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Weekly Set Review: Bull's Attack

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 3:14 am
by architect
Please post your opinions on the set play ability, piece selection, design, etc. Which sets stand up to our catapult of critique and which ones crumble in shame!

This week's set is 6096 Bull’s Attack.

Bull’s Attack, an impressive siege weapon collection, was released in 2000. It features two catapults, a canon, a battering ram/siege tower, a knight, two soldiers, and one prisoner.

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Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 3:50 am
by Charlie
First off, I would like to say that I think this was was far too overpriced. I think it sold for around $50 or so. I got mine on clearance and only paid around $20, which is alright for this set.

Once everything was built There was one thing that I noticed, you can't really do much with this set unless you have some sort of Castle or city to attack. I guess that is the purpose, but still, pretty boring by itself.

Sure it has a "cannon" and the main siege tower has a platform on top that can move, but there is only so much you can do without another set.

One thing that I was happy with was some of the parts that came with it. The new (3 years ago) wheel design I think is a nice change. It comes with quite a few Horse bardings (I think thats their name) a decent selection of minifigs and weapons.

I didn't keep the set built how it was supposed to for any more than 10 minute, I took it apart and Incorporated the parts into my collection.

Overall everything is just too skimpy, and doesn't sit well with me. At $50 I would rather buy the Black Falcons Fortress, or the Blacksmith Shop. Those offer you much much more substance for the price.

Personally I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, even at the $20 or so I paid for it I wasn't too satisfied.

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 4:30 am
by Troy
ACK!

I've still got all the black swivel door frames that came in this set! What were they thinking? A horrible design decision to use them instead of regular bricks.

Troy

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 5:50 am
by dookie
A lot of siege weaponry and too little minifigures.

However, I believe playability would score high up the charts provided you also have a castle, fortified base or enough minifigures to satisfy the powerful shot of the Cyberslam-Missile-Pod that looks more like a ballista.

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 6:36 am
by ottoatm
Similiar to what has already been said... nothing to do with the set by itself... also, it really could have used a lot more small pieces, the battering ram seems kind of flimsy... I do like the bulls minifigs (though), so not a complete loss for me..

poor set, too poor to be worth my money

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 12:53 pm
by Glencaer
I usually dislike chimming in on sets I haven't owned.. but Bull's Attack.. my Wal-Mart had them on clearance for years and couldn't sell them. I looked the set over many times, and each time put it back cause it wasn't worth my money.

Why?

Well, my big reason is this: There are more seige weapons than there are attackers!! Three Bull minifigs versus four main seige weapons? It alone highlights the error of the KK line of LEGO : they emphasized so much on characters, that they couldn't make an "extra" a random basic Bull or Lion that could be added to fill in a set (like two extra Bulls would have made this a much better set for the cost). In other words, LEGO filled in so much story, they there was little room for imagination to come in!

What I love about the basic smiley is that it is a perfect "Anyperson" - and with using cool body pieces and hair pieces, you can construct your own character.

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 1:26 pm
by architect
Wow, I go to bed last night and look at all of the posts now! :D

Lenny is correct. There are not enough attackers to man the siege weapons. Nothing would stop King Leo's men from swooping down and capturing a few siege weapons. The jail inside the siege weapon was not a good idea.

I agree that this set was over priced. I also do not like the smaller catapult with its premade throwing arm. Eliminated a catapult and give them 3 to 4 more siege weapon workers and the set would be improved. Troy is right about the black door frames. Otherwise I thought the set had decent pieces, just not for $50

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2003 2:45 pm
by Jojo
Hello!


This set would have been a not so bad addition to the Bulls theme. Unfortunatelly it was not just an additional set but even the Bulls' basic set, sort of their "Castle". Even that alone is inappropriate.

The set itself has some nice parts (arches, wooden wheels, light grey roundbricks, minifigs) but doesn't show nice models. I don't like all those mixed colours within one model as long with monofunctional parts like this huge catapult arm. Darn juniorisation.
Maybe there is good play value for kids but the siege weapons don't exactly look realistic.

So as a stand-alone set for $50 it's bad, as a parts source for $20 it may be OK.


Bye
Jojo

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Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2003 1:57 pm
by INTENSS
Just as Jojo alluded to, this set was meant to be the MAIN Bulls set. If that's the case, then this set needed some more minifigs. I remedied the base problem by constructing a dark, dreary, rock formation that was used as a base for these barbarians - including tortue chambers and the like. :D

I remember buying this set for the first time at FULL PRICE and thinking, Megablocks....only 4 minifigs?? I liked hte siege tower, and actually I thought the weapons had pretty good detail. What annoyed the Megablocks out of me though were the stationary catapults (!!). Can we at least have some wheels for $50!!! Lots of weapons, and you get a Bulls flag. Not a HORRIBLE set, but not worth $50. I later got another one on clearance. :wink:

-Rich

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2003 11:52 am
by David Girard
This is a not so bad set. It has a nice look too. But it need more minifigs. The fact that this is the main set of this faction is terrible. Only 4 minifigs. One in each machine, no one on the horse. How can only one person can push a siege tower ? This set needed at least 6 minifigs. 8 could be great.

However the variety of piece are good. You can build many alternative set with it. And there is place here for your imagination. But you need to have other sets to play with 6096. :?

