Tag: horizon-forbidden-west

The Tremortusk: The Biggest Build of My Year, Piece for Piece

Toys & Collectibles Review · Purchased May 27, 2024 · $782.99 CAD via Vonado

A large brick-built model of a Tremortusk, the armoured four-legged machine from Horizon Forbidden West
A comparable large-scale Tremortusk build. Photo: MOC Brick Store

Some builds test your patience. This one tested my table space, my wrists, and eventually my patience too, in that order.

The Background

Like the Thunder Claw covered earlier in this series, the Tremortusk is an unofficial fan design rather than a licensed LEGO product, this one modeled after the massive armoured machine from Horizon Forbidden West. The specific design lineage traces back to well-known MOC creators in the Horizon fan-building space (versions of this build by designers like Kaelfros are widely recognized within that community), running into the thousands of pieces in its larger configurations, making it one of the most ambitious machine builds the compatible-brick space has produced for this franchise.

Purchased the same day as the Ghost and Star Wars Hangar, this was the most expensive single item in that particular haul, and by piece count, arguably the most demanding build in my entire 2024 collection.

Living With It

This is not a build you sit down and finish in one sitting, or realistically even one day. The Tremortusk’s four-legged stance, articulated tusks, and heavily plated shell require careful, methodical assembly, and I found it genuinely benefited from being broken into several shorter sessions rather than one marathon attempt, both for focus and for hand fatigue with a build this dense.

The payoff for that time investment is real. Once complete, the sheer scale and weight of the finished model communicates the source creature’s intimidating presence in a way smaller builds simply cannot. Leg joints held their pose under the model’s considerable weight without sagging, which speaks well of the engineering behind the design even though it is an unofficial, fan-originated build rather than a professionally tested LEGO Group product.

If I am being fully honest, this is the one build in my whole collection where I would genuinely recommend clearing your schedule before starting rather than assuming you can knock it out over a single weekend the way I did with some of the other large sets in this series.

What I Liked

  • The single most impressive and imposing finished build in my entire collection
  • Strong structural engineering, held its pose under real weight without sagging
  • Genuinely challenging and rewarding build process for anyone who enjoys the assembly itself
  • A machine design that has no official LEGO equivalent at any scale

What I Didn’t

  • A serious time commitment, realistically multiple sessions rather than a single weekend
  • Physically demanding to assemble given the sheer part density
  • Among the most expensive single items in my entire 2024 spending

The Value Verdict

Rating: 5/5

If you love Horizon and want a genuine display centrepiece, this delivers more presence and engineering ambition than anything else in my collection. Just go in with realistic expectations about the time commitment, this is not a weekend project, it is closer to a small ongoing hobby of its own for however many sessions it takes you.

Where to Buy

Vonado’s Horizon “Thunder Claw”: Building the Machine LEGO Never Made

Vonado Review · Purchased February 11, 2024 · $427.99 CAD via Vonado

Thunderjaw Horizon building block set
A Thunderjaw compatible-brick build. Photo via FantasMall.

Some of the best entries in a compatible-brick catalogue exist specifically because the official license holder never got around to making them.

The Background

LEGO has released exactly one officially licensed Horizon product: the Forbidden West Tallneck set (76989), a mid-size build that came out to solid reviews but left an obvious gap for fans of the game’s other, more aggressive machines. There has never been an official LEGO Thunderjaw or any similarly named “Thunder Claw” set. What I bought is a fan (MOC) design manufactured and sold as a compatible kit through Vonado, filling a hole in the official catalogue that LEGO itself has simply never addressed.

This arrived as part of the same large February order as the Star Wars sets earlier in this series, and at $427.99 it represented a real step up in both price and ambition from those smaller builds.

Living With It

Machine-creature builds like this live or die on articulation, and this is where the set earns its price tag. The legs, head, and tail all have genuine poseable joints rather than being fixed in one aggressive dinosaur-esque stance, which meant I could actually pose it in a way that matched reference art from the game rather than settling for whatever the instructions defaulted to. Getting that kind of mechanical complexity right, with joints that hold their pose under the model’s own weight instead of drooping, is a genuinely harder engineering problem than a static ship or building, and it shows in both the piece count and the build time, which ran closer to a full weekend than a single evening.

The tradeoff for all of that is durability handling: with this many articulated joints, this is not a set you want younger hands or a curious pet handling roughly, since the connection points that allow posing are inherently a little less rigid than a fully fixed structure would be.

What I Liked

  • Fills a real gap, there is no official LEGO equivalent at this scale or price
  • Genuinely impressive articulation and poseability for a brick-built creature
  • Shell and plating detail translates the source game’s design language well
  • A satisfying weekend-length build rather than a quick evening project

What I Didn’t

  • Poseable joints mean less structural rigidity than a fixed-position build
  • Not something to display somewhere it might get bumped or handled roughly
  • A meaningful price jump from the smaller sets earlier in the same order

The Value Verdict

Rating: 4/5

For a Horizon fan, this is close to essential specifically because nobody else has made it. LEGO’s own catalogue leaves this exact machine on the table, and Vonado’s version fills that gap with a genuinely well-engineered build. Just budget real assembly time and a stable shelf for it once it is done.

Where to Buy