Joebot

I see your point, but I think you're giving TLC's Marketing department WAY too much credit. After all, these are the same geniuses who implemented the grey / bley color changes, completely oblivious to the havoc they were causing. It's a tricky line to walk with a "collectible," as opposed to a mass market toy. A collectible (which is what they seem to be going for with these new mini-figs) must have some level of scarcity in order to drive up demand and buzz. If piles of the things are available in every Target and Walgreens in the world, they would saturate the market, and the product would languish on the shelves. There'd be no secondary market demand, because everyone could easily find what they wanted at retail. On the flip side, if you make them TOO scarce, then TLC doesn't sell enough to cover their manufacturing costs (which must be pretty steep given all the new parts and prints). The secondary market would flourish, but TLC doesn't see a dime of that. Should be interesting to see how it plays out!

I am simply in in awe of the number and diversity of Lego hair pieces coming out this year. Between HP, the collectible mini-fig theme, and Prince of Persia, there are a TON of new hair pieces. Really, really cool stuff. That Bellatrix hair is CRAZY!!

Good points, Legoist, and I generally agree with everything you said. I think the Star Wars license was TLG's first exposure to the adult hobbyist collector. Star Wars appealed to people beyond TLG's typical fanbase, bringing in Star Wars fans who bought the Lego sets, solely to build once and display, just like any other action figure or collectible. Now, TLG is taking another step in that direction. I have no doubt it'll be a huge success, but you're totally right about the "greed, envy, and frustration." It's the blind-packaging that makes it worse. I HATE not knowing what I'm buying. But, that's also what drives the consumerist feeding frenzy. I might not get the one I want, so I better buy ten of them!! Ugh.

Wow, beautiful pictures! Thanks so much for the review! The rest of the early '10 City sets are pretty lackluster, but this set just looks terrific. My only complaint, as you noted in the review, is that it would have been nice to have a baseplate included. Lego is awfully stingy with their baseplates these days. I was worried that the Farm theme was going to be a one-and-done theme for Lego, so I'm excited to see them continuing it this year. With the new pigs, along with the camels and ostriches from the Prince of Persia line, this has been a great year for new Lego animals!!

"Ignored?" Really? I'd be curious to see Lego's sales data and marketing analysis that you're referring to here. Can you post a link?

Awesome! One of my all-time favorite sets from when I was a kid. 25 years later, and this little van is still driving around my town. At some point, I swapped out the wheels with some more modern-looking ones, and made a few other little mods here and there, but the van is still basically the same as it's always been. Sets like this really underscore that indefinable charm of classic old-school 4-wide Lego vehicles. Thanks for the fun review!

Double-check the instruction booklets to see if the sticker sheet is stuck inside the pages. That's happened to me before. If not, just call Lego, and they'll send you another one. Also, take a look at your keyboard to see if it has a Shift key. If so, you can use it to perform simple capitalization, such as the first letter of every sentence.

Thanks for the review! The terminal looks nice. It has a very "classic town" look and feel to it, which is great. That airplane though ... man, I hate these new planes. They're just too damn big, and they look ridiculous when placed next to the terminal.

Thanks, Colonel! Yeah, the next story should be fun. It'll have a new villain AND a new hero. The hero is already listed in the Cast section of my website, so you can get a little teaser there.

Hey everyone, The conclusion to the "Freeze 'R Burn" story arc is completed and posted. Our heroines have to get hands-on to defeat the villainous sisters, Frostbite and Fiero. And, as a special bonus, we get our very first glimpse of the nefarious and mysterious Benefactor ... As always, thanks for reading, and please let me know what you think! -Joebot

Hello, fellow Mac user!! You can easily resize the pictures from within iPhoto. Select the pictures you want, then select Export. You'll get a dialog box, and you can choose the size of the exported file. "Medium" would probably be a good choice. Hope that helps! Also, I like your mowers a lot. I live in Chicago, and we're currently getting hammered with snow, so the sight of these mowers was a pleasant little taste of summer!

In my 32 years of Lego-building, I've dabbled in just about every theme. My first sets were Space (Alpha 1 Rocket Base!!), then I moved into Town. Then the Castle theme got really cool, so I started collecting those. But then ... for whatever reason, I went back to Town when I was about 12, and I just stayed there. In reading through this thread, and reading everyone's thoughts, I think Zorbas hit pretty close to home for me. That's what makes Town so simple and so seductive -- it's never stops. You can ALWAYS think of something to build to add onto your Town. And Lego, God bless 'em, keeps pumping out new sets. The concept of Town is completely open-ended, unlike the way that Lego designs and markets their Space and Castle themes. Space and Castle are now locked in this unfortunate pattern of short-lived "factions" that run for a year or two, then get thrown out in exchange for some new, shiny faction. That makes it hard to maintain your interest, and to invest a long-term pattern of building and expansion. If you liked those Crown knights from the past few years, too bad! They're gone! Space is the same way now too.

