Manda’s (Amachan) LEGO

Here is the second set I build, that’s the 2 smallest sets done, 3 more sets to go. This is Sonic’s Speed Sphere Challenge. To simulate Sonic rolling up in a sphere, they have made a round thing you can put the minifigure in and than launch it using the included launcher. I honestly don’t care much about this feature, but it is something that is in a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog sets. The rest of the set were some interesting little builds, while the arch and the ramp build will mostly be taken apart later to serve as building pieces for my diorama idea. The music booth and the lawn chair and table might make its way into it without much edit.

After putting this set together though I can just image Sonic racing about, Rouge relaxing with a cold Chaos Cola and Knuckles just blasting the Green Hill Zone music on max volume.

I got a bunch of new LEGO sets in today, mostly from the Sonic the Hedgehog range, but also 1 from Ninjago. I will be showing them of as I build them.
The first one is Shadow’s Escape. A great build with some great figures. There are however 2 problems I find with it. The prints on the side of the bike are upside down on the other side as they aren’t properly mirrored but just 2 of the exact same pieces. While not really a problem for me, for children I think that the handlebars used on the bike are going to break fairly soon. It is very finicky to get Shadow on the bike holding the handlebars. Apart from that the action feature with Shadow breaking out of his containment pod works really well.

I have mentioned before that rather than playing Brikwars I am interested in developing my own tabletop game for LEGO. Over time I will be posting ideas that I have for such a game and kind of hoping to get some input on them. So here is the first one, ranges.

LEGO is in the end a children’s toy, so I want this game to also be playable by children and not make it too complex as a base. Some more advanced rules might come in later that are optional. First I wanted to consider ranges and measurement. While I honestly think the inch is a great way to measure distances for tabletop games I think it is useless for anything else. This made me think, wait, LEGO has their own system, why not use that. This is what I came up with for now:

Interact Range (Red) is 4 studs long and represents the basic range in which a minifigure can interact with objects and also is their melee range.

Short Range (Green) is 8 studs long and represents the basic movement distance for most minifigures and also range for short range weapons and stuff a minifigure can throw.

Medium Range (Yellow) is 16 studs long and represents the range for most ranged weapons.

Long Range (Grey) is 32 studs long and is used for the longest range weapons.

When I came up with it it sounded pretty good, now that I have actually laid it out I am not so sure. The ranges seem rather short. I am thinking of changing short to 16, medium to 32 and then long at 64. I am going to let this run through my mind a little bit longer, but I think it is a start. Let me know what you think.

I got some more sorting storage for all the old (& new) LEGO to go in. I can use the smaller boxes I got before for the smaller stuff and use these for the larger bits.

I got myself a knucklehead and a flirty bat girl…. I love the look of these minifigures ?, Rouge more than Knuckles though, but they are both really good LEGO representations of their game characters in my opinion. The mech was a great build, the flyer and the chaos emerald a little bit simpler, but still good. Looking forward to getting more Sonic the Hedgehog sets.

So here is an update to the project as I now have a better idea of what I want to do going forward. This project will involve everything I want to do with LEGO and not just Brikwars.

I have 2 3′ by 4′ boards standing in storage that I was planning on using for wargaming and I am planning on buying cheap LEGO compatible build plates to glue to them so I can use them with LEGO.

1. Brikwars
Brikwars is no longer going to be the sole focus of this project as I mentioned before, but it is not going to go. 1 of the boards mentioned above will be used to make a Ninjago city style gaming table specifically for this. The layout will have some buildings on the side that are partially accessible with a Chinese/Japanese style garden park in the centre. This will provide some cover for minifigures, but also an area for mechs to manoeuvre. Since LEGO doesn’t have a base like in traditional wargaming figures I can play around with that a bit more.

I also spend more thought on Brikwars itself and until I actually play it I can’t really make a judgement. But because of the way it is structured I am thinking of creating my own tabletop “skirmish” game for LEGO minifigures and potentially 28/32mm figures as well.

2. Diorama
I am a fan of Animal Crossing and also of Sonic the Hedgehog from which both LEGO makes sets of nowadays. I planning on getting the majority of it and making a diorama on the 2nd board based on both of them. Both feature anthropomorphic animals so I think it will work well together. Some other stuff like from the LEGO Dreamzzz or City ranges might also make an appearance on this.

3. Classic LEGO
Now I also have a ton of the older classic LEGO that I am sorting out. I am currently about half way through or at least close to it. My plan is to build all of the sets I can identify and complete. After that I might take some apart for parts for the first 2 goals and some I might just want to display because of nostalgia and whatnot.

I have to make blow to GW because the LEGO minifigure from 1990 (left) is the same size and scale as the minifigure from 2024 (right) and the newer ones do have more detail without the need for scale creep.

That is all of the old LEGO washed and I have begun sorting it out. In total it was about 3 wash machine runs of LEGO. Sorting it all out is going to be a slow process and thus going to take a while, I am not in a hurry. So don’t expect to see many updates on that. The box it is in is like a 60L box and that is half full and that is without the larger pieces like platforms, build plates and tracks and stuff, so you have an idea of how much it is.

I do have to be careful, because it does contain sharks…..

That is all of the old LEGO washed and I have begun sorting it out. In total it was about 3 wash machine runs of LEGO. Sorting it all out is going to be a slow process and thus going to take a while, I am not in a hurry. So don’t expect to see many updates on that. The box it is in is like a 60L box and that is half full and that is without the larger pieces like platforms, build plates and tracks and stuff, so you have an idea of how much it is.

I do have to be careful, because it does contain sharks…..