Artanis I

I know what you mean, but in 1000 years people will think you mean 2700-2999! Heck knows what Lego will be like then - if it (or English) still exists... To all EB forum readers in the 30th century and beyond: we mean the last few years of the decade leading up to 2010. Please do not unnecessarily bump this thread 1000 years, haha.

Well done, this is awesome. Took me a while to realise it was a bird and not a weird lamp post. Those clear thingies never work for me, I can't not see them.

True! But complicated for many children... I kinda dumbed it down, the groups were together but occasionally had infighting. *taps shoulder* "I say, excuse me my good man... are you fighting for the advancing army or the local defense? I'm with Sir Galston of the advancing army, I saw your back to me undefended but I didn't want to have your head off if we were allies, don't you know!" "Er, 'ow you say... take zat?" CLINK

Was this related to the new plastic introduced to combat "yellowing"? I was in the dark ages so I don't know what happened when. Although I don't expect brown would "yellow" much. Grey, certainly.

I always assumed as a kid that they were meant to be grouped together. I intend to do the same when my current "castle phase" comes into full fruition. Crusaders/Lion Knights/Castlemen whatever they were called teamed up with Royal Knights, Knight's Kingdom I & II, Fantasy Era "Crownies" (when that $#*&!@$ castle finally falls into my hands) & the new Kingdoms version of the Lion Knights. Black Falcons, Black Knights, Dragon Knights/Dragon Masters whatever, Fright Knights, Vladek & Shadow Knights and the new green Dragon Knights. Forest & Wolf men I already grouped together. I'm not sure if I'll get Dark Forest, but I'd put them in there too. That leaves Cow Pack (or whatever it's called again), Undead, Trolls & Dwarves. Might depend on final numbers as to whether I put them in with any other group, and which one.

Except that Boba Fett would actually be the next Cad Bane..?

It doesn't have to have Anakin and Obi Wan in every episode... I remember George Lucas saying this was separate to the "tragedy of Anakin Skywalker" so why does he seem to be in 95% of it? They could have Dooku & Grievous in it heaps fighting OTHER jedi. There are plenty of well known characters to choose from that wouldn't be foreign to a young audience. Yoda & Mace Windu are hardly ever featured.

=O oh no! & how did I miss it? I think it was $80AU (overpriced) but I bought it when it was released anyway. It's pretty cool, but I think it looks better in photos than in reality. I agree with a lot of the comments already made, I'd like to add this: on a hard smooth surface the wheels won't turn, on a too soft or uneven surface the body drags on the ground or gets caught. Medium-thin carpet is about all you can drive it on.

That's possible. Maybe the animation scene is incomplete and they haven't added the detail yet. Had anyone considered that? Surely that's a possibility too?

I usually buy USED sets Okay... well I've bought about a hundred used sets off eBay, and will continue to do so. I've bought probably 20 or so from Bricklink. Almost all Bricklink sellers are honest, but there are quite a number of eBay sellers that are not. I find you can tell a dodgy eBay seller. Look at the item description, look at the seller's feedback, look at the photos. I must admit, I try to avoid US sellers as some can be shifty, and the postage from there is really expensive and slow. For the sets I've received that were incomplete most of them advertised the fact, and listed the missing pieces so I knew what I was in for. There have been a few that were advertised as complete but were not, each time the seller swiftly found the missing parts and sent them on, no issue. On a few occasions I received incomplete sets only to realise they hadn't said they were complete & were hoping noone would notice. My bad. Watch out for that. On Bricklink, I find it difficult to buy a set at a bargain price. You can get cheaper elsewhere unless you just want to tick it off the list of "collect them all" in which case you don't mind a lesser condition set. I tend to use Bricklink for parts, not sets. I have on numerous occasions received incorrect orders. Missing pieces, wrong pieces... each time just as with eBay (except the dodgy sellers you should avoid) most sellers are honest and value their feedback, so they quickly send the correct pieces and tell you to keep the mistakes or they'll send an extra or give a refund. I prefer Bricklink because: the set prices are given. No speculation, no waiting a few days to find out what you'll eventually pay. I prefer eBay because: the postage prices are given. No rude shocks "that'll be $34 US (for 2 small sets)". If it says "international bidders contact for postage cost" then ask them and you'll get a quote. You can do this too for BL but it's more difficult to get a quote if you've got 100 individual pieces you want to include in an order. I prefer Bricklink because: you know you've got it, no waiting until the end of the auction, & no need to shark! I prefer eBay because: there are almost always photos of the set. Bricklink it's usually "contact me for pics" at best. I can never be bothered with that, most of the time if it's in good used condition they're asking too much for it anyway. I won't delve into the "community" side of things, that's an aside. But for value for money and quality of service, you can still choose either, just be discerning. I use both, I'm happy to continue using both. PS at the moment I'm expecting 4 BL orders in the mail, 1 is a set, 3 are just parts. I'll probably have some eBay items on the way within a couple of days too. BIN & auction.

