Page 17 of 26

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 1:49 am
by Warcry
Skyquake87 wrote:I don't really mind the blind bagging. Its hard to begrudge something that's aimed at kids and is - I would imagine - something to be traded in the playground like stickers or whatnot.
True enough. Seems like that's the market they're going for, anyway.
Skyquake87 wrote:I haven't really the patience (or time, tbh) for faffing about with bump codes or bar codes. I can always sell the duplicates on if need be. Or give them away (I think my girlfriend is genuinely impressed with the duplicate glam rock guy I gave her), if I'm feeling that way out.
I've given a few away, but even though I'm mostly a Castle collector I can usually find something to do with duplicates of most of the minifigs (or even just the ones that kinda suck). I ended up picking up a few more on the way home today since I had to pick up some groceries and I was going right past them. The a wizard and goth girl will fit in nicely, and the video game guy looks exactly like my cousin so he's awesome, but the lifeguard? Eh. The hair and torso will be useful for making villagers or barbarians or the like, though. Rare indeed is the fig that I can't find some use for.

(Once I learned to ignore the voice in my head saying "OH GOD YOU CAN'T DO THIS THEY'RE COLLECTIBLE", anyway...)
Skyquake87 wrote:I do think Lego are missing a trick by not selling the licensed mini-figures as a separate figures - people go nuts for all those Marvel/ DC/ Star Wars things and they could probably get away with selling them on a clear blister for £5.
They tried that with Star Wars back, oh, a decade ago -- sold three-packs of recognizable characters, IIRC. But they got slapped down pretty quick on since they were infringing on Hasbro's territory by selling action figures instead of sets that needed to be assembled. That's why so many of the low-price Star Wars sets nowadays are troop-builder sets of four clones/stormtroopers/battle droids with a single perfunctory vehicle or cannon packaged with them.

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2014 9:58 pm
by Skyquake87
I wasn't aware of that. That explains why they have no trouble doing their own Lego 'battle packs' (usually Knights, plus whatever adventure theme they're doing) that are usually just four figures and a bunch of weapons.

Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2014 5:36 am
by Sades
Oh shit, the new minifigs are out? Time to take a trip to the LEGO store. I never bother with checking barcodes, etc- I enjoy not knowing what I've got. :)

Picked up the Gold Getaway set- and with that, we have all of the current Castle LEGO sets. I'm a little sad about that. :/

Hound's setting them up and we're gonna have a battle, because we're gigantic children. We have hitpoints and rules and dice and everything (modified 40k rules + some crap Hound made up :p).

I'm the bad guys, so naturally I'm going to cheat my ass off. Shh!
Skyquake87 wrote:OOh Sades and Hound you totally have to check out the Castle section of Lego's website as there's some super-fun little animated shorts that build up into a cute little story.
Ha, awesome! :up: These are adoooorable.

Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 9:29 pm
by Denyer
I've skimmed the new edition W40K rules a couple of times now (admittedly with many distractions) and it feels deliberately obtuse. Ultimately have the intention of doing repairs on the fixer-upper Crimson Fists forces I've acquired and running "training manoeuvres" type games.

On-topic, Series 13...

Image
http://i.imgur.com/nnX1FjA.jpg

Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 11:39 pm
by Cliffjumper
Quite like the fencer but TBH I don't think I've picked up a Minifig for about five waves, far too much dross and/or repeated themes (male version, female version a couple of waves later, etc) for lucky dipping.

Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2014 8:44 am
by Skyquake87
Nice looking bunch, and I'll probably have a punt having not gone the whole hog on collecting every single release, but yeah, quite a lot of repeats here...

Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2014 8:51 pm
by Sades
Denyer wrote:I've skimmed the new edition W40K rules a couple of times now (admittedly with many distractions) and it feels deliberately obtuse. Ultimately have the intention of doing repairs on the fixer-upper Crimson Fists forces I've acquired and running "training manoeuvres" type games.
We cobbled together our rules using my shitty memory of 40k from a few years back/hastily looked up info on the internet. I miss some of my 'nid models, though I don't think I really miss playing the game itself (barely remember how). The idea of buying random bits/old models and cobbling things together appeals, might do that in the near future.

