Lego Set 7048 Troll Warship

I recently had the pleasure of buying the Lego set 7048, Troll Warship. What immediately caught my attention to the set was just how much you get for your money. The set contains 6 troll warriors that I’ve come to think of as Orcs. It also contains a very cool armored dragon, knight, troll, and dwarve. Add in a ship hull made out of 5 segments, and you’ve got a pretty good set for parts and minifigs.

When I got the set home, I couldn’t help but build it before integrating the pieces into my greater collection. This is something I rarely do, as at this point, I buy lego for the parts or minifigs usually. It has to be a pretty interesting set for me to sit down and build it. I found the build pretty fun. The masts of the ship sit on clicking turn tables, so you adjust them during game play. When your done, the ship also has one of Lego’s newer style flick canons. It uses the springy piece that you put little Lego soccer players on to be able to kick the ball. I do wonder about the over use of this flick canon though. Back when the pirate sets were around, I acrued a rather good amount of canons, that looked like canons. Now I know, you historians will say that knights didn’t have canons until near the very end. Well, the jury is out still about them riding armored dragons too… But what I’m getting at though, is that the ship could have had a more realistic balista or something. Maybe this is what they were going for, and too many years of writing code has destroyed my imagination? Anyway, I still had a lot of fun building it, and it went together quickly.

If your looking for a long build, this might upset you. But where I was looking at the set as a quick pick up for all my armies and an extra ship, I was ok with it. Of course, I also had a little help building, so that might have had something to do with it…

(more after the photos)

As I’ve mentioned, it was a quick build. Almost anyone used to putt ing together sets would find it an easy build… I did however, notice that the colors were off in the manual from the colors of the bricks. Normally not a big deal, but at times they were way off. This is one of the reasons I dislike mega blocks. If your buying it for the set, the colors have been so off it’s hard to tell which one you are supposed to use, especially if your building something predominantly black and grays. The only other draw back, which is much of one, is that the ship hull is a new brown. Not the same as the Viking ship hull, which was not the same as the old Pirate ship hulls. So mixing and matching may look a little weird. Where I plan to make a much larger version of a trol l warrior transport, it may work. Since we wouldn’t expect the trolls to have shiny fancy looking ships. In fact, I would have expected this ship to look a little more hodge podge, a little like, Reavers maybe?

None of this though would deter me from buying this set. Its a great addition to the collection. Its a quick pick up in so many ways of army building you can’t skip it. The play looks like it would be great as well. With firing missiles, spinning  masts, so many minifigs, and details to the ship, its a well rounded set.

Dude, you’re getting A Dell SCREWED!

This list of events comes from a coworker that is trying to get a nice present for Christmas.

Good luck dude.

Dec 8, 2007 – Purchased a Vostro 1500 from the Dell Outlet Store online. Good deal – $609.00

Dec 11, 2007 – Laptop arrives quickly. Looks like a nice machine. But, the battery wouldn’t stay locked into the machine. It looks like there are two clips that hold it locked into the case, but they’re broken off..

Dec 11, 2007 – Called support talked to Patrick, who sent me a replacement battery. He was apologetic, Patrick tells me he’ll call to follow up to confirm that everything is ok. I packed up the laptop and waited for the battery.

Dec 11, 2007 - While packing up the laptop I took a look through all the accessories. The power cable they sent me doesn’t fit into the power adapter. The cable is a standard monitor/pc power cable. Uh what? Did anyone check this thing out? Broken battery and incorrect power cable?

Dec 11, 2007 – Called support AGAIN, talked to Arvin. Arvin walks me through the same stuff again and looks up the cable and sends me the cable. This is getting annoying – especially the explanations about getting put on hold. Yes, I know it will take a little while. Yes, I’ll hold on. Yes, YES YES!!! Just GO DO YOUR WORK! I understand the concept of being put on hold. This is not new to me! I’m interested in getting off the phone sometime today so please go do whatever it is you need to do!

Dec 12, 2007 – Battery arrives. It has the clips intact and works. Though it only has two bars of charge left – the clip-less battery was full. So I can’t do much since I can’t charge the battery – remember… no power cable. Doh!

Dec 13, 2007 – New cable arrives. Guess what? It’s not the right cable. This one has three rounded prongs. I need two rounded prongs without a ground, that’s angled and plugs into the adapter. They sent me Dell Item Number 5N020. This shouldn’t be this hard. Hell, the guy even checked my original order to find the cable that goes with the adapter’s correct part number. That’s pretty logical right?

Dec 13, 2007 – Called support again, talked to Tammy. Tammy apologized again and says she’ll find the right part number and send me the correct cable. She says the cable will ship overnight today and I’ll have it tomorrow. She also tells me that she’ll call to follow-up as well. I wait. Again.

Dec 14, 2007 – Tammy calls to tell me that the package shipped overnight and would be arriving today. Great, that was nice.
Dec 14, 2007 – Power cable arrives. It’s the SAME incorrect cable. Again. Wow! Could this be worse? This time I received Dell Item Number K2490.

