The new Brickmaster Jan-Feb 2008 set has arrived in the mail. The Brickmaster subscription has always provided a bimonthly Lego set shipped in addition to its magazine. This year, it seems, Lego is sending out Lego sets that are entirely exclusive to the Brickmaster program. Indeed, the bag of this set (number 20001 -- promotional sets tend to have five-digit numbers instead of the usual four) lends no name to the set itself and has no other umbrella title on the packaging other than "Brickmaster." The excitement of this is in the fact that later down the line Brickmasters will receive a special, Brickmasters-only Bionicle set. If the Bionicle set is anything like this month's enjoyable token, it will not be a disappointing set in aesthetics.
Embarrassingly, it took me about ten minutes to build this model. The robot's design is very elegant and pleasing to the eye. The parts used are well-equipped to fit not just with each other but also alongside each other, contributing to an overall very solid and sturdy look. If you could hold it in your hand, you would surely agree that the set achieves the effect. The artistic touches on this guy -- his fingers, the pseudo-functional wings -- seem to borrow from the manga style of Exo-Force (may that terrific line rest in peace), and really reflect the genius and creativity possible with carefully-predicted pieces. The sacrifices apparently made to make this possible, however, include posability and durability. Those are not the set's strong points, but therefore not the point of the model. It's a stander; it sits on the shelf looking pretty or cool. And at sixteen years old, that's acceptible by me.