Category: LEGO Harry Potter

Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

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We are getting in the home stretch, and things are either looking up or coming apart at the seams, it’s honestly hard to tell at this point. It might be both.

• Star Wars: 11 Hits / 8 Misses
• Harry Potter: 8 Hits / 12 Misses
• Marvel: 9 Hits / 10 Misses

LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

I’m starting to think LEGO is leaning into the whole Hoth = Christmas idea pretty heavily, a whole lot more than in years past. Today’s build is a “Hoth Dish Turret” from TESB, specifically this one:

If we don’t get a Hoth Rebel Trooper tomorrow, I’m gonna cry foul. It’s okay I guess. By itself it doesn’t really do much, it’s dependent on something else to be meaningful, like the weapons rack from a few days ago. On another note, I can’t believe we are already on Day 20.

LEGO Harry Potter / Hot Sauces (Eric)

Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

Deathly Hallows Part 1 came in hot with one of the best builds in the calendar. Can we keep the streak going? Also – we’re down to just five final sauces! I am so excited to be done with this.

Banger after BANGER. Maybe it’s because I’ve been beaten down by so many days of complete crap, but I’m actually excited to see an inspired build.

You know the craziest part? I don’t like this movie. I don’t even like the building this build represents – the Weasley family’s house “The Burrow“. And yet this build is so well done. Again, it checks all the boxes. I am PUMPED for the rest of this calendar, in a way that I really haven’t been since…I don’t know, last year?

And WOW, today’s hot sauce – SPICY AGAVE – is WONDERFUL. It’s for sure my favorite sauce so far – both sweet and spicy, I want to throw this on some wings right now.

LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

This is a holiday Advent, so we knew we were going to get a tree, and this is simultaneously the most disappointing and just the most on-brand for the rotating let-down that is this calendar. I mean, I get what they were going for here, but the issues is that it’s just so little compared to what we normally get. It’s just a plant brick with a bunch of studs stuck on it…

More annoying is that it’s meant to go with yesterday’s Groot, that’s why the back bracket was included with him. Making him the Christmas tree. Which, yeah, I get. Maybe this is a joke from the Guardian’s Holiday Special, still haven’t watched it like I mentioned before (I need something to do Christmas Eve – I probably won’t, but maybe). If this was a single day, this would be an amazing build and a huge hit. But the fact this took up two days, they collectively make up a huge miss, because apart they don’t feel at all worth it by themselves.

I have a critique of the iconography of the Emperor’s Spears, a loyalist chapter from the 25th founding: that’s a trident, not a spear. I guess “Emperor’s Tridents” doesn’t roll off the tongue or something, so they call it Spears. In and out of the lore, these guys are a very new chapter… they’re less than a millennia old in the Grimdark future, and were introduced in a novel and background lore a few years ago back in 2018.

They’re… another Ultramarines successor, and they live on a water world. Thus, the trident. They guard a part of the galaxy that’s a backwater but crucial spot, like all the other backwater but crucial spots, that’s already seen two older Chapters ground down or fall to Chaos. One, ironically, was mentioned earlier, the Star Scorpions, which ended up falling to Chaos and being destroyed, before their number and iconography became that of the Mentors. Most of the lore for the Mentors are covered in the same book.

The other are the Celestial Lions, and they technically still around but functionally unable to operate, as they only have about 96 marines and it will take them centuries to rebuild to fighting strength.

Honestly, not a whole lot to dive into with these guys, since I haven’t read their book. They’re mostly a painting scheme, and haven’t shown up many other places. Maybe they’ll show up more in the future, but for now, they’re seemingly just a pet project of the author Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

Check Out the Previous Days

Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

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Yesterday, Eric revealed that he doesn’t like sriracha, and normally Nick would give him some crap for that (though, to be fair, Nick has largely converted to the house of Cholula), but given that he hasn’t watched the Guardian’s holiday special, sort of a wash.