8/10

Posted: Thu Sep 25, 2003 9:43 pm
by Troy T. Moore
My complaints and compliments have already been covered. Main ones; black door frames galore-ugh!!! and I too waited until it was on for clearance price. I do like the leg armour on the "prisoner". With a bit of changing one could have a realistic siege tower. A battering ram would not be incorporated into one in period. I am not a fan of gunpowder in my castle play, so the cannon isn't much use to me.

Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2003 3:53 am
by rogue27
Definitely not worth $50. I got mine for $25, built it, then took it apart for parts immediately.

I like the wheels used in this set.

I dislike the faces on most of the Bulls figures.
I dislike the catapult arm.
I dislike the firing cannon.
How can they attack when some of the siege weapons are stationary?
How can they charge so much for a bunch of siege weapons and then not have a castle to attack? Knight's Stronghold and Battering Ram were much better priced and much more playable.
A faction that doesn't even have a stronghold or fortress of some type is pretty sad. It's like they don't have homes or anything and their entire community is just a bunch of men with missing eyes who sit around building ridiculous siege weapons all day long.

Why so many juniorized pieces? They can't give us more pitchforks, but they can make new molds for juniorized pieces that just aren't needed.

Actually, I think the new catapult arm exists because the old plate hinges are no longer made and they needed something.

Anyway, this set sucks, but if you can get it for $25 or less, it's okay for parts.

Posted: Wed May 25, 2005 6:05 pm
by Formendacil
Well, I'm not normally a thread-bumper, but I wanted to compile all of my set reviews together (thus far), and see which one I had rated the highest...

Then I realised that I only joined a year ago, so there were quite a few old threads that I hadn't reviewed, and there are quite a few users newer than me who had never reveiwed these old threads either. So look for a couple of old set reviews per week. Unless, of course, the admins prefer not to see them at all...

Anyway, the oldest set review thread that I saw was this one, Bull's Attack. It is, in my opinion, a pretty useful set for weapons, and all the figs are good. But there are several useless pieces, and I really must concur that they're aren't enough figs.

I managed to pick up one of these on sale for about $35.00 (Canadian), but I wouldn't have paid the full price. Even at this, it was only just reasonable. Still, if I had the opportunity, I would get more, oxymoronic as that sounds...

Parts: 8/10
Playability: 7.5/10
Figs/Accessories: 8.5/10
Design (then): 5.5/10
Design (now): 6/10
Nostalgia: 6.5/10

Overall Score: 7/10

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 11:42 am
by ~Zero~
I haven't been a member very long so this is a bit late to be posting, but what the heck.

I bought 6096 about a week ago for what would be $38.00 American dollars, right off Ebay. It was (sadly) the best deal to get on Ebay, and ended up as the best for quite a few months.

I did A LOT of research on the set prior to purchasing it, as to make sure I was getting value for money, but there's only so much you can find out about a retired Lego set. Obviously Classic-Castle came in handy, as well as (suprisingly) Lego.com and stuff like google and junk. I don't have long so my analysis will be short and brief (well, short and brief for me).

People are VERY right in saying that there aren't enough minifigs, AND that it's junk if you don't have another castle/fortress or a friend with one, but in my opinion it is still a very good set. I have a lot of castle lego... well... not a lot compared to what I have seen on this site, but still a bit. I already have enough knights to support this set and a castle (although... I dread to say it on Classic-Castle but it isn't Lego... it's Imaginext. :oops: Hey I got it a few years ago when I was even younger than I am now, and I'm only 12 ! It's alright to use as a place with a prize at the top or something like that, but not a primary defence castle, because you can't fit the Lego onto it or anything) but I also have some small scenery that is... I dread to say this even more but... megabloks... :oops: but I don't want to turn this into a Lego versus megabloks discussion so... on with the topic:

This set is good to eradicate annoying friends Lego Castles that are just so freaking fortified it isn't funny... it's just annoying ! But it would be even better to use it as a primary component of a siege, and to include a large assistance party (if that's what you call it) and have your own base aswell! Too bad there were hardly any good bull sets sold with a lot of figs. But you could get around that by using the universal excuse of "Alliances". That's how we do it where I come from ! There are a lot of people that complain about the firing cannons because it isn't historical and whatnot but remember... Knights Kingdom wasn't ever supposed to be real... just look at Knights Kingdom 2! Lightning from their swords ! It's all up to what you want OUT of the set that determines how good what the stuff IN it actually is. Anyway, I think I'm going to go think of ways to use the ideas in this message and some other stuff I've thought of to harness "Bull's Attack" to my liking. Still have to wait for it to arrive though... stupid Ebay... :evil:

P.S. As for it compared to 6062 Battering Ram... the castle is good. The ram... isn't. And the new "King's Siege Tower", "Vladek's Siege Engine" and "Battle Wagon" ARE very good, but look at thier prices added up together when "Bull's Attack" offers just about as much. I.e, a prison, siege tower, catault and figures (uh... irony...) just a little more... "Classic" :!: :lol: Gotta love the classics! I do!!
P.P.S. The Bull Warriors are cool!! :mrgreen:

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2005 1:07 pm
by architect
Hey I got it a few years ago when I was even younger than I am now, and I'm only 12 !
Hi Zero,

If you are only 12 then you are in violation of the Classic-Castle Terms of Service ( http://www.classic-castle.com/tos.html and viewtopic.php?t=2547 ) and we will have to revoke your membership until you are 13. If you have any questions you should pm me about this issue.

About your post - it was a good post and in depth about this Bull's set. Try not to use so many emoticons in the future. You and others hit on the point that this would have been a great set with 2 or more extra figures.

Ben E.