LegoFjotten

Thank you for that tip!

Finally got the HP & Super Heroes Bricktober packs from the local TRU. Not possible to buy directly, so I had to buy stuff I didn't need to get them.

I'd go with Bricks & Pieces on shop.lego.com (not to be confused with Pick-a-brick), and compare those prices to Bricklink (taking into consideration shipping costs for multiple Bricklink orders).

Thanks for the review! I think this is an outstanding set! 4 unique figures not available in current sets is excellent in such a pack! For me this is a 9/10, and this is my favourite among this year's Bricktober sets. I am no hardcore Harry Potter fan, although I think they did a really excellent job on the new sets. I will agree that Nya in the Ninjago set has more "oomph" as you call it than any of the HP figures, but overall the Ninjago figs have limited appeal for me compared to the HP ones.

Nice! Quite reasonable purchase limit compared to last year. Which TRU was this?

So, anyone knows what is up with Bricktober in Norway? Called the local TRU but got the wrong employee so I’m none the wiser.

I must admit I'm really surprised to see this set... I was sure they would never make Vader's Castle, but here it is. I think the set looks pretty decent, but it should have had more new figures. For me the only thing of real interest here is bacta-Vader. But big props to the LEGO designers for pulling this out of the hat, just shows they are not afraid to occasionally venture outside the trodden path.

I stopped by the local ToysRUs in Norway and asked if they had an upcoming LEGO promotion, and indeed they did. The girl at the counter even knew it was called Bricktober, that it was packs with minifigures, gift with purchases above a certain limit and that it would start in October. She couldn't give me exact dates or amount. So further confirmation it's business as usual for ToysRUs in Norway with regards to Bricktober. My best guess is that it will start Monday October 1st in Norway (and probably Denmark, since it's the same company).

Oh, slippery slope that is... unless you want to replace your LEGO hobby with "writing forum software as a hobby", don't do it. (Seriously. Don't do it. You'll regret it forever.)

That's fair enough, good to know that I can render locally if I want to. A few suggestions based on the hurdles I ran into when trying to use Mecabricks to render a test model: 1) Instead of disabling the render button when you are not logged in, let it be enabled but show a simple dialog with "You must be logged in with a verified account to render your model" or similar - the same way you display a message when you have more than 1000 parts. 2) If possible, I think it would be better to have a link to an information page with information about rendering & costs in both the dialog suggest above and the current "1000 parts" dialog . This could be the credits page you linked earlier if you add a few lines of text along the lines of "Rendering smaller models is free on Mecabricks, but larger or higher resolutions models comes at a small cost. You can also render locally using my free Blender addon", as well as examples (showing the images) for a small (free) model, a medium complexity model, and a large complex model. Maybe I will take a new look sometime in the future. The models I'm working on now are all way more than 1000 parts, and I usually spend some time tweaking camera views and doing quick renders to find the most flattering angles, and in the end they are still just for sketch use. I think continuing with LDD + BlueRender is a better fit for my current needs. No doubt the Mecabricks renders are better though, so if my needs change I know where to go.

Thank you, I don't even have an account so that must be it. Edit: Alert, Maximum number of visible parts allowed: 1000. Guess that means Mecabricks is pay to render?

So the Mecabricks render function is operational at the moment? I've tried for the last couple of days to import my model and render it, import is fine, but render button is grayed out.

I use LDD + BlueRender on Mac and think it produces good renders for my use without any kind of tweaking. I mostly just use LDD for sketching and working out roughly what quantities of parts I need though, so the end goal is not having a rendered image to publish. It can also be helpful testing out different camera angles etc. I'd like to try out the other renders for comparison, but Mecabricks rendering looks unavailable at the moment, and I prefer being able to work offline. Not quite sure if I'm properly motivated to give a new editor a try. How is Stud.io compared to LDD in terms of precision control when placing bricks? It always annoys me in LDD when pieces jumps all over the place, I'd like to be able to move a piece close to where it should be using the mouse and then adjust it stud-by-stud using the keyboard for example. Something like named groups and sub-groups would be great too.

Thank you for the review WhiteFang, excellent as always! I quite like this set, even though I agree with some of the criticism raised when the set first was revealed - mainly the overall looks of it. I do like the individual scenes though, and the minifigs are great. This set is definitely at the top of my wanted-list.

Or maybe the Half-Blood Prince?