• Star Wars: 11 Hits / 7 Misses
• Harry Potter: 7 Hits / 12 Misses
• Marvel: 9 Hits / 9 Misses

LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

In the history of man, there are some things that should never have been done: the ALF television show, Jimmy Ray getting a recording contract, the sequel trilogy, and today’s advent build of a micro AT-ST. I mean, it checks all the boxes: reverse bipedal legs, chin cannon, left ear cannon, right ear projectile launchers, top hatch. But just because it checks all the boxes doesn’t mean it’s a winner. It’s like comparing a 1993 Geo Metro convertible to just about any other car to ever exist. That line from Jurassic Park comes to mind about trying to build the smallest AT-ST for this advent build: the designers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.  The only good thing I can say about this is that despite how bad it is, there was one that was worse. Yes, the title for all time worst AT-ST model still belongs to the very first LEGO Star Wars AT-ST set, 7127 Imperial AT-ST. Now THAT thing was an eyesore.

LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

Okay, every build from the Half-Blood Prince was a disappointment (even the couch guy, sadly). So – moving onto my second least favorite Harry Potter movie – Deathly Hallows Part 1! Let’s hope this fares better.

WOW – does it! Today’s build is everything I loved about the Knight Bus way back on Day 7 (in the pre-Carolina Reaper days). Instantly recognizeable, having some action to it, setting the scene, and using every piece of the space. The craziest bit – I don’t even like the scene referenced here – but I adore this build!

An extremely strong start. I’m genuinely excited to see what tomorrow holds.

Unfortunately, the hot sauce du jour – OH MY GARLIC – was not only just a mouthful of wet garlic, but it’s also messing with my stomach. I do not feel great writing this, 15 minutes after ingesting the sauce. It wasn’t even hot. The most mild one yet.

LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

I am Groot. I am Groot. I am Groot. I was going to keep that up for a bit, but honestly, it was going to get old after a bit. I could just go back and copy/paste the other ones I did before… this is only a “unique” minifigure to the set because it has an added neck bracket… and that’s only for what’s coming tomorrow.

I’m going to have some things to say about that fact then. For today, I’m not feeling charitable, for the exact same reasons I didn’t give it to the other figures. They gave him a cloud to stand on but did nothing else. Couldn’t even give him a holiday tile or something.

Our last founding Legion from the Heresy days, the Raven Guard, the 19th Legion (or XIX, because they were really into the Roman thing back then in the future). The boys in black are descended from Corvus Corax, who’s very cleaver name is the Latin name for the common raven.

As a chapter, they are the masters of stealth, speed, eyeliner, and listening to a lot of Death Cab for Cutie while complaining that the Emperor just doesn’t understand them. I mean, sure, the sulking and complaining was because the epic jerk that is the Emperor would sometimes do things like “teach the Primarch a lesson by having him slaughter thousands of his own loyal followers to save millions of others” or occasionally assassinate entire planets, you know, normal Emo stuff.

The Raven Guard were one of the loyalist Legions wiped out at Istvaan V, with their numbers decimated and forces broken. Unlike the Salamanders and Iron Guard, Corax survived (thanks to being sneaky and all), and managed to get off the planet with the remnants of his forces. Of course, he was desperate to rebuild them, and get back to fighting prowess to put a big hurt on his traitor brothers. A music change was in order, going from some Dashboard Confessional and more Nine Inch Nails for a time.

The Emperor used that to teach him another lesson, and allowed access to the same lab that was used to build the Space Marines and primarchs, letting Corax make new marines with the original “pure” genestock so he could get some revenge against Horus and the other traitors.

It… did not go well. Turns out making new marines is hard, that’s why the Primarchs were created in the first place, and why the Emperor always uses the three step plan of 1) Make new soldiers 2) ??? 3) Genocide Old Soldiers. The project was corrupted by the Alpha Legion (the XX legion, basically the biggest evil Mary Sue there is in the lore – what’s an evil Mary Sue called, anyway), so they became some big ole mutants in the end.

Instead, Corax ended up having to go to step 3, and rebuild his legion the slow way. That mean the Raven Guard became guerilla warriors in the galaxy-spanning war that dominated the galaxy, and didn’t have a ton of big battles compared to the other Legions. After it ended, they were reorganized into Chapters, but there were too few to make them do much. Corax, for his part, went to the only logical step a little Emo boy could, and finished his genocide of his mutant sons, left a note that said “Nevermore” – then disappeared.

