DK Loves LEGO and Star Wars

If you love Lego and Star Wars (and particularly Lego Star Wars) then you’ve probably already heard of DK Publishing. From their Lego Star Wars Visual Dictionary to their recent record-setting Lego mosaic mural, DK clearly has a lot of love for the franchise. This winter they’re sharing the love with their “Star Wars in Your Stocking” sweepstakes. The grand prize includes several of their Star Wars books, a Pez dispenser, a Lego Star Wars Brickmaster and a maquette of Ahsoka from Clone Wars. (I got to play with the Brickmaster set—see my write-up after the jump.)

Visit the DK website to enter the contest. The contest is only for U.S. residents, so apologies for those of you who aren’t eligible. Oddly enough, despite the Christmas theme to the contest (including a Snowspeeder ornament) the drawing won’t be held until January. Still, if you’re a Star Wars fan I suppose you wouldn’t mind waiting until after Christmas to get a big pile of loot.

DK is also getting into the social media scene with DK Community. Right now they’ve just started a Minifigure Madness contest. Post your best Minifigure-in-action pictures in the “Photo” section of DK Community (you can log in with a Facebook account). Winners will be decided by popular vote, though I didn’t see there what sort of prizes were available. It looks like the DK Community is still in its earliest stages at this point so there’s not a ton of content yet.

My daughters work on Brickmaster models

I did get a chance to play around with one of the prizes in the Star Wars in Your Stocking giveaway—the Lego Star Wars Brickmaster kit—and it was a blast. (As my six-year-old put it, “it’s even better than screen time!” High praise indeed.) The kit looks like a big hardcover book, but most of it is actually a box for the pieces, and then the rest is assembly instructions along with “action” photos of the various models you can build. The Lego Star Wars Brickmaster comes with 240 bricks and 2 minifigs: a Clone Trooper and a Battle Droid. There are instructions for 8 models which come in pairs (one for the Galactic Republic and one for the Separatist Droid Army), and my kids have really enjoyed taking them apart and seeing how the same set of pieces can turn into several different vehicles for them to play with.

My personal favorite was the “Forest Fight” set, which includes an AT-RT two-legged walker. The “Desert Raid” vehicles include a speeder bike, which looks pretty cool, but both of the models were a little flimsier and needed frequent repairs. The images on the cover are from the “Battle on Christophsis” and it’s the only set that uses all of the pieces exactly. However, the scale of these models is different—that is, it’s not to minifig scale, so the figures can’t actually ride in the vehicles, which was a bit confusing for my kids.

We’ve had a lot of fun with them, and my six-year-old has also enjoyed the little Star Wars facts and cartoon captions scattered throughout the instruction pages. (Both girls have been repeating phrases like “The war is not over yet!” and “I have a bad feeling about this…”)

Brickmaster: instructions included

I think one of the things that sets the Brickmaster kit apart from typical Lego sets (at least the ones I had as a kid—it’s been a while) is that it gives you several different options for the models. I remember getting kits and having instructions to build the cover model, but then it didn’t tell you how to make the others pictured on the box. Granted, part of the fun is seeing what you can create on your own, but I found myself delighted at the different scenarios I could build with my kids. It looks like DK has a number of Brickmaster sets available (non-Star Wars), so I may look for more of these in the future.

Disclosure: GeekDad received a sample of the Lego Star Wars Brickmaster for review purposes.

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