The battle of the microbuilds is alive and well between SW and HP, with poor ol MCU on the outside looking in. Let’s see if these calendars can start putting up some good entries as we complete the first third of the seasonal battle.

Day 8- MCU

Steve: On the eighth day of Christmas, the Guardians gave to meeeee….

…a turkey.

Look, if they are not going to put effort into the builds, I am certainly not putting effort into any rhymes.

The MCU is slipping more and more behind and needs to really step up their game with door #8.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen.  We get a festive (?) turkey and a flame for day 8.

There’s literally nothing I can say here.  It’s a turkey.  It’s not a cool, sci-fi Marvel-esque turkey, it’s a cooked bird.  The flame was confusing, and only by looking at the box do I see that it’s supposed to be used as a flame effect of Rocket’s gun build – arguably extending the Rocket minifig to a THREE day build.

Day 8- SW

Pat: The microbuilds continue for Star Wars, and this one is ALMOST as perfect a microbuild as I could ask for. See, the problem with the microbuilds, in my opinion, is I can’t easily add them to my existing Star Wars battles or collections, due to them being seriously scaled down. Some really tiny ships could make cool minifig-scale toys, dioramas, or holograms, but they don’t lend themselves as well to the theme as say, Harry Potter micros fleshing out the UCS Hogwarts, for example. If there was ever going to be an ideal Star Wars micro though, its what we got behind door number 8, a T-16 Skyhopper. This is a ship we’ve seen a couple times before as system-scale sets, once as a microfighter, but never as a micro calendar build, so its cool to see. The build is solid, albeit too front-heavy to stand up, and effectively achieves the angles and fin of the in-universe ship. The second spare ski pole of the calendar is a sweet bonus too!

So why is it a near-perfect Star Wars microbuild? Well, in Episode 4 in 1977, during the Death Star briefing, Luke exclaims hitting the thermal reactor port isn’t that hard; “It’s not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they’re not much bigger than two meters”. Many fans assumed Luke was referring to his Landspeeder he sold to get off Tatooine, but in reality, he’s referring to this little recreational ship seen incredibly briefly in the background of Luke’s subterranean garage, and also as a small toy ship he is seen fooling around with. The toy prop was introduced in 1977, and since expanded on in the Obi-Wan Kenobi show as a gift to Luke. A screenshot of the scene can be seen below; if the build was just a little smaller, it could be an effective toy held by a figure.

Day 8- HP

Andrew: Today’s microbuild represents a pivotal part of the Prisoner of Azkaban story, depicting the Dementors by the forest lake. The highlight for me are the Dementors themselves, represented by the same “cloaked microfig” that were used for Dementors in the big Hogwarts Castle (71043) set. Those pieces have appeared in a number of Star Wars sets in trans-light blue and black, but this was my first time getting my hands on them and I was delighted by them.

The scene itself uses a few small limb elements and some brown bars to make trees, and the use of some basic plates in 2 colours simply conveys the sense of the forest and the lake water. I appreciated the use of a pair of wedge plates to make for a more interesting shoreline in the limited 2×4 space this build was working in. Overall, this is a pleasing combination of colours, continuing a trend started yesterday with the Knight Bus.

The “floating” of the Dementors is also nicely achieved through use of a trans-clear round 1×1 and through attaching to the tree branches. It immediately evoked images of the Dementors closing in on Sirius on the lakeshore. This is definitely my favourite of the microbuilds so far, but I will admit I’m already planning on stealing the microfigs to represent Darth Vader toys in the custom toy store I’m planning for my Lego city.

Verdict

Microbuilds continue to steal the show in a manner of speaking. Today, the edge goes to HP with one of its better microbuilds to date. In second, SW, with one of their best entries as well. And for fear of sounding like broken-record (or Quill’s cassette player?), MCU finishes off the scoresheet once again.

The scores are now:

SW- 10

HP- 10

MCU- 4

To be continued…