It's the time of year again. Several of us are organising a new LEGO Military Building competition over on
flickr. Here's Magnus Lauglo's announcement:
Greetings all! Springtime once again brings you the Military Building Competition!
Judging with me again this time are past Competition judges; 4 year judging veteran Chandler Parker, and military/automobile modeler extraordinaire Ralph Savelsberg (aka Mad physicist). We’re also happy to be joined this year by two highly respected and influential builders; the tireless Norwegian military building giant Aleksander Stein, and talented multitasker, and 2010 winner of Best in Show, Justin Vaughn (aka Mainman). Thanks also go out to Jas Nagra for once more providing Competition image and others who have offered to help out in various ways. I’m confident this crack squad of judges will pull off a great competition. Of course it’s really you guys who make the competition what it is, with all your inspiring military builds.
The categories we’ve chosen are based partly on feedback from the community, and partly on our own areas of building interest. As we’ve done in the past we’ve tried to come up with interesting themes and categories that will inspire new building, while staying close enough to familiar ground that everyone will have fun expanding on their favorite building themes. Whether you are a diehard era-specific model builder looking for something different, you enjoy designing your own military vehicles, or you like to stretch out with a big dio, you will find some exciting building options here. We’re including particular emphasis this year on building in various scales, but there are plenty of options for traditional minifig scale building as well.
Whether you are new to military building, or you’ve participated in these competitions in the past, we hope you’ll take a look at these building categories, and see what catches your eye:
Basic Rules The deadline for the competition is June 15, 2012. We will start accepting entries on April 15. So as soon as you hand in your tax returns, get building!
Entries should be posted to flickr, with at least one picture added to this group. In addition, you should enter them on the 2012 Competition entry thread.
Questions should be posted to the FAQ thread. You can also email one of the judges for the appropriate building category, but others may have the same question, so posting to the FAQ thread is usually going to be the way to go.
You may only enter new builds that have been specifically built for this competition
You may enter one build per category. You may enter as many categories as you like.
As like last year, you are encouraged to include specific builds in multiple categories. For example, you could include models or other vehicles in the Diorama or Forced Perspective entries.
BrickArms and other custom weapons are welcome, as are decals and stickers you make yourself. All basic building bricks should be official LEGO bricks.
Sponsors: We’re very grateful for once again being sponsored by BrickArms and BrickMania – so if you’d like to pick up a great WWII model tank or need some replicas of real life weaponry to arm your minifigs with, please consider checking out these guys and their excellent products.
Prizes: There will be prizes as always, and following past tradition we’ll wait to announce what those are specifically. But expect to see BrickMania and BrickArms products, as well as official Lego sets.
Building Categories: We have five main building themes and ten separate building categories. LegoJunkie had a go at all ten categories last year. Are there any heroic builders out there up to matching him this year?
Models - judged jointly by Mad Physicist and Mainman
1. Minifig+ scale Middle Eastern Aircraft The air forces of the world's major powers have become well-represented in the brick, but in today's world, air power ranges far and wide. For this theme, build an aircraft model at Minifig scale or larger based on an existing or historical aircraft used by a Middle-Eastern country's air force. Many of these aircraft were designed and built in the Soviet Union or the West, but each country has modified them to make them their own.
2. Minifig+ scale "Drawing Board" Armor Military history is replete with concepts which never hit the battlefield or even made it past a blueprint. In this category we'd like to see your (minifig-scale or larger) interpretation of just such an armored vehicle. It may be from any era, and for the purposes of this contest, can include concepts that were actually built as prototypes, but never saw large-scale production (such as the Panzer VIII Maus).
3. Microscale Heavy Aircraft While fighters often get the limelight, there is no denying the fact that they can't win the war alone. For this category we want to see your rendition of a heavy military aircraft such as a bomber, tanker, or transport, built at microscale (about 1:70 scale or smaller). While we aren't adhering strictly to the industry definition of "heavy," please note that large fighters like the Tu-28 and small transports like the C-23 will not be considered applicable. Large WWII bombers and transports are, however, welcome.
Minifig Scale Vehicles - judged jointly by Chandler Parker and Aleksander Stein
4. Light Utility Vehicle (LUV) During the ongoing conflict with their neighboring country Saradia, the Azmir Army have made heavy use of their Monitor Light Utility Vehicles, which are renowned for their high mobility and adaptability to a great number of front line- as well as rear echelon roles. However, the lightly armored Monitor LUVs have proven vulnerable to modern mines and IEDs, and while add-on armor retrofits have improved matters some, the need for a new vehicle specialized to counter modern battlefield threats has become ever more imperative. As plans are currently underway for a major amphibious assault on the Saradian east coast, the Azmir High Command has given the program to acquire a new light utility vehicle top priority.