Dec 14, 2007 – I called again and talked to Suresh. He offered to have a 3rd replacement cable sent. Yeah about that third cable…. No thanks. At this point I want a whole new power adapter and cable set sent. This thing is a gift and I want it to work before Christmas. What’s the change that I get a 4th incorrect cable? Pretty high in my estimation.

Dec 14, 2007 – He put me on hold to check with his supervisor and came back to tell me that a power adapter and cable "set" was going to take 1-2 weeks to ship. What What WHAT? I questioned whether all new Vostro laptop orders were now delayed a 1-2 weeks because they were out of power adapters. Of course not. But my adapter wasn’t part of a new machine, so those are delayed. Are these not the same power adapters? Is this the difference between ordered a refurbished vs a new system? Did anyone even CHECK this laptop and its accessories?? So I end up with 1-2 weeks. Yeah that’s not gonna work. I explain that 1-2 weeks isn’t an option.

Dec 14, 2007 – So he says he’ll sent the replacement cable. Fine. Whatever. I make a point to ask for the dell item number. I was told the item was number DF771. I ask him if he’s got an image of this thing, so he can describe what it looks like. No such luck. So, I tell him to hold as I do his work and search the internet for a picture. At this point I want to see the damn thing, before he ships it. It looks right.

Dec 14, 2007 – Suresh tells me I’ll get the cable in about a week. WHAT? A week.? Prior to this everything was shipping overnight. I questioned why it would take a week and he told me he could not be certain that it would come in 1-2 days. Ok so "I can’t be certain" about 1-2 days means I guess he can safely say "in about a week". I have no choice at that moment, but to accept to have a 3rd replacement cable sent, Fine. Send away. I’m not holding my breath.

Dec 14, 2007 – At this point this is just stupid. Was this laptop even checked? How could it have been certified refurbished with a broken battery and the incorrect power cable? If this had been taken care of swiftly, I wouldn’t be so annoyed or question the purchase as much. But this was just stupid. I went online and requested an RMA. I’m now waiting for confirmation.

Dec 14, 2007 – To make this crazier, I still need a laptop. So I check out a few deal sites and low and behold the same laptop is currently selling for $50 bucks LESS than the refurbished piece of garbage I got. And its NEW!!! Vostro 1500 $549! Save $410 instantly, it’s a better deal all around. It’s the same laptop and this machine had a larger hard drive to boot – 160gb instead of 120gb. I added another gig of ram and pulled the trigger. And now… I wait. Again.

What could Dell do to convince you to remain a customer?

Belated. . .

I’d make a horrible Dad. I know it. Know why? Got any clues? Well, in 2006 on 10-25 at 9:57 P.M. I posted my first article here on Brickblog. Why, I remember when this blog was still in diapers, I was excited to get 1 visit after posting oh so many articles. To date, I’m up to 4,694 visits since I installed Google Analytics (November 9, 2006) to track such things. Truly amazing. What’s even scarrier is when I analyze what kinds of articles bring people to my site, I see when you search for d40 vs d70 my site comes up #1 in google.

So lets think back to what brought this blog to life. . .

Oh thats right, those damn raccoons. They’re still around, in fact I had great fun, ehr, I mean I was left no other option, then to shoot one a couple weeks ago with my paintball gun while I had the electric fence repurposed on the garden for the summer.

But of course, I wouldn’t be here with such an audience if it wasn’t for my peeps. Those folks that both read my insane ramblings, and those that link to my blog. So since I can’t thank every single one of you by name, I’ll be certain to report out what WordPress tells me are the good folks linking to my site.

Thanks!


Hazza for the return of Classic Castle!

It looks like Lego has finally gotten back to a more classic style castle theme. This is good news for those of us that have been collecting Lego for a long time. This
new issue of classic mold parts means that army building can continue without resorting to buying higher priced used lego.

As you can see, the molds are back to a traditional style. The only draw back is the switch to a ‘shiny’ plastic for the helms, and weapons are now of the new bley (blue-gray) that all Light gray pieces from Lego are now colored. To me, this isn’t such a big deal. With a little mixing up of new figures and old armor and vice versa, it could actually give a more realistic look to your army. Interestingly enough the patterns on the new knights are also similar to the Viking series. Which means in a pinch you could mix and match some bodies, or have Vikings v.s. knights.

This also marks the return of the maiden. Something that has been missing from sets of this style theme. Unless I missed something, the last few versions of Lego Castle theme lacked a female of any kind. No worries for those seeking equal rights, you can spin the head around to reveal a less frightened look while she mills about the castle.

It also looks like the return to dragons that look like dragons. Don’t get me wrong, I love the red dragon in the viking sets, but the majority of them look a little too Bionicle for me, and he larger ones lack the ability to hold their head or wings up. These new dragons are just right, both size and mix of molded parts.

We also have a few new additions, which intrigue me. The skeleton horse. Both in white and black (the same is true for the skeletons that ride them) they make a neat addition to the theme. Although, I’m a bit confused, as I thought bones were white. . .

Let the army building continue, and the epic battles return!