This was the first RR set I got as a kid, and I always felt it was such a solid, complete package; you had a large, cool, sturdy vehicle with great visual identity and play value, a cool minifig that showed the scale of the machine, and also a rockmonster enemy that you could 'battle' or defend from. All in all one of my fav sets of the RR line!
Thanks for checking out the videos! Yeah, the Loader Dozer is such a great toy - really nails the theme of Rock Raiders. Most of the complaints I had about the set were from the perspective of an adult collector now; in terms of play value though, this is top of the Rock Raiders list!
There's a couple of possibly unintentional but still really fun play features in this set I noticed but forgot to mention to you Both the rock monster and the loader dozer can very effectively throw whatever they're carrying if you use a bit of force! It's fun doing trick shots from the loader dozer into larger vehicles' buckets
This, along with 4930, were the first two Rock Raiders sets we got. My brother would later get the Granite Grinder, though that's mine now too. I did end up needing a lot of help putting this together despite being 7 at the time. The locking mechanism did actually prove useful to me as the bucket would fall forward unless I pulled it all the way back, at which point it'd tip backward at the cabin and look awkward. In fact, my Loader Dozer is being displayed with the bucket up and the locking mechanism is being used. Nothing can beat a scooping play feature. It's why I got this set first.
Hoo wow, the bottom piece of the cockpit is the basis for this boat that i made and still have to this day. I never knew where it came from! Man that's so cool.
I missed out on Rock Raiders, being born in 2004, but I ended up getting this set on BrickLink in 2015 with help from my dad, and it turned out to be one of my all-time favorites! I played with this set for hours upon hours, scooping up Lego bricks and other toys, as well as playing outside in the dirt, and imagining I was mining up Brickonium crystals and surviving the hostile environment of Planet U! Eventually, I kind of got out of playing with the set, and I disassembled it and used its pieces on various MOC's for several years. However, I finally decided to rebuild the set a couple years ago, and now I have it rebuilt once again as we speak - and I am only missing one of the dark turquoise grill tiles after it sadly met its fate in the vacuum cleaner! I actually found the pieces to be quite useful when building MOC's - I also have the Chrome Crusher, and I would combine the two chassis pieces with an articulated hinge to build massive, 8-wheeled articulated vehicles! I also used the cockpit bottom pieces from both sets as the ends of a boat hull, and built a boat that actually floated on the creek that runs behind our house! I also used to like combining two of the digger buckets (I have a second one from a Technic set) and making giant grabbers! I was always frustrated that the rock monster wasn't very articulated!
6:22 Personally I like to think of the last alt build as a set version of the Geological Center, as that has the same front profile but with a smaller dish element. And as such, the wheels would be some form of turbines or power generation, but I can't excuse the Bucket in this fashion. Then again I haven't build the alt models in many years, if ever, so maybe there's less to embrace on a construction level.
I just want to say, to production quality of your video is just top notch. But on top of that, we get a glimpse of your LEGO collection, I believe. Jacksone, Belleville, Fabuland... It's actually quite impressive, I hope in the we'll get to see more of your sets!
I figured out what the point of the locking system was recently. I don’t think it’s for weight, it’s so if you shake the vehicle the bucket doesn’t fall down and lose the stuff in it.
@@RRSlugger After a while of constant playing with mine, the parts got worn to the point where the bucket would not stay up on it's own, so the locking mechanism became useful after that! It takes quite a bit of play to get there, though.
Thank you - it’s such an important philosophy to me. It’s one of the main reasons I don’t include piece counts or even prices in many of my videos; I think people obsess over those numbers too much sometimes.
I remember buying this set new in box a couple years ago. My favorite set of all time. My favorite minifigure, awesome rock monster and my favorite vehicle. It was perfection.
wow .i missed out on something really cool.i got into bionicle and galdor . and i really wish i would have gotten into rock raiders .i subbed and plan on watching aii of your back videos .thanks mthis is really great .
I had basically never even heard of Rock Raiders until I found your channel, I spent my LEGO time in other themes as a kid :) but wow, I am loving this series and going to watch all of them! Well done man!
i remember as a very little kid (i think i was like 4 or so), i owned this set. i loved the one big chassis piece and that served me well for years, but it broke at one point as a kid at a Scout meeting when we used it to explain inertia and i was very upset by it. But it is great i finally found this set after so many years!
