Mandalorianknight

I don't really care- a big part of minecraft is building whatever you want, and if I did buy these, my main thing would just be the generated structures and terrain being done right- but yeah, nobody I've ever played with as an adult builds this stuff, and when I was a kid we'd all build "normal" houses. My guess is the animal house sets do well, so lego keeps pumping them out because they're more exciting to the <10 year old demographic than normal homes.

Ketamine yoda minifig confirmed for 2024 2HY. All you lurkers reading this, go post it on discord/instagram/reddit as absolute fact. This is actually a good point in general. I didn't do a ton of research- finals week- but some cursory glances (the clone walker being $12 in 2009 would be $17 today) do imply a pricing increase correlation- though not one as much as lego increases the prices by- $17 obviously being less than $20, and we've seen lego's fine with nonstandard product prices given the $16 mechs and $11 sets creeping around. It all just depends on what you use as the baseline of how much lego *should* be worth, which is a lot more subjective than set prices rising faster/slower than the inflation rate. IIRC the battle packs were around $10, and had a pretty normal creep to $11, $12, $13, before the Rogue One packs upset everyone by moving to $15, where they stood until 2022's move to $20 (it's important to note that we went a full two years between standard battle packs after the last $15 ones, so while a $20 leap in two years is drastic, it's not overnight.). The 332nd price increase to $26 was never actually implemented, though it was rumored, and I have no trouble at all believing lego would try it given how well the clone battle packs are assumably doing.

Unfortunately I wouldn't put much hope in that. Big sets like the tower and bugle usually have a large number of repeated figures, and unless you want "venom and his venomized villains attack the x-mansion", we're probably going to see all 6 possible repeats. (Which in and of itself is too few, I wouldn't be surprised if spidey and a couple avengers are visiting the mansion, or it has a drastically lower figure count than the bugle and tower) But we're back at them putting in more new prints, and we again return to the fact that most MCU sets (excluding the modulars) are accurate to who was at which event. All the infinity saga sets are accurate as to what figs were were, UNLESS they can re-use inaccurate prints, or it's based on a not-yet-released film so they don't know for sure who's where. They're not going to create new prints to intentionally make a set inaccurate. This is just the "but the set would be better if it had more new prints" thing again, which everyone already agrees on. A brick-built head so it would look more fully like a large venom than venom in a mech suit- his head looks a little small for that here.

With the MCU based sets they tend to generally stick to which characters were in which scenes, at least over the last few years (excluding the tower). Also, remember this is primarily a children's set. They want Spider-man in it. Dude, back when the "venom ock" set leaked I was gonna post my prediction of what it'd look like, and as part of it I crudely edited half the current venom figure's print onto the doc ock parts.. it looked almost exactly like this, and I decided it wasn't good enough to post. This is correct- we get so much venom because he sells so well (Which is yet another reason I think it's a misstep for him to not fully cover figures- kids are gonna be more drawn in by a venom creature with four extra giant mechanical arms than doc ock spilling ink on himself, or a flying venom creature than goblin after a pumpkin bomb mishap). I'm warming up to the venom mech. It's already good value, but if it had a better head, it'd be perfect for an imsoniac venom.

100%, I think there was a point where I actually thought we'd heard that the electro in this set DID have a normal face instead of the lightning one, though I'm sure I just misread someone hoping for it. Torso's a good shout too. Eh, he's definitely accumulated some damage before Lizard, electro, and Sandman are cured, so I think it'd still work. This works, too, at least on the more direct scale of "if you hold off on buying an overpriced set for a few months you can get a pretty solid discount". It also isn't like a boycott of lego or anything- there are plenty of sets at good prices. Ninjago has a battle pack with 4 figs for $10. Star Wars has the most reasonably priced battle pack since January 2020. Yup, there was no perfect solution here- though if I'm being honest, I think this was about the best way to do it with the set number of prints.

There are two major issues with this- 1. you really cannot exclude the main character of the film from the statue of liberty battle. Even if the expansion set released at the same time, you can't omit the main spidey from a set based on the climax of his trilogy. 2. That's not really how budget works for this. It's been alluded to by the designers a few times now that there's a print budget. Omitting Ned and MJ might get more parts for the statue of liberty set, but it wouldn't "improve prints"- Also, since people already have qualms about the value of that set, I don't think dropping three figs to give Goblin leg printing would have helped there. If I was the designer for this theme, the only thing I can think of doing that keeps the budget the same would be removing electro's leg printing- we don't need it. Now with the reference to six printing zones, my guess is it's one each for left and right curved part of leg, flat part of leg, and toe. Either way, we'll assume electro is a 2-zone print for the legs, same as a standard torso or head. Then we can transfer it to battle damage on spidey's mask and/or a non-electrified face for electro in the smaller set, to get some semblance of exclusivity- though I don't know for sure if print budget transfers between sets. Depending on how printing per zone is budgeted, we might also have removed the non-toe printing on lizard's legs to get battle damage for spidey's torso. Lego can say whatever they want, but if the realization that their price spikes are hurting sales hasn't been found, something is very wrong over there. What's more likely is they know the sets are priced more than they should be and are trying to see how far they can stretch it- which, yeah, the price of a product is whatever people'll pay for it. Hence, don't pay full price on the overpriced stuff unless you want lego to keep doing it.

