Joebot

Remember back when TLG cancelled the 9V line because the metal-clad track was too expensive? And then we were told that with the cheaper, all-plastic track, they'd be able to include lots more track in the train sets? Yeah. Instead, the new train sets are more expensive, and have even less track, than the old 9V stuff. Sigh ... But anyway, thanks for the nice review. I think it's an okay design, and I certainly like the brick-built nose better than the big one-piece designs from the last few passenger trains.

Hey everyone, Even after 29 chapters of this stuff, I still get excited when it's time to post a new chapter. This one spans centuries, as we see the origin of Mr. Fister's giant, magical fist. Oh, and let's not forget that the team is about to throw down with an ancient necromancer and his army of the undead. And, as if that wasn't enough, we get to see the team's newest member, The Turtler, in action! Impressive, huh? Yeah, you just know that when The Turtler plays the boardgame Risk, he has to be Australia. Please let me know what you think!

An interesting discussion! For a really fun time, go dig up the old threads on Lugnet back when the color change first hit. I still remember the very first picture that somebody put up, showing the new grays. Everyone assumed it was just a weird glitch. Days went by and more and more people reported the new grays and the new brown. It took TLC a long time before they finally owned up to the color change, and man, did the sh-t ever hit the fan then. I believe the term these days is "nerd-rage." The whole thing is still a nightmare for me whenever I build in those colors. I've got a huge collection of the old colors, and an ever-growing collection of the new colors. I think they look terrible when they're mixed together, so I have to keep them separate. The initial anger over the decision has faded, but it's still aggravating.

Yeah, maybe it's cliche, but so what. It's all in the execution -- if it's funny with nice photography and some interesting sets, nobody here is going to complain! Good luck, and have fun with it!

Well said! Classic town for me as well (you can find a bunch of pictures of my town here). I own all of the modular buildings, but the first thing I do after I finish building them is to rip out the back walls and the stairs. No back walls or stairs in my town! I also tend to downscale 6-wide vehicles into 4-wide. 6-wide vehicles just don't fit. That being said, I do try to incorporate some more "modern" techniques into my town, such as tiled sidewalks.

Man, that's just crazy. Here in the U.S., these things were wiped out by scalpers within hours of hitting the shelves. I haven't seen any new shipments in 2-3 weeks now. I really hope TLC improves their distribution for Wave 2 ...

I would have preferred to see a slightly larger building, and then maybe sell the ice rink and wagon as a smaller accessory set. I guess I'm envisioning this Winter theme more like those light-up Department 56 houses, where you can buy individual buildings, then smaller accessory sets (usually people, trees, that sort of thing) to go along with it. I'm thrilled that TLC is continuing to expand this Winter theme though. I really thought the Toy Shop was going to be a one-off product that they never did anything with. I just wish they would use white slope bricks for the roof instead of plates ...

By now, the distribution pattern with these Action themes is pretty well defined -- big, splashy first release with lots of marketing muscle behind it ... much smaller second release the following year ... then gone. For me, that lack of support from TLC undermines most of my interest in these themes. I know they're going to be short-lived, so I don't bother with them. I'm in this hobby for the long haul (30 years and counting), so these flash-in-the-pan themes have no appeal to me. They're the equivalent of fast food -- high calorie junk with no nourishment. It's a shame too, because some of the themes are very imaginative, despite being locked into TLC's mandate of action-oriented, man vs. monster conflict-driven stories. The Agents theme seemed like something that TLC could have built on for years with new heroes and villains. Instead, two years and it was done and replaced by Atlantis. Bummer.

Agreed. The vehicles are very nice, but the set lacks cohesion. There's no central structure that pulls it together. I'm also puzzled by the inclusion of a street cleaner truck in a set named "Public Transportation." That really doesn't make any sense. The tram and the bus represent public transportation options. But a street cleaner? Where I live, the public don't ride in street cleaner trucks. And why not make the car into a taxi? I don't know. The whole set seems like it wasn't really thought through all the way.