Loved this set as a kid so this video was a real treat. Let's dig in! This was the only way I could afford a Rock Monster back in the day so I was so happy to have him in this set. As for their size compared to the Rock Raiders' vehicles, that is fair, but I always just imagined that they were immensely powerful and heavy for their size. However, I did always wish that you could do more than raise and lower their right arm. That was always pretty limiting when playing with it or even just trying out different poses as I'm sure you've run into when making animations. Hmmmm...I wonder with modern Lego pieces if you could pull off a poseable Rock Monster? The double chains connected to the spoiler on the first prototype in the video make it look like a step between the Chrome Crusher and the Granite Grinder, it's neat. However I prefer the final build everywhere else. The second race car dozer prototype doesn't fit at all though, glad we didn't get that one. Maybe my parts are just getting older or they weren't made with quite as tight tolerances, but my Loader Dozer actually does need the locking mechanism. It can hold up the bucket okay without it, but it isn't very firm and can easily fall down. Agreed on the red though, when I rebuilt it recently I was scratching my head as to why they didn't use yellow or turquoise. What I didn't notice was the ratcheted roll cage connectors being off color, good catch! Definitely replacing those next time I get the chance. As for the dynamite, I think the issue was that the full build doesn't quite fit anywhere on the vehicle for storage. It does stick out from the others in the line, but it's better than not having it at all I suppose? Although then again, I would have gladly sacrificed it for some more detail as yeah this set is definitely guilty of "juniorization." I didn't mind it as a kid at all, but when I rebuilt it as an adult I was left wanting more as well. Adding in the engine block is a cool idea! I'll try that myself too. Also stealing the tail lights, logo, and cabin improvements. How did you manage to round out the profile of the cab though? I've having a hard time figuring that out from the pictures. Thanks for giving time to the alternate builds by the way. My boxes are long gone (they didn't last more than a second whenever I got a new set back then) so I totally forgot about them until I started watching your series. The first one is really cool, I like it a lot more than the Rapid Rider! The second one isn't as rounded out, but that mouth design is especially striking. I'd love to see a fleshed out take on this too. The enslaved rock monster is such an interesting idea as well! If only that was in the game. Man, I really need to grab some more Rock Raiders sets so I can play around with these. Lastly, yeah...the final alt build is just a mess. I don't even know what it's supposed to be...or do for that matter. Is it an airship that...reverses into rocks to pick up? Anyhow, great closer to another great video!
I echo a lot of what you bring up here - good stuff all around! The "profile of the cab" modifications I'm referring to in the video are admittedly tough to spot - the pieces in question are the Dark Grey 2 x 2 x 2 slopes on either side of the roll cage attachment points; they also have 2 x 2 Dark Turquoise tiles on top of them. This was something of a design choice I became fond of and incorporated it into a bunch of my LRR MOCs too! Thanks for mentioning the alt builds as well - I felt like they were such an overlooked part of this theme and wanted to point them out in greater detail with these videos. There should be some more cool ones in the next video!
I hope you enjoy them! I also hope you didn’t have to spend too much for them, as I know they’ve increased in price significantly within the last year.
I’d love to see a video focusing on your slug build, I’d like to make a few. I hope you approach other LEGO themes! Your descriptions and production value is spectacular, hope whatever your plans for the channel are leads to more stuff
Thanks for all your great comments! I'm having a good time going through and reading them all this evening. I can't take design credit for the slug builds, but I think making a video on them and crediting the designers is a great idea. I really appreciate your positive feedback here - I'm happy to see folks enjoying the videos. I plan to round out Rock Raiders with the retail sets, the promotional sets, and then the unreleased buildings and vehicles from the PC game. That'll take me several months still, but after all that - who knows! I have collected many other 90's themes and would love to feature them in videos in the future too. I doubt any would be as in depth as this series is, but we'll see...
