David here from @totallybricktastic, with a review for the LumiBricks Sylvan Inn!
A little about the set first though, it is number 20006, retails for £167.00, has 3,102 pieces and 5 Minifigures, comes complete with an LED Light Kit, and is part of the X Series theme. Being the first of its kind, the idea surrounding it is magical, bright and enchanting. The colours of the lights only add to the finished look, glowing where they need to and highlighting important features along the way. Continue reading for my full review of the set.
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Box & Contents:
The usual high quality, glossy box with great images of the set, front and back, with an image of the ‘multi-form’ modularity highlighted. There’s a lot of bags for 15 numbered stages, two large easy-to-follow instruction manuals, and their famous orange box containing the light kit, battery box, and tools.
The Build:
Stages 1 and 2 concentrate on building the metamorphic, opening base. This has to go down as one of the cleverest bases I’ve ever built! The way this set opens, revealing hidden walkways to enable the Minifigures to navigate the set when fully opened is absolute genius!
I have to caveat that with one downside. To hide this mechanism, coupled with the the usual tiling of any base, it does make this base one plate higher than any usual base, even a MILS plate base. This makes it hard to fit into a brick city, and indeed, because of the way this set opens, even if you find a solution for the base height, placing it in to a brick city will render the metamorphic base obsolete.
During the initial stages we also start installing the lights, and as usual, with their fantastic wire management bricks and techniques there’s nothing complicated here. Seasoned LumiBricks builders, and newcomers won’t find anything overly complex.
From stage 4 onwards we start building the structure of the Inn itself. The ground floor is obviously the Inn, packed full of cosy details, some you’d recognise but many you won’t as this set is in the ‘X Series’ sub theme for a reason. It’s a magical, mystical building, not fully human, indeed, many of the printed decorations have text that heavily give off an Elvish vibe, and there’s creatures that live in this forest, and a hidden swamp we’ve never come across before.
From start to finish it does feel magical while building this set, and the fact that the three largest trees you build, attached to the building and the base are a lovely, dark blue, this adds to the unusual, mystical feel. The ground level also includes an angled, well built greenhouse for food supplies.
The next floor consists of a central hallway, with beautifully printed doors, and two very different bedrooms, one of which has its own opening wall. And as with the ground floor, you’re always building with hinged bricks to enable the Inn to follow the opening structure of the base.
The next floor is the master bedroom, with a beautiful globe light and other lovely details. This floor forms part of the attic and the structure of it allows the main roof to sit on top, stud free.
The final stages see you building the tower, which has inspired techniques throughout, and the main roof which uses transparent plates to allow some intended light bleed which gives the roof a lovely glow in certain places. Finally you build the foliage for the three main trees and what looks like an orange tree, and there’s also an iridescent, glass horse with skeletal printing to add to the magical feel of the scene.
The use of blue and green lighting in the trees was inspired when you see them full of foliage and all lit up.
The Minifigures:
The five Minifigures include a very happy, relaxed customer, another made of stone, and a green, part human, part alien figure, along with two female Minifigures. LumiBricks Minifigures will always divide opinion but you have to remember the Danish brand have theirs trademarked so nobody else can copy them. There are plans for LumiBricks to change their design so we will have to wait and see where they go on that.
Pros:
Price for piece count The metamorphic structure The lighting colours Unusual brick colours The overall magical feeling
Cons:
The base height Hard for brick city placement
Final thoughts:
Currently in the one-off X Series but personally I hope they expand on this and create a standalone theme, it’s such a beautiful set and I thoroughly enjoyed building something so different. At 3102pcs it’s such good value for money and that’s before we remember the price includes a light kit. If you’re looking for something different you won’t go wrong investing your hard earned money into this set!
To save yourself 10%, please use my code TotallyBrickTastic during checkout here.
LumiBricks Sylvan Inn
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