Best Lego Sets For Men 10 Awesome Lego Sets Every Grown Man Should Have This article was originally published by AskMen UK. Everyone knows it’s acceptable for us grown-ups to get stuck into some Lego. It's the reason your parents bought it for you as a child and it's also the reason you'll buy it for your own offspring. With increasingly sophisticated models and the kind of geek-tastic products that have adult men salivating in toy shop windows (see just about every bit of Star Wars kit ever produced), Lego has come to combine two of the greatest pleasures known to man – taking on a project and wallowing in nostalgia. With this in mind, we’ve enlisted the help of top AFOL (adult fan of Lego) and editor of Bricks magazine, Mark Guest, to run down some of greatest sets known to mankind. Some will test the limits of your construction skills, others will simply appeal to your inner nerd – all are worthy of serious man-points. Time to start bricking it.
In order to compile a list of the biggest and most challenging Lego sets, it was necessary to narrow down the criteria. First, the sets have to be mass produced by LEGO. In other words, we’re not considering any giant custom sets like the 6-meter Death Star Trench or insane 150,000 piece recreation of Helm’s Deep from Lord of the Rings. Second, we excluded expandable sets such as the Modular Building series that you can keep adding on to like the Town Hall (10224), Green Grocer (10185), and the newly released Palace Cinema (10232) that can be combined together to lay out enormous Lego city scenes. Furthermore, to define what we mean by “biggest” the list considers those Lego sets with the largest amounts of pieces and/or final completed size of the set. As far as “challenging,” most of the sets listed below are suggested for builders aged 16 or older, although I’ve personally seen kids half that age cranking out 1,000+ piece sets with hardly any difficulty. Some of the sets listed below are still available at Lego stores worldwide, while some are out of production.
But you may find retired sets listed for outrageous prices on Amazon or eBay, though, those ones are arguable the best LEGO sets. Once Lego stops selling an item, or if produced in limited quantities, third parties grab those products and jack up the price depending on demand. You’ll find Lego sets a purchase limit per customer on certain items. Last week we created a list of must-have movie-themed Lego sets. Now, here’s a list of the most challenging and biggest lego sets, ordered somewhat subjectively but with consideration of total number of pieces combined with level of difficulty. By the way, the number in the parenthesis represents the Item Number in case you decide to go on a hunt for one of these Lego sets. It’d be hard to argue against Lego’s Star Wars Collector’s Millennium Falcon as being one of the most challenging and largest Lego sets (it also probably ranks as our #1 LEGOs for adults). The $499 Millennium Falcon is suggested for ages 16-years and older but younger kids can probably get through it with some supervision.
The highly detailed scale model is made up of a whopping 5,195 pieces but only 5 mini-figures including Luke, Princess Leia, Han, Chewbacca, and a stormtrooper. Why the set doesn’t include C-3PO and R2-D2 mini-figures is sort of a mystery (weren’t they on the Falcon during the mission to rescue Leia?), but nevertheless the ship itself is more than enough to focus on. The Collector’s Millennium Falcon was released in 2007 and retired in 2010, but remains the most-expensive mass-produced Lego set to date. If you need a little break from science fiction-based Star Wars sets you can jump into an architectural project building the Taj Mahal. The $299 set gives you more bang for your buck than the Collector’s Millennium Falcon, boxing a total of 5,922 pieces (about 700 more than the Falcon). What also makes this set a bit more of a challenge for builders is that all the pieces are all generally the same color. This makes it especially difficult for those who like to dump all their Lego pieces into a pile rather than build bag-by-bag.
Puzzle builders will attest to the difficulty of puzzles that don’t vary too much in color or patterns. The Lego model of the famous Taj Mahal palace in India was released in 2008. The Super Star Destroyer is a massive Lego set with 3,152 pieces and five mini-figures including Darth Vader, Admiral Piett, Dengar, Bossk and IG-88. You’ll spend most of your time building the interior structure of this ship (which in the end you don’t even see), but the results are an extraordinary detailed rendition of the massive ship from the Star Wars saga that measures almost 50-inches and weighs almost 8 pounds. The Super Star Destroyer sells for $399 US.Click here to see our updated list for 2017 We include in our list of Legos for adults the most complicated Lego sets, along with classy sets that will give you a nice desk piece when complete. ArchitectureTechnic1000+ Pieces2000+ PiecesUnder $100Under $200 9SEE IT NOW 1SEE IT NOW 2SEE IT NOW Price, Info, & Pics Price, Info, & Pics
Every person had a favorite toy when they were young. Some of us cherished our bicycles and skateboards. Some of us got down with basketball, football, or soccer. Others were video games nerds. But here at Cool Material, we’re in unanimous agreement—our favorite childhood toys of all time were our LEGO sets. We look back fondly on the hours spent building castles, engineering bridges, and even laying the foundation for entire small towns. They were a blast. But as we got older, our grand LEGO sets slowly disappeared from the picture, and instead were replaced by other, more “adult” things: automobiles, girls, and jobs. Well, today, we’re taking a stand. You think LEGOs are just for kids? We think that’s bullshit! Here are 8 LEGO sets for every guy who clicking Danish blocks together as a kid. What makes this kit awesome, aside from its impeccable detail and 2,793 individual pieces, is that it comes with a full pneumatic system, which allows you to control the outriggers, crane arm, claw, and bed.