@@RRSlugger It's very exciting, whatever you end up doing. If your passion, creativity and production value stay this excellent, I'll be dedicatedly watching. Hopefully growth starts happening soon, since you've built (no pun intended) a good foundation of videos and quality people can go back and watch. You've also gotten me excited again about Rock Raiders after so many years!
wow, I never knew Lego made a pipe wrench piece, that's really a unique thing to me, I'm a weirdly massive fan of the little Lego tools that minifigs can use
I've been trying to figure out some of the modifications that you've made. Most of my struggles are beneath the cab, I can tell there's a dark grey slope just behind the turquoise slope, and I can see black inverted slopes aligning the chain through the back, but I feel I'm missing some details. I think the cab profile, beyond the steep slope bricks you mentioned use 2×2 corner bricks and 2×2 inverted slopes, but I'm not sure if those slopes are only attached from the top.
I know you’re not a fan of the locking mechanism, and felt it was unnecessary. From a realism angle, as well as play value, I think it’s a very important feature. The purpose of a dozer in real life is to carry loads from point A to point B, which requires holding the load upwards to prevent spillage. Just my 2cents.
Maybe it's just me but the design looks quite similar to 7645 Crystal reaper from mars mission has quite a few differences obviously but overall shape and function feels like they might've made that set as a spiritual successor to this one idk it just reminded me of that, im a big fan of mars mission
This Set is very near and dear to my heart, since I had it as a kid (and recently rebuilt it). I agree with you on every point about it. This was a fun toy first and foremost. Also it had the Rock Monster, which I wish was in more sets. One thing that annoyed me as a kid was that all medium sized sets were manned by Axle which for some reason I didnt like back then. He is now almost my favourire RR minifig tho. Btw who is your favourite Rock Raider designwise? (Honestly I would love to see a ranking of the rr minifigs)
Axle was always my favourite too - nowadays, I really like Jet's design, but her helmet is annoying to animate around in stop motion. With that lens, it's easy to say Bandit is one of my favourites now because it's easy to turn his head and helmet at the same time, haha! I don't want to admit how much I love Chief's design though - if I'm allowed to choose Chief as my favourite, I probably would...
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you! Outside of Rock Raiders, they were only used in one other set - here’s the full list: www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=30295&in=S
Sadly, I don’t have any instructions for these modifications; I don’t use digital brick building programs. Hopefully you’ll be able to make out most of the mods from these pictures though - let me know if you need assistance! 😊
5:16 uncolored rock monster? Did you paint that or did you get your hands on one of the prototypes seen in the old DK book? Or am I completely wrong altogether?
Крутой набор , приобрету его себе позже. Всегда хотел в коллекцию каменного монстра. Ты в своем видео показал старое видео другого человека. Благодаря тому видео я знал что мне нужен шагающий бур и набор с каменным монстром
I think the overall idea of that third alt build could work maybe, if it wasn't limited to the Loader-Dozer pieces either. I was never a big fan of the second alt build, but I always wanted to know what was going on with that Rock Monster. It made me wanna see some sort of interaction with them that wasn't just trying to fight them off. I appreciated the books for at least having a little of that.
This was the first RR set I got as a kid, and I always felt it was such a solid, complete package; you had a large, cool, sturdy vehicle with great visual identity and play value, a cool minifig that showed the scale of the machine, and also a rockmonster enemy that you could 'battle' or defend from. All in all one of my fav sets of the RR line!
Thanks for checking out the videos! Yeah, the Loader Dozer is such a great toy - really nails the theme of Rock Raiders.
Most of the complaints I had about the set were from the perspective of an adult collector now; in terms of play value though, this is top of the Rock Raiders list!
There's a couple of possibly unintentional but still really fun play features in this set I noticed but forgot to mention to you
Both the rock monster and the loader dozer can very effectively throw whatever they're carrying if you use a bit of force!
It's fun doing trick shots from the loader dozer into larger vehicles' buckets
Haha, that's awesome! I never would have thought to try that. :D
This, along with 4930, were the first two Rock Raiders sets we got. My brother would later get the Granite Grinder, though that's mine now too. I did end up needing a lot of help putting this together despite being 7 at the time. The locking mechanism did actually prove useful to me as the bucket would fall forward unless I pulled it all the way back, at which point it'd tip backward at the cabin and look awkward. In fact, my Loader Dozer is being displayed with the bucket up and the locking mechanism is being used. Nothing can beat a scooping play feature. It's why I got this set first.
Hoo wow, the bottom piece of the cockpit is the basis for this boat that i made and still have to this day. I never knew where it came from! Man that's so cool.
