Lego Minifigures – Battle Goddess (Series 12)

Series 12 – what a series it was! I don’t think I’ve been so pleased with a Minifigures set since probably series 5 or 6.

Today, we take a look at the Battle Goddess. Though she’s not explicitly identified as such, I think it’s a fairly safe bet to say she’s based on Athena, ancient Greek goddesses of wisdom and war. Lego could have really sealed the deal by including an owl with her, but I suppose it may not have cost out.

The figure’s dominant colours are white, gold and brown – white for her dress, gold for her helmet, armour and other trappings (including lipstick) and brown for her weaponry. Her hair and helmet are all one piece, which I believe is a new one. We can probably assume that we’ll see this piece again in future; perhaps a female warband in future Castle sets.

As for other accessories, she comes with the same spear we’ve seen many, many times before, but it’s now got a gold tip. She also comes with a round shield, which has a Greek pattern around the borders and a Greek-style Pegasus at the centre.

The Battle Goddess also has a softgoods skirt, which I have mixed feelings about. Though the design is cool, it doesn’t sit as evenly as it should (they rarely do) and it doesn’t quite protect her modesty either. Points for the idea, but one docked for its execution. Doubtless there’s a customiser out there already working on an improved version.

The Battle Goddess is a really fun, if somewhat obscure addition to the collection. She’s a cool companion for the Medusa from Series 10 – who I now feel like I should track down – as well as the Minotaur from series 5 and the Spartan from all the way back in series 2. But the real drawcard for me here was the idea of getting several, and using her as some kind of Amazon honour guard for Wonder Woman – who is, of course, an Amazon herself. So far I have three (thanks Scott!), which I think will do (though if anyone wants to sling more my way, just let me know!).   

Fairytale Princess (Lego Minifigures Series 12)

Well, it’s been a little while between drinks here at the Lupine Book Club. My residence, Wolf Manor, recently had the bedroom cupboards renovated, which means most of the stuff I’d normally be writing about has been stored away. Couple this with the general business of the impending holiday season and I’m sure you’ll understand.

But with the impending release of Series 13 of Minifigures, it’s time to take a look at the last couple of figures I bought from series 12 – today, the Fairytale Princess.

This minifigure is very much the archetypal fairytale princess; she’s wearing a lavender medieval-style dress and is wearing a large conical hat, complete with a tassel and long braid of hair at the back. I guess you could use her as a stand-in for Rapunzel too, should you feel so inclined, or for the Princess from the Princess and the Pea. For me, I think she’ll end up in a Castle set somewhere.

Her sole accessory is the frog (or toad, if you prefer). This is exactly the same frog that has popped up in a number of other sets, including the Treehouse. It’s a cool little piece; I wouldn’t mind it having painted eyes, but I suppose I could always do that myself if I felt so inclined.

But although she’s kind of light in the accessories department, she does have a cool feature – her default expression is just a very happy face, which is nice in a generic way, but her secondary face is of her puckering up to kiss the frog. It’s a great expression that I haven’t previously seen on a minifigure, and I think it will be great for customisers. 

The main downside is that her headpiece (which I assume is a new mould) doesn’t stay on terribly well. This is not such a problem if she’s only going to be on display, but if she’s going to be used for play, I would suggest maybe using a small amount of blu-tack to keep it on.

I class her as a success. Not likely to be a hit with young boys, I imagine, but I think she’s another example of Series 12 being an overall return to form for the theme. Now roll on Series 13! 

Lego Minifigures – Rock Star (Series 12)

YEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! I WANNA RAWWWWWWK!

We’ve had a couple of rocker characters in the minifigures range before – the Punk Rocker back in series 4, and the Rocker Girl from series 7 who was totally not Jem. But this is our first heavy metal guy – and having been a huge heavy metal guy myself in the past, I was pretty pumped to see this minifigure get released.

The tampoing on this guy isn’t super intricate, but there is a lot of it. It's basically a whole lot of silver dots to replicate the standard features you’d expect on a studded leather outfit – the lapels, the belt -- it’s even got the zips on the wrist. His hair has a metallic silver streak in it, which would serve well if you are keen to make some kind of glam rock custom. The hairstyle kind of reminds me of Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe, but I don’t think it’s specifically based on him.

He comes with one accessory – a red guitar, which looks to be a new piece. The guitar has a swirly circular pattern on it, which is not dissimilar to Zakk Wylde’s guitars, and the red is reminiscent of Van Halen’s legendary Frankenstrat.

 

So this dude is pretty cool in a generic 1980s metal kind of way – but as we see above, remove the hair, and you have Rob Halford, legendary lead singer of Judas Priest – sans goatee and head tattoo, admittedly, but it’s close enough to pass for my collection. In fact, if you bought a bunch of these guys, you could pretty much recreate Judas Priest! This is particularly fitting, because Halford and co did a huge amount to popularise the leather look, which I suppose went on to reach its logical (or illogical) extreme with black metal.