While it's undoubtedly true that there are some people who missed out on getting a cheerleader fig, let's put the blame where it truly belongs -- squarely on TLC's shoulders. VerSen is a just a (rather lucky) consumer. He's not the guy who made the genius business decision to create a limited run, blind-packaged product with terrible distribution. If kids aren't able to buy the figs they want, that's on TLC.

Very true. The days of the post-Christmas 70%-off sales at Target are long gone. Man, I miss those days. It was like a big poker game, as you debated whether to grab the set at 50% off ... or wait a few days until the next price drop, and hope that nobody grabbed it out from underneath you. These days, Target's Lego aisle is usually about 2/3 empty shelves. Like others have noted, I liked the Spiderman sets quite a bit too. I bought three or four of the bridge set. Man, what a great general-purpose Town set. Who knows, there's supposedly a Spidey movie reboot in the works, so maybe we'll see another round of Spidey sets someday. However, ideally, Lego would get the licensing deal directly from Marvel instead of the movie studio, which would open up the characters and locations they could use.

Thanks for the nice comments, everyone! It is difficult sometimes to make sure everyone on the team has enough to do and say. You're right that Mr. Fister and Joebot have been getting relatively little screentime lately. They actually have a fun team-up a few episodes down the road. That's a great point, and I totally agree. There are some big changes to the team lineup coming in the next story arc. You'll also be happy to hear that it's a longer story -- probably 5 or 6 issues, it looks like (I haven't finished writing it yet). This stuff with Commander Awesome is going to come to a head. Absolutely! I've been writing professionally for 15 years now, so I'm pretty thick-skinned about criticism. You have to be, or else you go crazy! I always appreciate your comments and feedback.

It's an odd spot for TLC to be in. This is really their first attempt at this sort of thing. The Star Wars license brought in a lot of toy collectors, but you never had to deal with short production runs or blind packaging. If you want a TIE Fighter set, generally speaking, you should be able to get one, either via retail or online. And you know you're getting a TIE Fighter set!! These mini-figs are a whole different animal. They seems to have really attracted the more unpleasant aspects of collectibles (artificial scarcity, hoarders, scalpers, etc.). That leaves the kids (ostensibly the market TLC was aiming for) to go without. Kind of a shame, I guess, but not all that surprising. Let's face it, these mini-figs really are pretty cool!!

I stopped at my local Lego Store on Friday, and was told they'd sold out earlier in the day (grrr!!!). The sales clerk also said he's not expecting to get any more in stock. He said, and I quote, "Wave 1 is done." Wow. I really thought that once the initial flurry of demand died down, these things would hang around on the shelves for a few months at least. Then again "artifical scarcity" is always part of any collectible product. Gotta drive up the demand!!

Hey everyone, Just finished up a new chapter of The Unlikely Society, my ongoing Lego superhero comic. This chapter begins a new story that explores the origins of Mr. Fister. The group also gets yet-another new teammate, and he's ... less than enthusiastic about it, given the fate of past new teammates. I also posted some other updates on my website -- some pictures of my town's fitness club (previously posted on Eurobricks here), and some pictures of the Commander Awesome's high-tech fighter plane -- the AwesomeJet. As always, thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think! -Joebot

What about "Batman: The Brave and the Bold?" Isn't that still on the air? I've never watched it, but I've heard it's pretty good, although a much lighter tone than the old "Batman: The Animated Series." When I saw TLC was "re-introducing" the Harry Potter line, that gave me hope for Batman. If they DO re-introduce the theme, I'd like to see them break free of the "Batman vs. X" set design with two vehicles. That was starting to get old, as they ran out of decent Bat-vehicles. As mentioned above in this thread, that little Bat-cart was really pretty awful.

It seems odd to me to have a Level Crossing set that doesn't actually cross anything. Where's the damn ROAD??? Remember when Lego used to include roads in their town sets?? Sigh ...