I missed out on Rock Raiders, being born in 2004, but I ended up getting this set on BrickLink in 2015 with help from my dad, and it turned out to be one of my all-time favorites! I played with this set for hours upon hours, scooping up Lego bricks and other toys, as well as playing outside in the dirt, and imagining I was mining up Brickonium crystals and surviving the hostile environment of Planet U! Eventually, I kind of got out of playing with the set, and I disassembled it and used its pieces on various MOC's for several years. However, I finally decided to rebuild the set a couple years ago, and now I have it rebuilt once again as we speak - and I am only missing one of the dark turquoise grill tiles after it sadly met its fate in the vacuum cleaner!
I actually found the pieces to be quite useful when building MOC's - I also have the Chrome Crusher, and I would combine the two chassis pieces with an articulated hinge to build massive, 8-wheeled articulated vehicles! I also used the cockpit bottom pieces from both sets as the ends of a boat hull, and built a boat that actually floated on the creek that runs behind our house! I also used to like combining two of the digger buckets (I have a second one from a Technic set) and making giant grabbers!
I was always frustrated that the rock monster wasn't very articulated!
modification is not lego's middle name. modification is lego's first name. the LE stands for modifiabLE (the GO stands for rock raiders)
6:22 Personally I like to think of the last alt build as a set version of the Geological Center, as that has the same front profile but with a smaller dish element. And as such, the wheels would be some form of turbines or power generation, but I can't excuse the Bucket in this fashion. Then again I haven't build the alt models in many years, if ever, so maybe there's less to embrace on a construction level.
I just want to say, to production quality of your video is just top notch. But on top of that, we get a glimpse of your LEGO collection, I believe. Jacksone, Belleville, Fabuland... It's actually quite impressive, I hope in the we'll get to see more of your sets!
I figured out what the point of the locking system was recently. I don’t think it’s for weight, it’s so if you shake the vehicle the bucket doesn’t fall down and lose the stuff in it.
I've never run into that issue, personally, though it does bear some experimenting, I'd say!
@@RRSlugger After a while of constant playing with mine, the parts got worn to the point where the bucket would not stay up on it's own, so the locking mechanism became useful after that! It takes quite a bit of play to get there, though.
@@davydigger708 That's dedication! 😆
Im enjoying this series a lot, I cant wait for the larger sets
This lego series is probably the reason i love Rock Monster and golems in general. I hope they make another modern theme with some in it.
Love the message about price to part ratios and piece counts at the end.
Thank you - it’s such an important philosophy to me. It’s one of the main reasons I don’t include piece counts or even prices in many of my videos; I think people obsess over those numbers too much sometimes.
I remember buying this set new in box a couple years ago. My favorite set of all time. My favorite minifigure, awesome rock monster and my favorite vehicle. It was perfection.
That’s awesome!! I’m glad you were able to grab one sealed! There’s nothing like opening up a brand new set. 😊
wow .i missed out on something really cool.i got into bionicle and galdor . and i really wish i would have gotten into rock raiders .i subbed and plan on watching aii of your back videos .thanks mthis is really great .
I had basically never even heard of Rock Raiders until I found your channel, I spent my LEGO time in other themes as a kid :) but wow, I am loving this series and going to watch all of them! Well done man!
I got this set back in the late '90s... I still have it, and it's currently on top of one of my bookshelves.
This play feature may even compete with some of power miner’s play features in terms of ingenuity
i remember as a very little kid (i think i was like 4 or so), i owned this set. i loved the one big chassis piece and that served me well for years, but it broke at one point as a kid at a Scout meeting when we used it to explain inertia and i was very upset by it. But it is great i finally found this set after so many years!
Loved this set as a kid so this video was a real treat. Let's dig in!
This was the only way I could afford a Rock Monster back in the day so I was so happy to have him in this set. As for their size compared to the Rock Raiders' vehicles, that is fair, but I always just imagined that they were immensely powerful and heavy for their size. However, I did always wish that you could do more than raise and lower their right arm. That was always pretty limiting when playing with it or even just trying out different poses as I'm sure you've run into when making animations. Hmmmm...I wonder with modern Lego pieces if you could pull off a poseable Rock Monster?
