General LEGO discussion (inc. collectible minifigs)

[Terome]

Pretty cool! Shall be all over that mech. We've run out of Series 8 packs down by my way and I never got me the bowler-hatted gentleman. These are dark times.

[Warcry]

Must...have...cyclops...

Also the judge, Gypsy, she-elf, Marilyn Monroe wannabe, knight (Side-note: he's got a modified version of the classic broadsword! Woo!), Caesar, mermaid...half the series, pretty much.

I've got to reiterate just how brilliant the collectible minifig concept is. I'm not really interested in any of the themes now that they've cancelled Castle to make overpriced, boring renditions of movie scenes from Lord of the Rings, but I still keep paying attention to new releases because of the minifigs.

Side-note: I really want to like Monster Fighters, but the only sets I want are the two $100+ ones...which are too big for me to actually build and keep because the space I've allotted for Lego in the apartment is 95% full. The smaller sets are too focused on vehicles and don't provide good lairs for their (admittedly really cool) monsters at all.

[Cliffjumper]

Pretty cool! Shall be all over that mech. We've run out of Series 8 packs down by my way and I never got me the bowler-hatted gentleman. These are dark times.

Have a spare if needed.

[Tetsuro]

Anyone seen those minifigure display cases?

...and how hideously expensive they are for what they are?

[Skyquake87]

Side-note: I really want to like Monster Fighters, but the only sets I want are the two $100+ ones...which are too big for me to actually build and keep because the space I've allotted for Lego in the apartment is 95% full. The smaller sets are too focused on vehicles and don't provide good lairs for their (admittedly really cool) monsters at all.

Same here. The massive vampire castle thing is easily the best thing in the series...but where would i put it? i've already sold off my Castle and City stuff for the same reasons. Lego have also down a 'collector's edition' haunted house (£149!) which isn't any better than the vampire castle thing...so why bother?

As its christmas, i have cracked out my two winter village sets - the toy shop and the bakery- which are still brilliant.

@ Tetsuro, yeah i've seen those display cases. don't see the point myself when you can build one yourself a lot of Lego's storage products are insanely expensive.

In series 8 news, i has the bolwer hat city guy and the fairy!

the look of that there series what denyer posted a pic of looks good, although Lego are reportedly going to be short-packing some figures to increase sales which is a bit..booo.

[Terome]

Same here. The massive vampire castle thing is easily the best thing in the series...but where would i put it?

I plan on building mine into Helm's Deep somehow when I get a spare afternoon.

Don't have the mansion but I reckon it would really benefit from the addition of a few Friends sets inside. That way it more resemble a squat on the edge of town than a Scooby-Doo house.

The winter sets are really nice - would very much recommend the Winter Cottage if you've got a spare £90 lying around. There is a lot of detail inside and the light fittings are a minor work of art. It also comes with a kitten.

Cliffy - shall PM about that gentleman.

[Cliffjumper]

Back right - is it me, or - aside from jet boots instead of helipack - is that Matt Trakker of MASK fame?

EDIT: Love Marilyn, the gypsy, the chicken and the mermaid. Have a feeling the cop and the plumber are going to fill the role of "mundane guy I end up with six of".

Improvement over the last wave, IMO.

[Warcry]

Anyone seen those minifigure display cases?

...and how hideously expensive they are for what they are?

They look pretty awful, too. A person who wanted minifigure display cases could easily build something better without much work.

Same here. The massive vampire castle thing is easily the best thing in the series...but where would i put it? i've already sold off my Castle and City stuff for the same reasons. Lego have also down a 'collector's edition' haunted house (£149!) which isn't any better than the vampire castle thing...so why bother?

I like the look of the haunted house, actually, though the price is shocking. $200 isn't quite as nuts as the $500 Death Stars and Executors that the Star Wars crowd gobble up, but it's double what I paid for the Medieval Market Village -- which was awesome, admittedly, but also takes up lots of space and took me around six hours to build. A lot of the collector-themed Lego stuff just seems to be a bit much, to me...my brain just expects any and all Lego sets to be as cutely underscaled as the typical set in the 80s and 90s, so the bigger stuff often winds up looking "wrong" to me.