Sets used to have a LOT more larger pieces, that's one of the main things. It's why the price-per-part ratio really hasn't been a good indicator of value in a decade or so- there are so many pieces the size of a 1x2 plate now. It might have been a 350 piece set, but it was probably the same amount of plastic in a 500-600 pc set today. Thank you for clarifying! I kind of assumed it wasn't being put in the correct context since you hadn't directly said it. My thoughts exactly- lego is, when it comes down to it, a toy. That doesn't mean they shouldn't strive for quality regardless, but the products should be affordable.

Ok, let me phrase it differently- "It's not like there were other characters present in the battle the set is based off of" No matter how you slice it, no figures here would have made sense as an addition to the NWH set besides lizard, because all the other characters are there. (And maybe sandman, but he spends the vast majority of the fight in the sort of form we get in the set). A battle-damaged Tom Holland Spidey or a non-charged face for electro would have been nice, but it's not exactly shocking they aren't there. We know how this theme's budget works. My thoughts on what we can see, starting with the more negative stuff and moving positive: The Venomized Villains- man, this is weak. First of all- these should have been fully venomized. This weird partially venomized thing not only looks kinda dumb on display, but is probably pretty annoying for kids too- I know if I was a kid I'd be annoyed that venom had only partially gotten the villains. It also makes them look significantly worse, since lego wasn't gonna put the effort in to go all the way on partial venomization, so now goblin and ock just have splotches of venom on their faces and torsos, with nothing on their legs and nothing on their hair/hat. It makes sense lego wouldn't want to expend the budget to add printing to the goblin hat or ock hair... which is another point for fully venomizing them, so they could just put the pieces in black (which may have required a total of 1 (1) recolors for goblin's hat), instead of these things. These are abominations in all of the ways they shouldn't be. X-Jet- Somehow, the Hoopty returned. Dark Science, inflation, secrets only lego knew. But actually, it's basically the same thing. Cyclops and Rogue are fine- we'd seen them already of course- Wolverine is just a dumb choice considering the vastly superior CMF figure currently on shelves, and I know the fault for magneto's design is on disney, not lego, but man, he looks stupid. The jet itself looks fine, but like a $40 build. That thing is paper-thin towards the back there (which is part of the design, I know, but it helps to illustrate how there is nowhere near $80 of plastic here), and this set should have been $50. I could see lego charging $60. I would have been shocked if I found out they were charging $70 for this. $80 is insane and ANYONE WHO WANTS TO BUY THIS, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF STAN, WAIT UNTIL IT'S ON SALE. THESE PRICES CANNOT BE ENCOURAGED. Venom Mech- not really for me, but I think it's objectively the best of the $15 mechs. The main selling point obviously being the second figure, but the build actually looks really nice too, and lends itself to being just a large venom symbiote rather than a mech, which I think is nice. A great set for kids, or anyone who missed 2021 miles. If I had a minor complaint I'd have liked them to use the miles in his suit, not casual clothes over it, since it'd be more like a Spider Man 2 tie in, but it doesn't really matter to me, and between the two ITSV Miles is probably a LOT more popular with kids, so the design inspired by it makes sense here. War Machine Mech- I'm gonna be a hypocrite here and buy this, even though it shouldn't be $15. That comic war machine figure is just AWESOME, and it looks like there's a LOT of gunmetal parts here. It's gonna be a great parts pack for mech MOCS, and that figure is going to be taking center stage in my hall of armors. I'm 100% buying the NWH expansion and likely the War Machine mech. If the Venom Ock set has a good second figure or an incredible build, I might buy it, but I doubt it will. I'm not getting the venom goblin set- the spider-buggy exists, guys, stop giving him sports cars- even IF the peter variant is great, but I'm sure it'll be fine for kids. Warbird and venom mechs are good, just not for me, and Rocket is nightmare fuel but seems priced alright, so if people enjoy it, they enjoy it. I actively hope people do not purchase the X-jet at that price, though. *Someone put that "He can't keep getting away with it" meme here, lego's really pushing their luck with these prices*

