I'm back! Well...In truth I never left, a little squiz at my post feed will tell you that. What I mean is I'm back in the LEGO community which I've been neglecting for the last few weeks...Its pretty bad of me considering it's my community! I have an excuse though...I've been lazy.
Ok lazy is not altogether true, let's call it preoccupied with more pressing matters as it sounds better for me - It's the truth too...Work and health issues have meant I just haven't had the chance to build Lego for a long time; I've not be in the mood.
My last Lego post was over a month ago about a new Technic build I was going to start which you can see here. I'll be honest, I haven't started it yet. But...I did build this cool little thing and had some fun doing it.
I'm a huge fan of Lego and particularly love their Technic builds; Often complicated and consisting of thousands of parts they offer challenge and enjoyment...But as someone who loves war history, military equipment, firearms and all...Well, Lego lets me down...They do not make it. They're quite happy to make Lego Star Wars sets with guns, but it seems that's where it stops. I don't get it.
Luckily Sluban fills that void and whilst I only found out about it a short while ago I've built a few which I have posted about. Some months ago I purchased eight little sets costing about $77 combined, all of which are military machinery. This is the third I've built and when they're all done I'll set them up and take over the world do a post about them all.
The Sluban blocks are not as precise and well-made as Lego although the fact they make military sets makes up for the slight lack of quality, and they are about 30% cheaper also. I'm ok with that.
The fit of the blocks isn't as good and sometimes some force is required to get them together, sometimes parts are just a little too loose but overall I'd say they are pretty much on-point for the cost. They also have cool accessories for the mini-figures like rifles, radios, machetes, packs and things.
The Sluban instructions are quite basic and are printed on a small folded sheet of paper; This is not ideal and somewhat problematic for my fading old-man eyesight but nothing my reading glasses can't rectify.
The sets are not overly complicated though and where the instructions are not so clear my imagination picks up the slack. I'm not sure how it would go with a bigger set but I'll find out eventually when I buy one.
So far I've made a mine sweeper and army tank plus this jeep. They are not big builds with only a hundred or so pieces each but the cool thing is that the eight sets I bought combine into one big set of around 850-900 pieces. My plan is to build it but I want to build all eight first.
I'm not sure who made the no military sets decision at Lego although I wish someone would reverse it as it seems kind of pointless when they're producing the Star Wars equivalent. Maybe one of y'all can talk me through it? For now I'll have to content myself with Sluban military sets and these small ones in particular; They're only really a half-hour build but they provide me a bit of fun.
It's been good to be building again, to get my mind of other things, and I'm warming up to starting that big Volvo truck in that post I mentioned earlier...It's probably a 24-hour build in total which I'll spread over a few sessions...But I have an army to build first.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised.
Be well
Discord: galenkp#9209