Even the normal themes aren't immune to it...Star Wars for one releases a new X-Wing or TIE Fighter or Landspeeder every three or four years, with each one being progressively bigger, more detailed and less "fun" (IMO obviously) than the last.

the look of that there series what denyer posted a pic of looks good, although Lego are reportedly going to be short-packing some figures to increase sales which is a bit..booo.

*shakes fist*

Hopefully it'll turn around and bite them in the ass when the short-packed ones turn out to be unpopular.

I plan on building mine into Helm's Deep somehow when I get a spare afternoon.

Maybe it's just me, but isn't Helm's Deep one of the most boring castles Lego's done in the last decade? It's definitely more realistic than most others, but unfortunately that translates to it being grey, grey and more grey, with grey highlights. It's a good design as far as layout and movie accuracy goes...it and Gandalf's cart are the only sets that are even close to adequate when it comes to replicating the scene it's supposed to represent. But when I compare it to the older non-licensed castles with their colourful, faction-themed banners, flags and trim Helm's Deep just doesn't look very exciting.

[Skyquake87]

Well I was in Tesco last night and picked up a series 8 bard. He's lovely, really nice detailing and two -way facial expression malarky.

I also had a look at other Legos. The Vampire Castle is £50...a massive £20 off the rrp...tempting. Had a look at the back of the box and inside there's not much going on. Just lots of weird pits with teeth (?) one room and some ramparts for folk to run along. So I am swayed...but I do get the impression that it'll be a bit of a let down in the end. Nice minifigures though and the green car looks decent, despite the silly rocket launcher.

And oh yes that Helm's Deep Castle is BORING. Its just grey grey and more grey. It doesn't have much in the way of features either, and is as empty as the old 1980s interiors, so Lego, you can keep your £100 for that pile of dull.

The Avengers Lego is also tumbling in price. Always the danger of licensed stuff, once the film's been and gone, what have you got to sustain interest? Nothing. All the appeal of the sets is in the mini-figures, and with the Sun recently giving away Thor and Hawkeye, there's the cheap Cap and Iron Man sets leaving you with only the Hulk and Black Widow to get. And of course, those two are only available in the most expensive sets of the range. Booo.

Batman's Batcave seems to be a bit of a stiff. Again, its on discount, but its just quite ugly and flimsy looking and nowhere near as nice as the one from 2007 and not even worth it to get the Bane and Posion Ivy figs. You just don't seem to get much for your money. weird how these newer batman sets have less bricks but cost twice as much as the old sets did at retail. Now thats what I call capitalism!

Elsewhere, its all Ninjago (whatever) and City stuff with the mining sub-theme being thrust in your face at every turn. Star Wars is starting to look a bit desperate, but folk still seem happy to stump up silly sums of money for this stuff so there we go. The Dino theme seems to have sunk without trace though. Only TRU now carry it around my way and the sets are a bit ugly looking and do girls really need ugly malformed Mini-figs to play with Lego? I thought it was pretty inclusive, so why does the Friends line exist?

[Warcry]

The Vampire Castle is £50

So...about $80 here. I'd definitely buy it if I could get it for that price, space issues or not. Even though I think the haunted house makes a lot more sense as a home base for a vampire. The castle would totally be seized by one of my ever-expanding bands of armed knights, if the vampires and manbats weren't enslaved by a necromancer first.

And oh yes that Helm's Deep Castle is BORING. Its just grey grey and more grey. It doesn't have much in the way of features either, and is as empty as the old 1980s interiors, so Lego, you can keep your £100 for that pile of dull.

If the price-per-piece ratio was better I'd be all for it just as a parts set. All that grey would come in very handy for building a castle of my own, with some colour and a few interesting play features and accessories tossed in. But as a licensed set it's about 15% more expensive than a similar, non-licensed set of the same size, so no, thanks.

