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J.A.F. Team

A blog by xccj

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About this blog

Just a lesser evil, born unequal

Entries in this blog

Review: 71708 Gamer's Market

Review: 71708 Gamer's Market

Oh hey I think I'll actually review a set I've picked up from this year...     Okay, this is one of Ninjago's more substantial figs packs.  9 figs for $29.99?  Not bad!  Well, okay, the builds are bad, polybag level IMO.  But the weapons and accessories more than make up for it.  We've got katana in gold, silver, azure, pale green, red, and orange all in one set.  And the new gamepad weapon hilts are super fun!  Not to mention that pink sword that does fit loosely into an axl
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Review: 75973 D.Va & Reinhardt

Review: 75973 D.Va & Reinhardt

So I am not an Overwatch fan by any regards.  Never played the game, was only barely aware of the characters before the Lego sets were announced.  I'll admit that some of the figs have been mildly appealing, but most of the models didn't look that great to me.  Well, except this one; the two Mechs look awesome, and having one in pink is another major draw, because I think that'll be a first for an official Lego set.  (Why haven't we seen a Friends subtheme with pastel colored mechs and spaceship
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Review: 41378 Dolphins Rescue Mission

Review: 41378 Dolphins Rescue Mission

I've honestly not purchased a lot of Friends sets in recent years.  First I started collecting from the theme because of the new pastel colors, but the novelty kinda wore off after a while (and I started focusing on the Elves theme instead) so I haven't picked up any.  But this set had a few fun pieces that I was interested to get.  And besides, I've always been tempted by submarine sets. The figs are... honestly I don't care, which is kinda unusual for me.  The designs and hair pieces are
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Review: 70678 Castle of the Forsaken Emperor

Review: 70678 Castle of the Forsaken Emperor

So I'm still too lazy to do proper front page reviews with custom pictures, write-ups, and massively edited video... and also we've stopped doing Youtube Livestreams.  But I still have a backlog of sets I want to build (and talk about) so I'll be posting a few more brief blog reviews with images via Instagram!  (Since Flickr has it's whole image count thing).  So without further ado... Ninjago's 70678 Castle of the Forsaken Emperor     Gotta be honest, I picked this up f
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71026 DC Super Heroes CMFs

71026 DC Super Heroes CMFs

So we are now on the third wave of Collectible Minifigures featuring DC characters, only this time it's not branded as coming from The LEGO Batman movie.  I'm personally a bigger fan of the generic CMFs so the increase in licensed themes isn't always to my tastes, but I'm a sucker for good figs so I wanted to collect some.  Granted, I haven't had the most luck so far with these... LEGO Online order gave me two Green Lanterns and Joker (the latter who I did not want.)  When I visited the LEGO Sto
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Pohatu Nuva Minifig

Pohatu Nuva Minifig

Bionicle Pens strike again! Black Six recently sent me a rare Bionicle Toa Nuva pen he found at BrickFair NJ this year.  (Don't worry, I paid him back for it.)  I've been able to track down the Toa Mata pens and their mini Toa masks, but the Nuva variants have been a bit harder to come by.  Instead of a mask clipping over one of the beads, it has a pin attachment to a head shaped bead.  Sadly the pin itself isn't compatible with Lego elements, so the mask only attached to the head bead
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Set Review: 76115 Spider Mech vs Venom

Set Review: 76115 Spider Mech vs Venom

Another quick set review, picts from Instagram!   This set is $49.99 with 604 pieces. I'd been eyeing this Spider-Man set for a while now, but it was a little too spendy and I had my eye on other sets.  Besides, I've already got Spider-Man and Venom, and Spider Gwen wasn't super detailed, so I tempted my expectations.  But then I got it as a birthday present, so it all worked out in the end! The figs are okay.  Spider-Man and Venom are great; super detailed, nice printin
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Set Review: 75937 Triceratops Rampage

