tppytel

If you don't need the box, and especially if you can live with downloadable instructions, it will almost certainly be cheaper to Bricklink all the parts individually than to buy a set complete.

Perfect. Just what I needed to know. Thanks!

That's basically my plan - either the fabric store or the craft store will have something for me. But I know some Lego string, like the stuff used for boat rigging, is thicker nylon cord of some sort. I'd like to get whatever's correct for the model, even though I'm sure it doesn't matter much in the end.

As noted already, there was a great deal of variation in equipment both between civilizations and across time as technology developed. I don't worry a great deal about it, but as a slight nod towards realism, I tend to outfit my archers in the surcoat torso and the brimmed helm. I figure that archers would tend to be less heavily armored and would want a brim to keep sun out of their eyes. Of course, there could be armor under the surcoat, but this way they at least appear less armored. I put grunt spearmen/swordsmen in the scale mail with the great helm. It would be nice to find a less flamboyant helm (like the old bullet helm) available in pearl light/dark gray or metallic, but I don't see anything better out there.

Not exactly automatically. At the very end of the checkout process (the very last screen after you submit your order), there's a message like "Some items from this order were on your Wanted List." You can follow the link near the message to a screen containing all those items. There you can delete them or adjust the quantities as appropriate.

Picked this one up today... fantastic value, IMO. I mean, sure, the "prison" is pretty lame and the obligatory siege weapon is predictably useless. But who cares? You get an incredibly butt-kickin mounted knight, 3 more basic minifig dudes and a pile of generally useful Castle parts for $20. Unless you're 100% into keeping complete sets together and never, ever want extra figs and basic bricks for modding/moccing, this is a must-buy set. Even if you have plenty of Lions and Dragons and basic parts already, I think one of these is worth it just for the mounted Dragon Knight. I've got 2 so far, and will gladly snap up a few more as sales pop up. So yeah... don't look at it as a "real" Lego set with something cool to build. It's just a high-value parts pack and army builder that happens to have enough playability to be an inexpensive, mass-market Lego set.

Great article - thanks for putting it together! It's always fascinating to see the birth of something that ends up so much bigger than initially imagined. I had thought my time as a kid collecting Castle sets was later with the Forestmen. But I guess someone got me started earlier, as my own kids still play with my old "halved-shield" minifigs from set 677 (Knight's Procession), which I clearly recall building now that I see the pic. I didn't realize those figs were from such an old set. It's pretty wild to think that 1) someone had the foresight to buy me a cool Lego castle set when I was 4, and 2) that my own almost 4 year old kids are still playing with those figs 30 years later.

Hi all! Returning to Lego here after about a 20 year absence... along with the OT on DVD, I bought my son Luke's Landspeeder (and myself an X-Wing) in Legos for Christmas. I spent many hours of my childhood building ships out of Classic Space sets and I'm floored at how much Lego building has advanced since then. While I still have fond memories of my Beta-1 Command Base and Star Fleet Voyager, they pale in comparison to what's being produced now. I've read a number of reviews on the forums here and purchased several more sets, including Slave I, the Mon Calamari cruiser, and a couple smaller sets. Since I'll need to be a bit more conservative with my purchases for a while, I'm curious what other sets folks would recommend just on the criteria of interesting build techniques and/or building a good parts pool. Since I don't plan on keeping models assembled forever, sets outside of Star Wars would be of interest too, provided they'd be useful for building Star Wars-y, sci-fi kinds of things.

UCS ISD Instructions errors? Just received a shiny, new ISD today... needless to say, I'm pretty psyched! Given my limited time to build after dealing with work and kids, this will probably keep me occupied for a month or so. However, I've read several reports that the instructions contain quite a few errors, including some that are somewhat significant and confusing. Any truth to that? If so, is there a list of corrections anywhere? Were the errors corrected when TLG reprinted the manual in spiral form (which is what I have)? Thanks!

If you search the forum a bit, you'll find some threads on 5-wide cars, which are intended to solve exactly the scale problem you're describing. A number of folks use those for typical passenger cars, 6-wide for trucks and larger vehicles, and 4-wide only for very small cars. I think that's the way I'm going with my town setup, though I have a long way to go. 5-wide also provides the added fun of trying to deal with the odd width.

Sadly, there were none at the K-Mart I checked. There was only one little end-shelf for the toy clearance and it was packed to the brim with junk... no lego. I guess maybe those sets had already sold out there - it didn't look like there was any empty space on the clearance shelf. edit: I see on the other site now that the sale actually started last week. So perhaps I was just too late.

Do you just mean the downloads for the other sets? Or is there a repository of free (and interesting) designs out there? I've seen (and been impressed by) a number of MOC's, but most don't include build instructions. Already backordered it. It's insanely expensive and really more than I should be spending right now, but my kids (and I) will have a blast playing with it. I know we'll need (OK... want) it eventually, and I've already seen what's happened to the prices on the other UCS sets. But despite dropping $400 on that, I don't really want to throw that kind of money at Legos on a regular basis.

Thanks for all the welcomes and recommendations. You mean there's some other way? What's the point of bricks if they're forever stuck together? I get that some people like having a lot of display pieces. I just don't really have the space or interest for it. I think I'll keep my X-Wing assembled, since that's the Star Wars ship to me, but the rest will go to the parts bin eventually. I have some Hoth and Cloud City dioramas in mind. And it's on sale for half price at S@H! Er... was on sale. Now it's sold out. I really should have picked that up along with the X-Wing and Land Speeder from S@H, but I wasn't yet thinking about parts at the time. The midi-ISD is actually entirely gone from S@H now and not just "sold out" - does that mean it's gone forever? Since I was taking a particular angle on the recommendation and not limiting it to Star Wars sets, I thought it was distinct enough to make a new thread. Mods are welcome to move it or merge it if necessary. Interesting. I might check that out, especially if I can find a sale. Thanks for the recommendation - I wouldn't otherwise buy a non-OT set. Really? I wouldn't have expected that - could you elaborate? It seems like most "playsets" are less interesting builds, as they tend to spread their bricks across 3 or 4 different smaller, simpler items. I bought Echo Base and the Wampa Cave for my kids to play with, and they're very cute, but there wasn't really much to building them. What's interesting about the Endor set that I'm overlooking?