Brick construction toys - LEGO, Mega Bloks, Kre-O, Character Building, etc.
 

I'm sure a number of you are already fans of Mega Bloks due to their Power Rangers licenses. What about other brands?

My favorite is of course, Lego, because I find that their plastic quality and design aesthetics to be unparalleled. However, I have also dabbled in Kre-O and Character Building, and both are pretty good too. Strangely enough, I have never touched Mega Bloks, but that might change eventually.

Discuss!

Halo has been a good series for Megablocks.They've done really well with it and now their moving onto World of Warcraft,which means they got the rights from Blizzard and are getting noticed.Good for them.The big seller and popularity boost for Kre-o is obviously when they picked up the Transformers line.The minifigs are amazing and am glad they can "transform".(Basically parts-forming,but still good)

I love Lego, however, I got out of them primarily because I was never a big fan of their original stuff (Pirates and etc) nor their licenses (Star Wars and Indy).
I got into Kre-O, last year, though. Love these things. Though, to be entirely honest, I'm more of a fan of the Kreons than the actual sets. Don't get me wrong, I love building the Kre-O sets, but the Kreons just have more lasting appeal to me.

About Kreons, I feel the same for Lego minifigures and all other brands. The minifigures are usually the main appeal for me, not the sets themselves.

I understand.
I'm half tempted to buy the Megablocks Claw Megazord just for the Shogun Mode Red :lol

Goodness I too am willing to spend huge amounts on sets just for the minifigures. At least the Claw Megazord is a great set in itself. Well worth buying. :)

Now if only I could ever find the thing.
I'm against getting it online because building block sets can get a little heavy and that'll ramp the the shipping something fierce :S

Toys R Us always seems to be the best bet for these kinds of things...too bad the prices are always jacked up.

It's worse when you do find it,cause its usually at toys'r'us and they jack their prices for brick sets.Lego's,Kre-o,and Megablocks are all cheaper at places like Target and Wal-Mart,but good luck finding anything there.

Edit:Wow,typed the whole jacked up price line at pretty much the same time as ComicGuy I guess.lol

Definitely check out Ross'/TJ Maxx/Marshalls, that's where I found mine. It seems like they're getting a lot of TRU's Samurai surplus.

Anybody bought Lego in the past year? It's been pretty difficult to get sets considering the sky-high prices of Lego, but I did get this gem:

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/236...lquinjetae.jpg

I've got so much LEGO from the late 90s/early 00s in storage - UFOs, Atlantis, Insectoids, the early Star Wars stuff when the figures had yellow skin...but with the price for kits being so high now and a lack of space I'm really only interested in getting minifigures. I'd love to be able to just buy the Marvel/DC figures separately.

As far as Megabloks is concerned, I've loved the blind bag Samurai figures (especially since they're coded so I never buy doubles), but the character choice is pretty poor since they clearly want you to buy the sets in tandem. I'll get wave 3 if it ever hits the UK, but I'm probably going to pass on the Megaforce stuff since I'm not a fan of the bodies they use.

Character Building is another one I'm all in for Doctor Who minifigs (well, aside from the super rare "limited to 250 editions" ones), but unlike Megabloks this is where blind bags are a pain in the ass. I got the Weeping Angels diorama for Christmas though and its pretty cool, but the only set I'm desperate for is the Dalek Saucer.

Never bought a Kre-O, but will probably get one of two of the individual minifigs if I ever see them. There's a Galvatron one isn't there?

In-house themes still use yellow skin minifigs, it's only licensed stuff that use flesh colored minifigs. :)

They sell individual minifigs online, and though they're priced quite high, it's much better than buying the extremely high priced sets nowadays.

Bricklink is one of the best sources of cheaper minifigs. Their sellers are top notch and prices beat the ridiculous ones on eBay. Only problem is you'll have to play around with sellers to get cheaper shipping and it still doesn't entirely negate the fact that Lego can be more expensive than even Toku toys.

I simply adore Character Building! I love it enough to make it my main priority in Doctor Who merchandise. The blind bags are a serious pain though, they're far more difficult than the Lego ones to feel in-package due to the lack of accessories and the storekeepers always stare at me because the main places to find them here in Australia are the rather small ABC Shops (nowhere to hide). Do you have any tips on better luck? The only ones I can guarantee are Daleks due to their distinctive shape.

Did you get the 11 Doctor's Set? Was over-priced here, but it's my favorite thing from the whole line yet. There's no other way to get the great Classic Doctors like the 3rd Doctor.

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/605/11doctorscb.jpg

For those intending to find this great set, should also mention that it comes in a sweet box:

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/1...sboxdouble.jpg

Images taken from The Doctor Who Site. More cool hi-res images there!