Overall verdict – fantastic minifigure on its own, even better once the hairpiece is removed to turn him into Rob Halford. Great effort, Lego!

Visit the Lupine Book Club on Facebook. Click here!

Lego Minifigures -- Space Miner (Series 12)

Series 12 of the Minifigures has brought us the Space Miner – the latest addition to the once-massive Lego Space theme – and he looks pretty darn cool!

The tampoing on the main body is surprisingly intricate, especially considering most of it will go completely unseen for most of the time. A blank chest would have been absolutely fine, but this has instead been decorated with a chest harness, a zip and lots of little fabric crease marks. It’s nice attention to detail, and means you can display him fully suited up or in his civvies.   

    

The chestpiece is one we’ve seen a few times now, both in and outside of the Minifigures theme – It’s a nice generic “spacey” piece that works well in many different colourways. This one’s distinguishing feature is that it has a modified Space logo on the left shoulderpad, with the rocket replaced by a drill.

He's got one new piece – a helmet. It’s much more industrial in its look, rather than the military/police look of the Galaxy Patrol guy from series 7. Thanks to a surprising number of paint apps, it even features a light above the eyes, just like a “real” miner’s helmet would. I suspect we’ll see a lot of this piece in future Space sets too, and I'll be quite happy with that.

The drill is made up of two different pieces; the ray gun, which is endemic to just about every Space-related figure that has appeared in this series, and a drillbit. The drillbit is an awesome idea but it doesn’t fit quite as well as it should, and it’s also cast in soft plastic. Understandable, given that this is a kid’s toy, but BACK IN MY DAY (warning: old codger story imminent) all of our plastics were cast as solids, and no-one worried to much about things like eyes getting poked out etc.

Perhaps the Space Miner’s greatest strength is that he’s a good army builder. Though the default face is perfectly fine, swap in another face and you’ve instantly got a whole new figure. He’s definitely one of the coolest figures in the new series, and will fit in nicely as a supplement to many Space sets as a background character. This guy comes highly recommended -- I only have the one at the moment, but could see myself picking up several in the near future.




 Lupine Book Club is now on Facebook! Visit here.
 

Lego Minifigures – Dino Tracker (Series 12)

When I first saw the Dino Tracker, I was pretty underwhelmed. A Dino Tracker with no dinosaur? I was calling shenanigans. But then some closer study revealed something else – this is actually Lara Croft! Not this iteration of the character – but this one.

So on this basis, the figure became much more enjoyable. She comes with a compound bow (presumably reused from Hawkeye) and a green syringe, which I assume is filled with dino knockout juice, though it could easily work with the scientist from the Research Institute or the Mad Scientist from Minifigures series 4. Several others are printed on the bandolier across her chest, too.
Particularly cool is the printed cargo pockets on the side of the legs -- very few minifigures have printing there, and it's always good to see Lego experimenting with tampo techniques.  

The hairpiece is apparently new; it’s a high ponytail piece, cast in brown. I daresay we’ll see it about quite a bit, as it’s generic enough to work with most female characters.    

She doesn’t really fit in with my wider collection, but I did really enjoy last year’s reboot of Tomb Raider, so it’s cool to have a (not) Lara Croft. Lego has been making some concerted efforts to produce more strong female characters of late, which I think is an excellent thing. Given that she’s technically a Dino Tracker, it would have been cool to get a baby T-Rex or something like that, but such is the nature of cost vs profit. Sigh…I might have to add some Dino stuff to the collection now…

Lego Minifigures -- The Wizard (series 12)

So here we have my first figure from the just-released (in Australia) Minifigures Series 12 – the Wizard!  

If you’d asked most people of the last few generations to draw a wizard, I think odds are strong that they would have drawn something just like this – a guy with a long grey beard, a blue or purple robe and a conical hat, all decorated with stars and crescent moons. This popular image has probably been altered a bit by the success of the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films, but still lingers nonetheless. I don’t know where this image originated, but I would venture a guess that the stars and moons were derived from astrological imagery. But if anyone can fill me in on with more specific information, I’d much appreciate it. 

He comes with one accessory – a staff, made up of three separate pieces – a spyglass, a rod piece and a blue gem. The combination of the pieces works really well to provide the effect of some kind of arcane artefact, no doubt passed down over many generations of wizards.  

As befits his wizardly status, he’s also got a purple cape, made up of two separate pieces to create the raised collar. This cape is cool, but also my main complaint about the figure too – metallic print is notoriously fragile, and I can see it wearing off. I think Lego might have been better simply leaving it plain.

Lego has released quite a number of wizards over the years, primarily through its various iterations of Castle and more recently through Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings sets too. But they haven’t previously done one like this – the archetypal wizard. With the exception of the print on the cape, I’m really happy with this figure -- it was my big "get" from this series. In fact, Series 12 is looking great as a whole. It's the first series I've wanted all the characters from in quite a while. Look for more reviews to come soon!