LEGO Thursday: Mail Order Loot

Not much to this with this week's post. When the castle sets of 2007 came out, I was blown away, I was excited about LEGO again (eh, it comes and goes I guess). The biggest change was that they added actual fantasy elements to their tried and true medieval-based range.

Skeletons were no longer flavor text inanimate objects lying in a dungeon cell, but an undead race with necromancers and skeletal steeds! They might've called the greenskins "trolls" for copyright reasons, but we all know they were LEGO Orcs. And then they made me very happy indeed with the introduction of LEGO Dwarves.

The line was a little too short-lived for my tastes, but my wallet is thankful for it at least. This all came out about a year before I started Mik's Minis, but I was still photographing this stuff. I knew I wanted to review it, or whatever, but unsure of the format. In a sense you are looking at photos of what is a proto-Mik's Minis.


Yup, Battle Packs were another cool idea, I have no idea why they've been abandoned now. Here's one good guy and one bad guy battle pack of reinforcement troops. Also is a very cool jousting duel set between a human and an undead.

I'm Thankful For...

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim!


The bulk of the work is done on the game-room remodel!


My big ole stack of paperbacks to read this holiday season!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

LEGO Thursday: Guardians of the Terrible Tower

More from last week's LEGO post, these are closeup photos of the denizens of the tower itself. If you didn't read that post you may want a refresher now. When I took these photos I had intended to make up little stat cards of each villain that had their photo on it, weapons, equipment, treasure, damage, and other stats.






I like the way this one turned out, the sun made the 'space rocks' look cool

Deleted Scenes and Bonus Material

So I'm adding a new feature, or rather a new way to share items here to Mik's Minis. With a whopping thousand posts on the horizon there's bound to be stuff that gets left behind, lots of stuff actually, and that's where this idea comes into play.

Think of it as Mik's Minis Mobile, I'm going to complement material here with material there. Basically I'm using a smart phone app called Instagram, which does what I want it to do and that is to post photographs in the same vein that Twitter posts messages.

I take a lot of photos with my phone, and a large number of them become posts here actually. But there's even more that never go anywhere, until now.

I like how bloggers like Tristan accompanies his GWPertinent with Twitter, as did the late Meatball over at My Dice Hate Me. So I'm going to do the same thing, but use photos instead of messages as the whole "a picture is worth a thousand words".

You can follow me directly on Instagram, if you have that app, but if not you can just as easily follow through Twitter. What happens on Twitter is that a link comes up when I post, which takes you directly to the photo in question. Just photos, no text unless it's a reply to someone else. It's pretty much always going to be gaming related, well, as much gaming related as this blog is anyway so if you like it here, you may like it there.

Twitter is, well, Twitter. You should know what to do there. Instagram is a smart phone app, once installed it's self-explanatory. My username for both is cygnus46, enjoy!

LEGO Thursday: The Terrible Tower of Terror

I wanted to build a tower, so I did. I wanted it stocked with all kinds of bad guys, so there they are. I wanted to be an epic type of tower along the lines of a TARDIS where each level of the tower is like a mini-realm rules over by one key figure. The thing is I envisioned this not so much for a fantasy setting, but something more akin to the post-apocalypse, ala Thundarr the Barbarian, maybe a Gamma World game.

Basically it would be similar to a super-mega dungeon module that takes characters from first to tenth level or something. I didn't know where I was going with it at the time, but that was the general idea. There was also going to be a mysterious 'space rock' or element or ore or something that was super rare and super powerful. The higher up you went in the tower, the more space rock the bad guys had access to. Of course at the top of the tower, protected by all the levels below it, is the sentient space rock matriarch.

First stop, undead weapon-master level (the space rock is his brain!)

Next level, the dual-hammer guy (the space rock is a fine dust in his re-breather!)

Next up is vicious lizard-wizard with a small hunk of space rock

Cyborg space-rock-a-mancer with an even bigger chunk of space rock

The brothers of science, with their techno-wizardry weaponry

The liche, with a whole staff made of space rock

Vampire lord with spider-venom wrist gun and white space rock wand

[insert cool name of sentient, psychic space rock matriarch here]

The triple-T tower showing you its backside

Certified Zombie Ammunition

Zombies are hot right now, and not just in our gaming sphere, nor entertainment media...the firearms industry is taking notice as well. Welcome to Hornady's new line of Zombie Max bullets. As it says on the front of the box; these are not toys.


