“Ave imperator, morituri te salutant!”
“Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you!” – Suetonius, Vita divi Claudii 21,6
What football provides in modern-day Europe, American Football in the US or cricket in India, was provided in the ancient Roman Empire by ludi – the entertainment of the people with various kinds of games, most of all the bloody gladiatorial fights. All of these sports have one thing in common: they were, and still are, hosted in massive stadiums and arenas.
With the latest Creator Expert model, 10276 Colosseum, LEGO® has finally revealed the archetype of every modern sports stadium, one of the “New7Wonders of the World” and the biggest tourist attraction in Rome. With 9036 (!) parts, LEGO is releasing its biggest set to date and the inventory isn’t the only huge aspect; the measurements of 52x59x27 cm (20.5x23.5x10.5 inches) quite literally earn this set the epithet “colossal”!
In this imperial game, the first “leg godt” ever held, I will entertain you across three acts of excitement: The Parts and The Build today, and our third act will be revealed when this set is released on 27 November 2020. So to all spectators: lose no more time, seek out your ranks, take a seat and enjoy the games!
Act I. – The Parts
As in every good game, we first present you with its parts. In all honesty, I did not expect many new parts in this model as its appearance is, by its architectural characteristics, repetitive and the colour scheme is rather limited (Brick Yellow/ Tan and Sand Yellow/ Dark Tan), due to its modern conservation status.
There are no new moulds in this set, but this is not much of a surprise given the fact LEGO already has a huge variety of different parts that are well-suited for architectural designs. Compared with the recently released 75318 The Child and 21324 123 Sesame Street, both of which provide a large quantity of recolours, stickers, printed parts and new moulds, the Colosseum provides a limited amount of ‘new elementary’.
Unique recoloured parts
Only five parts make their debut in a new colour:
- 10x Technic, Brick 16 x 16 x 1 1/3 with Holes in Olive Green (6301768|65803) – made its first appearance this year in the new LEGO Art line in Black as a baseplate for the mosaic segments
- 69x Panel 1 x 3 x 1 in Tan (6300325|23950)
- 96x Tile, Round 1 x 1 with Bar and Pin Holder in Dark Tan (6300320|20482)
- 115x Minifigure, Utensil Candle in Dark Tan (6300321|37762) – until now only available in Black, Bright Blue/ Blue, Warm Gold/ Pearl Gold & White (with exception of the latter, high quantities in sets are rare)
- 18x Minifigure, Footgear Roller Skate in Dark Tan (6300318|11253)
Here I must anticipate one of my personal highlights of this set by showing you the last three in situ, as they simply look great as columns.
The use of the Roller Skate part for the Ionic capitals on the second story of the arcades on the outside wall is simply perfect.
Parts in high quantities
The variety of different parts is not as wide as you might expect. While the inventory at the end of the instruction manuals of other sets are often several pages long, the Colosseum’s covers just two pages. In consequence, many of the parts come in high quantities. The basic parts alone – bricks and plates in different forms, mostly in Tan and Dark Tan – amount to around 2500 parts. But there are also large quantities of several other interesting parts:
- 127x Brick 1 x 1 x 3 in Tan (6057517|14716) – highest quantity so far, far surpassing the 24 in 2018’s 71043 Hogwarts Castle
- 149x Tile, Modified 2 x 2 with Studs on Edge in Tan (6221467|33909) – outnumbers its occurrences in this year’s 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina by a factor of 12
- 207x Brick, Modified 1 x 2 with Masonry Profile in Tan (6148262|98283) – a fan favourite and one of the most versatile parts
- 239x Plate, Modified 1 x 2 Rounded with 2 Open Studs in Dark Tan (6231386|35480)
- 34x Minifigure, Utensil Ingot / Bar in Tan (6271228|99563)
- 59x Window 1 x 2 x 2 Castle in Tan (4642933|90195)
- 340x Brick, Arch 1 x 3 in Tan (4618651|4490)
- 236x Brick, Arch 1 x 4 in Tan (4550323|3659)
- 74x Brick, Arch 2 x 2 Corner in Tan (6236425|38585) – In contrast to that, there are only 6x Brick, Arch 1 x 2 Jumper in Tan (6236423|38583) that was introduced, as well as the corner version, in Hogwarts Castle
As is evident, the Colosseum basically consists of many different arches, which comes as no surprise. I will elaborate on this point in the next section of the review.
