ExoSuit Heaven!
I got really excited when I saw the new Lego Galaxy Squad sets advertised. There are lots of lovely clean colours and neon yellow-green alien bug beasties. It’s basically Starship Troopers (the finest of Robert Heinlein’s work). The new moulded helmets and the Galaxy Squad sidekick (droid?) heads are pretty cool too. The orange and white colour scheme puts me very much in mind of the Series 9 spaceman/Power Ranger figure and I think a mash up is in order.
The big mech dude / exo-suit is awesome. It’s a fun build and takes a satisfying amount of time with the neat specialised bricks that enable accurate posing and ball sockets and such. I’ve found that pretty helpful as I’m not the most engineering minded person and have been struggling to figure out the best way to do joints. Most of the build is on the body which turned out to be cooler than I’d expected. The body is a detachable spaceship with a clear canopy and pleasing back and sides. It bolts on neatly, and comes off easily. When you do take it off, the back swings up and replaces the body with a smaller gun platform and the back up robot. A nice feature! The arms are just guns, with the push-power missiles as usual. I really want an elbow joint and massive robot fist!
Neon Creepy Crawlies
The reason I love this set is that you don’t just get the huge mecha, you also get a pair of creepy bugs! The neon abdomen/tail things (my biology is adrift) are wonderful pieces – they come in half so you can put a minifig inside and cart it off for unspeakable horrors. They don’t stand up brilliantly, which is a shame – the arrangement is those odd arm pieces and a big sword piece. They look awesome, but you have to balance them carefully to prevent the legs splaying instantly. If you put a minifig in the tail you’ve got no chance. They are super-creepy though.
The Full Set
So here’s the heap of stuff you get – it’s a decent set for the price (£34.99), it’s already given me a great deal of pleasure and I’ve been greedily eyeing some of the new bricks in it… I’m especially looking forwards to customising the mecha and expanding it. It’s hard to see just how big the mech build is – it towers above the minifigs in very satisfying fashion. The minifigs are cool too, and come with chunky weaponry. The binoculars stuck on the end of the pistols are effective, and the robot’s huge gun is fun – but again, makes it tough to balance the guy. Get one – enjoy!
You can see all my pictures in glorious colour here on Flickr.
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