Post by El Caracho on Dec 13, 2017 22:11:20 GMT
OK, I just finished assembling the new XingBao set XB-06015 "Scorpio Tiger Tank" from their "Across the Battlefield" series, and here are my thoughts about it:
First of all, this is clearly a Russian T-90 tank and has nothing to do with a German "Tiger" tank.
I took me about 6-7 hours to assemble the 1386 pieces, as this is a very sophisticated build (unlike the easier to build Cobi tanks).
It looks like this was designed digitally using just the Lego parts library, although I stumbled across 3 parts I haven't encountered before in a Lego set, but I checked with bricklink, and they do exist from Lego now:
- Slope 45 1 x 2 with Cutout without Stud
- Brick, Modified 1 x 4 with Masonry Profile (Brick Profile)
- Brick, Modified 1 x 1 x 1 2/3 with Studs on 1 Side
With my bricklink search I actually found out I own these Lego parts already, but haven't assembled the corresponding sets yet (Assembly Square & Ninjago City)
The overall main color of the tank is a light olive green with a "marble effect" camouflage pattern
(an effect which I only knew from Mega Bloks before, e.g. from their Call of Duty sets).
And many of the "black" parts are in a silvery metallic black.
But the finished model looks very good in this color scheme.
The set also includes a little diorama with a small building ruin and 5 heavily armed Lego-style minifigs.
As this model has apparently never been assembled in "real" Lego before, only digitally, many parts originally available from Lego in just one exclusive color appear in this XingBao set in various different colors, e.g.
"Plate, Round 1 x 1 with Handle" (only available in trans clear from Lego so far) or the "Lipstick with Handle" (previously only available from Lego in light bluish grey with a rubber tip in different reddish colors, but apparently now also available as a "solid" white version without a rubber tip). You also find some technic parts in colors not available from Lego (e.g. a "Technic, Pin 1/2" in black).
After the assembly, I had a whopping 53 spare parts left (going beyond the usual small 1x1 tiles, plates & technic parts), including 13 track links and 2 road wheels complete with rubber tyres.
The parts of the set came in numbered bags, ranging from 1 to 4, printed in a clearly readable white color on the bags (unlike previous XingBao/Lepin sets, which had the bag numbers printing in black, which were only visible after you had emptied the bag).
Quality issues:
- Some of the parts weren't deburred properly, but nothing a cutter knife can't fix
- Some minor scratches on the larger parts (mostly tiles)
- Sometimes the clutch was not sufficient, but you could exchange the affected parts with a similar ones until you found a combination with sufficient clutch.
Some minor issues, but they didn't spoil the overall positive impression of this set:
It was a pain in the a** putting all those rubber tyres on the 24 road wheels (the rubber tyres looks very small, so at first you think that they will never fit).
If you hold the tank in the air, the tracks run freely, but if you try to roll the tank on the ground, it won't roll properly, because some of the rubber tyres rub against the chassis. It's not that the tank doesn't roll at all, but you feel some friction resistance when pushing it.
The clutch of the hinges for the rear hatch is not sufficuent, so the hatch opens constantly (mostly due to the weight of the attached fuel tanks).
But I fixed this using some of the spare parts I had left, so not not a big problem.
The frontal armor plating of the turret couldn't be built as described in the (already corrected) building instructions.
The described method was technically impossible, you can't rotate a 1-stud-wide plate around a stud if there is a plate placed adjacent to that stud.
There is no room for the rotation, and so the tension between the parts was too high, so they kept popping off.
But with a simple modification (with parts from this set) I could solve this problem, and you do not see the difference, because the modification is just on the inside and cannot be noticed from the outside.
The instruction booklet has 61 pages, and came together with a correction leaflet (or should I say "poster"), containing 12 corrected pages, 6 on each side (in full scale).
But that didn't negatively influence the building process at all, because this a fantastic build and I had great fun assembling the set.
The design of this tank is awesome, using quite sophisticated building techniques and using some parts for a totally different purpose that they were orinally designed for.
Is has a detailed interior including the engine (and it's not as annoying to build as the interior of the Kazi tank sets).
But in my opinion the most astonishing thing about this tank is that the gunner's seat beneath the turret does rotate inside the tank together with the gunner minifig!
And the finished model, despite the sophisticated building technique and a lot of little details, is still quite sturdy and can be carried around without parts falling off
(Unlike XinBao's previous Russian military models designed by Andy Baumgart, which are very fragile and are almost impossible to finish, because once you think you have attached the last part, some parts have already fallen off again on another corner of the model)
Conclusion:
I would rate this set even higher than the Kazi Abrams tank, making this the best non-Cobi tank of my collection (followed by the Kazi Abrams and the Oxford Panther & Tiger)
First of all, this is clearly a Russian T-90 tank and has nothing to do with a German "Tiger" tank.