You're thinking of this rope guy, the one in the sandman set is this new noodle piece. The older element has studs on the ends and is a nylon rope with plastic bits, meaning you can't really pose it much due to gravity. The element in the new set has pin holes on each end, but more importantly is a flexible rubber, meaning you can get some more poses out of it. New for 2023, apparently- this is the first time they're using it for a spider-man minifigure, but weirdly enough not the first time it's been used in a lego spider man set- when I was looking at the sets it'd been in for the above comment, I saw they used it in the spider-man art set! I agree that this new piece is great for spider-man! The older one always annoyed me because of how much it would sag from gravity- it's more like a rope than a line of webbing, and unless you're wrapping someone with it, letting it just drop straight down, or have a good amount of tension on each end, it's gonna look weird. The new one will be able to do all the same stuff the older one does, except since it's rubber and not nylon, there are going to be a lot more poses you can get out of it. My guess is the X-jet leaks and they just give up and reveal the evergreen sets. (Is that the right term? I mean like the sets that are just based on the general characters rather than a show or movie)

That's a fair point, I don't think clones started getting expensive until around the time the sequel trilogy wrapped up. I would get the lack of accessories if the characters had them in canon, or if the set felt overpriced- but it's one of the few reasonably priced sets at this size we've had in awhile, and it's not like they're needed for the figures- sure, the clones CAN wear visors and rangefinders, but 90% of troops don't. This constant firebombing of everything put out really annoys me, because it dilutes actual issues, such as the skyrocketing prices of a lot of these sets. But when the fans get just as up in arms about one of the small side builds in a battle pack being non-canon as they do about a set being a good 30-40% overpriced, or even something like the lack of cloth kamas, it's a lot easier for lego to shrug off the complaints. Not trying to minimod, but MKAJosh has been telling us to clamp down about the falconfan fig, so that's probably why. Until a reliable source confirms it directly, I think the topic's been closed.

Totally agree- it fixes one of the biggest issues with the NWH set, which (I mean I guess is the lack of lizard and sandman) is the staticness of the build for such a dynamic scene. This definitely fixes it- Sandman feels like he's reaching out of the box in those images. Yeah. Obviously it's not like they could have put in completely different figures, but they could have given electro a normal head or Peter some battle-damage. I can't see a way to do it without increasing the budget- lizard needs all his prints, and the sandman face also works excellently as a print- but that said, I think it wouldn't be insane to throw two more prints into this set. It's not like the $30 star wars pack where I'm shocked how much value they've got in it.

It's a reference to an animated superhero tv show/comic series that crossed over with fortnite right before the lego crossover. There's a running joke in the show (and in the comic a few times, though it's not as frequent), where the main character is cut off from saying his name- the show's name- by the title card. I don't think so, unfortunately. Cross-license sets are really tricky- the only example I can think of is lego batman in the lego movie sets, and even then IIRC the same overarching company distributing the lego movies owned the batman movie rights, so it was going to the same place. If they were to, say, put fornite's goblin or spider man design in a lego fortnite set, even if lego was able to hammer out the legalese, now they have to pay a licensing fee to fortnite AND marvel. Either lego makes no money on the sales, or those sets would make the Hoopty look like a good deal. It's a lot easier for them to just put fortnite's own characters in the sets- after all, if a kid wants to use the spider-man skin in his fortnite sets, he can just go buy a marvel set. Lego still gets money.

"Oh, it's beautiful" Man, this is exactly what I wanted, and I didn't even know it. I was very against getting that head mold for sandman, but it looks excellent here. Not goofy at all. This is the best I think any of the constraction figures have looked, due to how it's meant to be a shifting mass of sand. The gray in it even works too, unlike a lot of the other figs, because he's sifting through scaffolding and gravel and whatnot. Lizard looks excellent as well. I have two minor complaints, but I don't think either are a big deal- I would have preferred if they'd made spidey or electro unique, either by giving spidey battle-damage on the mask and torso, or a normal face for electro- but neither are a particularly big deal, and the $35 value seems very solid as well for this set. Looking at the combined image and at the final battle set on my desk, the size is definitely there. Honestly lego's knocking it out of the part with these $30ish licensed sets between this and the star wars battle pack. I'm iffier on the Warbird but I can't say that one's bad value either, it's just not for me.

I would say trans light blue, but those 4x4 dishes definitely look satin.

HOW? The helmet alone is $10 in the US right now, and even at the time (A decade ago, mind you) the best ratio you could get was 1 p2 clone for every $10 microfighter. Sure, that's fair, but recognize that a figure in 1.5 sets in 2014 isn't something most people have in their collection, especially not in the numbers they'd want for a generic troop. Exactly! 4 figs and 5 droids for $30 is NUTS for modern lego, and that's without even taking into account who those figs/droids are (with the b1s being the only figs recently available in cheap to mid-range sets) I do think the speeder could have been designed better as a smaller BARC, but given that this is one of the few recent star wars sets that actually feels like good value, I'm not really complaining much about this or the accessory pack. Finally someone else mentions the firehawk's price! It feels like everyone's complaining about one of the few recent SW sets that's actually good value, and many of the same people are praising the firehawk, which is near Hoopty levels of overpriced.