Available on eBay, Ali Express.
Price: $30 to $40
WOMA #: J5640
Pieces: 387
Rating:
(Inferior instructions but quality bricks.)
The first thing I must say about this set is that once complete it is impressively large. It's over 21 inches long (54 cm) when completed. It dwarfs many of my Lego models.
Being WOMA is a Chinese brand I was not sure what to expect. I knew I was ordering it sans box from an eBay auction, but for $40 I was willing to take a risk. A Lego set of comparable size would easily be $60 to $80 USD.
The item arrived in about a week in a plain box. Inside the box was a large zip-lock style bad holding a number of sealed plastic baggies that one would expect in any Lego-like set and the instruction manual. Many Chinese sellers forgo the original box to save money on shipping. Since the box would be in Chinese anyway, that is fine with me.
The instructions were the weakest part of this overall set. Most steps require a great number of pieces and several steps aren't even physically possible- would require the ability to have pieces hover in air until they get connected to something else. You'll have to skip ahead and work backwards more than once. There are also a couple places where the images show an empty stud where there simply can't be one if you follow the rest of the instructions. Finally, like with other sets, it is a little difficult to tell the dark grey from black colors in instructions. Either I messed up or they included a piece of a wrong color because near the end I realized I needed two dark grey 1x6 pieces and all I had left was one dark grey and one black. I went ahead and changed out an existing dark grey with the black and luckily it turned out where I took it from didn't matter anyway, it was virtually completely covered by other bricks in the end.
The quality of the actual WOMA bricks was surprisingly good. They interlocked virtually identical to what I'd expect from a Lego set. Aside from the occasional hollow stud (A consequence of their injection molding technique) the bricks look good- but don't gave a logo printed on each stud.
The set uses a good amount of large bricks and few small ones compared to what you may used to with Lego. One thing I really liked was that where were no stickers. Any brick that needed decoration was pre-printed. The worst bricks were the "joysticks" used in the cockpits. In Lego sets these come pre-assembled as a single piece and are very sturdy. In WOMA (like Sluban by the way) they are two pieces using a ball-and-socket joint... and that socket is so lose that merely turning the set upside down sometimes causes the sticks to simply fall out. This was annoying but the only real problem with the brick quality.
When complete I had several unused pieces, presumably they would be required for one of the other 4 build options although instructions were only included for the Apache.
The WOMA mini-figures are different from LEGO. Completed they look good but those helmets hide a hideously large head that doesn't close like a Lego head does.
Overall I have to say for the price I was very impressed and I would look to WOMA in the future for sets, especially military or gun sets Lego will never make.
I found this specific set from another site, even cheaper than eBay, with delivery direct from China to the Untied States. If you visit the seller's store it looks like a jackpot- a large selection of all types of WOMA sets. Unfortunately you won't find WOMA on Amazon.
Price: $30 to $40
WOMA #: J5640
Pieces: 387
Rating:
(Inferior instructions but quality bricks.)
The first thing I must say about this set is that once complete it is impressively large. It's over 21 inches long (54 cm) when completed. It dwarfs many of my Lego models.
Being WOMA is a Chinese brand I was not sure what to expect. I knew I was ordering it sans box from an eBay auction, but for $40 I was willing to take a risk. A Lego set of comparable size would easily be $60 to $80 USD.
The item arrived in about a week in a plain box. Inside the box was a large zip-lock style bad holding a number of sealed plastic baggies that one would expect in any Lego-like set and the instruction manual. Many Chinese sellers forgo the original box to save money on shipping. Since the box would be in Chinese anyway, that is fine with me.
The instructions were the weakest part of this overall set. Most steps require a great number of pieces and several steps aren't even physically possible- would require the ability to have pieces hover in air until they get connected to something else. You'll have to skip ahead and work backwards more than once. There are also a couple places where the images show an empty stud where there simply can't be one if you follow the rest of the instructions. Finally, like with other sets, it is a little difficult to tell the dark grey from black colors in instructions. Either I messed up or they included a piece of a wrong color because near the end I realized I needed two dark grey 1x6 pieces and all I had left was one dark grey and one black. I went ahead and changed out an existing dark grey with the black and luckily it turned out where I took it from didn't matter anyway, it was virtually completely covered by other bricks in the end.
The quality of the actual WOMA bricks was surprisingly good. They interlocked virtually identical to what I'd expect from a Lego set. Aside from the occasional hollow stud (A consequence of their injection molding technique) the bricks look good- but don't gave a logo printed on each stud.
The set uses a good amount of large bricks and few small ones compared to what you may used to with Lego. One thing I really liked was that where were no stickers. Any brick that needed decoration was pre-printed. The worst bricks were the "joysticks" used in the cockpits. In Lego sets these come pre-assembled as a single piece and are very sturdy. In WOMA (like Sluban by the way) they are two pieces using a ball-and-socket joint... and that socket is so lose that merely turning the set upside down sometimes causes the sticks to simply fall out. This was annoying but the only real problem with the brick quality.
When complete I had several unused pieces, presumably they would be required for one of the other 4 build options although instructions were only included for the Apache.
The WOMA mini-figures are different from LEGO. Completed they look good but those helmets hide a hideously large head that doesn't close like a Lego head does.
Overall I have to say for the price I was very impressed and I would look to WOMA in the future for sets, especially military or gun sets Lego will never make.
I found this specific set from another site, even cheaper than eBay, with delivery direct from China to the Untied States. If you visit the seller's store it looks like a jackpot- a large selection of all types of WOMA sets. Unfortunately you won't find WOMA on Amazon.