The Avengers Lego is also tumbling in price. Always the danger of licensed stuff, once the film's been and gone, what have you got to sustain interest? Nothing.

I'm hoping the same will happen to LOTR and the Hobbit...

Though in the mean time, apparently real Castle Lego is coming back next summer so I'm quite happy about that.

Batman's Batcave seems to be a bit of a stiff.

Heh. I hadn't actually looked at any of the DC stuff before. You're right, it's pretty awful. And so is practically every other set in the range. I'm quite fond of the Arkham set, but that's the only one that looks good and again, the price is way out of whack for what you're getting.

Elsewhere, its all Ninjago

The smaller Ninjago sets are pretty cool, I think. The game-themed ones are silly, but I'm a fan of a few of the small buildings as well as the Technic-built beasts in a few sets.

The Dino theme seems to have sunk without trace though. Only TRU now carry it around my way and the sets are a bit ugly looking

TRU is the only retailer that stocks the full range of Lego around here at all, other than one shop downtown that caters to the hipster parent crowd. Walmart and the other major retailers will carry City, the licensed themes and not much else, and when they do stock something like Ninjago or Dinos or Monster Hunters it's nothing but the small sets.

I'm hoping that'll change not that Target has bought up the long-decaying corpse of Zellers and started converting the stores to their brand...

and do girls really need ugly malformed Mini-figs to play with Lego? I thought it was pretty inclusive, so why does the Friends line exist?

I ask the same question, myself. My niece loves Lego and occasionally asks for Friends stuff, but I'd never even think of buying her any. Not only is the theme cloyingly, stereotypically "girly", but the sets seem to be of very low quality, with much less complexity and building on a brick-for-brick basis than the normal sets. They remind me a lot of the really silly Belville line, more "dollys with Lego accessories" than "Lego aimed at girls" like the old Paradisa sets. If I was female I'm pretty sure I'd find it insulting.

...

You know, the fact that I can even remember two decade old girly Lego sets tells me that I spent way too much time staring at Lego catalogues when I was a kid...

[Skyquake87]

Ha! i remember Paradisa! That was a really nice line. Sure it looked silly, all pink and white like a birthday cake, but the sets didn't look daft. Unlike Friends.

I have bought a few of the DC Superheroes sets (weirdly seem to be better than the Marvel ones) and I like the Catwoman set, the Jokers Funhouse is a nice little playset and as much as i liked the original two-face chase thing, this newer set is a bit better, throwing in a bank for you to rob rather than just a werid lamp/ spiky tyre damaging thingy. The silly Two-Face vehicle is superb in in its glorious orange and purple. I also got the Superman thing, which is great as well.

By comparrison, the only Marvel set (out of the two i bought) I think I really like is the Cap set. Iron Man just looks silly with his massive head, Loki is kind of sweet, but his rubber helmet isn't much fun and that massive Shield vehicle is just a bit ugly.

I think if the Vampire Castle is still reduced when I get paid Friday I might take another look...or get the Winter Village Post Office (the new Winter Cottage set is a bit too much at the moment). I can't tell you how great the winter village sets are. Lovely little sets, bags of details. Light bricks (ooh!) and just reasonable rrps (and cheapish if you buy them out of season) for Collector sets.

Ooh! That's reminded me, I did have a whirl with some modern Technic. Thats good fun. Much more realistic construction, and the build patterns are significantly divorced from the likes of City and so on to make it feel like you've bought a different construction line altogether. I have a buggy thing (its red) which looks like one of those Tamiya RC vehicles and rebuilds into a pretty cute tractor and I've bought a few of the tiny sets that are smaller representations of some of the massive show-piece sets and are great little things. The tiny Mercedes tow truck with working steering and winch is just adorable!

