This is a 32x32 Japanese-style castle that I started building 11 years ago. It has parts from two Royal Drawbridge sets (6078, Mainly the two blue 16x32 baseplates and some of the BURPs), Two Samurai Strongholds (6083), and a complete Flying Ninja Fortress (6093). The first build was in October 2000, when I came home on leave, and the first major overhaul was in December, 2001 when I was home on leave after living in Japan for over a year, and I just recently finished fixing up some parts of the interior and such (mainly to make the "basement" more accessible.

Anyways, the background story: This fortress, while it might look like an ancient Japanese castle on the outside, looks can be deceiving. The walls are made from unobtainium-reinforced ceramcrete, the "porpoise" deccorations on the lower roof are actually a sophisticated phased-array radar set and the two on the roof are high-gain "lobe" communications antennas (the area where the roof-mounted howitzer is located is withing their "dead zone" so that the gunners don't get fried whenever someone has to make a call). Not only is it the main base of the Federal Republic of America's Special Operations Command, but it also serves as the HQ for the Federal Joint Chiefs of Staff, since the Pentagon was destroyed (along with much of Arlington, VA) during the Final War.


Front View by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr


Back View by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr


Interior View 1 by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr

Here you can see the command center with President John "Redbeard" Stevenson, Admiral James Hook (CNO), General Gordon Freeman (Federal Air Force Chief of Staff) and Gen. Gandalf "the Gray", Army Chief of Staff.


Inerior View 2 by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr

This is the command center with Adm Hook & Gen. Freeman removed so you can see the other two Joint Chiefs of Staff: Gen. Hikaro Takayama, Chief of Special Operations (my Sig Fig) and General Clare, Commandant of the Federal Marine Corps.


CityIslandIntFront by Hikaro Takayama, on Flickr

Interior view of the Front side, showing some of the Federal Men at Arms, Samurai, and Ninja Team 7 members. In the cells, you can see a Grand Duchy of New York POW. He is the sole survivor of one of their elite "Dragon Knight" teams that ran afoul of Ninja Team 7 while attempting to blow up the Norfolk-Southern freight yard in Allentown.

So, what do you think? There are more views on my brand-new Flickr account.

Japanese, post-apoc., and a bit of sci-fi/fantasy all wrapped into one great HQ. Very cool. On a personal note, my godparents live in the Allentown/Bethlehem/Lehigh Valley area so I have a small understanding of where this is would be in the real world.

Great pics and excellent build!!

Coo! I always pictured it being a looooooooooottttttttttttttttt taller, like 6-foot tall, but it's cooler than I ever imagined!

Awesome! Some of those older parts can still be put to good use!

Yeah, unlike many AFOLs, I actually LIKED the BURPs and the LURPs.... They were great for rapidly making a good, solid foundation without cutting into your generic parts supply too quickly.

I'm glad you guys liked it. Of course, no sooner than I posted this, and I've already thought of a couple of improvments I want to make, like modifying the two outer windows in the bottom rear half and replacing the howitzer on the roof with some kind of AA Gatling gun mount (let's face it: the Howitzer is no good for hitting close by targets, and it can't elevate enough to be effective for anti-air either).

It's almost always that way with me!

BURPS & LURPS? what are these?

BURP means Big Ugly Rock Piece. I don't think that they are that ugly!

BURP = Big Ugly Rock Piece

LURP = Little Ugly Rock Piece

Some LEGO "purists" back in the '90s considered any and all large pieces to be what was ruining LEGO, so they came up with disparaging nicknames for them... Personally, while I agree that LEGO tended to overdo it with the pre-fab parts in the 1990's, those parts DO come in handy for, say, building a large castle fast without using up all your generic parts (bricks, slopes, etc).... As a matter of fact, up until fairly recently you could order dark bley LURPs from LEGO Pick A Brick....

Also, looking at the base and counting LURPs, plus those brown half-arch pieces (tree branches), I now remember where my two Bandit Ambush (Dark Forest) sets went.

Ah!!!
Well, I'm all for something that will save bricks and be used for a solid structure.