Review: 10230 Mini Modulars

[AwesomeTaylor]

Number: 10230

Name: Mini Modulars

Theme: LEGO Exclusives

Year: 2012

Minifigs: 0

Pieces: 1356

Price: 99.99 CAD / 79.99 USD

(A few people pointed out that it's a little cheaper in the states, so I changed it!)

This set is listed as a Feb 1st release on the Lego website, but I managed to get one from my local store just the other day! I wasn't planning on getting one, but they looked really nice in the store and bigger than I had expected - so I treated myself!

I am sure someone will come along and do a much better review shortly, but I hope that this will do until then!

Since everyone will spot this in the store easy from the front, here is a look at the back of the box:

And here is a close up of the completed set:

Quite nicely, each set comes in it's own bag, making it easy to tackle over a few different build sessions:

Here are all the parts for the first modular, the cafe corner. Excitingly, the set comes with a new brick separator. This will come in real useful if you place one of these small pieces wrongly!

I took this photo to show how hard it can be telling where to place some of the parts. The instructions were too dark for my liking.

Here is the front of the cafe. It's an odd way to tackle the design, but it looks instantly recognizable:

Here is the completed cafe, along with the spare parts from bag 1:

Bag 2 contains the only parts that I deemed to be of note - there are actually 4 of these 2x4 dark blue tiles:

Why oh why is this the only model in this set to ACTUALLY do this? This tiny set is MODULAR! That's right, the rest are very definitively single builds. This one allows you to actually remove and rotate like in the full sized set.

Bag three gets us started on the green grocer. I wasn't too thrilled about this build, but I did take a photo of the fire escape construction to show you all. I have no idea why it turned out like this though:

And here is the completed build along with the spare parts:

Getting started on bag 4 - the fire brigade is faithful to it's full sized build with several repetitive columns. Here is where I am finishing off the first floor:

And here is the somewhat inspired bell construction:

Finally, the finished build. You can't see it well here (scroll down, or be patient!), but the top of the bell tower looks VERY odd! Very much out of scale.

The final bag, and this includes lots of very nice trans-green parts:

I will touch on this at the end, but this shot shows the consideration that has gone into the design of this set by repeating smaller parts instead of including new, single pieces:

Here is the finished Emporium. We even get a second string!

This shot shows all the mini modulars together:

And the sexy lumberjack turns up to help us to compare the scale of them!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Design: 9/10 A LOT of work has gone into making this set. It was clearly a labour of love for someone, and it shows. There are small considerate touches throughout, such as the mine ice-cream stand out side the emporium. There are a few things that break scale, such as the window washers basket, and a few of the windows, but most of the set looks spectacular.

Parts: 6/10 There are quite a few parts, but there are issues. First of all, they are nothing special. These are all common parts, and other than the printed HOTEL tile and the new (?) dark blue tiles, these are all parts many of us will have in our sorted system already.

Secondly, each of the first three sets were missing a part. Now, I get it. We here all get it. The logistics of this set is incredible, each bag having a very different set of small pieces. I wasn't surprised when the first model had a missing bit. But for three of them too is a little egregious. I can only hope that mine was an outlier case. While I was able to go over and collect the part from my own collection, not everyone will be so lucky.

Figs: N/A

Build: 8/10 There are some wonderful, inspired parts to this build, especially where small steps are being recreated. But quite a few parts of the build are repetitive, and the only real challenge here is understanding the dark instructions.

Playability: N/A

FINAL FINAL THOUGHT:

I wish these were modular still. If they were just called Mini Modulars due to them re-creating the original sets I would be a little disappointed, but when the one set IS modular it really just shows you what you are missing.

Overall Score: 75%

At the end of the day, they are a wonderful little ornament. But this isn't something that people will be able to incorporate into their own towns, and while you could break it up and make something new as with all lego sets, it makes a poor parts pack for doing this.

The build was enjoyable, but only takes about 30mins per building. Once you have made the set, it becomes a $100 ornament. As such I have a bit of buyers remorse here. It looks great, but I could have done without it. I may consider selling mine.

Edited April 28, 2012 by Rufus
Indexed

[Edmond Dantes]

Wait - $99.99? I thought it was $79.99?

[prateek]

This set is a bit hit and miss for me. The techniques used are nice, but not nice enough for $100. I do challenge someone to bag build these though

[Ceroknight]

Wait - $99.99? I thought it was $79.99?

99 is Canadian

Thank you for the review!

If I get this set, I might practice some bag building!

[tafkatb]

I just got this, haven't built it yet - but I can say that there are a few more new pieces than you might realize. No completely new molds, of course, but both the 1x1 brick with two side studs and 1x2 plate with door rail are here in Reddish Brown for the first time, 1x1 tiles in Earth Blue (previously only available as the printed compass piece in PotC sets), the castle window in white, and the 1x3x2 curved top arch is new in yellow.

[AwesomeTaylor]

I just got this, haven't built it yet - but I can say that there are a few more new pieces than you might realize. No completely new molds, of course, but both the 1x1 brick with two side studs and 1x2 plate with door rail are here in Reddish Brown for the first time, 1x1 tiles in Earth Blue (previously only available as the printed compass piece in PotC sets), the castle window in white, and the 1x3x2 curved top arch is new in yellow.

