Now that's what I'm talking about.  The logs are columns of brown 2x2 round bricks.  Cool set all around, from design to included parts.

There's an auto transporter (60060) that carries 2 cars to an auto dealer, but designed to hold 4, so you can build you own or use ones form other sets.  I see some techy yellow pieces in the frame of the carrier.  Modular build.  This is also one of the nicer and well-designed City sets.

Airport Fire Truck (60061), at 326 pieces, is the biggest vehicle.  It has a sleek, streamlined look with a lot of curved pieces and some SNOT building techniques.  The premise is that an isolated jet engine catches on fire somehow and they have to put it out.

SUPER HEROES
Batman continues to be popular as Superman fizzled and faded with their flop of a movie.  There are two new Batman sets: Man-Bat Attack (76011) and The Riddler Chase (76012).  Both names partially conform to the “adjective-noun-verb” format so common in Lego's action-themed sets, only these don't have the adjective.  Man-Bat Attack includes Nightwing (Robin) and the Bat Copter, weighing in at under 200 pieces.  Riddler chase includes Batmobile, Riddler and a looooong dragster, and The Flash!  As expected, black is dominant. Neither of these is really special, but the Batmobile is a nice rendering, and the sets will be popular with fans of the supporting characters.

THE LEGO MOVIE

THIS INFORMATION IS CONFIDENTIAL, AND SO I CAN NOT REVEAL ANY INFORMATION ON IT BEFORE JANUARY 1

NINJAGO

There weren't supposed to be any new Ninjago sets after Christmas, but popular demand has kept it going for a fourth year!  The new wave of baddies are the Nindroids.  The Skeleton crew seems like a distant memory.  The new sets feature lots of vehicles and lots of purple, including Hover Hunter (70720), a hovercraft with the convenience of a saw blade, OverBorg Attack (70722), a larger white/purple cycle to fight Lloyd in a smaller, green cycle, and Nindroid Dragon (70725), a terrifying, nearly 700 piece creature with 5 minifigures.  I love overBorg Attack with its two motorcycles.  The larger one has absurdly large blades across the sides!

There is also the red Kai Fighter (70721), which looks like its design was stolen from Misfire, the Headmaster Decepticon from Transformers: Generation 1 (1987).  Like the Transformer, this is an awesome look!  According to the legend, a techno-blade can turn ordinary vehicles into these heavily-armored and equipped fighters.  No word if Nindroids were originally regular men.

There is also a Thunder Raider (70723) which is Jay's vehicle (blue) but it also comes with Cole and yet another mecha (black).  This mecha looks anorexic.  Their forces really overwhelm the nindroid in the set, which has a tiny-by-comparison cannon with its prerequisite flick-fire missiles.  The thunder raider features both treads and giant wheels; if you're into that kind of thing, this is your set! By the way, here is a mnemonic device I use to remember the ninja's colors:  Jay is blue like a blue jay, Kai is red like a CAYanne pepper, Cole is black like coal, and Zane is white because that's the only color left.  When parents of ninjago fans get confused, I tell them this.  By the by, auto-correct keeps de-capitalizing Ninjago every few times I type it, so ignore the times it's not capitalized as a proper noun should be.

The sixth set in the series is the NinjaCopter (70724).  I hardly call it a copter as it used one of the spinner tops as a blade, but it's huge.  It more resembles a white and blue spaceship.  To me the vehicle looks aerodynamically impossible.  It fights two tiny Nindroid vehicles, and they have purple in them too!