The Raven Guard are a legion in decline and have been so ever since. Several of the bonus organs for them no longer work or work right. So they have to be very selective in their recruitment. They’ve remained a fragmented force, and Corax has never reappeared. Presumably he’s in a basement somewhere, waiting for that promised My Chemical Romance tour that was coming soon… maybe the 42nd millennium will finally be the one.

Check Out the Previous Days

FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Day 6
• Day 7
• Day 8
• Day 9
• Day 10
• Day 11
• Day 12
• Day 13
• Day 14
• Day 15
• Day 16
• Day 17
• Day 18

 

Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

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We never know if people read these, and maybe we should start planting secret messages here instead of short snappy quips. Honestly, some of these have been so forgettable it’s hard to even remember what yesterday was even about.

• Star Wars: 10 Hits / 7 Misses
• Harry Potter: 7 Hits / 10 Misses
• Marvel: 8 Hits / 9 Misses

LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

Okay, just when I thought the Hoth well has run dry with advent material, here we are on Day 18 with a Rebel turret. Maybe they’ve done a turret before, in the old days, the days of the Old Republic, the days before we started with Season of Spam. With yesterday’s Snowtrooper, and today’s turret, methinks we’ll be getting a Rebel Hoth Trooper tomorrow. But getting back to the turret, it’s actually a pretty nice mini / micro build. The turret rotates fairly easily without falling apart and it looks like what it’s supposed to look like. I know that sounds like a low bar, but these aren’t exactly hundred dollar sets here. Thumbs up from me.

LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

Let’s wrap up the builds from Half-Blood Prince – LEGO can’t mess up a minifig, can they?

Oh, sure they can.

It’s Snape. The same Snape that you’ll get from two other sets. It’s again hard not to feel disappointed with the minifig collection in this calendar. Like, I know HBP is kinda Snape’s movie (in a way), but there are better characters, especially that we haven’t seen in minifig form yet. How about young Tom Riddle? Or someone from Slughorn’s Christmas Party? Anyone that’s not in a set I can grab for 30 bucks?

Today’s hot sauce – ASS KICKIN’ SRIRACHA – is terrible. The worst tasting so far – but I’m not a huge sriracha fan. Man this has been a rough few days.

We get six days to cover the Deathly Hallows (and then we’re done!). My expectations are unfortunately not very high.

LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

Ah, the Milano. I have a love and hate relationship with this ship in loving the first one, and… not loving the second one. This thing is… I don’t know. Like yesterday’s build, the proportions feel very off-putting, but it works a bit more. The Milano is a fairly chunky ship. It’s light on parts, but that works in an advent. While the snowman was just below the line, this one is just above it, albeit barely, so I will grudgingly give it a hit.

Another one of our original Legion, the Salamanders, are considered the chapter that cares about humanity the most, and often go out of their way to protect the mere mortals around them. In that they don’t just leave them all to die when things go really sideways. I mean, sure, they’ll still commit all sorts of atrocities, war crimes, and genocides in the name of the Emperor and humanity, but they will also give the occasional hug. And that’s what’s important.

They’re… an interesting bunch. Some of the origins of Warhammer 40k are not exactly the best, and Games Workshop has corrected some of it over the years, the Salamanders have kept some of their stuff. The name is not based on the cute little lizard, but more the mythological one, thus the dragon as the logo, so the fire thing. Their Primarch, Vulcan (yeah, bit on the nose there), ended up on a lava planet…

… I suppose I never have really gone into that part of the lore of 40k, because it sort of goes into a lot of what messed things up in the first place. Despite the fact that all of the Primarchs refer to the Emperor has their father, they are more of a science experiment than offspring. They weren’t born, they were made. As in, they were literally a science experiment that in the end went a bit off the rails. The technology, like all technology in the year 30,000, was recovered from parts unknown.

You see, the whole Great Crusade was the process of re-uniting humanity after the “Age of Strife” of the preceding 5000 years that was basically the fall of the humanity. Turns out, humanity and the whole galaxy was pretty awesome for a long time, building a massive empire, having some wars, expanding across the stars, etc. And then things went… badly. Maybe it was psykers, maybe it was Chaos, maybe it was AI gone wrong, maybe it was all of that. But basically humans went all caveman, got trapped on all their various planets, and things went bad.