Rare and recent parts
There are also several parts of note which already exist in other sets in very low quantities:
- 28x Tile 6 x 6 with Bottom Tubes in Dark Stone Grey/ Dark Bluish Gray (6147337|10202) – has appeared in only 7 sets since its introduction in 2019, with a total combined count of 29; and 17 of these are in a Singaporean LEGO Brand Store Exclusive
- 92x Brick, Modified 1 x 4 with Masonry Profile in Tan (6232136|15533) – has so far appeared only in both massive Harry Potter sets, 71043 Hogwarts Castle and 75978 Diagon Alley, with a combined count of 12
- 133x Plate, Round 1 x 1 with Open Stud in Dark Tan (6300322|85861) – made its debut earlier this year in Diagon Alley with only 9 included
- 11x Technic, Plate 1 x 5 with Smooth Ends, 4 Studs and Center Axle Hole in Tan (6311104|32124) – also made its debut in the Grand Piano & Diagon Alley
- 55x Plate 3 x 3 in Tan (6115031|11212) – appeared first this year, once
in Brickheadz 75317 The Mandalorian & The Child and twice in 21323
Grand Piano
- 48x Plate 2 x 4 in Nougat (6286500|3020) – a rare colour for universal
elements, so far mainly appearing in the many Landspeeder variations
To conclude this act: while there are no new moulds, there is indeed no need for them as there is no aspect of the Colosseum that requires one. The recolours can be counted on one hand, but the Dark Tan parts especially will be of great interest for future use. Considering the many other parts that come in high quantities, this year is a good one for fans of Tan and Dark Tan. With the Mos Eisley Cantina, The Child and now the Colosseum, it seems LEGO have released more parts in these colours than in any of the recent years.
Packaging
Like other recently released sets, the Colosseum falls under the 18+ age mark and so the box follows the now-typical adult branding and displays some nice angles of the model, nothing spectacular though, so I shall skip to the content.
There are 4 cartons inside the box, as is the case with the Star Wars UCS models, but they are not really that interesting or special in their design. The biggest difference to a UCS set is that the instructions come in 4 booklets, one per carton. One problem regarding the booklets is that they are too small for the content. Several times during the building process I was unable to identify the parts I needed (in the parts preview box) or where to place them because, after just a few pages, parts of the step disappear into the central fold and are difficult to make out.
With a combined total of 836 pages of instructions, a ring binder would have significantly improved the building process, as was provided with the UCS Star Destroyer. I can only speculate that the production costs were too high for this model.
A positive aspect is that each booklet has some introductory pages on the history of the Colosseum. I will take a closer look at these aspects in my third part about the historical dimension to this build.
The set contains 40 numbered bags for the various stages and a staggering total of 124 plastic bags - I did count them. Why, you may ask? Given The LEGO Group’s recent announcement to switch from plastic to paper bags for greater sustainability, I wondered whether there would have been an opportunity to introduce it before the release of the Colosseum. Sadly, the largest LEGO model to date seemingly also contains the largest quantity of plastic waste; I filled an entire 75 litre trash-bag. It is my hope that future production runs of the set will have paper bags – the brownish paper would even fit well from an aesthetic point of view.
Alright, let us now dive deep into the remains of Rome’s glory!
Click here to continue to part 2.
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| ©2020 The LEGO Group |
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It greatly bothers me that the fourth manual is numbered IIII and not IV.
ReplyDeleteIIII was used at the time of the building of the Colosseum. IV was used after the fall of the Roman Empire.
DeleteThe 3 x 2 tan wedge plates are also relatively uncommon, only in 9 sets and his guest count is 2 (for the one I checked)
ReplyDelete"Sadly, the largest LEGO model to date seemingly also contains the largest quantity of plastic waste; I filled an entire 75 litre trash-bag." Uh, surely that is a typo. 75 liters is quite large, bigger than the box the set comes in!
ReplyDelete7.5 liters is quite small, and the closest you'll come to finding a trash bag that size is using a plastic grocery bag.
DeleteOddly enough, plastic bags used to pack LEGO sets take up more space after you've opened them, because they lay flat when they're sealed and open kinda like a flower after you've opened them. I could see the plastic bags taking up that much space...but I also know it's fairly easy to pack them down to occupy a _LOT_ less space. Use one of the bigger bags to pack the smaller bags. You can also fold the biggest size bag in half so it will also fit inside a bag of similar size. For 124 bags, you should be able to reduce that number to 5-10 without any trouble. It won't change the number of clear bags you're throwing in the trash, but it will apparently keep one additional trash bag out of the landfill.