[Denyer]

I ask the same question, myself. My niece loves Lego and occasionally asks for Friends stuff, but I'd never even think of buying her any. Not only is the theme cloyingly, stereotypically "girly", but the sets seem to be of very low quality, with much less complexity and building on a brick-for-brick basis than the normal sets. They remind me a lot of the really silly Belville line, more "dollys with Lego accessories" than "Lego aimed at girls" like the old Paradisa sets. If I was female I'm pretty sure I'd find it insulting.

If she likes it, go for it -- that's how Friends came about, despite more female figures also being pushed in the main sets. The focus groups wanted pastels and "play house" stuff. It's not as if the pieces can't be generalised with other System sets. (Even Scala added one or two useful pieces -- the award rosettes work pretty well as honour/purity seals if you're building W40K.)

http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=3933-1

^The inventor set was pretty decent as plain LEGO, I thought.

People have mixed Friends elements in quite successfully...

http://www.brothers-brick.com/2012/02/0 ... inspiring/
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2012/01/0 ... se-review/
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2012/02/2 ... g-friends/
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2012/01/1 ... er-review/
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2012/01/2 ... g-friends/
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2012/01/1 ... -headgear/
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2012/01/0 ... h-friends/
http://www.brothers-brick.com/2012/02/1 ... the-shell/

[Cliffjumper]

Actually like a lot of the Paradisa sets - it covered a lot of normal stuff that Town hadn't done for a decade and it was easy enough to swap out the pink. IIRC there was a lighthouse thing that was ****ing epic. And yeh, a fair few salvagable pieces - especially minifig accs that had been barely used for a few years (cups and the like).

[Warcry]

I stumbled on a store that's got a lot of older stuff (Pharoah's Quest and Kingdoms were the ones that caught my eye the most) still in stock, and that'll be doing a total inventory blowout right after Christmas because they're closing. I'll have to make a point to head back there when the store is in liquidation mode to see if I can get anything interesting at 30% or 40% off...

By comparrison, the only Marvel set (out of the two i bought) I think I really like is the Cap set. Iron Man just looks silly with his massive head, Loki is kind of sweet, but his rubber helmet isn't much fun and that massive Shield vehicle is just a bit ugly.

The Marvel sets all look pretty ugly, now that I see them. Not that the DC ones are much better, but at least the DC ones have a bit of personality to them. Some of the Marvel sets look like generic City or Space sets with Wolverine or Iron Man added.

...or get the Winter Village Post Office (the new Winter Cottage set is a bit too much at the moment). I can't tell you how great the winter village sets are. Lovely little sets, bags of details. Light bricks (ooh!) and just reasonable rrps (and cheapish if you buy them out of season) for Collector sets.

I've never really paid much attention to the Winter Village sets before, though I have to admit that both the post office and the bakery look really cool. I'd probably just end up de-wintering them, de-moderning them and incorporating them into my Castle town after a few weeks, though.

Ooh! That's reminded me, I did have a whirl with some modern Technic. Thats good fun. Much more realistic construction, and the build patterns are significantly divorced from the likes of City and so on to make it feel like you've bought a different construction line altogether.

I've never dived into Technic, personally. It feels like a totally different brand, like you say, and that's always been off-putting to me.

If she likes it, go for it -- that's how Friends came about, despite more female figures also being pushed in the main sets. The focus groups wanted pastels and "play house" stuff.

Eh. She's actually a major tomboy, so every time we've gotten her something girly she's been amused with it for about an hour before she goes back to more gender-neutral or "boyish" stuff. Plus it's not like Friends is the only thing she asks for when I ask her what sort of Lego she likes. If I give her a catalogue she oohs and aahs over practically every theme, the way I did when I was a kid.

The most annoying thing about buying her Lego is that she really, really likes Star Wars because of the Clone Wars cartoon. I know she'd love Star Wars Lego, but the smaller sets are practically all troop-builders to please the grown-up fanboy demographic. I've looked unsuccessfully for three years and I've yet to find a set that a kid of her age and building experience would be able to handle (in spite of that bar creeping up every single year). Which is a shame, because the simpler sets they had when the Star Wars line just started would be right up her alley.