Fast forward 5000 years, and the Emperor decides to build a bunch of new warriors (the Space Marines) to replace his old warriors (the Thunder Warriors) that he genocided because they were outliving particular usefulness and needed something new. But to make the new things stable and start his Great Crusade, he made 20 different progenitors, his Primarchs, to serve as the templates for the legions. I mean, presumably, before humanity was united and he decided to genocide them. Yeah, if there is one very constant thing in the lore of 40k, is that there is no bigger dick than the Emperor of Mankind.

Once they were made, though, something happened – literally, that is the whole of the explanation – something happened and the infant Primarchs were abducted and scattered across the galaxy to different planets. Yeah, Warhammer thought it up well before JJ Abrams crapped out the worst plot basis of a Star Wars film with “somehow, Palpatine Returned.”

All of the Primarchs were a reflection of the nature of their Legion. The Blood Angels weren’t called that just because Sanguinius was noble and hot, it’s because dude was noble, hot, and had wings. The Iron Hands were named because a writer was exceptionally busy one day. The Salamanders were named because Vulkan was on a lava planet and has dark ashen skin, is immune to fire, and really liked melta and flame weapons.

Oh, yeah, so, that problematic part. Turns out that racial diversity wasn’t exactly the best thing in a setting written by a bunch of British guys in the 80s and 90s, so they were pretty mono-culture and tropey with some things. The Salamanders were the dark-skinned chapter, and the only ones ever portrayed like that for a long time. The White Scars had a similar issue, as I’d mentioned – the Blood Angels did as well on the opposite end, being done as white and blond because that’s how Sanguinius was shown (though was also described with brown hair).

Obviously, the in-lore has been “because they’re with the fire” but still, not always the great look. Beyond that point, though, the Salamanders as a chapter do love their fire. And flamers, melta (guns that basically shoot balls of fusion energy), and guns like that. Their primarch also had an interesting habit of dying, and getting better. He was a Perpetual, so he would regenerate, return to life, or things like that.

Which is how he managed to survive the Drop Site Massacre while his brother, Ferrus Manus, went the pro-level Ichabod Crane cosplay route. He didn’t exactly escape, though… since he ended up captured by one of the traitor Primarchs, Konrad Curze, who the one who was just flat out bad (and open about it) – like, murderous and brutal to the point of censure. He wasn’t seen as a hero like the rest, he was feared and loathed. Also, likely insane, because he could see the future, and that drove him mad. So he spent most of the Heresy killing Vulkan, having him come back, and killing him again. For fun. Eventually, Vulkan escaped, died a few more times… including once by traveling to the Ultramarines homeworld. As in the surface of the planet. From Space. Without a ship.

He got better, eventually.

While none of his chapter seem to have gotten the immortality bit, they absolutely revere their Primarch, because, let’s be honest. Dude is a bit of a legend. He vanished after the heresy, but left a bunch of clues around that the Salamanders are convinced they need to find in order to bring about his return. So basically, the Salamanders are about flamers, melta guns, hugs, massive wars, and scavenger hunts.

Check Out the Previous Days

FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Day 6
• Day 7
• Day 8
• Day 9
• Day 10
• Day 11
• Day 12
• Day 13
• Day 14
• Day 15
• Day 16
• Day 17

Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

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Ace got the dud yesterday while Nick and Eric were pleasantly surprised by their builds, before Nick was distracted by a shiny marine and Eric burst into flames.

• Star Wars: 9 Hits / 7 Misses
• Harry Potter: 7 Hits / 9 Misses
• Marvel: 8 Hits / 8 Misses

LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

And here’s the man behind the curtain. Or in this case, the Snowtrooper behind the weapons rack and shooting hole. Except here, he already has a weapon. So what’s with the stud shooter? A backup weapon? I don’t know. I’m not a fan of the weapons-rack-one-day-and-trooper-minifg-the-next combo deal we seem to get annually. I should have taken a pic of the head under the cowl because it wasn’t the usual fleshy head we get. I think the only thing that could make the Snowtrooper better is if it came with a soft goods skirt. I’m rambling I know. I’m trying to figure out if I like this figure or not. It’s not the shirtless Stormtrooper I theorized we were going to get, so I guess it’s a pleasant surprise. Thumbs up it is then.

