LEGO® Overwatch review: 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar

Our second LEGO® Overwatch review takes a look at the new and interesting elements in 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar. The largest set in the theme, it contains 730 elements, four minifigures and costs £79.99 / $89.99 / 89.99€ and has been available since January 2019.

There are some interesting new angles in this set and a few elements appear for the first time in a new colour, so let's take a closer look.

New LEGO elements in 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar

We can't help ourselves here, a review just has to start with the new elements in the set. We will look at the minifigures separately  which leaves five brand new elements that are new moulds in Watchpoint: Gibraltar.

Dark Stone Grey [TLG]/ Dark Bluish Gray [BL] Weapon, No. 20 (Element ID 6255067|Design ID 44709) is included in this set. There are also two of the same element in another Overwatch set, 75972 Dorado Showdown. As we mentioned in our previous Overwatch review, 75973 D.Va & Reinhardt, there are four colours of this element included within the Overwatch theme overall. We are going to be taking a closer look at this connection-filled element in a future post.

There are two new wedge slopes in the set; White Left Roof Tile 3X3, Deg. 45/18/45 (6254601|42862) and White Right Roof Tile 3X3, Deg. 45/18/45 (6254602|48165). Both of these roof tiles also appear now in Dark Red (Left Element ID 6257448, Right 6257449) in 75243 Slave I – 20th Anniversary Edition that was just released this month.

The element has a 45° slope at each end but being two studs wide at the top and three studs at the base gives it an 18° angle across the face of the slope. The top surface is a familiar shape as it matches a Left Plate 2x3 w/Angle (Design ID 43723).

There are two new wedge plates that are first seen in Watchpoint: Gibraltar. White Left Plate 4X6, Deg. 27 (Element ID 6254603|Design ID 48208) and White Right Plate 4X6, Deg. 27 (6254604|48205) bring another wedge plate option to builders.

These elements also appear in two other colours from sets in the LEGO Star Wars theme: Black, and Bright Red [TLG]/ Red [BL] in 75240 Major Vonreg's TIE Fighter and also in Black in the upcoming promotional set 75227 Darth Vader Bust. The good thing about the Black version appearing in a retail set means that you can purchase the parts required to build your own version of the potentially hard-to-get promo set.

The 27° angle is matched by a few other angled plates as you can see above: Dark Azure Right Plate 27 Deg (Design ID 24307) and its opposing partner Left Plate 27 Deg (24299). Next we have White Plate 6X4 W/Angle (29172) which I mention again shortly as this is a new colour, and finally Bright Orange [TLG]/Orange [BL]  Plate 2X4 x18° (51739).

Re-coloured LEGO elements in 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar

Flame Yellowish Orange [TLG]/Bright Light Orange [BL] Round Plate Ø64X9.6, No. 1 (Element ID 6253677|Design ID 47023) also appears in another Overwatch set, 75970 Tracer vs. Widowmaker.

Although this is a printed element, the actual element (Design ID 3961) has never appeared unprinted in Flame Yellowish Orange so it is still a new colour.

Plate 6X4 W/Angle (29172) appeared back in 2017 in Bright Red and Black and then no more appearances until White (Element ID 6275498) for the first time in this set. Also new for 2019 is the Dark Red (Element ID 6275502) version found only in 31086 Futuristic Flyer.

There are two other new colours of wedge plates, in Dark Azure: Left Plate 2X4 W/Angle (Element ID 6253906|Design ID 41770) and Right Plate 2X4 W/Angle (6253907|41769).

Bright Blue [TLG]/ Blue [BL] 3.2 Shaft W/3.2 Hole (6254679|23443) is new in this colour which means this very useful element is now available in six colours (Black, Medium Stone Grey, Dark Red, Medium Blue and Warm Gold are the others).

Of Interest

Bright Blue Dorsal Fin Ø3.2mm (6254679|64727) has a new Element ID but is not actually a new element. It first appeared as Element ID 4622295 many years ago in a couple of sets: 2145 Stormer 3.0, a Hero Factory set released in 2011 and 9553 Jay ZX from 2012.


