Review LEPIN 18008 – The Village

It’s review time again

I was Minecraft fan of the first hour, I searched the game for hours every day and realized many ingenious projects. Gradually, the desire subsided, which was due to the lack of time due to the work. Meanwhile, I play Minecraft only very rarely, but quite a few hours at a time.
Le..g0-Minecraft had irritated me in the beginning somehow, but I think the sets are pretty overpriced, which is also due to the license fees and the many printed parts.
When Le..g0 then announced the big village, I was blown away, at least until I saw the price of a proud € 200. Also used it cost around 180 €, so I put the money in other things.
Then a few weeks ago, Lepin announced sets to Minecraft. And lo and behold: The Minecraft village for 70 € including shipping was there. So forever wondering if I really need the village until I found it even cheaper at a provider. Then I thought only: Come, just order now.

Said and done. A week later the village was there. Actually unbelievable, because the dealer had only 83% positive reviews
Secretly, I said goodbye again from the cheap village and had finalized with the topic until I then saw that the stored tracking number actually works and the package was already in Leipzig

First impression:

Although the village only consists of 1673 stones, the package was still a lot bigger and heavier than the modular creator houses. Reason: Hardly any small parts, a lot of big stones and plates. Some of the creator houses consist of more than 2300 bricks, almost half of which are small items.

Again, no strange smell, everything seemed high quality. The stones were quite cleverly sorted by color and size. Thus, the presorting was very easy.

Assembly:

Quite undemanding, but thanks to the big stones, you can move quickly. Every section of the village is subdivided. So the construction begins with the small market hut on the left, over the blacksmith building, then to the library, to the watchtower, etc … Gradually the village grows and in the end, you have a big puzzle in front of you. As I said: right Undemanding, but still fun.

Instructions & Figures:

There are a whole bunch of figures, although you have to assemble some figures yourself like the iron golem or the pigs. Too bad that there are only 2 villagers (the one with the big nose), although there are 4 buildings in the village. Strictly speaking, there are 3 villagers, only one has already been turned into a zombie
Anyone who is unfamiliar with Minecraft now thinks at the latest: “What is he talking about?”

Especially cool I think the big white iron golem, which consists of rich 6 perfectly printed stones. Also, the Enderman (black stick figure) is very cool. I was surprised that his legs are a special part. I thought you build it from several stones together.
By the way, Eisengolem, the 2 villagers and the zombie have exactly the same head, only other colors. May sound lazy, but in the game, it is the same. Everything is great.

There were no problems with the manual. Very high quality, no misprints and thanks to the many colorful stones, there was not the famous “black or dark gray?” – Problem.

Quality; missing & damaged parts:

In fact, some parts were missing this time, but nothing earth-shattering. The small vegetable field was missing 2, no idea how to call it, “greens / grass rods”. Inside the building were missing 3-4 gray stones and a window.
It’s a great pity that my zombie villagers’ eyes are a little unsuccessful. Instead of clear red dots as a pupil, mine has rather red blurry spots. I’ll probably have to help out with a very fine brush and devilish varnish.
A pig missing a pink plate, which unfortunately I could not replace and must order with the next Bricklink order.

The Minecraft Village is one of the newest Lepin sets and I notice that all transparent parts are completely free of scratches and do not look like milky at all. Qualitatively, Lepin has made a step forward here too.

Conclusion:

For Minecraft fans, there is definitely a buy recommendation. The Minecraft village is quite large and what I find particularly beautiful: very colorful, but dominate green and dark orange, which I find personally but especially good. The many colorful figures provide again for color variety.

Generally, the set looks very friendly and inviting for children. The houses can be opened, the figures can be placed anywhere, the (very well done) doors work flawlessly.

The village is really simple and apart from the blacksmith building, whose roof can be folded back, no complex building techniques. This can quickly become boring for many.

Personally, I’m a bit divided: On the one hand, the village is pretty big, comes very close to his game model, has great characters and is wonderfully colorful.
On the other hand, as already mentioned, it is kept extremely simple and artificially elongated by the side plates. Only these plates make the village seem so big, without the plates it seems, in my opinion, more like a 100 € set (if it were from Le..g0). The puzzle system also makes sure that you can not carry the village. If you want to move it from one room to the next, you can walk back and forth 4 times because there is no base plate.

In the end, I can say: For the very low price you can not complain absolutely. But I would have spent 200 ¬ for it … eh, I would honestly be annoyed somehow, because the price is in my opinion far too high and the set is not fair.

But since we are talking about the cheap Lepin variety, there are a thumbs up

PS: Pay close attention to the pictures and the number of stones when buying. There are 2 different Minecraft villages from Lepin: The complete of my pictures and a smaller one, which lacks the right building.