Set Review: 75937 Triceratops Rampage

I think my new way to do set reviews will be via Instagram.  Sure, I'm limited to square photos only, but it's the easiest at the moment.  There's not exactly a ton of room for text, but I can elaborate here if I really want to!   This set is $59.99 and has 447. I totally got this set for the Triceratops.  The coloring of the dino is new, but I believe the mold was reused from the 2012 Dino theme.  And we've had three or four waves of dino sets since then, but we haven't had
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Sign Off

Sign Off

So I made this... Yay Instagram embedding.
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Ambitious Bionicle Mosaic Idea

Ambitious Bionicle Mosaic Idea

So I've helped make a bunch of Bionicle mosaics over the last nine years.  The first couple we did as a large group, but over time people's interest (and parts collection) waned, while my interest in making cool Lego mosaics has grown.  I gave up on trying to do big group projects after I ended up doing over half of the 2016 "group" mosaic, and instead Chocolate Frogs and I have done a couple of smaller size ones that have traveled around the convention circuit. But... We're coming up
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Oh No Change on BZP??

Oh No Change on BZP??

So BZP got a revamp, and only went down for a few month.  Now it's back and I have to get used to all the changes!! I think the blogs got the worst of it, TBH.  Although this does seem more in line with other personal blogs I've seen elsewhere on the internet, so it's probably a modern template that's cool for everybody but those of us (like me) who are so used to the old BZP / Invasion format.  This new one looks like it could incorporate pictures better, so that's something I'll have to s
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Old and New Stories

It's been a while since I've put together a blog post, so here's me jabbering about my stories in general. I'm finally finishing up a couple that I've been posting.   Highfly Vinesman, Deepwood Wayfinder was for the BZPower Fanfic Exchange 2018 and written for Darth Jaller. It features Tamaru, Taipu, and Kapura and it's been fun writing back about the MNOLG-era. The other is a sequel to my Kulagi's Kanoka story, A Shadow's Contrivance which features the Kanoka wielding Matoran against the Dark H
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Blog Story: Chapter C

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are named after real members, but their personalities and traits are fictional and are not meant to reflect on my opinions of the actual members. This is a work of fiction, and I hope you enjoy it.   Go Back to Previous Chapter   Chapter C   “Arpy is totally on to something,” you say. “Bionicle was dying out. The story wasn’t as good, the sets were boring, and the extra merchandise is plain annoying. I think Lego can certainly do better.”   “You’re insan
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Blog Story: Chapter K

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are named after real members, but their personalities and traits are fictional and are not meant to reflect on my opinions of the actual members. This is a work of fiction, and I hope you enjoy it.   Go Back to Previous Chapter   Chapter K   “Combine you’re elemental powers!” you shout. “It always works for the Toa; it should work for us.”   The four of you lift up your weapons and place them together. “For Unity!” you all shout, and then you release your
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Blog Story: Chapter J

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are named after real members, but their personalities and traits are fictional and are not meant to reflect on my opinions of the actual members. This is a work of fiction, and I hope you enjoy it.   Go Back to Previous Chapter   Chapter J   “Attack from different directions,” you tell your friends. “If we hit him all at once, he can’t possibly block us!”   The four of you split up, just as TTN fires a blast of energy towards you. You have the furthest to
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Blog Story: Chapter I

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are named after real members, but their personalities and traits are fictional and are not meant to reflect on my opinions of the actual members. This is a work of fiction, and I hope you enjoy it.   Go Back to Previous Chapter   Chapter I   You jump forward, grabbing the slimy kraata attached to Blue’s face. You pull it off, and with a loud pop it detaches from Blue. With disgust, you throw it off the balcony.   Luckily, the kraata hadn’t sapped away muc
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Blog Story: Chapter H