As for LEGO... unicorn suit, paleontologist, hot dog guy, cyclops, Samurai (lady?), and the random floating eyes are my picks, I think.

Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2015 1:25 pm
by Denyer

Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2015 7:26 pm
by ganon578
For all you Doctor Who fans:

Doctor Who Lego Set

Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 10:38 pm
by Denyer
Be interesting to see what the final design ends up as. I could go for a Tom + TARDIS.

Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 6:43 am
by Sades
Got the Disco Diva, Evil Wizard and Unicorn Girl on a trip to Wallyworld. \o/ I'm liking the Evil Wizard a whole bunch more than I thought I would, he's pretty cool.

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 12:00 pm
by Skyquake87
So, last year I bought all the 2013 Lego Castle stuff and whilst I liked King's Castle, it was quite ..bare inside.

Over the last year, inspired by the old '80s stuff I used to have, I've added a new spin on the forge and guarded inn, in addition to just filling out some of the empty spaces with a stables, additional jail cell (created just by jamming on the sold separately gatehouse set) , a proper furnished quarters for one of the knights, a tower with sparkly gem and a grand hall underneath, a room full of magic gubbins and a gipsy :)

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 12:04 pm
by Skyquake87
I'm quite pleased with the inn, which is just a Hobbit set that came with a boat heavily reworked and modified with more castle-y bits, i added in a beer/ wine cellar type thing, a stove (you can't really see this, but its there - honest) and a fish in a barrel. i was also pleased to score the original inn sign from the '86 original :)

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 12:08 pm
by Skyquake87
Some more pictures :)

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 1:20 pm
by electro girl
Ooo noce castle work. I'm considering a splurge on the new pirate theme but some of the sets seem a bit sparse compared to say the new Star Wars sets that have some very decent £20-25 sets with a good £ to parts ratio. The new racing sets look nice too, I had a look in TRU the other day but I'm not especially into cars so I got a couple of new minifigs instead (alien trooper and the king).

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 1:44 pm
by Warcry
Skyquake87 wrote:Over the last year, inspired by the old '80s stuff I used to have, I've added a new spin on the forge and guarded inn, in addition to just filling out some of the empty spaces with a stables, additional jail cell (created just by jamming on the sold separately gatehouse set) , a proper furnished quarters for one of the knights, a tower with sparkly gem and a grand hall underneath, a room full of magic gubbins and a gipsy :)
That looks fantastic! I've always wanted to do something like that, but cost and a lack of space have put me off of it.

It's really a shame that most of the recent castle themes have used an uncommon colour for their main highlight (that lovely dark blue in the 2007-2010 stuff, the dark green for the Kingdoms Dragon Knights and the light blue for the 2013 sets. It makes it all but impossible to go out and grab a ton of generic bricks to expand your sets, and instead you basically have to stock up on a bunch of stuff at once to have the right colours to work with.
electro girl wrote:Ooo noce castle work. I'm considering a splurge on the new pirate theme but some of the sets seem a bit sparse compared to say the new Star Wars sets that have some very decent £20-25 sets with a good £ to parts ratio.
Pirates? Ooh, I had no idea.

*looks up*

Yeah, those are pretty sparse compared to the old stuff. The pirate ship itself is pretty cool, but all of the "dry land" sets seem pretty bare. Too many minifigs and not enough pieces to build with (compared to what I grew up with, anyway) which drives up the price.

Also I was very excited to see "Elves" in Lego's list of themes...then very disappointed to click on it and see stereotypically pink girly sets using those stupid "Friends-scale" figures.
electro girl wrote: The new racing sets look nice too, I had a look in TRU the other day but I'm not especially into cars so I got a couple of new minifigs instead (alien trooper and the king).
I've grabbed a few of the new minifigs as well. From the new series, I've got the alien, the space trooper, the carpenter, the cowboy and two kings (I suspect the kingdom has a civil war coming...)