Presenting the following set of requirements for their new LUVs to defense contractors worldwide, the Azmir Army are aiming at replacing their obsolete Monitor LUVs double-time prior to the planned assault:
Max. length: 18 studs
Max. width: 8 studs
Armament: HMG or AGL
Min. capacity: 1 + 2
5. Landing Craft In preparation for their amphibious assault on Saradia, the Azmir Navy has issued an urgent requirement for a new class of landing craft to supplement their small and aging collection of vessels. Open to defense contractors worldwide to develop, the vessel must have a vehicle bay large enough to accommodate the new LUV that’s to be developed concurrently. It also needs to be able to defend itself, so at least one heavy machine gun should be mounted.
Required vehicle bay dimensions: 8x18 studs
Min. armament: 1x HMG
Microscale Non-Model Vehicle - judged jointly by Aleksander Stein and Magnus Lauglo
Most builders tend to build in minifig scale, and with the wonderful range of figs out there to populate your own world it's no wonder. But we want to see what you can do on a much smaller scale. By taking the figs out of the equation, you don't have to build around their chunky inhuman dimensions, and by making everything smaller, you can come up with cool looking MOCs using fewer bricks, and perhaps use bricks in new ways.
We're aiming for a scale just under half of minifig scale, imagine a person being between 5 and 6 plates high, and a large armored vehicle like a main battle tank being about 4 studs wide. Think you can throw together a little jeep in half an hour for this? Think again. We want you to build either a small faction of vehicles, or a large transportation vehicle big enough to carry another smaller vehicle.
6. Mini Faction Build a small collection of 3-5 ground-based self designed vehicles (not models) that look like they are all in the same faction. We're open to a wide variety of styles here (cold war style, steampunk, modern, near future, sci-fi), but they should all be in the same aesthetic style. Pay attention to coloring and camouflage, and feel encouraged to make use of interesting small elements. What you might use for a greeble on a minifig scale vehicle might make a great larger detail on a 3-4 wide vehicle.
7. Transport Vehicle Build some kind of larger transportation vehicle that has space to transport one or more small vehicles in or on it. Examples could be landing boat, a heavy truck, or a transport plane.
If you've always wanted to build a heavy transport chopper, but didn't want to try out something that big, it's a lot more manageable if you do it in microscale. Again, we're fairly open to style here, so if you've always wanted to build a dropship to land your hover tank, or a train to move your steampunk tank, here's your chance to do that in microscale. Of course, more traditional modern military building is perfectly fine. You can build your transportation vehicle inspired by a real life vehicle, but we're not looking for a model of an actual Osprey or anything like that.
Minifig scale Diorama - judged jointly by ChandlerParker and Magnus Lauglo
Like last year, we are going to give you two thematic options for the dio category, and then judge the dios against one another based on size rather than theme. The dios will be placed in a size category as follows:
Small dio: 32by32 studs (minimum) up to 48 by 48 studs (maximum)
Large dio: larger than 48 by 48 studs.
Dios that are not built on baseplates, and perhaps have jagged edges and so forth are welcome but we ask that you provide us with pictures that demonstrate what the dimensions are so we know which category to fairly judge them within.
8. "What If"- alternative reality history Here's your chance to build a dio of a historical battle or other military scene that never happened. What if the Germans had won the Battle of Britain and it was the Brits who were defending themselves against a cross-channel invasion? What if the Warsaw Pact and NATO had ended up in a real shooting war in the '70s? What if the Argentinians had sunk one of the British carriers in 1982, how would the land war have gone on the Falklands? This lends itself well to models of real life vehicles rather than self-disigned vehicles. Although if you want to give us your take on a German tank designed ca 1947 that's fine too.
9. "Battlefield 2052" - sci fi /futuristic military style Military technology advances all the time. What will the battlefield look like 50 years from today? Will wars be fought exclusively with advanced unmanned vehicles, will there still be functioning AKs lying around, or (most ominous) will we be back to sticks and stones? What do you think? And will we still fight over the same things? Or will people fight over control of resources that are plentiful today? Build a dio of battle or military scene based on a scenario half a century from today.
Other - judged jointly by Mad Physicist and Mainman
10. Forced Perspective This category was introduced two years ago with some very fun and inventive results. Build a military MOC using at least two different scales to create the illusion of depth. As before, there are no restrictions on size, scale, or theme, and you are welcome to use entries from other contest categories as part of your FP MOC. Be creative, bring your A-game, and wow us!
