LEGO The X-Mansion (76294)

The build splits across three instruction books and it's paced more around fun than fiendish technique, which suited me fine. You start with the Sentinel, which uses the familiar Mixel ball joints for articulation with solid bracketing, so it comes out chunky and properly poseable. Then the mansion goes up in modular sections: the entrance and lab with its arched hallway and Cerebro detail, the Danger Room with its reconfigurable wall panels (each panel carries different training gear, so you can rearrange the whole room), and the classroom and dorm areas, which are the most furnished and detailed part of the build. Long Technic axles tie the wings together, floors and roofs lift off for interior access, and the roof has a simple lever that pops the cupola dome off for that classic mansion-under-attack moment I couldn't resist trying straight away.

On the parts front it's more useful than showy, and I mean that kindly. There are only a handful of genuinely new recoloured bricks, but the standouts are fun: a trans-dark pink ghost effect element (the first time that bar piece has appeared beyond trans-red) for Gambit's kinetic charge, a dark purple minifig cape in only its third colour, new white and reddish-orange hair pieces, and a dark pink 3x3 round brick printed with a Sentinel face. You'll also find some rare-ish stuff builders like, including black window glass, trans-black windscreens and medium lavender curved bricks that only turn up in a set or two elsewhere. The 3,093-piece count leans on smaller detail elements rather than big panels, which is part of why the value feels tight, but for a display build the parts pull their weight.