LEGO Rock Raiders

LEGO Rock Raiders was a LEGO theme focused on underground mining equipment. The theme consisted of eight main construction sets released in 1999, followed by seven smaller promotional sets in 2000. It also had a number of tie-in products, including three books and a video game.

Story

The Rock Raiders

LEGO Components

Sets

The Rock Raiders sets

Set No.	Name	Released	Pieces	Minifigures	Notes
4910	The Hover Scout	1999	39	Jet
4920	The Rapid Rider	1999	38	Bandit
4930	The Rock Raiders (UK) Rock Raiders Crew (US)	1999	38	Axle, Bandit, Docs, Jet, Sparks
4940	The Granite Grinder	1999	108	Axle
4950	The Loader-Dozer	1999	89	Axle, rock monster	Also advertised as #4959; likely a typo
4970	The Chrome Crusher	1999	167	Axle
4980	The Tunnel Transport	1999	341	Docs, Jet
4990	The Rock Raiders HQ	1999	402	Bandit, Docs, Jet, Sparks, rock monster
1274	1 Light Hover	2000		Jet	Kabaya
1275	2 Chain Dozer	2000		Bandit	Kabaya
1276	3 Heli Transporter	2000		Docs	Kabaya
1277	4 Drill Craft	2000		Sparks	Kabaya
3347	Rock Raiders #1	2000		Chief	Mini Heroes Collection
3348	Rock Raiders #2	2000		Bandit, Docs, Sparks	Mini Heroes Collection
3349	Rock Raiders #3	2000		Axle, Docs, Jet	Mini Heroes Collection Axle's card spells his name "Axel"

Minifigures

• Chief
• Docs
• Jet
• Bandit
• Axle
• Sparks
• Rock monster?

Unique parts

The theme introduces an abundance of unique parts. Many of the parts are large and have been criticised for being "juniorized".

Media

Video games

LEGO Rock Raiders

The Rock Raiders franchise got 2 separate video games: One for PC, and one for PlayStation. They featured vastly different gameplay, where the PC game was a resource management RTS game, and the PlayStation game was a third-person action game.

PC

The PC game was a RTS-style resouce management game where the player has to complete tasks while fending off hostile creatures and managing environmental dangers.

PlayStation 1

The PlayStation game

Comic books

Each set had comic books!

Rock Raiders comics also appeared in a number of magazines, including LEGO Mania Magazine, LEGO Adventures!, Klick, and The Beano.

A number of comics were also created for the theme. Each of the original eight sets featured small mini comic books in certain specially-marked releases (which ones?). There were also Rock Raiders magazine comics published in LEGO Mania Magazine and LEGO Adventures!, as well as an appearance in the Time Cruisers comic and an eight-part comic in The Beano.

Story books

Rock Raiders got 3 separate story books:

• Rock Raiders: An Interactive Puzzle Storybook– An illustrated storybook written by Anna Knight, illustrated by Roger Harris, and published in 1999 by Dorling Kindersley as part of the LEGO Game Books series. The book is divided into fully-illustrated two-page spreads, with each scene containing a short amount of story and a puzzle for the reader to solve.
• Rock Raiders: High Adventure Deep Underground – A graphic novel written by Alan Grant and illustrated by Robin Smith and LEGO Media, published in 2000. The story is divided into chapters, and features occasional narration by Jet, as well as puzzles on certain pages and ideas for LEGO models the reader can build.
• Race for Survival – A short novel written by Marie Birkinshaw and published in 2000 as part of the Dorling Kindersley Readers series. Unlike the other two books, which retell the theme's story, this story is set six months later, featuring the Rock Raiders returning to the theme's alien planet. Each page features brief articles on geology relevant to events in the story.

History

The Rock Raiders theme began production in 1997 with the codename "Underground". The sets stopped being produced in 2000.

Prototypes

RR Prototypes r kewl.

Release

Rock Raiders was commercially okay-ish.

Legacy

Many speculate the Raiders are still Rocking to this day.

LEGO Rock Raiders was succeeded by the incredibly popular BLock Raiders - an absolute marvellous game made by Stewart Green, a legendary computer programmer.

Oh yeah there's also Power minurss