SketchBrick

I loved Andor as a show, but I also get why Lego didn't prioritize it for their product line, as it's very clearly more adult focused and doesn't lend itself as easily to playsets. That being said, I'd expect 1-3 more sets for Season 2 next year, given the show's popularity and number of characters. The Fondor in playscale is definitely a possibility.

I agree, I'm fairly happy with the Brachi and the set overall, really glad they've finally made it! I'm okay to wait for a sale personally, as it'll probably go down 20% or so by the end of the year - and at $60ish it's a bargain.

LOL I know right? Not sure who went in that guy's cheerios. I'm upfront with not being very interested in these personally, but I know that I'm not the target audience, and I can understand why Lego thinks these will be popular for the 6+ range (even if they don't satisfy every AFOL). Again, we've gotten plenty of 18+ sets recently; heaven forbid a few of the summer sets are actually meant for kids

Interesting to compare these to the microfighter line: the new mechs average 144 pieces each, compared to microfighters which are usually 100 parts or less. Obviously ppp is an extremely loose metric, but I think it's fair to say the mechs are bulkier and provide a bit more in the box than the average microfighter. Another point is that MFs also released originally in 2014 at $10, and haven't gone up in price at all prior to this summer's Mando's N-1. Inevitably, I think we know that couldn't last forever, and inflation-adjusted they should be closer to $13 today. What I'm getting at is that the value proposition there seems to be about the same, so if the mechs are overpriced it's mostly because all LSW is, otherwise I have to admit $16 really isn't that bad for what's on offer.

I'm happy to be critical of LEGO and I agree that these aren't up my alley, but to be fair we've gotten a ton of 18+ models over the past few months, most of which have limited play value for kids. Is it crazy for them to release a subline of cheaper sets that work as actual toys? Not in my opinion. Some will say they would prefer minifig packs (these were never on the table for this summer as per price and part count leaks), but there are sets available now which do offer "army-building capabilities" at various price points, and not every Star Wars set has to revolve around massing minifigs. For those questioning the value here and calling these rip-offs, I would ask why $200-800 UCS sets with only a couple of figures are defended because "it's about the build, not the figures," while a cheap toy for 6+ can't be about the build? If they're not to your taste, I totally get that, they're not really for me either. But a decent looking minifig widely available in a chunky action-figure/mech for $16 is hardly a wallet-buster, even if I agree it'd be better priced at around $13.

That makes a lot of sense to me, seeing as how they must have put some effort into developing the modularity of 60389. I'd be more than happy to see that continue and branch into different kinds of car sets, and frankly there isn't that much more they can do with the Stuntz line (imo), so this would work well as a successor.

I like all of the upcoming sets but can't justify the bigger ones in their entirety, so my hope is to PAB the orca, polar bears, and sharks. I'll definitely buy the seal pack and the small boat w/ turtles before then though, there are just too many animals at a low price point for me to pass up! As someone who also missed the previous arctic wave and the 2020 ocean theme, I think it's amazing we're basically seeing all of those animal moulds return, plus new ones! I can more or less get away with not needing to bricklink any of the older critters, other than maybe the anglerfish.

I'm really interested to see what they'll do for next year's wave. With no new media or obvious anniversaries to draw from, will they go for sort of a grab bag style of different sets? Or will they continue with exploring the original trilogy and finally give us some Lost World/JPIII sets?

They would definitely include some reuses/reprints of the big cat mould for another jaguar/panther/tiger and add the new cub pieces. I could also see a reuse of the newest monkey moulds and maybe the CMF toucan or chameleon. If they keep with the pattern of the past few years and include 4-5 new animal moulds in the summer subtheme, I think a new monkey/primate type would be really cool! Wishlist items might be a tapir, anaconda, and new bird type.

Forest/wilderness would be a good pick. They can reuse the bear and bear cub moulds plus newer animals like squirrels, and there are good opportunities for new additions like you said. I would love to see a beaver! My other pick would be revisiting the jungle subtheme, since it will have been 7 years since that was last released.

Definitely a strong pattern, I wonder what we'll get next year? Also there are a few other new moulds included with CMFs, like the falcon and koala from this year, and last year's toucan.

I've only recently started using it; do the large animal moulds from these types of sets usually end up on the PAB site for order?

I'm super excited to see the decent number of animals in these sets, especially the smaller ones! Arctic/Ocean line-up: Snowmobile: new adult grey seal and new baby white seal! Diving boat: new adult sea turtle with recolored baby sea turtle to match, plus recolor/prints for hammerhead and stingray, plus x2 fish and a crab :) Snowplow/lab: x2 new polar bear cubs! with reused adult polar bear Submarine: slightly different print for BIG shark, plus two (recolored?) regular sharks, plus x3 fish and x2 brick-built jellyfish Explorer ship: large new orca mould (jaw articulation), hope to see more pictures of it! I think that's x5 new animal moulds (or x6 if the orca's jaw is new) for this subtheme

Absolute insanity dealing with the website tonight. I just finally got my order through at 2am EST; this was way more difficult than even last year's sale :(

I think there's a good chance we'll get at least one or two other new animals, given the other 3 related sets we don't know much about yet ($30 underwater exploration ship, $80 arctic snowplow w/ mobile laboratory, and $100 deep sea submarine). I could totally see them reusing the polar bear for the arctic snowplow set and giving us a cub to go with it; they've really been going hard with the baby animals lately!