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are named after real members, but their personalities and traits are fictional and are not meant to reflect on my opinions of the actual members. This is a work of fiction, and I hope you enjoy it.   Go Back to Previous Chapter   Chapter H   You and your friends catch up to TTN as he enters the Collectables forum. You have to be careful following him, because the forum is not very busy. Collectables hasn’t been busy in years.   But TTN doesn’t linger by t
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Blog Story: Chapter G

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are named after real members, but their personalities and traits are fictional and are not meant to reflect on my opinions of the actual members. This is a work of fiction, and I hope you enjoy it.   Go Back to Previous Chapter   Chapter G   “You’re mine!” Sumiki shouts, firing his crossbow. Eeko knocks aside the arrow, but Sumiki is already rushing towards him. Eeko swings his blade, but Sumiki ducks beneath it and tries to deliver a powerful blow to Eek
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Blog Story: Chapter F

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are named after real members, but their personalities and traits are fictional and are not meant to reflect on my opinions of the actual members. This is a work of fiction, and I hope you enjoy it.   Go Back to Previous Chapter   Chapter F   Krahka advances on Eeko, flexing her muscles. Most people would be afraid if she attacked them, but not Eeko. He calmly spins his blade and waits for her to make the first move.   Krahka doesn’t take long. She pounces
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Blog Story: Chapter E

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are named after real members, but their personalities and traits are fictional and are not meant to reflect on my opinions of the actual members. This is a work of fiction, and I hope you enjoy it.   Go Back to Previous Chapter   Chapter E   The four of you sneak behind the bushes, following Eeko to the Movie and Books Discussion forum. You’d been following him for a while, but so far he hasn’t done anything suspicious, outside of the big rally.   “He’s h
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Blog Story: Chapter D

Disclaimer: The characters in this story are named after real members, but their personalities and traits are fictional and are not meant to reflect on my opinions of the actual members. This is a work of fiction, and I hope you enjoy it.   Go Back to Previous Chapter   Chapter D   “Arpy is acting rather suspicious,” you say. “Maybe we should check out what he’s doing. He might’ve caught a virus or something.”   Sumiki, Krahka, and Blue nod in agreement. You all remember what happened the last t
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Review: 41161 Aladdin's and Jasmine's Palace Adventures

Aladdin is one of my favorite Disney movies (making Jasmine one of my favorite Princesses) but I’ve been disappointed that she hasn’t appeared in more than one Lego Princesses set. Well, this year she gets to be in a couple, likely hoping to capitalize on the live action Aladdin movie coming out. The biggest one of the Palace Adventure, so I picked that up. It’s $29.99 with 193 pieces.   The main draw is the characters. Jasmine has appeared in one set before as a minidoll (included in the pictur
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The LEGO Movie 2 Collectible Minifigures

It should be fairly obvious that I have an obsession with collecting figs, and when I heard that stores in my area were releasing them early, I kinda jumped on it. The first store I visited didn’t have any, but the second one had a small selection, and I was able to grab 9 of the ones I wanted.     First I want to address the bag issues. It was rumored that these figs were going to be double bagged like the UniKitty figs, which makes it difficult to tell them apart. But based on my selection, n
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Best Lego Sets of 2018

2018 has been an interesting year for me for Lego. I generally bought fewer sets compared to the last four years, but my budget was dominated by a couple of large purchases this summer, thus forcing me to hold out on buying a lot of sets in the second half of the year. I’ve also bought a couple of sets that I have yet to open, which is a strategy I haven’t applied before. (Usually I build any set I get soon after purchase. But this year, I bought a few sets exclusively for the pieces, and I want
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Review 70644 Golden Dragon Master

Here is Lego's latest Ninjago spinner / action / unique character only available here set: 70644 Golden Dragon Master! Some people might be enticed to buy these because of the figs. (Guilty.) Some people might do it for the pieces. Some might do it for the action. And some people might mistake the price of these things and think they're getting a legit set. (I mean, really, $15? I get there are more pieces, but did this new design really need to be this big... or needed at all?)   Piece wise, th
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