Good points, and well said. I think the problem is that this is TLC's first foray into this sort of blind-packaged collectible. For people who collect baseball cards, Pokemon cards, Magic: The Gathering cards, etc., they're used to the way those products are packaged and marketed. Collecting and building a set is part of the fun. For Lego fans, we've always simply bought what we wanted, so there's a disconnect going on here. Not so sure about this part. I have thousands of dollars in my Lego collection, and you're telling me I'm not the "real target audience," simply because I'm 36 years old and not 10 years old??? I stood in a Toys R Us yesterday for 15 minutes, painstakingly going over my barcode list to the find the 6 mini-figs I was still missing. I found exactly the 6 that I wanted. To characterize that as "abuse" is off-base in my opinion. I simply want to buy the things that I want. TLC intentionally tried to prevent that with their packaging. The fanbase found a work-around. I don't see that as "abuse." If anything, TLC is abusing their consumers' good will with the blind-packaging nonsense.

I think you're right. I was chatting with a very nice Lego Store employee as I was obsessively matching up bags to my barcode cheat sheet. She said they've been selling out of their shipments within a few days, but they keep getting new shipments. I asked her how long she expected these to stay in production, and she guessed at least a few months. I'll bet that within a couple of weeks, all us neurotic AFOLs (as well as all the scalpers) will have our fill, and the bags will languish on the shelves until Wave 2 comes out, and we start all over again. Also, a BIG thank you to the folks who put together these barcode cheat sheets. I found it very difficult to identify the mini-figs based on feeling the bags (man, does that sound dirty). With the barcode sheet though? 100% accurate. Yeah, it's tedious matching up the lines, and I felt like kind of a tool, but really, f-ck TLC for this blind packaging nonsense anyway. Just let me buy what I want!!

HA! Yeah, I didn't notice that dude back there until I was uploading the pictures. Stupid mini-figs and their stupid tendency to fall down! No, it's not built to the modular scale. I'm old-school. All my buildings have open backs and no stairs!

You're right, the exterior isn't that great. I also wasn't able to get a very good picture of it, due to it's somewhat awkward location in my town. I was having to hold the camera backwards, and just couldn't get a good angle on it. Now, you might be wondering, "Why not take pictures BEFORE you place the building in your town?" To which I would reply, "Shut up! I didn't think of that!" Thanks for the nice comments everyone!

Hey everyone, I wanted to share some pictures of the new fitness club in Fluxington. A couple shots of the exterior. Here's a club member, working out on the treadmill. The scariest part of any gym ... the scale!! The locker room ... oops! Sorry, ma'am! I'll just close the door on the way out! Upstairs you'll find two stationary bikes.... ... the chin-up bar ... ... the bench press ... ... and the bicep curl. I haven't got these pictures uploaded to the Fluxington section of my website, but I hope to do that shortly. Please let me know what you think!!

Yeah, poor Kroktor. He really just wants some attention. He probably didn't get hugged enough as a child. He was intended to just be a stupid throw-away character, but at the end, I couldn't kill him off. I like knowing he's still out there. He'll be back someday. As you mentioned in another thread, it's that Marvel-style "shared universe" that I'm going for. I've always really liked that about Marvel. It's neat when characters bump into each other, and you get that sense that they're off having their own adventures, just off-screen. Thanks for the nice comments!

Absolutely agreed. Plywood and 2x4s gives you ultimate flexibility for a very cheap price. For probably between $30-50, you can set up a nice big table that can easily be expanded as your collection grows. Yeah, it's a little crude-looking, since it's just bare wood. If you want to get fancy, you can paint the table before you put your town on it. As Soc399 noted, they'll do the cutting for you at the store, but this is not complicated woodworking by any means. A skillsaw and a cordless drill are the only tools you need to do it yourself.

Some good theories here on why the stand-alone train car sets didn't sell well. It almost seems like TLC sabotaged the effort by making them exclusive and hard-to-find. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy -- TLC complains that the train sets don't sell well, so they don't bother to put any marketing muscle behind them, so then they don't sell well, so then they don't bother to put any marketing muscle behind them, and so on and so on. Back in the golden age of 9V, TLC always had a variety of complete trains, individuals cars, and trackside structures. For whatever reason, they've moved away from that to mainly offering complete trains. I suppose they have some marketing research to back that decision up, but personally, I find it very puzzling.