So you know what you're getting into, the box is clearly labeled "certified zombie ammunition". Not just your generic Zed-head 'sploders such as heavy hollow points, Z-Max are the pinnacle in Undead defense and come in a large variety of calibers.


I gotta say it is very refreshing to see a serious product, such as real life bullets which really aren't anything but serious, being given such a fanciful treatment. Especially this "Zombie 101" crash course posted on the back of the box!


These particular specimens come in the .40 cal variety, but there are all kinds of Zombie Max ammo available; two different assault rifle rounds in very common calibers, sniper rifle ammo, shotgun slugs, and three different types of pistol ammo. If you can find it in the rubble of a Zombpocalypse ravaged city, chances are there's a ZMax round for you.

Left to right; ZMax, target round, and defensive hollow point

As you can see above, the ZMax has a very pointy, ballistic tip to it, which is an interesting configuration for being a hollow point. In the middle is a standard "semi wadcutter" round that you would see for every day use like recreation shooting and target practice. Finally the right shows a heavier bullet packing a large cavity hollow point.


The green impact tip on the ZMax round is very unique in that it does some kinetic mumbo-jumbo that makes for lots of "boom" action. Frankly, it just looks cool and green is my favorite color.

The zombies that these rounds are designed for will never know what hit them. The large hollow point on the right would still be put to excellent use in defense of the undead (so will the middle round for that matter) so the bottom line is that in the case of Zombolocaust, you've got choices.

Everyone comes out a winner, and in zombie terms winner = survivor.

LEGO Thursday: Smallworks iPhone Case

There be studs!

I recently picked up an excellent iPhone case made by Smallworks. They have three colors available; white, black, and clear (which is what I got). If you look at iPhone cases and protectors out there you'll find that twenty bucks is not only a good price but comparably cheap! Of course the bottom line for me is that this thing has LEGO-compatible studs.


The case itself is a solid, clear plastic. It snaps onto your phone with incredible ease and once it's "clicked" into place, it is not going anywhere. Installation is incredibly simple.

As for the quality of the case as a protection item, it's solidly built and although I haven't dropped my phone, this seems it will save your corners at the very least.

As for looks, LEGO studs aside, it has nice and clean overall lines. The clear is kind of a nice touch too and allows you to see the phone underneath instead of covering it up.



I keep two flat 1x3's on the back of my phone all the time. I could probably take this a step further and use smooth pieces instead. Anyway, they stay on my phone and I don't notice them there, but when I need them I just pop them off and stick them on as shown above. This creates an instant easel on the back of your phone making a handy way to watch your favorite episodes of classic Star Trek, as shown below.




I have a feeling that there may be a good deal of LEGO Thursday posts in the future will involve builds around and on top of my phone. Until then I just whipped these up to give you and idea of some possibilities. Above you've got the "lizard suit" mini-fig, sitting on top of a picture of...himself.


Who needs satellite phones when you can put an actual satellite station on your phone! When I've got this antennae affixed I get really amazing range.

So there you have it, the Smallworks case is a great buy at twenty bucks simply as an iPhone protector. Throw in the fact that it's compatible with your LEGOs, and you've really got a case that's way too cool to pass up. Wired magazine said it best, "SmallWorks’ BrickCase is just like any other iPhone 4 case, except for one thing: the addition of awesomeness.”

The Shelves are History

More work continues in the game room. Since it's a 'do it yourself' project, it's kind of slow going. The shelves are gone, they are officially a thing of the past. To be perfectly clear, they came out way too easily.


It was very apparent that I had not used long enough dry wall screws to secure them and only the side brackets were holding them in place. Once I popped the shelves up, they literally just slid right out of the wall with little to no resistance. Lesson learned and I thank the Dice Gods immensely for allowing me to escape a catastrophe all these years.


This pile is the last vestige of the work desk, now shunted to a pile in the garage. What do I spy? I spy a zombpocalypse survivor, a Harlequin for Tristan, and Deathwatch Librarian sporting both object-source lighting and non-metal metallics among others.


I don't know why I like taking these pictures but I find some sort of morbid fascination in seeing a lifetime of hobby stuff just heaped in piles and piles upon each other where my car should be instead. It's like a "Where's Waldo" of the gaming world.


Here's a gaggle of completed and painted figs from those shelves. I have a bunch in foam storage as well. They'll return to their display glory soon enough, until then it's off to the garage with ye!