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 2:10 pm
by electro girl
Warcry wrote: Also I was very excited to see "Elves" in Lego's list of themes...then very disappointed to click on it and see stereotypically pink girly sets using those stupid "Friends-scale" figures.
That is a pet peeve of mine. I like the sets, I like the colours but I don't like that they have drawn a line through an essentially unisex toyline. The castles and space are for boys and picnics and stables are for girls mentality and the message it sends to kids really annoys me. The Friends and Fairy sets would be great at minifig scale and would nicely blend with City or Castle sets but the separation is very limiting in my opinion. Although there have been a few more lady minifigs in recent years I think this was a missed opportunity to increase the amount of lady minifig parts available for customisation etc.

When I worked at TRU it annoyed me when parents came in asking for "the girl Lego" (it was kept separate from the main Lego display) it happened so often that in the end I just gave up replying with "Lego is unisex" and just pointed them out.
Warcry wrote: I've grabbed a few of the new minifigs as well. From the new series, I've got the alien, the space trooper, the carpenter, the cowboy and two kings (I suspect the kingdom has a civil war coming...)
Gay kings. Problem solved. Also I really like that carpenter, the saw and the detail on the plank make him a stand out figure of that wave.

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 2:48 pm
by Skyquake87
I was disappointed with the Pirates stuff too. I was excited for all of five minutes and then was ...booo. A lot of Lego's stuff seems to be leaning towards a sort of playset vibe for its traditional ranges, partly inspired it would seem by the similar licensed sets, which have a bunch of figures and a few bricks to represent scenery. Its a shame, as there's then not much you can rebuild out of the sets , which I always thought was kind of the point.

I noticed as well that their £5 entry level kits have been jettisoned in favour of larger £8 sets with about 4-5 minifigures and a vehicle, which I like for stuff like Chimia and Star Wars, but less so for City (bloody cops and robbers, AGAIN).

Likewise, the elves sets look fantastic, but those wretched girly minifigures are just horrible. I have a couple from the last newspaper giveaway and their hair falls off all the time :( What was wrong with the Paradiso take, is what I'd like to know, which were pink but had regular minifigures?

I would agree about the Castle stuff and its colourful bricks - its so hard tracking down additional spare bricks without having to pay a premium for them. A lot of the additional bricks I acquired for my building was just from buying figure-less sets off ebay. And this latter trend might be the reason a lot of Lego's stuff is heavily m-f centric at the moment - the aftermarket prices for minifigures is just silly - they often go for more than the total set. Its also a pain if a mini-figure is a one-off from a more expensive set too. I really wanted a blacksmith figure, and ended up paying £7 for him which hurt, simply because he's only appeared in 2 sets over the last 10 years . One was the super-expensive market village, and the other a blink and you'll miss it Kingdoms expansion set.

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 8:04 pm
by electro girl
Skyquake87 wrote: I noticed as well that their £5 entry level kits have been jettisoned in favour of larger £8 sets with about 4-5 minifigures and a vehicle, which I like for stuff like Chimia and Star Wars, but less so for City (bloody cops and robbers, AGAIN).
I think there are too many construction and emergency personnel in Lego City too. I think this is because there are pretty much no school or library sets sets so we have a pretty stupid population operating heavy machinery, driving race cars, working for Octan in the seemingly limitless oil industry and building shoddy buildings thus necessitating a high turnover of new buildings, A&E stretched to breaking point and with no schools all the kids turn into the other major population of minifigs, criminals. Hence all the cops. How they have a space agency is beyond me.

Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2015 11:48 pm
by Sades
I tried to stick some of the Castle sets together when we first bought them but Hound wouldn't let me. I think he missed the point of LEGO. :p Every one of Skyquake's pictures made me want to go and take them apart however... wench with a sausage? :lol:

There may be few sets, but I'm actually FREAKING EXCITED to see Pirate LEGO. And the octopus. And the alligator. And a Galleon! YAS. YAS INDEEDY. I AM NOT DISAPPOINT. I WILL HAS.

I am however disappoint at the Elves.