In other news, my other calendar came. I’ll probably be able to get all the posts updated by Monday.

LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

Okay, full disclosure: I did an inventory of the sauces remaining. Now that the reaper’s behind us – I think it’s smooth sailing. I might not even need milk. Thank God, because this holiday is stressful enough already.

Wow what a build. WOW. By far the worst so far – it’s supposed to be a bowl. It’s not a bowl. It’s a button. This is like a first draft build, and I am shocked that this is the one LEGO went with. Again, Half-Bl ood Prince is not the greatest movie, but there are still some good scenes to adapt. But nope – couch man and bad bowl are all we get.

I mean, seriously? That’s all I’ve got to say.

But shout out to today’s hot sauce – PINEAPPLE PAPAYA BBQ. One of the few sauces that is actually really good.

LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

I look at this and suddenly the Frozen song flies into my head, but honestly, I don’t want to build a snowman. I should love this thing, but… I just don’t. Yes, it’s holiday, and on theme, but the proportions on it are just so weird. The giant arms, with the tiny center, together, it just looks off. That it’s Thanos is a nice, but even a tiny something like snowballs, or a target, or something else to jazz it up would help. I don’t know how they could grow the bottom or the center more to fix the proportions, either, or maybe make it taller, but it needed something. It was close, but still feels more a miss than a hit.

Anytime someone tells you that Warhammer 40k is a serious game, you have three things you you can always fall back on to deflate that argument in an instant:

• There are characters named Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau, Sly Marbo, and of course the previously named Ferrus Manus and Corvus Corax
• There is a Necron character, Trazyn the Infinite, that quite literally, is a Pokemon master, except instead of Pokemon it’s basically… anything
• There is a Space Marine chapter called the Carcharodons, also called the Space Sharks

They may be two different chapters, or they may be the same chapter, 40k is all hinged on both the unreliable narrator overall and the fact that there are contradictions all over the place. The timescales, the distance, and the sheer amount of things happening fill it all with things that change or may not make sense.

That whole unreliable nature comes big into play, making these either a new (2nd founding – or just after the Heresy) or 23rd founding (37th millennium). They’re a fleet-based chapter, and until very recently, didn’t even operate around a home base, instead just moving as a nomad fleet from engagement to engagement. They also tended to really lean into the whole shark thing and decorate their armor with scrimshaws and talismans, which, you know, is a look. YouTube painter Dana Howl did probably the best conversion of one of a Carcharodon marine you will ever see.

Like a lot of the other successor chapters we’ve gotten that have showed up in Black Library stories or supplemental books, the Carcharodons were involved in the Badab War. That conflict was one of the larger ones in more recent years which did not involve the old-school traitors, instead making new ones and involved a bunch of marines intentionally, and accidentally, turning against the Imperium. Most of these happen in a great old series called “Imperial Armor” – which unfortunately Games Workshop has repurposed as a book for people (like me) that provides rules ludicrously overpriced resin models from ForgeWorld, but no longer have the buckets of lore that they used to. Maybe with the recent move away from Resin and stuff increasingly moving to plastic (thanks to the relaunch of Horus Heresy under the GW banner), it can come back.

And with it, the Space Sharks can reign supreme!

Check Out the Previous Days

FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Day 6
• Day 7
• Day 8
• Day 9
• Day 10
• Day 11
• Day 12
• Day 13
• Day 14
• Day 15
• Day 16

Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

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We’re in real danger of Marvel managing to pull even here, while the Harry Potter advent is trying its hardest to be awful. Poor thing, you can never be as awful as your namesake’s author is, no matter how hard you try.

• Star Wars: 9 Hits / 6 Misses
• Harry Potter: 6 Hits / 9 Misses
• Marvel: 7 Hits / 8 Misses

LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

Oh look: a weapons cache! The blaster is mounted to the side of the window that I guess you’re supposed to shoot though. There’s a little pocket with two more 1×1 stud ammo pieces. There’s also a mouse droid. The mouse droid is made up by a 1×1 tile and a minifig rollerskate. It’s the best thing about the build. I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what we get. I’d guess a Snowtrooper but given we got Beach Shirt Vader, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a shirtless Stormtrooper or something similarly beachy. But without tomorrow’s build, by itself, it sucks no matter how endearing that mouse droid is.

LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

Today we start with the Half-Blood Prince. You know, this calendar more than any other really makes me want to watch the movies and write up reviews. Might be a good idea for 2023 – I’ll think on it.

Anyway, let’s see what the first build is!

To be fair, I can think of only one good set piece from this movie, and I bet LEGO felt the same way (although we’ll see what tomorrow is) – so they threw in a second minifig: Horace Slughorn. The couch version.

If you’re very confused, he’s hiding from the bad guys. Harry and Dumbledore show up, and his head pops out of a couch. Apparently LEGO really liked this moment since I’m pretty sure you can also play as couch-Slughorn in the LEGO Harry Potter video game, too.

Personally, I like it. I like his dumb smile. It’s like he’s saying “yes, I know I’m a couch. I know this is stupid.” Plus, it beats LEGO throwing in, like, the Hogwarts Express because they didn’t have any better option for this bland movie.

Today’s hot sauce is called SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. Which, to be fair, is pretty much how the inside of my mouth felt. This is one of the hottest ones so far. Not ghost pepper hot, but right below that line.

I wonder what we’ll get tomorrow…

LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

Okay, this isn’t a Christmas build. I’m honestly not sure it’s even a mini build… it’s just a great little build. This is a solid little thing and better than any of the little radios that ever got put into the Milano or the Benatar. It’s simple but fun, and a welcome change from all the awful we’ve gotten overall. Somehow, inexplicably, this calendar has managed three good things in a row.

It takes something rather spectacular in the galaxy of 40k to get the word “cursed” attached to something, but the 21st Founding of Space Marines somehow managed that. In the 36th millennium, the Imperium, for reasons, decided they needed more armored seven foot tall giants around to get to murdering heretics and xenos scum. Several new chapters were formed…

• The Lamenters, a Blood Angels Successor who don’t have the Flaw or fall to the Black Rage, yet replaced that with perhaps the worst luck in the entire Galaxy
• The Black Dragons, who are effectively mutants in a galaxy where “Burn the Heretic” and “Kill the Unclean” is used like “hello”
• The Fire Hawks, who are thought to have been wiped out, and who may or may not be the Legion of the Damned, a near mystical force that’s trapped between life and death and can strike fear into even the most hardened warrior
• The Sons of Antaeus, who are supposedly an Ultramarines successor, that have a curious habit of being much more like like the traitorous Death Guard in that they’re very hard to kill and shrug off a lot of disease and poisons

And, of course, our Copper-colored boys up there, the Minotaurs. Fun fact about the history of the Minotaurs, not even the Inquisition can dig into it. And they’re effectively like if someone decided to make a character by blending together Judge Dread, the Pope, Gandalf, and Magneto with far more questionable morals and an unshakeable believe that everything they did was right and critical to the survival of the Imperium. For some context, Inquisitors have the ability to end a planet without question, via Exterminatus. Full commanders in the Imperial Fleet, a High Lord of Terra, or someone like that can jump through hoops to do it, but an Inquisitor can just go “okay, no, this is too far, end it.”

And they’re not allowed to find out what the Minotaurs were all about back then. But hey, they’re totally cool now, and have been for a couple thousand years. It’s unknown who their Primarch was or what chapter they were formed from, and even their geneseed tithe -every space marine has two organs implanted to “grow” the material for the next generation of Space Marines – is sealed and protected.

While they follow the precepts of the Codex Astartes, they don’t divide their forces, they move as a whole Chapter, rather than company, as most others do. So when they deploy, they deploy in force. The Codex Astartes limited a Chapter to 1000 battle brothers, give or take (everyone, even the Ultramarines, finds ways to wiggle around that number), and a company has 100 brothers in it, divided into 10 chapters. A squad of marines is as powerful as some armies, a company is enough to secure most planets, but bringing an entire chapter every time an engagement starts… that’s just saying this bolter only shows up to chew bubble gum and smite the enemies of the Emperor.

And bubble gum has been declared heretical by order of the Emperor.

