Those of you who were paying close attention to our coverage of BrickWorld 2008 probably noticed references to and pictures of the latest BrickForge accessories.
Thanks to Nannan and the magic of the United States Postal Service, here’s my review of the new items BrickForge will be releasing soon. In general, I’ll try to avoid repeating what I said in my original BrickForge review.
Naturally, the big buzz is about the new “Space Marine” armor. When combined with BrickArms weapons, the result looks remarkably like the Master Chief from Halo (we’ll be taking a close look at the new BrickArms prototypes as well):
The helmet will cost $1.50, the armor $1.50, and the visor $0.50. If I understand the grapevine correctly, these items will be available in red, blue, white, black, and sand green (pictured above, with BrickWorld-exclusive “steel”). I’m very pleased with the design of each piece, though I’d assess the color matching between BrickForge’s version of sand green and “official” LEGO sand green at around 90-95%, as you can probably see from the picture.
Personally, I was most excited by the new Roman helmets (two types), spear, gladius, and shield:
Most interesting, though, is the gladiatorial armor — specifically helmet and face shield for a Murmillon. The face shield fits over the stud on top of the minifig’s head, and then the helmet fits over the top of that:
I found that the helmet fit a little loosely (it popped off a lot) with the face shield, but fit snugly when directly placed on my gladiator’s ill-fated head.
New turbans can fit a little round cap or a special helmet:
Finally, Mark Sandlin and Chris Giddens worked with BrickForge to create a gun that would fit well with the design aesthetic of the loudhailer and other early Space accessories. Dubbed the “Megagun,” many of you have probably already seen Mark Sandlin’s photos of it, so I’ll just post a couple:
The Megagun has lots of places to attach LEGO, as you can see from the ridiculous gun on the right. :-D
As with their earlier accessories, the latest BrickForge armor and weapons work well with my LEGO. My favorite new items are definitely the Roman items, and I can’t wait to order a bunch when they become available from BrickForge in the next week or so.
Dear god those are sweet. I see that some parts are available online, but a lot of sweet ones are missing :/
Oh, and someone please hook me up with a steel version of the Space Marine armor plz <_<
Their items just keep getting better
I wish these sorta things had been around eons ago when I was still a little Bunbrick, happily playing away the afternoons with my LEGO…
The Roman items are my favourites too, for sure! Can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
The Roman stuff looks awesome. I’ve been waiting for them for a long time. The turbans are pretty cool too.
I’m guessing the roman spears are actually meant to be pilum – a roman throwing spear – which is very neat – now if only they had a detachable head (the head of the pilum broke off when it hit a target).
I have to agree, these new parts are just amazing! I can tell I’m going to be spending a small fortune sometime soon.
SW4J, I also wish I could get one of those steel versions too, they look really great! Living in New Zealand, I was of course unable to attend the event, and so as usual missed out. The chances of getting one though look pretty slim to me…
I can’t wait to get my hands on some of those Roman pieces! Also, you’ve gotta love the turbans, I hadn’t seen them until I came on here.
Thanks for the review Andrew!
Loving the Roman stuff. But does this make it less likely that Lego would ever do a Roamn Theme?
I’m really excited by the Roman items and turban!
The Halo accessories are nice, as well, but the color match sucks. BrickArms would never allow such a low-quality product to go into mass production.
Obxcrew, be quiet. BA dark grey doesn’t match either. :P
It’s not meant to.
do you know when you will have the brickarms review up by
Tim: I doubt this would limit the chances of LEGO doing romans. Don’t forget, it was the effort of customizers such as LA and BF that brought about the change in LEGO of the Star Wars blasters, rather than the megaphone. If anything, if these sell well it might encourage LEGO to get moving on the Roman theme ;)
I can’t wait until the halo stuff comes out!
LEGO Halo pieces… I see a lawsuit coming.
Yes! master chief armor at last!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!0ne! I’m Also liking the nedler an other armor :O .
to david: i bet they wont be called halo or master chief. i think theyll be called space marines, so they cant be sued. cant w8 for the spartans though!
Most of it looks pretty cool. Some very interesting choices for historical armors. These guys will probably make some good money off the sea of teenage video game dorks.
when are the space marines coming out?
So would there be a lawsuit against brickforge if the called it Master cheif?
Yep, that’s why they will probably never use the word Master, Chief, Halo, or Spartan when talking about them. They’ll have to be very careful to call them Space Marines only.
Onto the point Obxcrew brings up, I agree. They all look great apart from the sure-to-be best selling color. Hopefully it looks right in some lighting. I really wanna buy some for my friends, but I might give ’em other colors instead of sand green since it’s such a poor match.
Last thing: The turbans look great, I’ll be getting a couple of those. As do the Megaguns, I’ll have to get 2-4 of those in each color. All the other things look neat too, but they’re not really in my style of building.
Does anyone but me think that the sand green shown and sold at BW might not be the final, final product available on their website in the near future?
Sorry if I was a bit harsh earlier, guys. This doesn’t mean that my opinion has changed, but I could’ve worded it a lot better.
Internet drama! ;)
the steel spartan ( MOJOLDIR? MODJLR?) amor is cool, and with the blue visor it looks A lot like an ODST Helmet, Spmething THey should consider making in the futre (Hint, Hint)
Oh yeah Microsoft and Bungie don’t have enough money so they will sue anyone who uses the “Master Chief” name to make money. i still think if Microsoft ever sees these (which I doubt) they still might try to sue. Never underestimate the stupidity of companies.
Are you calling me and my coworkers stupid, David? Watch it.
David, you’re frequently the first commenter to take the tone of the discussion negative, and that’s not something that makes me particularly happy. I love your participation and enthusiasm, but I don’t believe this is the first time I’ve said “Watch it.”
As an employee of said “stupid” company, I need to watch what I say myself. Having no inside knowledge, I’ll only observe that BrickArms has had their BA-M5 and BA-M6 in the market for quite some time without any legal complications that I’m aware of.
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A great review! I picked up most of these as well and have had a blast the past few days trying them out with different MOCs. I’m certainly looking forward to see what you thought of the new BrickArms items, too!
In regards to copyright, keep in mind that all of the customs you see are the original work of the designers of the custom accessory businesses. True, they may resemble items from popular works of science-fiction, but the weapons and armor are far from direct copies of those items and as such, are solely the intellectual property of BrickArms and Brickforge, respectively.
Keep in mind that accessories that suit the minifig need to fit the building toy aesthetic. That involves a good deal of abstraction and caricature, so even items that may or may not have been inspired by other media tend to have several key differences from what you consider to be their basis. Will Chapman spends a good deal of time designing each BrickArms accessory and prides himself on his distinctive, unique works, and I have no doubt both Issac and Kyle of Brickforge do as well.
Taken together, the uniqueness of the accessories, the fact they are never marketed as being something other than BrickArms and Brickforge-specifi designs, and that the copyright holders of HALO-related properties are likely never to be interesting in a building toy license mean as long as BrickArms and Brickforge follow their current course of actions, there should be no problems.
Come on Andrew, it’s dumb to take offense to someones statement about the company you work for. I guarantee they don’t love you as much as you love them. ;)
^Ha! Indeed. :)
@David: My apologies if I came across as more than a little annoyed late last night.
This sometimes happens in online discussions. If you’re not really upset or angry, consider adding an emoticon, as Rocko did, to indicate that you’re joking or sarcastic. If you’re really annoyed, upset, or angry, consider counting to ten instead of typing. Writing something down is permanent. :)
Shall we get back on topic? ;-)
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woah