The double chains connected to the spoiler on the first prototype in the video make it look like a step between the Chrome Crusher and the Granite Grinder, it's neat. However I prefer the final build everywhere else. The second race car dozer prototype doesn't fit at all though, glad we didn't get that one.
Maybe my parts are just getting older or they weren't made with quite as tight tolerances, but my Loader Dozer actually does need the locking mechanism. It can hold up the bucket okay without it, but it isn't very firm and can easily fall down. Agreed on the red though, when I rebuilt it recently I was scratching my head as to why they didn't use yellow or turquoise. What I didn't notice was the ratcheted roll cage connectors being off color, good catch! Definitely replacing those next time I get the chance.
As for the dynamite, I think the issue was that the full build doesn't quite fit anywhere on the vehicle for storage. It does stick out from the others in the line, but it's better than not having it at all I suppose? Although then again, I would have gladly sacrificed it for some more detail as yeah this set is definitely guilty of "juniorization." I didn't mind it as a kid at all, but when I rebuilt it as an adult I was left wanting more as well.
Adding in the engine block is a cool idea! I'll try that myself too. Also stealing the tail lights, logo, and cabin improvements. How did you manage to round out the profile of the cab though? I've having a hard time figuring that out from the pictures.
Thanks for giving time to the alternate builds by the way. My boxes are long gone (they didn't last more than a second whenever I got a new set back then) so I totally forgot about them until I started watching your series. The first one is really cool, I like it a lot more than the Rapid Rider! The second one isn't as rounded out, but that mouth design is especially striking. I'd love to see a fleshed out take on this too. The enslaved rock monster is such an interesting idea as well! If only that was in the game. Man, I really need to grab some more Rock Raiders sets so I can play around with these. Lastly, yeah...the final alt build is just a mess. I don't even know what it's supposed to be...or do for that matter. Is it an airship that...reverses into rocks to pick up?
Anyhow, great closer to another great video!
I echo a lot of what you bring up here - good stuff all around!
The "profile of the cab" modifications I'm referring to in the video are admittedly tough to spot - the pieces in question are the Dark Grey 2 x 2 x 2 slopes on either side of the roll cage attachment points; they also have 2 x 2 Dark Turquoise tiles on top of them. This was something of a design choice I became fond of and incorporated it into a bunch of my LRR MOCs too!
Thanks for mentioning the alt builds as well - I felt like they were such an overlooked part of this theme and wanted to point them out in greater detail with these videos. There should be some more cool ones in the next video!
Dude these are SUCH great videos!
Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying them - I have a ton of fun making them!
I will be getting this set soon! I got the granite grinder 4-5 days ago. I guess you started a new addiction for me.
I hope you enjoy them! I also hope you didn’t have to spend too much for them, as I know they’ve increased in price significantly within the last year.
Great vid! I like your modifications to the dozer. This was a great theme.
Thank you! Rock Raiders was awesome. ❤
I’d love to see a video focusing on your slug build, I’d like to make a few.
I hope you approach other LEGO themes! Your descriptions and production value is spectacular, hope whatever your plans for the channel are leads to more stuff
Thanks for all your great comments! I'm having a good time going through and reading them all this evening.
I can't take design credit for the slug builds, but I think making a video on them and crediting the designers is a great idea.
I really appreciate your positive feedback here - I'm happy to see folks enjoying the videos. I plan to round out Rock Raiders with the retail sets, the promotional sets, and then the unreleased buildings and vehicles from the PC game. That'll take me several months still, but after all that - who knows! I have collected many other 90's themes and would love to feature them in videos in the future too. I doubt any would be as in depth as this series is, but we'll see...
@@RRSlugger It's very exciting, whatever you end up doing. If your passion, creativity and production value stay this excellent, I'll be dedicatedly watching. Hopefully growth starts happening soon, since you've built (no pun intended) a good foundation of videos and quality people can go back and watch. You've also gotten me excited again about Rock Raiders after so many years!
wow, I never knew Lego made a pipe wrench piece, that's really a unique thing to me, I'm a weirdly massive fan of the little Lego tools that minifigs can use
I've been trying to figure out some of the modifications that you've made. Most of my struggles are beneath the cab, I can tell there's a dark grey slope just behind the turquoise slope, and I can see black inverted slopes aligning the chain through the back, but I feel I'm missing some details. I think the cab profile, beyond the steep slope bricks you mentioned use 2×2 corner bricks and 2×2 inverted slopes, but I'm not sure if those slopes are only attached from the top.
