LEGO® Technic review: 42098 Car Transporter (part 2)

Yesterday, Alexandre Campos showed you the interesting parts in upcoming LEGO® Technic set 42098 Car Transporter along with the build process. In this, the second part of his review, he discusses the finished set and gives his verdict. 42098 Car Transporter has 2493 parts and will be available from 1 August 2019 priced €149.99/ £139.99/ US$179.99. 

The finished set is definitely a beast. The colour scheme chosen for the truck looks good and utilitarian, thankfully without any weird colours to make parts gathering for MOC construction harder (42039 24 Hours Race Car, 42050 Drag Racer, 42066 Air Race Jet, and 42069 Extreme Adventure: I'm looking at you all).

LEGO® Technic review: 42098 Car Transporter (part 1)

We have three of the upcoming LEGO® Technic sets to show you over the coming weeks. First up is 42098 Car Transporter which has 2493 parts and will be available from 1 August 2019 priced €149.99/ £139.99/ US$179.99. Our technically minded friend Alexandre Campos (Ambassador for PLUG, a Portuguese LEGO User Group) took a look at its parts and construction.

Amongst all the construction machines, trucks and sports cars released in the LEGO® Technic range, a car transporter is something almost unique: the only previous example is the B-model of the 8872 Forklift Transporter, from 1993.

The 42098 Car Transporter picks up this legacy. Let's see what 26 years of LEGO Technic evolution has brought.

LEGO® Overwatch: Designer interview with Woon Tze

In May we chatted with LEGO® Overwatch designer Woon Tze in Billund about the theme and its new elements. This was prior to the reveal of the upcoming wave of sets, which is why we didn't ask him about those!

How long have you worked at the LEGO Group?

I’ve been at the company three years now. I started off at Super Heroes, I moved on to Harry Potter and Jurassic World, and now Overwatch. I built D.Va & Reinhardt [75973, read our review here] and the exclusive Omnic Bastion [75987].

Were you an Overwatch fan already?

I was a fan of the artwork, and once I got added to the team, I started playing the game… quite a bit! Probably a bit too much, I would say. I’m also a family man with three young boys so I need to control that a little bit! So at the moment it is controlled, I would hope to play a little bit more.

LEGO® Creator Expert review: 10269 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy

Just announced, LEGO® Creator Expert 10269 Harley-Davidson® Fat Boy® will be available directly from LEGO exclusively for LEGO VIP members from 17 July 2019, with general availability beginning on 1 August. The price will be £84.99/ US$99.99/ CA$139.99/ DE€89.99/ FR€94.99/ 799DKK. We asked Ben Davies (ProfessorBrickkeeper) to take it for a spin to see what new and recoloured elements it includes.

Until now, the LEGO® Creator Expert vehicles subtheme has focused purely on four-wheeled vehicles. The newly announced 10269 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy marks a departure from this, by using bricks to depict the popular motorcycle.

LEGO® Overwatch: Weapon No. 20

The new gun introduced this year for LEGO® Overwatch sets is officially named "Weapon, No. 20" or "Minifigure, Weapon Gun, Blaster with Studs on Sides, Bottom, and Front" by BrickLink. It's a super interesting piece, so we asked Jonas Kramm to explore its geometry and capabilities.

For the Overwatch theme, The LEGO Group (TLG) introduced a new weapon mould (Design ID 44709). So far it comes in four colours:

• White (Element ID 6253694) in one set: 75970 Tracer vs. Widowmaker (2x)
• Dark Stone Grey [TLG]/ Dark Bluish Gray [BL] (Element ID 6255067) in two sets: 75972 Dorado Showdown (2x), 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar (2x)

• 
Black (Element ID 6253695) in one set: 75970 Tracer vs. Widowmaker (1x)

• Light Purple [TLG]/ Bright Pink [BL] (Element ID 6254789) in one set: 75973 D.Va & Reinhardt (2x)


LEGO® Overwatch: Bastion alternate model

Yesterday, Victor Pruvost gave us his detailed review of the build of LEGO® Overwatch set 75974 Bastion, but he wasn't done with just that! Given that Bastion comes with an alternate mode, how about an alternate model? Victor pulled the robot apart and pondered what to create using the same parts.

My friend Martin suggested I do a dragon and I quickly realised it was a brilliant idea considering Bastion’s inventory: the wings could be built out of Tan plates, there were plenty of parts to articulate the beast, and the light brick was a perfect way to represent the fire-breathing action!

LEGO® Overwatch review: 75974 Bastion

Over the next week or so we have a series of LEGO® Overwatch articles for you. Firstly, following on from our reviews of 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar and 75973 D.Va & Reinhardt a few months ago, we now have one more set review which we asked Victor Pruvost to check out.

In our third LEGO® Overwatch review, we’re going to examine 75974 Bastion. With 602 parts and  a RRP of £54,99 / US$49,99 / 59,99€, Bastion is the second-largest set of the January 2019 Overwatch wave.

LEGO® Inside Tour 2019: new and exclusive parts

Every year The LEGO Group run a few “Inside Tour” events where they open their doors to a small group of fans. The lucky participants – I say lucky because although they are paying for the pleasure, tickets sell out almost instantly – are given behind the scenes access to LEGO HQ, hang out with designers and receive all manner of goodies. The most notable goodie is the Inside Tour set, a set designed for the tours that (sometimes) remains unavailable elsewhere. Each celebrates an aspect of LEGO history such as the Ferguson tractor, or the LEGOLAND train.

This year’s set is especially exciting to New Elementary as it contains a new element, produced exclusively for the set. It is 3D printed rather than injection moulded, so while its quality is much lower than regular LEGO pieces, it’s still super exciting... and rare. Participants were told it is the first 3D-printed piece ever to appear in a LEGO set (unless any of you readers know otherwise?). They’ve even given it ID numbers; Element ID 6286866|Design ID 66237, but don’t expect it to ever become available anywhere!

Bricks & Pieces: Jonas’ Highlights - May 2019

My newest list of Bricks & Pieces highlights has been online now for two weeks but I never got around to writing something about it. But the list is worth it for sure, so take a look here:

BnP.jonaskramm.com

Many new sets launched recently so we get a long list with a wide variety of bricks that are now available. Worth pointing out are LEGO® Stranger Things 75810 The Upside Down – with a small selection of plates, windows and minifigure parts, and Disney Minifigure Series – with some elements like the black plant and flower.

75936 Jurassic Park T. rex Rampage: set review

We hope you've been enjoying the run of LEGO® Jurassic World articles we've published recently including two designer interviews and a look at the new parts in 75936 Jurassic Park T. rex Rampage. Today, Jonas Kramm examines the build and techniques of that set.

75936 Jurassic Park T. rex Rampage is only the second set from the LEGO® Jurassic World series that is a homage to the classic movie from 1993. It comes with 3120 pieces that get used to build a huge dinosaur, an enormous gate and an additional minifigure stand.