Check Out the Previous Days

FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Day 6
• Day 7
• Day 8
• Day 9
• Day 10
• Day 11
• Day 12
• Day 13
• Day 14
• Day 15

Our annual tradition moves along, another batch of Advent Calendars. Ace handling Star Wars (again), Eric handling Harry Potter (again), and Nick handling Marvel (again). We’re adding a little twist to this and doing our own bonus calendars of silly things, so Ace is doing <something>, Eric is sampling Hot Sauces that may kill him, and Nick is enjoying indulging his stupid amount of knowledge of the world of Warhammer 40k through little chibi Space Marines.

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Honestly, it feels like this isn’t getting better, y’all. We’re just hitting the halfway point, and we’re all underwater on how many hits there are compared to the misses.

• Star Wars: 7 Hits / 4 Misses
• Harry Potter: 5 Hits / 6 Misses
• Marvel: 4 Hits / 7 Misses

LEGO Star Wars / ??? (Ace)

Okay. Normally, I’d be thumbs-upping all these holiday sweaters minifigs but I’m not really understanding why Darth Vader from the LEGO Star Wars Summer Vacation animated special is here. This is an advent calendar counting down the days leading up to Christmas. I can see why from a product stand point that there may not have been another way to get this specific figure out into the hands of collectors other than the advent calendar, but I’d argue there’s always the DVD / Blu-ray pack-in or a book from DK Publishing routes. This has no business being in here.

Besides that, the obvious appeal here is the torso. Unfortunately, it has no re-usability outside of Darth Vader. Plus, there is no cape! You do get an unpainted soccer ball element that I guess is supposed to be a beach ball.

There may be a few or many who would be excited by today’s model. But it’s a stinker and completely breaks the mold of what the advent calendar is supposed to be.

LEGO Harry Potter  / Hot Sauces (Eric)

Quick recap here: I have 24 sample hot sauces. I down a tablespoon, then open and build the day. Oh, and I record it all.

Halfway done baby! This has shadowed my December less than I would have thought. And my tolerance for heat has definitely gone up. Which means, for now, we’re on easy street.

None of these minifigs have really HIT this year, you know? Like, none of them are good reasons to go out and spend $40 on a calendar.

Including this guy. While I do like that he’s sticking his tongue out, the rest is just…eh. The design hasn’t really changed in 10 years, and I’m unimpressed. Not a lot to say. At least give him a Santa hat or something, eh?

Today’s hot sauce, titled ORIGINAL HOT SAUCE, is actually pretty good. It was nice and thick, with some genuine flavor aside from just “hot”.

We’re making progress!

LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy / Warhammer 40k Chibi (Nick)

I mean, it’s fine, I guess, but like so many of the others, it’s just so dull. I’ll give that it’s got a little more substance, but what feels holiday about it? I guess they’re just having a holiday party or something, even though we’ve only seen two presents and only Nebula has dressed up so far. I guess I’ll grudgingly call this a hit just because it almost feels like compared to anything else in this kit it actually is something.

The Raptors, a Raven Guard successor – a loyalist chapter we won’t talk about for a few days yet – are one of the second found chapters born out of the Battle of Istvan V, also called the Drop Site Massacre I mentioned with the Iron Hands. They were formed in the second founding, and unlike most of the other chapters made at that time, they were presented with the Codex Astartes and went… “yeah, no thanks.”

Basically, they do what they want. They’re staunch defenders of the Imperium of Man and followers of the empire. They’re best known as snipers and infiltrators, and have been in major fighters in a few major campaigns like several of the “Black Crusades” of Abaddon the Despoiler and his Black Legion. Abaddon was the first captain of Horus, who, you know, had a whole heresy named after him, and the Black Legion is what his Legion, the Sons of Horus named themselves when branding became an issue after they lost the war and sort of broke the galaxy.

The Raptors guard their homeworld and secrets closely, even from the Imperium, in order to strike out at the traitors that cost them so much (as the Raven Guard were nearly wiped out at the start of the Heresy), and have spent the 10,000 years between the Heresy and the “current time” of 40k fighting around the Eye of Terror, the giant Warp Storm that divides the galaxy and serves as the home for almost all of the Traitor Legions.

Check Out the Previous Days

FBTB’s LEGO Advent Season of EXTRA Spam 2022:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Day 6
• Day 7
• Day 8
• Day 9
• Day 10
• Day 11