I've always been tempted to get those Doctor Who figures. The only place I've seen them though is FYE and Hot Topic and they don't really appreciate you feeling up their merchandise. I've seen that 11 Doctor set at Barnes & Noble but $40 is a bit too much for me to drop on something like that. I'm not really interested in any of the larger sets but I've always meant to make a Tardis out of legos. Just the outer police box of course, it's smaller on the outside.

Love that reference. :lol

I actually did pay the equivalent of USD$40 for that set, but in Australian prices, where everything imported is jacked up twice, it wasn't too bad. USD$40 in the USA is a bit too much.

Before buying these minifigures I did contemplate making something like this out of Lego parts:

http://images.mocpages.com/user_imag...65m_SPLASH.jpg
More here!

If you're thinking of a TARDIS interior, maybe you could be ambitious like this guy:
http://images.mocpages.com/user_imag...49m_SPLASH.jpg
More here! Seriously incredible.

Not being a Doctor Who fan (1 of the remaining 10), I'd only really be interested in Dalek and Cybermen Minifigures...

Latest thing I got were the Monster Hunter sets,and even then I got the smaller ones.

http://www.roljo.nl/contents/media/l_lego%209462.jpg

http://www.blockstore.nl/oscthumb.ph...ar=1&bg=FFFFFF

When I read "Monster Hunter" I was hoping you meant the Capcom game franchise :lol

I got the 11 Doctors set for Christmas last year. They're really great. To be honest, though, I had assumed the Character Builder line was dead until a month or so ago when images surfaced of the next wave of blindpacked figurines. I'm hoping the line stays around for the long term so that there can be a 12th Doctor figure on the sad, hopefully distant day when Matt Smith leaves.

As far as building sets go, I usually only get about one or two Lego kits a year. I really want a lot of the Hobbit/LotR stuff, but the good ones are really expensive anymore. I also kind of hate how Lego spreads all the important minifigs across multiple sets so that you can't get the full Fellowship of the Ring without buying at least four kits, two of which are over $50. :(

I have gotten worryingly addicted to the minifigs over the last couple months, though. I even got all my friends some of them for Christmas (Legos for most, but Kinex Mario for one and MegaBlocks Halo for another). I was really surprised at how nice the MegaBlocks guys are - they actually have some serious articulation. I kind of want some of my own, but I don't really like any of the franchises they have licensed.

That was a really cool line that unfortunately I didn't get anything from. I kept wanting the glow-in-the-dark ghosts but the sets they came in were the most expensive.

Never saw that mummy set before though, that looks great! The skeleton horse makes it worth it.

I really hope this line sticks around, it's been a lot of fun to collect and they're not that expensive too. I'm appreciating that they're diving into older series, I'm hoping we get more Classic series characters eventually.

I gave up buying the Fellowship. It was already bad enough in past series like Harry Potter and The Avengers to get the full teams, but the Fellowship really took the cake. I briefly considered the completing Thorin's company but it seems like a futile endeavor at this point. It's a shame, the LOTR/Hobbit sets are some of the best licensed stuff in years! I still plan to get the Bag End set someday, it's far too gorgeous to miss. However, the $110 price tag in Australia is giving me pause for now. :(

Actually ended up giving the skeleton horse set to my nephew.He's hooked on Lego City and I want him to get into a different series so he can experience the fantasy aspect of legos.Only other sets I have are a few from Pharaoh's Quest and The Ice Dragon Ninjago set,which is amazing.

http://ninjagofanclub.com/wp-content...60-details.jpg

Oh I know, I only meant that in reference to the Star Wars stuff, which shows how long its been since I last bought LEGO :lol

Head shape is usually the best to feel for. Doctors are easy to pick out as they have the Sonic Screwdriver and the angels you can feel out the wings, but the rarer ones are a lot harder to make out from each other.

Most of the newer wave have accessories though so it makes things a little easier.

I have it, but its still in the box...displayed alongside the full-sized 11 Doctor figure set ;)

*glances at username* Nope, not a fan of LEGO at aaaaaall. :rolleyes

Haven't bought a new set in about two years, though. Minifigs really interest me now too, but again sets are so darn expensive it's not really worth going after them...

I thought this might be kind of fun to share.

