Darth Caedus

In advance of the full PAB (theoretically) returning towards the end of the month...has anyone put together a list of new elements that have appeared since BnP went offline a few months ago? Or even some of the good earlier 2022 stuff that never really showed up (squirrels, etc.) I know Stonewars did this to some degree, looking forward to blowing hundreds of more dollars on PAB when there's actually new things to buy!

So what's the breakdown of the Phase 1 troopers in the Accessory Pack? Logical choice would be Red Blue and Green - Captain, Lieutenant, and Sergeant - to fill in the missing ranks and save the plain Phase 1's for a theoretical battlepack later in the year. I could absolutely see a $20 battlepack with 3 plain Phase 1's and 1 Phase 1 pilot akin to the Snowtrooper pack that's imminent.

Called my local Lego store to ask if they'd have the Icons on September 2nd. They told me it's delayed for a week or maybe longer, didn't have an ETA - apparently there's container ship gridlock that's messing up global shipping. Not too worried, it'll give me time to catch up on more August stuff that's still out of stock...

Vidiyo, salmon colored new hair for Aug 1st.

Pessimistically I doubt that that's the case but that would be awesome if it were so! Keeps it a mystery for anyone casual but is a simple way to incentivize downloading the app.

It is deeply disturbing to see the Vidiyo theme deploy the dreaded blind boxes, which will doom them to the clearance bin like so many other mystery boxes. Thankfully on this 1st series of the Vidiyo characters most of them are weird/undesirable, but it's still not something that's good to see - fervently praying that CMFs stay bags for the foreseeable future. Boxes only help the resellers who will hoard cases in bulk to sell piecemeal. It would be especially cruel for fans of CMFs to finally get a Marvel and possibly Star Wars series after literally a decade+ of waiting only to be cheated by blind boxes.

1000% this will not occur. With 2 exclusive minifigs, this simply can never drop much lower than the $80-$90 it commands right now, and will only continue to rise.

Taskmaster set is now Sold Out, lasted all of half a day. This may well be it for them, assuming Amazon has blown through their supply. Only chance for more would be if Amazon held a few back, or for a repeat of the Bespin Backorder (a last gasp of Bespins showed up Backorderable for brief time many days after the initial release, likely from cancelled orders).

Looking on the gram, is there any truth to the possible revelation that the 501st's are not AngryClones and have a new accurate skintone? Or is that a hoax?

The Viking is spectacular for Middle-earth fanatics - that helmet works perfectly for Rohirrim! Not only is armybuilding the classic Rohan Soldier from the Uruk-Hai Army expensive and difficult, the monochrome Rohan helmet actually isn't great to be the only helmet in a Rohirrim force since they aren't standardized like Gondorians. This helmet will be absolutely spot-on for diversifying the Men of Rohan - and the outfit could almost be dropped in wholesale as well! Cape being too bright for the LOTR color palette is the only issue, but a tiny nitpick. So happy to be getting this helmet. Also LOVING the Knight's sword - at last, we can shake up the longswords used for some of the LOTR heroes and villains! I'll definitely be giving these blades to Gandalf and the Witch-King - they are perfect matches for the crossguards of both Glamdring and Witch-King's longsword (which differs notably from the less bombastic standard-issue Nazgul swords wielded by the other eight).

Everyone's so incensed, but I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief - the rumors of a second Mr Gold style chase rare were extremely distressing, and it's a massively pleasant surprise for me that they were false. Give me a nice, boring, normal series - there should never be another Mr Gold, it was a disaster back in Series 10 and that was before LEGO obsession was even a tenth of the fever pitch it is now - I can only imagine how vicious the scalpers and the hunters would be with such a chase rare. 1/60 is fine, should never be more than that. Figures sound alright, nothing special but non-licensed series are generally just fun side fare IMO - I'll still buy them all, but it's the licensed series where the figure choices matter most.

Agree 100%. Hoping that the scarcity rumor is incorrect, it will really ruin the series for many people. 1/60 rares like the Policeman and Graves were just fine - not too hard to find but rare enough to be cool. Anything rarer than that is a no-go.

No rumors, all we know is that the May the 4th thing will be another $200 item and the October thing will be $350, as people discussed per instagram a while back. Makes sense as things seem to be alternating (big Falcon fall 2017, $350 Bespin fall 2018, big SD fall 2019...) and the May the 4th item has been $200 every year for a while now (TIE Fighter, Snowspeeder, Y-wing, Tantive, with Battle of Hoth being the slight exception). If we were placing bets, an A-wing is the #1 logical pick given how much demand there is for it. You could also view the retirement of the Y-wing as making shelf space so there aren't multiple Rebel Alliance fightercraft UCS at once. Who knows though, could be something Clone Wars or even Sequel Trilogy. It's been over 3 years now since the Red Five X-wing retired, X-wings are always strong sellers...maybe they do a UCS Poe X-wing? I'd say the only sure bet is that the May the 4th will be some kind of starfighter and the October thing will be a Master Builder series item, and only time will tell what those will pan out to be.

Personally, I'd rank them like this: Poe's X-wing: Solid build, cool color scheme, acceptable price, good figures - and very notably, the best and most iconic version of Poe to be produced that is only just now being replicated for 2020 - after half a dozen other versions along the way. First Order Special Forces TIE Fighter: All TIEs prior to 2015 are inferior due to the lack of a correct cockpit mold, starting with the Inquisitor's TIE they began to be 'perfect' in minifig scale. This was our very first TIE in the classic shape - even though it'd take another 3 years to get a normal Imperial TIE when the Solo movie came around. Excellent choice to make all four figures generic armybuilders for those who bought multiples. TFA Millennium Falcon: A slight step upgrade to the 2011 edition, but with vastly better figure selection as the 2011 ones quickly became obsolete with the aesthetic upgrades that occurred early in this decade of LEGO Star Wars. Ended up being a lot of people's first playscale Falcon and a good one at that. A good anchor for the wave that's aged well, despite now being made irrelevant by the 2019 edition. First Order Troop Transport: This set has actually aged pretty well, boasting a decent figure selection for the price and is still an effective rendition of one of the film's few original vehicles. Kylo's Shuttle: Decent figure selection for the time that became much less relevant in short order, now only really being notable for the hooded Kylo option. Good interior but incorrect color scheme and design that's all pretty bleh - not only is it not canon, a ton of the parts feel wasted on boring wing mechanisms that add little play value. The new shuttle isn't immune to some of these issues - it's far from the best ship design in Star Wars - but at least it's accurate (and has much better figures). Rey's Speeder: A fun little $20 set whose biggest crime is being comically oversized and not particularly important in the film. Still, it works for what it is. First Order Snowspeeder: A pretty dull design with a poor figure selection - First Order Snowtroopers have a weak helmet mold that doesn't cling to the head well and 3 of them in a $40 "battle pack" doesn't really cut it. The vehicle itself is forgettable enough that they cut it from the movie itself, and is destined to be forgotten in the long history of LEGO Star Wars as well.

Even at that blurry resolution it looks incredible. LEGO Employee gifts have always been pretty fun & interesting, but this just shot it past lightspeed. At one point I was trying to go for the Trains one (from a year or two ago?) but it was pretty consistently ~$200. I can only imagine what this will go for, not only is it Star Wars with what looks like at least 1 very exclusive minifig, but it also is now a piece of the "20th Anniversary Collection" for any of the completionists out there...darn. Expecting this to rival the more desirable SDCC exclusives on the aftermarket - $500? $750 even? Hard to guess.