Thank you for clearing that up for me. And yes, $100 is the Canadian price, I thought they were the same :)

[Siegfried]

Thanks for the review! I'm surprised you could buy this; I thought it was supposed to be an exclusive for the VIP Club... Anyway I love how the Market Street is configurable. (I suspect that is the only one that can do that as it's the only one that was designed to be rotate-able.)

It was clearly a labour of love for someone, and it shows.

Jamie Berard says that he's been giving these away to family and friends for a while.

[AwesomeTaylor]

Thanks for the review! I'm surprised you could buy this; I thought it was supposed to be an exclusive for the VIP Club... Anyway I love how the Market Street is configurable. (I suspect that is the only one that can do that as it's the only one that was designed to be rotate-able.)

Jamie Berard says that he's been giving these away to family and friends for a while.

Yep, I had to provide my VIP info at the checkout - it was a Lego brand store.

I know that Market Street was rotatable, but I always liked the look of the buildings when missing a floor also :)

And that explains it - I had a feeling Jamie was behind these :)

[jonwil]

If only this set (or the NICE 1 x 1 tiles in dark blue) was actually available to me :(

[Larrynautik]

I don't really know the interest of such a set. It's quite expensive too. Even on sales, I think I'll ignore it.

[Edmond Dantes]

99 is Canadian

Thank you for the review!

If I get this set, I might practice some bag building!

Review says $99 USD, not $99 CD

In any case, thanks for the review! I do plan on buying this, especially because the wife specifically requested I do (she thinks it's cute).

[dtomsen]

22 (!) Trans-Clear Brick 1x1 are also worth mentioning

[AwesomeTaylor]

22 (!) Trans-Clear Brick 1x1 are also worth mentioning

Are these hard to come by? It seems I may have under-estimated the parts in this set slightly - nothing really stood out much to me. I'm still not sure I could recommend the set just for parts, but apparently there are a few happy AFOL's due to this set...

[tafkatb]

Which pieces were missing for you? I built mine today and nothing turned up missing, though after reading your review, I was paranoid about it through the entire build.

[Niku]

Thanks for this review.

Building in micro is a challenging thing but I think that even for the number of pieces and the variety of colors the set provides is a bit overpriced.

In my case I´ll try to save up a little more and get the petshop, instead of this one.

[TheLegoDr]

Thanks for the review. I am really excited for this set.

This set is actually inspiring me to build more things in the miniscale style. I have a huge lego room, but I don't want to fill it all up with full-scale modulars plus castle and pirate sets, so this will help maintain more space for other sets I think are more important.

I wouldn't buy this just for the parts, but I will definitely buy this to have in my collection. I only own one of the full size modulars, and I think this will be a better value for me personally compared to owning all the other sets.

Keep up the reviews. I'll keep reading them.

[htbomb]

Thanks for the review. I was seriously considering this set as I am fan of row buildings. But I'm a beginner; is this a good place to start?

[tafkatb]

Thanks for the review. I was seriously considering this set as I am fan of row buildings. But I'm a beginner; is this a good place to start?

It depends on how patient and/or how much of a perfectionist you are - there aren't many terribly advanced building techniques, but the set has loads of 1x1 plates and tiles, and it can be difficult to get those lined up straight. Other than that, though, I'd highly recommend this set to beginners, as it's a great way to start building a city block without investing too much money or space.

[dtomsen]

22 (!) Trans-Clear Brick 1x1 are also worth mentioning

Are these hard to come by? It seems I may have under-estimated the parts in this set slightly - nothing really stood out much to me. I'm still not sure I could recommend the set just for parts, but apparently there are a few happy AFOL's due to this set...

Yep, and also rather expensive from new on BrickLink

http://www.bricklink.com/catalogPG.asp?P=3005&colorID=12

The Trans-Clear Brick 1x1 was last used in a normal set in 1996, and then only one was included

Edited January 6, 2012 by dtomsen

[Vindicare]

This set is a bit hit and miss for me. The techniques used are nice, but not nice enough for $100. I do challenge someone to bag build these though

This is the first thing I thought of when I saw they all had their own bags. I'm gonna try(my first attempt at it ).

[Ceroknight]

Review says $99 USD, not $99 CD

In any case, thanks for the review! I do plan on buying this, especially because the wife specifically requested I do (she thinks it's cute).

He's wrong and he already knows that he made a mistake

So this will be available S@H in February?

[Canada_7]

It's still nice but for whatever reason I've become a bit more iffy on it after reading your review. The "$100 ornament" after building comment you made did make me reconsider it for a little. It's still a nice set but I'm still slightly undecided.

[VBBN]

A much more affordable way to get a nice street scene with these building, I like it quite a bit

Shame that only one is actually modular

[Aanchir]

A much more affordable way to get a nice street scene with these building, I like it quite a bit

Shame that only one is actually modular

I always figured the "modular" aspect that gave the modular buildings their name was the fact that you could put them together in any order on a street, not that the floors came apart. Having separate sections is what a "modular build" usually means for a set, but I think in this case the modular buildings are modular in more than one way.

Additionally, making the floors able to separate would be ridiculously complex on a set 1/4 the size in all dimensions, and would be especially pointless since the buildings are already easy to carry at their current size and couldn't possibly be given interiors at this scale.

[Solscud007]

I picked up this set yesterday too. My wife wants to build it so we haven't gotten started yet. But $80 for all those pieces isn't too shabby. I want to make a mini land firetruck for this.