Terrific review! Most of these boardgame reviews that have cropped up here on EB have focused on the parts, rather than the game itself. You did a nice job of actually telling us about the gameplay, which was much appreciated. Renier Knizia is indeed a bit of a rock star in the hobby boardgaming community. Slapping his name on the cover is akin to putting "Stephen King" on the front of a novel -- the name alone is going to sell. I'm disappointed that the game has a memory component. I hate games where I have to memorize stuff. I'm terrible at them.

Thanks, Big Cam! Always nice to find a new reader. Nope, no videos for me. I know how much time and effort I put into taking simple photos; making videos must be REALLY time-consuming.

Yeah, Todd and Suzanne were a couple of AFOL "pioneers" back in the early days of the web. They founded Lugnet, and Todd used to run an online auction called Auczilla. This was way back before eBay and Bricklink existed. Ah, the good ol' days of sending in auction bids via email ...

Hey everyone, The newest chapter of the Unlikely Society, my ongoing Lego superhero comic, is done and posted. The battle against the supervillians Frostbite and Fiero continues ... with some unexpected help from a rival superhero. Please check it out, and let me know what you think!

You just described my high school prom.

I'm still unclear on this point. It sounds like there will definitely be a complete mini-fig in each bag, in the sense that there will be one set of legs, one torso, one head, etc. However, what I'm NOT clear on is if those pieces will all be from the same character. Will a bag contain, for example, all the pieces needed to build a clown (the clown legs, the clown torso, the clown head, etc.)? Or, will a bag contain one random set of legs, one random torso, one random head, etc.? I really hope that Lego will go with the former, and not the latter. Getting all the pieces needed to build a complete character in the same bag will make this a really fun thing to purchase and collect. Having to buy dozens of bags in the hopes of someday being able to assemble a complete clown, cheerleader, etc. will be expensive and aggravating. If there's anybody out there who can definitely clear this up, that would be much appreciated!

That Hoth Rebel battle pack is hilarious. Is that thing supposed to be some kind of space-Zamboni?? I guess it would go well with that ridiculous Rebel bobsled we got in an earlier battle pack.

Jackson confirmed a while ago that there will be two Hobbit movies. Here's some more info on that: http://www.theonering.net/torwp/hobbitfaq/ I could definitely see a Hobbit license as a more realistic possibility than the LOTR license. The story in The Hobbit skews a little younger than LOTR. Unfortunately, Lego's obsession with vehicle-centric themes and licenses makes it seem kind of unlikely. I'd love to see it though. A Lego Smaug would be really great ...

Now that is an interesting theory. I never considered it from the retailer's perspective. It seems entirely plausible that the retailers would force Lego's hand by refusing to stock what they perceive to be "old" or "outdated" models. I wonder if that's what's driving Lego's ever-shortening product lifespans. Back in ye olden days, Lego would keep sets available for 3-4 years. In the past ten years or so, that's been getting squeezed down to, I would estimate, maybe an average of 2 years. And sometimes it seems even shorter, like maybe 12-18 months. It's as if retailers get one batch of sets, and when they sell out, they never restock them. The fact that the 7239 is still available is nothing short of astonishing these days. Well ... I'll just have to politely disagree with you on that one.

Fair enough. I was, of course, only speaking anecdotally from my own experience. You bring up a good point about 7239. I'd like to see more of that sort of thing. It does make sense to always have fire / police / rescue sets available for purchase; these are "evergreen" themes that are always going to sell. However, why do they insist on redesigning them every 2-3 years? The new fire station in '10 is very similar to the previous one. Why bother? Why spend the design / development cost to create a brand new set instead of just keeping the previous one in production for an extra couple of years? I'd prefer Lego spend their development effort on some NEW stuff, instead of just rehashing the same basic thing over and over again.

Of course that's a good point, and it's one that gets brought up quite a bit here on Eurobricks. I'm not so convinced though. I think I was a pretty typical kid, and my absoute favorite sets as a child were Main Street and the Public Works Center. I played the hell out of those two sets. Neither of them is what anyone would probably consider to be "action-oriented." Sure, I had a police station and a fire station too, but all my various childhood adventures and stories revolved around Main Street and the Public Works Center. I guess my point is that I think Lego is wrong in assuming that kids only want to role play with policemen and fire fighters.

You mean other than the ones in Chicago, Orland Park, Schaumburg, and Northbrook?? Seems to me that northern Illinois is pretty well covered.

The boardgame industry (my other hobby) is largely dominated by European companies (mostly German). The games come out in Europe, and if they're successful, an American publisher will buy the rights to publish the games in the U.S. My assumption is that these Lego boardgames are following the same typical distribution pattern as other non-Lego boardgames. It's a different pattern then a typical Lego set, which often gets simultaneous worldwide distribution. Boardgames rarely work like that. It would be awesome if they did, because I HATE reading about some awesome new boardgame that just came out in Germany, then having to wait 9 months go get a copy. That's just the way it goes though.