Lego Review: 10235 Winter Village Market

So here we have it, the Winter Village Market, the first of my large holiday themed sets for this month, and my first major purchase in the Lego line of holiday releases.

This set was originally released in October of 2013, and as of this blog post, is officially sold out at the Lego Store, although it still looks like it's available from Toys R Us. It's almost funny, I used to hate Toys R Us because of their insane mark up, but they do manage to keep things in stock longer than Lego does, and since they started price matching, I find it much more enjoyable to shop there. You can also check Amazon, but be wary as I've seen it listed for less than MSRP and much more in the last week or so.

With all this said, if you can find the Winter Village Market, it's a great deal for it's $99.99 price tag, coming with over 1200 pieces and nine Minifigures. Although I must admit, once I opened the set and started combing through the pieces, I was a little disappointed to see that the majority of the pieces were 1x1 round studs. Not that it matters, everything in this set still comes together wonderfully.

As with most sets, the "difficulty" tends to come from the time it takes to put the pieces together, as it's pretty simple to follow the instructions. But recently, as I've been getting into the Creator line, it almost seems like Lego is trolling us by either not numbering the bags, like they did with the T1 Camper Van, or labeling three bags Number 1 and six bags Number 2, as they did in this set.

Which, again, isn't a big deal, it just means that time has to be devoted to separating pieces as well as putting everything together. And Lego was kind enough to somewhat to separate the builds, as the bags labeled "1" contained pieces for the market stands, and the bags labeled "2" contained pieces for the carousel.

So while I got away with simply dumping the contents for the stands, since the builds were much smaller, and going from there,

There was no way I would've been able to do the same for the carousel, so I separated the pieces like so, 

Which was time consuming, but made things a whole lot easier.

Now that I've got that out of the way, let's talk about the Minifigures before we move on to the actual build.

As I said earlier, this set comes with nine Minifigures; five adults and four kids, with a few accessories scattered between them,

For past reviews, I taken individual pictures of the minis, but since these aren't licensed characters, I figured that was unnecessary. According to the instructions, going from left to right, we have the lady that runs the candy stand, a grill master, the guy that operates the carousel, a market patron, and the person who runs the baked goods stand. I love the way these minis look, and definitely think the grill master looking like Chef Paul Prudhomme was done on purpose rather than on accident. And I really like the purse on the patron. I'm seriously thinking of grabbing the camera from my J. Jonah Jameson minifigure and giving it to her, since it really looks like it fits her personality.

Along with the adults, we also get four kids and a little kitty to enjoy the Market festivities.

There isn't anything too exciting here, and their accessories are really just parts of the set, like a cup or extra cupcakes, but it still works here. And since there are four kids, and four spots on the carousel, the adults can just dump them off while they enjoy a nice sausage or croissant.

Moving on to the actual builds of this set, we get three stands; a park bench, a few barrels/tables, and of course, the carousel.

The barrels are pretty simple and aren't tied to any particular stand, so you can move them around as you see fit.

The park bench is also a fairly simple build, as is the street lamp that comes with it.

Here we have the baked goods stand. I like the way this build incorporated hinge joints and plates, tilting the counter top to better show off the baked goods. As you can see, this stand comes with a couple croissants, a pie, and cupcakes that are ingeniously put together by using a brown upper bracelet part and a pink 1x1 round stud.

Next up is the barbecue stand, which has a couple studs available on the counter top to accommodate a few mugs, and has a grill in the back to allow the grill master to set down his sausage and chicken leg so he can enjoy the festivities.

And finally we have the candy stand, which comes with a couple lollipops and other candies to be enjoyed.

You've probably noticed that there isn't much to these builds, as they're pretty small. That's because the real meat of this set is the carousel.

It's simply stunning to look at, and the way it actually functions via the crank on top of the stand next to it is brilliant.  Now, I'm not going to say this build wasn't tedious, because there are a lot of small pieces to put together, and since the build is fairly symmetrical, there are plenty of instances where you have to construct something x4, but in the end it's all worth it, since this piece is fantastic.

I've included a gif of the carousel being built so you can see how it comes together. I actually find doing this rather fun, so expected to see more gifs in the future. I may even upgrade to doing full on videos, but we'll see, as it's easier to snap pictures when you can instead of recording video for hours at a time.

The Verdict

When all's said and done, I'm really happy with this set. I wish it wasn't the first addition from the Winter Village line to my collection, but I'm happy I was able to get it before it sold out from Lego. not that I mind buying from Amazon, but VIP points are a hell of an incentive to pay full price for something.

Now that this is built, I have to find space in my house to put it on display throughout the holidays. And I'm super thankful that I'll only have one kid coming through my house this Christmas, upping my chances on keeping this baby intact.