Sunday, September 4, 2022

Aliexpress Find: Unbranded Utapau Clone Troopers (212th Battalion), Not quite a copy of Lego 75036


Today's post is in response to some questions on Reddit about where I found the 212th Airborne troopers.

Last month, I was searching Aliexpress for some clone troopers using the search terms of 212th and Utapau and happened to come across a single store that actually had a clone set of the Lego Star Wars 75036, the Utapau troopers battle pack.  

This was a really cool find because as far as I knew there had been no alt Lego copies of that particular set.  I immediately checked brick4.com and this was the only entry, ie only Lego and no other knock off sets  have been made.



I immediately put in an order and within a couple of weeks I had this set in my mailbox.  The alt Lego set consists of the tri-droid as depicted in the first picture above along with the four 212th battalion clone trooper mini figures.  In my excitement I tore into the little cellophane packages of mini figures and forgot to take pictures of them in their packaging.  Here's some more pics of the tri droid instead, lol.

I'm guessing that the number of pieces is approximate to those of the OG Lego set which is 83 pieces.  The instructions to build the droid come on this single sheet of paper.

It should be noted that the droid legs use slightly different pieces than the Lego version, and the colours of the droid head and legs is also different, which is why my blog title says, it's not quite an exact duplicate of Lego 75036 set.

Here's a closer look at the 212th Battalion clone troopers.

How do they look?  Are they comparable to the Lego versions or are there any glaring differences?  The airborne figures might be by the brand Duo Le Pin under the set number DLP9018 with a manufacturer date of 2016, according to Herobloks.com

Included are 2 212th Battalion clone troopers ...

... and 2 212th Airborne clone troopers.



Front and back side.  You can really see the details of the helmets. 


I had two other 212th battalion clone troopers, I think they might be World Minifigure brand, but I could be wrong.  Please let me know in the comments if you know which brand the other two minifigures are.

Anyways, here is the Aliexpress store where I found this exclusive set.  The store is called Block Model store and there are two options to buy.  In the first option, you only get the tri droid, whereas in the second option you get the tri droid plus the 4 212th battalion mini figures.  If the store had the option of only buying the minifigures without the droid, I would have been up for that.

The price of the droid set and the 4 clone troopers now almost equals the $15.99 retail price (CDN) of the Lego 75036 when it first released back in 2014.  As a knock-off set this is super rare and I didn't mind paying the price to get the 212th Battalion figures, especially the Airborne clone troopers.




If you just want to build your 212th Attack Battalion, you could just get multiples on Aliexpress as well.  

What do you think, did I pay too much for this set just to get the clone troopers or was it a deal?  Let me know in the comments below!  See ya!

Friday, August 5, 2022

Barweer.com Deal: Super 18K Star Warship MOC model K105





Hey Star Wars and alt Lego fans!  Barweer.com has this new midi/micro scale Star Destroyer building block set on their website.  From what I could find out on the Internet, it is 1:2700 scale Incursor class cruiser, an original MOC by Marius2002.

The Super18K branded blocks are Lego compatible. It features 796 pieces and measures about 32.9 cm in length, and 24.7 cm in height. As a bonus, it also features a stand for displaying your newly built model.  The model number is K105.

This would be a great model to be shown next to the larger executor class starships.

More pics of it here:

https://bricksafe.com/pages/Marius2002/dasdads/incursor-class-cruiser

Check out more pics of this and other Super18K models at Barweer.com.

"Their Big Europe & USA Warehouse Ship from China arrive in 10-20 days (Most country);Ship from EU & US warehouse arrive in 2-7 days"

What makes Barweer.com stand out?  Free shipping worldwide and tax free!

Get yours here:

https://www.barweer.com/products/k105-super-18k-star-warship-explore-the-universe-put-together-building-blocks-796pcs-bricks-ship-from-china


Save an extra 7% off by using code itsnot5 at checkout!


Thursday, July 14, 2022

I Just Bought: The Mos Eisley Cantina 75290 knockoff set!


Here's my latest buy from Aliexpress, not sure if it's going to go through.  The seller has a really low feedback score and rating, so I guess we will have to wait a few weeks to see if I actually get a tracking number that works.



So far, I have had zero success trying to buy a cheap version of the Mos Eisley Cantina from Aliexpress.  I think I've tried to buy it about 3 times already, each time resulting in me having to raise a dispute to get my money back, either due to the seller not sending the item or giving me a fake tracking number.  I mean you can find a fairly decently priced knockoff set for between $150 to $200 on Aliexpress, but I'm always on the hunt for the best bargain.
 

With discounts, the total cost of the set including shipping is $133.24 CDN which works out to about $102 USD at current exchange rates.  Not bad for 3187 pieces. Or about 0.03 cents per piece.

This is what the retail price of the Lego 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina sells for, about $450 CDN + tax.

The Lego 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina set was released in September 2020, and one would expect that it's retirement date should be sometime this fall.  As a result, the OG set should go up in value.  The website Brick Economy suggests that the value of the set will increase to around $700 or more.

Brick4.com lists the knockoff set as 60016 but with no brand.  Hope the quality and the minifigures are decent.   Guess we will roll the dice again and hope for a good outcome! Look for an update in a few weeks or so.