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Just2good: thanks for a fantastic review with great pics! To answer your question about the jumper plate in the top of the tree: I think it's where the squirrel can perch and hurl insults at all who enter his domain. At least, that's what the squirrels in our yard do... I love how they used ice cream tops as acorns for his ammo.

This is a gorgeous build -- such a nice silhouette. Your use of turntables for cannon wheels is brilliant, by the way. I've picked up a small bow and stern and single hull section, and am experimenting with building my first ship. You've provided me with some wonderful inspiration! Best of success completing your fleet!

I completely agree that Classic Spacemen were special -- although the red guy wasn't my favorite, and the black-suited one confused me as a child. (Why would an astronaut want a suit that would be hard to see if his tether broke?) Of course, that issue didn't bother me once Blacktron came out. Kids and logic... My favorites were always the white and blue guys. Now we've got the new green ones to love, as well. When the Space sets came out under the City umbrella a few years back, they didn't have the same charm for me as the old Classic Space sets, and I had no desire to get any of them. I don't know if that's nostalgia speaking or not. However, when the Exosuit came out, I picked one up the first day! Now I've got the theme for "Space 1999" stuck in my head... Martin Landau and the gang wore red suits whenever they left the station.

Thanks for the great review, woofmcmoose! Sorry not to have posted earlier, but I didn't find your review until today. I saw the Arctic sets in the catalogue last week and fell in love. Never had any interest in City sets before, not even as a kid -- but this one is a must-have. Stopped by TRU on the way home from work and confirmed that these are fantastic. Totally agree. And I think the very fact it has a home base, as well as some smaller vehicles and cute animals, might make it popular with girls as well as boys and AFOLs.I love the fact that this set has crisp, appealing colors, a generous complement of new animals, lots of new minifigs with great printing on front and back, and best of all, no built-in conflict and no tacked-on storyline with named characters. It's a great springboard for imagination and modifying. The conveyor belt just screams ""Seeds of Doom" (Tom Baker Doctor Who ep). Add CMF Yeti or two and you have a 2nd Doctor ep in the making... :-)

It's interesting how different factions/color schemes appeal to different eyes. I absolutely love the red/silver Kingdoms Lion Knights and green/gold Kingdoms Dragon Knights. For me, they're both brilliant factions. The blue Fantasy Era Crownies and blue Lion/Crown guys aren't as appealing to me. I'm not a fan of the crown motif. But -- that's the beauty of Lego -- next time, there'll be something new! Who knows -- maybe wolves or eagles or tigers or owls? (Probably not -- but there's always a chance...) I do wish this latest Dragon crew were dark red/black instead of red/black, though. My nephews are a little confused as to why the old good guys and new bad guys have the same primary color. I ended up changing out all their red bits for black or grey/bley.

It's Cavalry. Someone either misspelled it or got auto-corrected.

Love the Blacktron Mech! And my Second Doctor will get a Yeti. :-) This is a great series, with fun characters and lots of useful bits. I honestly like them all, except for the Scarecrow and Female Robot, both of which I find kind of creepy. I suppose the Female Robot would be superb as the maid in a Jetsons moc... Hmmm... the Jetsons' maid, a waitress from Happy Days, Jake from the Blues Brothers, Conan the Barbarian, a Yeti from Classic Doctor Who, and the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz... kind of a TV/film theme going on here. How many other figs from this series are straight out of Hollywood/BBC?

Out of curiousity, I picked up a Friends set several months ago (the Karate one) and built it, just to see if the flames were justified. My rating: it's a cute, fun set, with about the same amount of building as most of the "standard" sets of the same size. The only issue I had with the minifig was the legs -- they don't separate, which makes them a little static. But the set itself was a nice build, with some clever uses of bricks.

*sigh* I suppose you're right. Galaxy Squad is such an incredibly cool concept. Shades of Futuron, Starship Troopers, the Fly, the 4th Doctor's episode "Ark in Space", and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, plus cute robot sidekicks -- how phenomenal is that? It's more than just an evergreen Space theme -- it's a treasure trove for creativity! Maybe we'll get a Red team polybag this fall? One can hope...

Perhaps this isn't the right place for this vent, but I'm a little perturbed that Galaxy Squad got only 1 page (and only 2 sets) in the Summer catalogue. Chima got 6, count'em 6 pages; and Ninjago got a double-page spread of all the same sets that were in the previous catalogue. Why isn't LEGO showing any love to Galaxy Squad?

Great minifigs, Kliq! They've got a lot of personality. What is the torso on the guy in the middle?

Great review! I picked up one of these sets when it first came out, and was very happy with it. Love the mushroom and bottle; and the hood and sans-flesh torso are fantastic. I was delighted to get an elf with hood, as opposed to one with hair/ears, as I convert all my fleshies to yellow. (Anyone interested in a bag of flesh heads and hands?)

Castle 2007/Fantasy Era had some great aspects to it -- I love the chain mail torsos, and thought the use of four factions was brilliant. (And the peasants and cows!) However, the blue/blue and the crown sigil just never appealed to me. The dwarf sigil, though, with the gold winged helmet -- that was pretty cool. I love Kingdoms, with bright red and white rampant lions vs forest green and gold dragons. (And even more peasants and livestock!) Even though lions and dragon had been used a lot, these two sigils looked fresh and exciting. Kingdoms Lions and Kingdoms Dragons are my favorite "modern" factions. Black Falcons will forever be my very favorite. :-) "Castle Gold" would indeed be a fitting name for this new series -- every soldier seems to be a highwayman after the treasure!

Wow -- that is gorgeous, and so wonderfully detailed!

The blue guys have armpits that show the color of their tunic underneath -- so for the mail/gorget guy, it would be difficult to switch out the arms. The other blue guy might work with bley arms. Or I suppose you could do one white and one blue arm, since the jerkin is half blue and half white. But the dragons -- they look wonderful with different color arms! Black arms, or dark bley/grey arms look fantastic on the torsos with the shoulder armor. The torsos with the larger dragon and no shoulder armor look great with either black, dark bley/grey, or light bley/grey. (I tried the lighter bley/grey on the shoulder armor guys, and it didn't look right.)