I took me about 6-7 hours to assemble the 1386 pieces, as this is a very sophisticated build (unlike the easier to build Cobi tanks).
It looks like this was designed digitally using just the Lego parts library, although I stumbled across 3 parts I haven't encountered before in a Lego set, but I checked with bricklink, and they do exist from Lego now:
- Slope 45 1 x 2 with Cutout without Stud
- Brick, Modified 1 x 4 with Masonry Profile (Brick Profile)
- Brick, Modified 1 x 1 x 1 2/3 with Studs on 1 Side
With my bricklink search I actually found out I own these Lego parts already, but haven't assembled the corresponding sets yet (Assembly Square & Ninjago City)
The overall main color of the tank is a light olive green with a "marble effect" camouflage pattern
(an effect which I only knew from Mega Bloks before, e.g. from their Call of Duty sets).
And many of the "black" parts are in a silvery metallic black.
But the finished model looks very good in this color scheme.
The set also includes a little diorama with a small building ruin and 5 heavily armed Lego-style minifigs.
As this model has apparently never been assembled in "real" Lego before, only digitally, many parts originally available from Lego in just one exclusive color appear in this XingBao set in various different colors, e.g.
"Plate, Round 1 x 1 with Handle" (only available in trans clear from Lego so far) or the "Lipstick with Handle" (previously only available from Lego in light bluish grey with a rubber tip in different reddish colors, but apparently now also available as a "solid" white version without a rubber tip). You also find some technic parts in colors not available from Lego (e.g. a "Technic, Pin 1/2" in black).
After the assembly, I had a whopping 53 spare parts left (going beyond the usual small 1x1 tiles, plates & technic parts), including 13 track links and 2 road wheels complete with rubber tyres.
The parts of the set came in numbered bags, ranging from 1 to 4, printed in a clearly readable white color on the bags (unlike previous XingBao/Lepin sets, which had the bag numbers printing in black, which were only visible after you had emptied the bag).
Quality issues:
- Some of the parts weren't deburred properly, but nothing a cutter knife can't fix
- Some minor scratches on the larger parts (mostly tiles)
- Sometimes the clutch was not sufficient, but you could exchange the affected parts with a similar ones until you found a combination with sufficient clutch.
Some minor issues, but they didn't spoil the overall positive impression of this set:
It was a pain in the a** putting all those rubber tyres on the 24 road wheels (the rubber tyres looks very small, so at first you think that they will never fit).
If you hold the tank in the air, the tracks run freely, but if you try to roll the tank on the ground, it won't roll properly, because some of the rubber tyres rub against the chassis. It's not that the tank doesn't roll at all, but you feel some friction resistance when pushing it.
The clutch of the hinges for the rear hatch is not sufficuent, so the hatch opens constantly (mostly due to the weight of the attached fuel tanks).
But I fixed this using some of the spare parts I had left, so not not a big problem.
The frontal armor plating of the turret couldn't be built as described in the (already corrected) building instructions.
The described method was technically impossible, you can't rotate a 1-stud-wide plate around a stud if there is a plate placed adjacent to that stud.
There is no room for the rotation, and so the tension between the parts was too high, so they kept popping off.
But with a simple modification (with parts from this set) I could solve this problem, and you do not see the difference, because the modification is just on the inside and cannot be noticed from the outside.
The instruction booklet has 61 pages, and came together with a correction leaflet (or should I say "poster"), containing 12 corrected pages, 6 on each side (in full scale).
But that didn't negatively influence the building process at all, because this a fantastic build and I had great fun assembling the set.
The design of this tank is awesome, using quite sophisticated building techniques and using some parts for a totally different purpose that they were orinally designed for.
Is has a detailed interior including the engine (and it's not as annoying to build as the interior of the Kazi tank sets).
But in my opinion the most astonishing thing about this tank is that the gunner's seat beneath the turret does rotate inside the tank together with the gunner minifig!
And the finished model, despite the sophisticated building technique and a lot of little details, is still quite sturdy and can be carried around without parts falling off
(Unlike XinBao's previous Russian military models designed by Andy Baumgart, which are very fragile and are almost impossible to finish, because once you think you have attached the last part, some parts have already fallen off again on another corner of the model)
Conclusion:
I would rate this set even higher than the Kazi Abrams tank, making this the best non-Cobi tank of my collection (followed by the Kazi Abrams and the Oxford Panther & Tiger)
