SketchBrick

Interesting find: the new Milky Way art set seems to make use of an unprinted hermit crab piece! Same colour as far as I can tell.

The new red panda mould is included in a Dreamzzz set as well!

If this is the case, it'll be the end of an era. RIP 😭

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing

I'm excited to see some sets will get 4x Insider points for May 4th! I've been looking to buy the Coruscant Guard Gunship to do a regular scheme colour swap, and with 20% in points plus all the GWP (once I add a $20 set), that feels like a pretty good value.

This is basically it. Somebody will complain regardless of what they do.

That's exactly my point though. I doubt Lego is selling BrickHeadz at a loss, so clearly they can afford to include new printed parts if they choose to. Why then do they choose not to print parts on the midi Invisible Hand or Tantive IV? I'm pretty sure the amount of plastic is pretty comparable to a BH multipack, so I just don't see how the value proposition makes sense for these 18+ sets if they're not going to at least offer the full "premium" experience and leave out the stickers.

It's crazy to me to see the value discrepancy between a lot of the new 18+ sets and something like the BrickHeadz. $55 for the TPM 6-pack gets you 732 pieces and 6 exclusive prints, but they refuse to do new prints (aside from the name plate) for the $50 Invisible Hand that's arguably even smaller at 557 pieces? The $10 Commander Cody has THREE unique prints, but we're expected to deal with stickers for the Droideka, the Mos Espa diorama, and even the UCS Interceptor? The black box tax is real

I think I understand what you're saying, and it's a valid argument. When I say $5 however, I'm talking about the actual retail value of including a minifig (from Lego's perspective); they can sell these small pieces of printed plastic in blind bags for $5 and make profit. The reason some of these figures sell on the aftermarket for such high prices is precisely because they're exclusive to expensive sets and collectors are willing to pay big money to have them without needing to obtain the full build. Lego knows this, and they're happy to play along by including figures (that they could release elsewhere if they chose) that inflate the "value" of the set to collectors or resellers while costing Lego very little to physically produce. If Lego didn't include 1-2 minifigs in a set like the USC Landspeeder or X-Wing, and let's imagine that was normal and expected by fans, would the sets be priced very differently? Maybe they'd be $10 cheaper, but would collectors then complain about the horrible value because there was no "$50" figure they could resell to recoup costs? Either it's "yes" to both, and we have to then admit how obscenely overpriced all UCS sets are just to include a figure or two, OR it's "no" to both, and the builds are what matter and we can all agree losing the minifigs wouldn't really affect the value of the sets much.

I can concede here; at least with minifig-scale (or close to) sets, the minifigs can interact with the build itself (like the AT-AT). With sets where the fig(s) are just be standing on a black plate to the side, it seems kind of unnecessary.

LOL you're very right. I guess in my fantasy world, they wouldn't have started the precedent of including figures in sets like that at all, so there wouldn't be anything to miss.

Okay cool, thanks for the clarification :)

Hot take but I'd almost prefer they stop including minifigs in UCS sets in general. So much of the online discourse gets tied up in arguments about minifig quality/exclusivity for massive sets that often aren't even minifig scale/compatible. A couple of $5 minifigs aren't really a huge value add to a $300-800 display model at the end of the day, and it would likely quell some of the community outrage (e.g. Gunship/Venator) to present these sets for what they are: display models that are mostly outside of the minifig "world". The midi-scale ships are an example of this already, and - prices aside - they don't actually need figs included. What we do need are more opportunities for good figures, meaning either a Star Wars CMF, or more fig-focused playsets with better overall quality.

Some other pictures of the new colour crocogator also show a new colour for the baby crocogator! I think it's a sand green? But a little hard to tell. Could be included with the adult the $20 set (or a different set entirely)!

The mould looks really cool! Seems like it would work well as a realistic raven/crow if it was recoloured and given the standard eye print (maybe next year?)

Here's hoping Jabba will be available in another set next year.

Question: 60427 seems unaccounted for in the current City lineup. Do we think it's a cancelled set? Or is there a possibility it's a retailer exclusive and we just don't know what it could be yet?

Stego let's gooooo!

According to brickclicker, there will be just one red panda in the $10 set, and two adult gorillas plus the baby gorilla in the largest set.

I'd love to see the internal budget for this one, because what you're getting for $30 is rough. Obi-Wan's starfighter is the same price for a more substantial build and a new minifigure mould, or the new clones/droids battle pack is practically the same piece count with a bunch of extra characters to boot. This set should be 25-30% off, minimum.

You're right about the standards that are in place for LSW, 4 minifigs for a $70 ship is fairly typical these days. Of course, I think most of us would like to see more, and I find it disappointing that Lego sort of skimps out on minifigure numbers so often. As mentioned by another user, the real issue is arguably the lack of TPM minfigs overall. Lego is only releasing 1 playset for the movie's 25th anniversary, and that 1 set only includes 3 characters from the film itself. On top of that, these three characters are all retreads with nothing much new or exciting - you can essentially buy similar figs on Bricklink for reasonable prices. Think of all the other possibilities we're missing out on: new Padme costumes, an updated Panaka or Nute Gunray, TPM C-3PO, Shmi, Boss Nass, updated Jar-Jar or Sebulba, TPM Palpatine, Watto, Chancellor Valorum, new Naboo pilots or guards, the list goes on. But instead of us getting ANY of these characters to celebrate 25 years, we're looking at another Sith Infiltrator with pretty much the 3 default characters it could include. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for Qui-Gon to be here with his poncho again, but there have been a dozen Maul figures over the years, and young Anakin isn't anything special (compared to many other Anakin variants they could make). Sigh, I guess we'll try again in 2029 :(

Wow I didn't expect they'd actually do a new mould for the tiger head, but it looks pretty good from the pic available! Also forgive my colour-blindness, but what colour is the new croc? I can't tell by looking at it. Edit: Red panda also leaked!

Wow, so is this to say the 4 sets we know of are all that's coming for jungle? Unless there are significant details missing, that seems a bit disappointing compared to some of the past few summer waves. Two new species and no tiger cub?

I think some of these issues could be alleviated if there were additional castle (or similar) sets available on shelves to accompany the big Icons sets. A small medieval farm with a few animals for $30-50 - for example - would give people a chance to get in on the action at a lower price point.