CREATOR

Creator marks the final category for Lego's January releases.  Probably to combat 2013's 9.6% inflation rate, the smallest sets, usually with about 60 elements, have been moved out of their plastic boxes and into inexpensive cardboard packaging.  All Creator sets are 3-in-1, as always.  Red Thunder (31013) is a red helicopter (or biplane or speed boat).  Nothing too fancy, but it has two rotors of different size.  Power digger is a steam shovel (and front end loader and dump truck.)  I think this is the coolest of the three.  The shovel is hinged, and I think there's a plate used that allows it to pivot.  If not, one can easily get one from their collection and add it.  Emerald Express (31015) is a dark green steam locomotive (or stagecoach or unrealistic bullet train).  The three sets are not part of an assortment, sold to retailers individually.  The varying color schemes means that people who get all three sets will have a good color mix to be creative with.  By the way, the Emerald Express says that if you buy two (or more) sets, a larger train can be built.  I've seen promos where two related sets can be bought and its parts combined into larger builds (happens a lot in Bionicle and Hero Factory).  However, this is the first time I've seen Lego use a gimmick to buy a repeat of the same set.

Sunset Speeder (31017) is an orange sports car, and highway cruiser (31018) is a lime green motorcycle, which, again, mixes up the color schemes across sets.  The mid-size vehicles seem to get fewer pieces by the year for the same price point.  Again, the 9.6% inflation rate forces TLG to either charge more or scale down the sets.  The three 3-in-1 motorcycles are cool but don't offer too much variety.  The speeder at least has instructions for a truck cab and a race car.

Twinblade Adventures (31020) is a VTOL vehicle with rotating wings in red, white and blue.  It's got 216 pieces, and I don't know if it's $20 or $25 retail.  I'm guessing $25.  It's also a helicopter and biplane.

There are still animal sets in creator, and these seem to be some of the most inventive yet.  Forest Animals (31019) is a monkey (or teddy bear or squirrel).  A brick-built banana and a simple yet elegant toucan is included in the primary build.  The monkey's mouth, eyes, and eyebrows are poseable to give him various expressions.  The monkey's arms are made of thin techy pieces, but it kind of works.  His scheme is brown and “tan”.  Furry Creatures (31021) is a black and white cat that befriends (or torments) a gray mouse dining on a cheese wheel.  This is a pretty cute set that should appeal to younger children, both boy and girl.  Alternate builds are puppy and bunny.  Both sets near 300 pieces and will probably be $30!  Pretty expensive, but both sets make inventive use of parts.  For instance, 1x2x2/3 “cheese” slopes and joystick gears make up the cat's whiskers.

Turbo Quad (31022) is a yellow quad.  Again, yellow mixes up the colors, but this has few yellow parts.  One of my complaints with Lego is that we're getting fewer color bricks, used mostly as a facade or covering for a bunch of gray bricks.  Gray has become the most common color for Lego.  Star Wars' numerous gray vehicles helps contribute to that as well.

Finally, the only new Creator building is the Mountain Hut (30125).  It's the only Creator set in the new batch with a minifigure, an explorer.  It's a brown building somewhat like a fancier log cabin (2011), but next to what TLG calls a mountain.  I call it a giant stalagmite.  It looks kind of strange to me.  But it is cool that it gives the set a lot of gray mixed with the brown.  I know I just complained about the gray pieces, but one of the alternate builds is a “mountaintop lookout”.  This is a cool design and great use of the two colors together.  The third build is a small lodge that predominately uses the gray bricks with the slope roof tiles in varying red shades and it also looks cool.  I always preferred the slope roofs than SNOT roofs so common in official Lego designs.

Creator is the place to turn to for classically designed Lego buildings.  Except for police and fire stations and some very large sets like 2013's Town Square, you rarely get buildings anymore from Lego City.  I love the Creator buildings and hope they introduce many more later this year.

FINAL WORD

When I closed the book, on the back cover it says, “Coming In March: [More] Chima”.  Oh, brother.

STANDOUT SETS:

DUPLO: CREATIVE ANIMALS – MY FIRST SHOP
DISNEY PRINCESS: ARIEL's MAGICAL KISS – CINDERELLA'S DREAM CARRIAGE
LEGO FRIENDS: MIA'S LEMONADE STAND – STEPHANIE's BEACH HOUSE
LEGO CITY: RACE CAR – LOGGING TRUCK
LEGO MOVIE: [CONFIDENTIAL]
NINJAGO: KAI FIGHTER – OVERBORG ATTACK
CREATOR: POWER DIGGER – FURRY CREATURES – MOUNTAIN HUT