There are also two of the Bright Red rollercoaster track elements that have previously only been seen within 10261 Roller Coaster. Six of the larger Bright Red Rail 2X16, W/ 3.2 Shaft (6229099|25059) and one Bright Red Rail 2X8, W/ 3.2 Shaft (6229117|26022) are supplied.

New Elements in Action

The new wedges and slopes are all used to form the shapely body of the shuttle with the Black outline nicely visible when looking at the hull. 

As you can see from the first image, the shuttle actually splits into two spacecraft thanks to a Technic pin and hole connection. This split gives an aerodynamic front craft and a stumpy rear craft. The front craft seems to have a extra layer of studs before the Black tile nose, for some reason I would have liked this to be more shapely and smooth.

The front cockpit windshield opens on a hinge but the rear windshield needs to be removed to give access to the cockpit. On the plus side, the large Dark Azure plated area opens to reveal a rather empty interior and a portion of the hull raises to become a manoeuvrable weapons system.

Finally, the Bright Red rollercoaster rails are put to great use for the launch tower in the set and would be potentially useful to re-size and re-purpose as a Saturn V launch tower.

The printed Flame Yellowish Orange dish can be seen here in position where the Satellite drone payload vehicle* can land.

*vehicle not included

Minifigures in 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar

The set includes three minifigures, namely Mercy, Pharah, Reaper plus a bigfig Winston who is an armoured, bespectacled gorilla. We don't focus too much on new minifigures at New Elementary as almost every minifigure that LEGO now produce contain new, printed elements.

Pharah's weaponry utilises the new Bright Blue elements we mentioned earlier. She also has new headgear, Bright Blue Mini Helmet, No. 237 (Element ID 6254178) and her armour appears for the first time in Bright Blue, Mini Armour, No. 2 (6253175).

Mercy has a new hairpiece, Cool Yellow [TLG]/ Bright Light Yellow [BL] Mini Wig, No. 243 (6256086), that only partially hides her sallow, pale face as she flies towards you like a zombie-angel...

I am not really sure what is going on with the "lighter colour onto darker elements" situation in LEGO factories at the moment but Mercy's face is another example of poor printing I'm afraid. Her Light Nougat [TLG]/ Light Flesh [BL] print quality is really poor which is something LEGO really need to sort out.

Below you can see a LEGO Light Nougat head with classic smile next to Mercy's poor Light Nougat printing. For further comparison, Citizen Brick pad-print their own Light Nougat faces onto darker colours with much better outcomes than LEGO themselves.

Winston is an intelligent gorilla who consists of Black Creature, No. 78 (Element ID 6256411| Design ID 47032), White Left Creature Arm No. 10 (6254164|46242) and White Right Creature Arm No 8 (6254167|46243), which all connect with Technic pin/axles, and finally the same Black Giant No.1 hands as we saw on Bane in 70914 Bane Toxic Truck Attack in 2017.

His feet are odd looking but actually they are 'in System' and have anti-studs on the bottom.

Stickers! 

I should mention that there is a sticker sheet with this set but I did not apply them as I like to see the beautiful elements unblemished by sticky paper.

Conclusion

A rather pricey set in terms of its number of exciting new elements balanced with overall cost at first look. There are plenty of other interesting new-for-2019 elements also contained within the set, such as Minecraft 'feet' brackets, plus there are a host of angled plates, and you can certainly expand your Bright Red rollercoaster rail collection with this set.

Three out of the four minifigures are exclusive and will be a big draw for collectors, but the printing on Mercy's face will come back to haunt LEGO I think. For big Overwatch fans this set will be a balance between disappointment with the minifigure and the play and/or display potential of this large, playable set. Most of the key new elements can be purchased on the secondary market now although the Overwatch weapons can be difficult to source depending on your location (plus they are not available on Bricks and Pieces).

As a build, the shuttle is fun with flashbacks to the golden age of LEGO Space, although the front nose section is odd and the stumpy rear shuttle laughs in the face of aerodynamic flying. 

READ MORE: LEGO® NINJAGO 2019 contains new 2x2 turntables

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