On the other hand, if her little sister was into Lego I'd totally buy her Friends stuff. She's an absolute girly-girl and would love it, and as a younger girl who's not really had any Lego of her own before she's definitely more in the target market.

Actually like a lot of the Paradisa sets - it covered a lot of normal stuff that Town hadn't done for a decade and it was easy enough to swap out the pink. IIRC there was a lighthouse thing that was ****ing epic. And yeh, a fair few salvagable pieces - especially minifig accs that had been barely used for a few years (cups and the like).

I always thought Paradisa was pretty cool when I was a kid, not that I would ever have admitted it at the time. The only difference between it and Town that I saw was the colour of the bricks and the gender of the minifigs. It would have been a great way to fill out a realistic-looking community since the Town sets were, IIRC, not very good for gender balance (even if they weren't as much of a sausage-fest as Space or Castle).

[Denyer]

Get 'em a bit of both and expect them to pool it? Or are they completely territorial?

I've never dived into Technic, personally. It feels like a totally different brand, like you say, and that's always been off-putting to me.

Some really useful parts if you want to do Studs Not On Top designs, though;

http://www.brothers-brick.com/2007/02/1 ... er-enjary/

[Denyer]

http://www.hispabrickmagazine.com/conte ... gazine-015

From a light skim it's a better read than BrickJournal the last time I saw it, and there's an article on Scala/Belville/etc vs the newer Friends stuff. Mean to look into the raytracing stuff...

Would anyone object to making this a general LEGO thread?

[Cliffjumper]

I WOULD, VIOLENTLY.

(I don't think I've posted for a few days so I'm just checking I haven't been banned)

[Warcry]

I'm pretty sure it's been a general Lego thread for the last year, give or take. So it only makes sense that the title matches the contents.

Get 'em a bit of both and expect them to pool it? Or are they completely territorial?

Children come in the non-territorial variety?

Some really useful parts if you want to do Studs Not On Top designs, though;

Oh, absolutely yes. I've definitely used them in the past, and found it very useful on space-themed stuff. But models that are exclusively (or mainly) built from Technic bits and pieces don't have a very "Lego" look to them. They're neat, sure, but they often lack that bricky charm that most Lego has.

http://www.brothers-brick.com/2007/02/1 ... er-enjary/

Some very nice techniques in there that I'd never thought of before. Sadly a lot of them look really, really parts-intensive.

[Denyer]

Children come in the non-territorial variety?

My experience of LEGO has been that it's one thing less fought over, anyway.

a lot of them look really, really parts-intensive

Most stuff I go for is, TBH. In particular I'm not much of a fan of having studs showing unless it's for a specific effect.

[Warcry]

Most stuff I go for is, TBH. In particular I'm not much of a fan of having studs showing unless it's for a specific effect.

I've never been a fan of consciously tiling over every exposed surface. I find that the effect loses it's impact when people use it on every surface of a model. Especially for historical builds (Castle, Pirates, etc.) where most things would have been a bit rough around the edges, I prefer to leave at least some studs uncovered. When I'm building, SNOT techniques are incorporated more for the added creative possibilities they bring (building on angles that traditional one atop the other brick assembly won't allow) than for their aesthetic uses. I usually don't give too much thought to hiding all the studs unless it's for something that's meant to be ultra-futuristic or sleek, like a spaceship or something of the sort.

I got a few more Series 8 minifigures for Christmas, in particular the series 8 football player, lederhosen guy and cowgirl. The football player's pretty boring, all things considered...no torso printing under the pads, boring colours and nothing much in terms of reusable parts except for the nice trophy. Lederhosen guy is nice as a generic old-timey peasant or an attendee at a cultural festival. The cowgirl's pretty cool too, though she's more "modern fetishized line dancer" than something that'd fit in with the old Wild West sets.