It also features a fully independent suspension, a detailed engine with moving pistons, a detailed and complete driver cab and dashboard, and all the other small details you’d expect from a kit as advanced as this. The Taj Mahal is one of the greatest monuments mankind’s ever built. Not only is it a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it is, for all intents and purposes, a priceless piece of world history, and all of it just to entomb an emperor’s favorite wife. Most of us only get one wife, and we still wouldn’t do that for her. Also, how shitty would it be to be any of his other wives? LEGO did the architectural wonder total justice with their rendition. With 5,922 pieces that come together and fill in the details of the base, minarets, domes, finials, arches, and stairs of the grand Taj Mahal, it is far and away one of the most difficult kits to assemble. And with a price tag of at least three grand (no, seriously), it’s also one of the spendiest. If you’re involved in the LEGO building community at all, you’ll know that it’s one that celebrates innovation and beautiful design.
Self-made kits are called My Own Creations, or MOCs for short. MOC Nation is a website dedicated to bringing the best MOCs in the world to the mainstream. We’ve covered them before, so here’s that if you missed it. This Red Fox, created by Felix Jaensch is a 638-piece kit that’s challenging enough to take time and patience, but beautiful (and small) enough to look good as a presentation piece in an office, home, or studio. We absolutely love watching things like this come to fruition, and not just because we’re always trolling Kickstarter for the latest and greatest projects. The Cyclone Roller Coaster is fun, educational, and complex, but not too complicated. It’s compatible with regular LEGOS, and the more kits you buy, the more you can build. The mechanism is simple and is exactly how regular roller coasters work: A chain lift carries the coaster to its peak, where it drops and coasts through the course. You can add hills or bumps, create ledges and plateaus, and see what works versus what doesn’t.
When people think “Ferrari,” a rigid, boxy LEGO kit is probably the last thing that comes to mind. Ferraris are some of the most beautifully engineered cars on the entire planet, and the F40 is special because it was not only a celebration of the Italian super car manufacturer’s 40th birthday, but also the very last Ferrari model approved by the one and only Enzo Ferrari. This LEGO kit is superbly detailed and although it’s just 3 inches high, 10 inches long, and 5 inches wide, it is made of more than 1,150 pieces that help detail everything from its legendary 478-bhp turbocharged v8, to its detailed, authentic interior. Another discontinued gem from the LEGO Creator series, this scale retro MINI Cooper features everything from a detailed engine compartment, to opening doors, hood, and trunk, and even houses a spare wheel in a separate compartment—just like the original MINI Cooper it emulates. It also comes complete with a little picnic set, a pop-off roof, fold-down seats, and an impeccably detailed interior section.
We’re super impressed with this one, and we think you will be, too. And since we’re on a car kick right now, why not finish it off with the crème de la crème of detailed replicas—LEGO’s Volkswagen T1 Camper Van. This thing comes with the works. The iconic hubcap wheels and V-shape front color split, the rounded pop-up roof, the classic “splittie” safari windshield, roof rack, side air intake vents, real textile curtains, authentic VW air-cooled flat four, and a detailed interior like nothing we’ve ever seen—INCLUDING A FUCKING LAVA LAMP AND T-SHIRT THAT SAYS, “MAKE LEGOS NOT WAR.” You’ll have a smile on your face for all 1,334 pieces of this iconic retro classic. This thing right here? This thing right here, ladies and gentlemen, is a goddamn LEGO strip club. No, that’s not a misprint, and you didn’t misread us—it’s a strip club, complete with a full color printed box, working LED lights, hologram foil-stamped wall pieces, four exclusive mini LEGO figures, bundles of LEGO money, and a stripper pole for your sexy yellow brick people.