Lego - Recommendations?

[AutumnComfort]

I have a 13 year old who wants to try lego again. Loved it when he was younger, but didn't enjoy the sets (just making one item). He fancies getting some (I want to get it as a gift) and I wondered where to start. I knew there are people on here that love it.

The box of Lego pieces looks great, but 'young'. Here he could just play, but it's not the same just building when you are 13 compared to when you're 7...

I like the look of some of the sets that link to an app or do something after they're built, but they're expensive and I don't know where to start.

Has anyone got any recommendations? Thank you

Bump

Does he want to follow instructions to build something? There's a website called Rebrickable where people have submitted their own ideas for things you can build with particular sets.

If you get one of the sets that's just lots of pieces, and enter its number into Rebrickable, it'll show you what other people have made. Sometimes you have to pay for instructions, but some are free - or you can just use the site as inspiration.

Brickit is briliant, you tip all your Lego pieces out then take a photo and it tells you what pieces you could build from that

Does he want to build for display or set up little scenes?
My favourites are mostly City and Friends because I build a little world of characters. My latest build was the house from the film Up. Really cute build.
For display sets the Creator 3 in 1 sets are brilliant. There is a gorgeous one of a parrot that's on my Christmas list. There's also a dinosaur one that is hugely popular.
Speed Champions are good if he likes cars.

Of course any set you get can be built into completely anything you want.

Brick Borrow is awesome and you can give gift vouchers. It’s a subscription service and you borrow the Lego sets for as long as you want to keep them, post them back and choose another one. That way he could choose what he fancies. They have lots of adult members so a wide range of sets from simple to very complex. We have so much Lego so we switched to that for my son and he loves it.

I know you said he didn't like the sets when he was younger but there are some pretty cool ones out at the moment.
DS (11) likes the marvel ones. He's really keen on the mechs but we've bought him the guardians of the galaxy ship for Christmas.
DH (33) loves Lego too. He likes the Star Wars sets but the NASA sets are his favourite. They look fab when they're built.

Ask him to look through the website and come up with ideas. The rage of "adult" lego is immense.

If you can find a second hand lego boost it’s very good and endlessly adaptable without being totally open ended like a box of bricks. Get the Lego boost ideas book To go with it.

Lego technic is marketed at older children and teenagers. There’s more engineering involved. Gears and proper working wheels and stuff. They do some of those 3 in 1 sets for technic too.

Lego architecture brand might be suitable. We got DS the London scene

Thank you so much for your ideas - I will go and do some googling.

Glad I checked about the technic stuff - I don’t want to get something to hard and put him off.

Technic is quite fiddly yes. What is he into? Does he like Star Wars? Minecraft? Harry Potter?

The Lego City Space kits are good. Star Wars kits if he likes SW.

As someone else has said the Architecture kits are fantastic but are aimed at adults so if you want to start him on something that isn’t too challenging try the kits aimed at older kids.

Top Tip, re-sale value is usually good on eBay so try to get him to keep all the pieces together so when he’s done with it you can resell! And keep the box.

He didn't like the sets where the pieces were really customised (just attaching 2 or 3 big pieces would complete one whole section, for example -this would be the easier sets, I imagine). The ones that were too hard got frustrating (he’s got an older brother and I think we made the mistake of him sharing those rather than getting more age appropriate stuff).

I think he'd like the building type ones - some of the castles look good, but they seem to be aimed at older teens (Harry Potter/ Star Wars etc would be good).

I'd buy a few of the 1kg bags off eBay for him personally.

I love the houses. That's what I'll be buying for myself when the kids have left home and it's ALL MINE.

These are a couple of good Classic sets that give ideas for "functional moving" builds
(and one says up to age 99 on the box - so not "too young" 🙂)

Hogwarts sets all join together to make a big castle. My DS age 13 rejigs them and buys other harry potter sets to make his own castle rooms

Absolutely this.

@C1N1C Technic is bloody hard though. I had one of those little polybags - about 45 pieces or something - and I still couldn't build it right.
And I am a fully paid up AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) 😂

How about this if its in budget?

https://www.lego.com/en-gb/product/medieval-castle-31120?galleryOpen=true&galleryView=0

Or something like this:

amzn.eu/d/4XJAqmC

DK have great books on ideas/the theory of building rather than a step by step instruction for a particular set. My DN loved the dinosaur one! I found it on Amazon in the U.K.

https://www.dk.com/us/category/lego/

Lego technic.