It’s difficult for me to send you more pictures over TH-cam, but if you find me on Instagram I would be happy to help you out here! 😊
@@RRSlugger same account name, just started following you!
Honestly the Rock Monster looks fantastic. Better than some current Lego BigFigs
I know you’re not a fan of the locking mechanism, and felt it was unnecessary.
From a realism angle, as well as play value, I think it’s a very important feature. The purpose of a dozer in real life is to carry loads from point A to point B, which requires holding the load upwards to prevent spillage.
Just my 2cents.
This is a really good point that I didn't consider - thanks for weighing in!
Maybe it's just me but the design looks quite similar to 7645 Crystal reaper from mars mission
has quite a few differences obviously but overall shape and function feels like they might've made that set as a spiritual successor to this one
idk it just reminded me of that, im a big fan of mars mission
This Set is very near and dear to my heart, since I had it as a kid (and recently rebuilt it). I agree with you on every point about it. This was a fun toy first and foremost. Also it had the Rock Monster, which I wish was in more sets.
One thing that annoyed me as a kid was that all medium sized sets were manned by Axle which for some reason I didnt like back then. He is now almost my favourire RR minifig tho.
Btw who is your favourite Rock Raider designwise? (Honestly I would love to see a ranking of the rr minifigs)
Axle was always my favourite too - nowadays, I really like Jet's design, but her helmet is annoying to animate around in stop motion. With that lens, it's easy to say Bandit is one of my favourites now because it's easy to turn his head and helmet at the same time, haha!
I don't want to admit how much I love Chief's design though - if I'm allowed to choose Chief as my favourite, I probably would...
У меня вопрос. В рок райдерс использовали светло серые детали старого цвета или нового цвета?
We’re those baseplates with wheels used in any other sets ? I have a couple of them from an old box and always wondered what the pieces were for
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you! Outside of Rock Raiders, they were only used in one other set - here’s the full list:
www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=30295&in=S
5:15 how did you get that white rock monster? Is it painted or molded in white plastic?
I applied several coats of spray paint to it after disassembling it. I wanted to make an ice monster! 🥶
Any chance you could upload rebrickable instructions for the modifications you have in these videos?
Sadly, I don’t have any instructions for these modifications; I don’t use digital brick building programs. Hopefully you’ll be able to make out most of the mods from these pictures though - let me know if you need assistance! 😊
5:16 uncolored rock monster? Did you paint that or did you get your hands on one of the prototypes seen in the old DK book? Or am I completely wrong altogether?
Just a spray painted Rock Monster! ☺️
@@RRSlugger I like it
@@RRSlugger How did you end up doing it? :D Any specific paint? Did you take apart the piece?
@@ThomasWagteveld I took it apart and spray painted each part with some pearlescent white model paint. It took about 7 coats on each piece!
Крутой набор , приобрету его себе позже. Всегда хотел в коллекцию каменного монстра. Ты в своем видео показал старое видео другого человека. Благодаря тому видео я знал что мне нужен шагающий бур и набор с каменным монстром
Indeed! I never had this one as a child, but I was pleasantly surprised at how fun it is to build and roll around!
This is one of the sets that all alternative builds are better xD
A spicy hot take! I like it! 😊
I had a partial second-hand Loader Dozer as a kid. Had the rock monster and recognize the cockpit, but didn't have the monkey wrench or the scoop.
Good
I think the overall idea of that third alt build could work maybe, if it wasn't limited to the Loader-Dozer pieces either.
I was never a big fan of the second alt build, but I always wanted to know what was going on with that Rock Monster. It made me wanna see some sort of interaction with them that wasn't just trying to fight them off. I appreciated the books for at least having a little of that.
I'd like a channel that uploads all your videos but puts a vine boom everywhere the word miner is said
I've never liked the chain mechanism, it's unsymmetrical and seems cheap.
That's fair! I think it works really well in practice, but there are some undeniably cheap aspects of the Loader Dozer.
@@RRSlugger I broke the chain after lots of hard play! Thankfully, the person I got it from threw in an extra one so I was saved!