So for the last couple of days I've had an odd yearning to rebuild one of my old castle kits. How old? Depressingly, probably older than several of the people on this site. In retrospect, I'm honestly not sure I actually ever built it before - I think my mom made it for me because I was only about six or seven at the time. Some of the pieces have been scattered around over the years, so there are a couple I had to salvage from newer kits (a couple of 1x3 black slopes) and one that I had to fudge a little (only to realize, after I was done, exactly where I have a bunch of them). So, with digging through multiple storage box time included, this build actually took me a couple of hours (five minutes alone was spent on finding the last little black hat plume). But it was really fun, the kit looks great, and I feel a little badass for completing an old school "we won't tell you what pieces you need for this step, just look at this picture and spot the differences across the entire length and breadth of the whole build" instruction booklet.

So, with no further ado, I present, straight from 1987, 6066 Camouflaged Outpost:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps558de315.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps9082850e.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps78144227.jpg

I had a ton of fun with this. Part of me kinda wants to do this again with the Black Falcon Fortress the next time I have a slow day.

I recently got my wife the Best Lock Terminator set. It's pretty obvious this company is new to the game because the box we got was missing several pieces. Also, like everything other than Lego, you have to put stickers on the finished builds. That'd be fine if they mapped out where to put the stickers like the Kre-O and Megablocks sets do but alas they do not. I ended up just looking at the picture and doing my best guesswork but I ended up with some stickers I couldn't figure out where to place. The plastic quality is also a bit on the cheap side. A lot of pieces had flash left on them, some pieces were broken (though not too many, thankfully) and some pieces are very loose when pegged together. Overall I would only recommend the set to Terminator die-hards (like my wife). The little endos are cool but the rest of the set is sub-par. They also have a Stargate set for fans of that but I doubt the quality is any better.

I know I said I tend not to buy kits, but this was an exception I couldn't pass up...

http://i.imgur.com/VyM4BjQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/T80zF6B.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Xbl5ozW.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/o34pdpy.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/wiDBRG5.jpg

That's so awesome! I had the King's Castle and my brother had the Knight's Castle from around the same timeframe. I am sure they are in my parent's house somewhere... would love to build the King's Castle again at some point!

CONSTRUCTINAAAAATE!

Looks pretty cool dude. If I ever took the leap on one of the Who sets it would be probably this or the Tardis control room.

That looks awesome! You should do a review of that on your blog.

Have you seen the recent reveals for Character Building at the UK Toy Fair? There's a nice new TARDIS and some cool minisets. They even have a blister pack that includes the Doctor and all the Ponds (to think how much I've hunted to complete the Ponds)!

It's coming ;) Will probably write it up either tonight or tomorrow :)

Oooh no, I hadn't seen those! Thanks :)
Will definitely get the monster pack for the unmasked Judoon and Sontaran (although I wish it had a masked Silurian), and the 11 Doctor blindbags. They know how to rope me in with alternate costumes :lol

If that Dalek Skimmer comes with Sec like the box suggests its a definite buy, but I'm a bit wary about the box art being wrong. My Spaceship was supposedly supposed to come with two bronze drones, but it came with one drone and a Dalek Scientist. Not that I should complain, because the Scientist was the only one I was missing from the paradigm :D

That TARDIS Console looks amazing. Also, how did you get the Eternal Dalek? It's my favourite Dalek and I haven't found it

It was a newspaper exclusive (The Mirror I believe). They did three figures on different days (alternate Doctors and Amys, and then the Eternal) - there was a token in the paper and then you had to take it to a Sainsburys to redeem it.

I don't think any of them have had a mass release.

You will be EXTERMINATED for your amazing luck...

The Gosei Great Megabloks set is finally in-stock on Target.com!
Megaforce Megabloks Gosei Great Megazord

Gah, we have too many topics on LEGO. >_< Picked the one with the most replies...

Reviewed the new Minecraft The Village set! Can be read here.

Basically, I want to like it, but I just can't that much. The Nether one, though... Working on that review now.

I think I found my grail for this (2014!) year. Linked for spoilers for The LEGO Movie:

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/4879/pi41.jpg

Source: http://www.fbtb.net/

Yeah,that looks amazing but it's gonna be a pretty penny.Just got two sets from Chima.I love the series mostly for the fact it's like nature meets technology.

I've been warming up to it more and more. Though I'm still biased toward Ravens, Crocs and after getting Wakz' Pack Tracker for Christmas, the Wolves.

Nearly 2500 pieces wouldn't come cheap but I guess it's nice to have something to save up for. :)

Also Chima looks awesome! I haven't gotten anything, but the Legend Beast sets look great enough that I might pick them up if they make it here.

Well I got these two.Love the eagle tribe for the fact that no matter the vehicle,each one has a flying mode.Saw some of the sets for 2014 too.Very cool.Looks like were getting a Spider and Scorpion tribe.

http://cache.lego.com/r/www/r/chima/...g?l.r=86463792

http://cache.lego.com/r/www/r/chima/...l.r=1963161435