4191 The Captain’s Cabinis one of the many current licensed sets available from Lego these days. Taking a slice of The Pirate’s of the Caribbean, this set delivers a small vignette of none other than the captain’s cabin. This set, being from a license theme and coming in at $11.99 (us) MSRP seems similar to the Mandalorian” Battle Pack and Clone Trooper” Battle Pack of the Star Wars line. It does have more pieces, but one less figure than those but comes in at $1 less. This is where it gets interesting.

This set is a treasure trove of unique little pieces. It includes a small older in styling globe perched on a brick built stand. I can see lots of uses for this little piece in various MOCs, from current day offices, to steampunk navigation systems and more. In addition, the set comes with a round 2×2 tile printed with a navigational chart. I’ve purchased two of these sets now, and each also seems to come with 2 printed 1×1 tiles representing Jack Sparrow’s trusty compass. As if that were not enough, on the rack in the background comes 2 bottles with a ship on each. All of those elements being printed and not the new norm of self-applied decals. Add in some pearl gold pieces and this set is chock-full of pieces useful in a number of various MOCs.

As mentioned, the set comes with 3 minifigures, Captain Jack Sparrow (in vest), and two zombies. Each of the figures has painting on the back of the torso and Cpt. Jack and the Zombie Yeoman each have a second face hidden by long hair pieces on the back of their heads.

When I purchased 4191 The Captain’s Cabin,it came with a free poster inside. The photo of the package on Lego’s site seems to indicate it likely still does. This poster, a card and instruction book come bundled and protected in plastic with a piece of corrugated cardboard to keep things flat. A nice touch, since in recent years, manuals have been damaged in shipping. The box art is pretty standard fair for Lego right now. Two big photos of the main set depicting battle and no alternative models. 4191 The Captain’s Cabinis still available through Lego’s online store as well as most big box stores. I’d highly recommend the set as it’s a good value, even at licensed set pricing.

I’ve had this set for a while now. It’s not a big set. 18 pieces to be exact. I got it some time ago when I ordered other sets direct from Lego. It came, much to my surprise with a letter stuffed in the box about being a valued customer. Please have this free set, yadda, yadda. Now don’t get me wrong. Any free Lego is AWESOME Lego. Yes, even if someone were to hand me free Galidor, I’d enjoy it, because hey, it’s free!  Besides, if you can get past what all the ‘cool kids’ say, and use a little imagination, you can make cool things from anything. That’s the Lego way.

I suspect though, that they wanted to dump this set, and here’s why.

O.K. Kids, lets play what’s out of place here… It seems they may have forgotten to print the package with the “Choking Hazard” warning. You don’t usually see add on stickers to Lego’s packaging. Unless of course you remember the Admiral Akmar magnets…

Anyway, there’s not much to be said about the set. It’s a construction worker with a cement mixer. It fills up your city workers, but I’m not a fan of the mixer really. It doesn’t remind me at all of the one I used to have to use in real life working for my father. For one, where’s the rust, and this one has wheels! Who knew they came with wheels? My back sure didn’t.

The mixer itself spins and tilts side to side, but can’t pour out. The way in which it’s packaged prevents “Built in Bag” builds. The set originally sold for $3.49 (us). In all honesty, I did, and would give it a skip unless you are one to complete a series regardless of the set. Which if you are, you still can find it on Amazon or Bricklink.

7049 Alien Striker is another one of those sets I had lost to the clutter of Manland and time. I found this set in a box beside 7050 Alien Defender. Once again I had purchased this set purely for the minifigures and at an MSRP of $4.99 (us) it’s a reasonable way to go about picking some of these new figs up. Sure, there’s the battle pack you can pick up. But lets look at it for a second.

You can pick up 853301 LEGO Alien Conquest Battle Packfor a cool $14.99. In that, you get the two common aliens and two of the common ADU figures. In addition you get a snazy dressed business man. Which is all fine and dandy, and I’ve been known to buy battle packs. However, if you’re looking to get bang for the buck (barring the battle pack going on sale) you could pick up 7049 Alien Striker and 7050 Alien Defender for $14.98 and also score some interesting colored bricks. If you’re looking to build a homogenous army, 3 of the 7049 Alien Striker and end up with 6 figures for about the same coin. After all that, if you just have to have that sharp dressed man, you can always go cherry pick him from Bricklink for around $2.

Anyway, back to 7049 Alien Striker, the set at hand. You get 2 minifigures. The human comes with a back painted torso and single face. The alien has the same pattern on the back of the head as in set 7050. Unlike 7050 Alien Defender though, the alien’s ship is a little beefier. It reminds me of the older ships in the classic space line. There’s enough of a ship to be believable, but not so much as to drive up the piece count and bump it in to a higher price point. In fact, at a 4.99 MSRP, this set falls in to the impulse set category. You know the one. When you’re walking down the Lego isle at the local store, you can throw it in the cart and you won’t get yelled at. ;-)

Like all Lego of late, the box art lacks alternative models and depicts the gunfight play. Still though, no one buys these sets for the boxes, right? In my opinion, this is the real keystone set for army building. I’ve noticed the trend of these size sets dropping to around $3 at your local blue big box store at the end of the cycle of themes. At which point you can scoop up several and plot to take over you Lego City layout.

2011 was a busy year. Not that my blog would show it. Happily it chugged along all on it’s own, sad and neglected. Normally I resolve not to make a resolution each New Year, which means I immediately fail. (Not everyone deserves a trophy)

I decided at the end of last year though, that I would get back to it. As is evident with a small rash of reviews, and more in the pipeline for the coming month. Hopefully that gets me back in the swing and I can come up with some more valuable content once the rust is gone. As an exercise, I decided I should look and see what my top 10 pages were for all of 2011. What surprised me was that the top two were nothing about Lego, and in fact 50% of the top 10 were about anything but. I guess it just goes to show, that I’ll continue to keep the posts a little broader than just that topic. Since, after all, the blog was initially set up to share the escapades of dealing with a local pack of semi domesticated Raccoons breaking things in our yard. Anyway, here’s to a hopeful new year. Please enjoy the review of the top 10 favorites bellow. I’d like to identify any of them as one of my more favorite posts, but I can’t.

2011 Top 10

1. Not enough server storage is available to process this command. error.
2. Use Server 2003 to get files to your Xbox 360
3. Lego Brickmaster Replacement – Lego MBA
4. Brick blog, intended about Lego, but wound up everything else
5. Cleaning Lego
6. Manfrotto 055XPROB & Giottos MH 7001-621: A dynamic duo for sure
7. Mommy, my mouth tastes like burning rubber
8. “Working” Lego V8 Engine
9. Coffee Table Makeover: Extreme Edition
10. Lego Crab Instructions

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah or any other holiday you celebrate this time of year. To all my readers, may you have a safe and happy holiday.