The Melbourne Museum in Australia has a surprising denizen in its Lego exhibition. Laying waste to some poor medieval minifigures is a mean, green, Lego Warhammer 40k Great Unclean One.
This fantastic build is contained with the museum’s Bricktionary Lego A-Z exhibition, which is full of models from a recent book by Lego certified professional Alan ‘Brickman’ McNaught. According to one redditor who spotted it, u/BenBoi, it is found under ‘D is for Diorama’, and there’s no attached explanation to provide context. Presumably hundreds of museum-goers admire this Great Unclean One each day, but have no idea what it is.
In some ways, Lego and Warhammer 40k go hand in hand – after all, they’re both hobbies that involve building little plastic models. Plus they’re both horrifyingly expensive! And yet the whimsical, colourful aesthetic of Lego is so very far removed from the over the top grimdark vibes of Warhammer, that there’s something funny about seeing the least wholesome of Nurgle’s creations rendered in bricks.
‘Bricktionary: The ultimate A-Z of Lego’ opened September 3 this year at the Melbourne Museum. As well as 150 creations from the book of the same name, the exhibition houses models from the TV show Lego Masters Australia and 45 new builds from the Brickman team, a group of Lego artists led by McNaught.
It appears Brickman’s tabletop gaming love doesn’t end at Warhammer 40k, as apparently there’s also a 2.4m tall Battletech Timber Wolf mech within the exhibition. The exhibition’s description challenges kids to take inspiration from the mech at an interactive station, asking them to build their own lego robot: “It could be a super-fast police robot, or a robot to tidy your room for you!”
There doesn’t seem to be a similar challenge beside the Warhammer-inspired model, encouraging them to build their own herald of pestilence and decay, however.
There are some seriously big Lego builds in this museum – from mechs to giant trees! Check out the biggest Lego sets you can buy. And – there’s probably some overlap here – here are the most expensive Lego sets out there.