That is awesome! Great work.

Thanks for the link, I found it yesterday after doing a big order from S@H. I bought the Tower Rescue and the catapult set yesterday, the remaining sets are in the mail! Had lots of fun playing with the 4 sets and taking photos... went to bed after 4am WHOOPS! Here's one other thing: the king's crown kept jumping off like it was spring loaded. I used an old one for a little while but it wasn't as shiny so I've used blu-tac to keep the normal one on. I also intend to get some more horses and shields.

I think the issue is not so much the pods themselves but the way they're placed on the Galactic Enforecer - they stand out like an arm coming out of your stomach. Looks unnatural.

I have ordered one of each. We'll see how we go!

Fair call. I've received boxed sets in the mail that have been massacred by the post, I've also received boxes in decent condition. One time, I received an unboxed disassembled set from Bricklink in a parcel bag, with bubble wrap for protection & cardboard sheets for reinforcement and DO NOT BEND in enormous red letters that was BENT IN HALF. Not slightly bent, but BENT IN HALF. Do you think that baseplate was much use after being bent in half? Dickheads. I had it under kilos of weights for months to try and flatten it out. It still doesn't sit flat a few years later.

I bought 2 of them yesterday, 2 the day before, the other 5 (besides the calendar) are in the mail so I'll let you all know when they arrive! I'm loving them so far, hard to decide.

Well, everyone's already said everything I can think of, plus I can't even decide which I like the most so I'm abstaining from voting. So many fantastic entries that are true works of art, and not just a cool looking model. Camera angle, perspective, colour, lighting, detailing, motion blur, unusual use of pieces, accuracy in recreating the scenes... 1000x better than what I'd have come up with. Congratulations to all who received votes, well done.

Yesterday I bought the castle and the knight's showdown or whatever it's called. This could very easily be a VERY long story, so I'll skip lots of it. The castle had 10 extra pieces (including the brick+plate for the horse), way less than the SP3 sets I've been buying. In comparison the little set had 6! I guess with the castle you get your money's worth. I think some of the cost could be cut on having such needlessly huge boxes, and instead put into preventing this kind of thing happening: As you can see all 3 instruction booklets were dog-eared, ripped or really badly crumpled. That is not acceptable for straight out of the box, straight off the shelf. The other disappointment was that one gold flag was missing. I've heard you can get Lego to send you missing pieces, how does one go about this? That all behind, this set was fantastic. Took forever to build as I was taking photos for a review but the camera battery ran out halfway through so the build sped up after that! The little set is okay, but I'd rather have less extra pieces to get a shield for the dragon knight. What kind of knight is he without a shield? Surely that's just a soldier! (Unless it's a two-handed swordsman.) Looking at the entire line-up, I think the number of shields is lacking (for figs, the castle has plenty), the number of horses is lacking, and the ratio of lions to dragons is too high. That's not to say I'm not extremely impressed. I anticipate a dragon knight castle next year...

With a 72 (74? can't remember) page toy catalogue and only 1 page with Lego, I should not be optimistic about the range available. I was right, Target had bugger-all Lego. Plenty of CTTs and other cool sets, but not much in the way of "old" (ie 2009 or before) sets. If any. Myer's Lego selection was back to its usual crapness too, and K Mart & the other places have nothing I'm after. So I went to Toyworld where everything is full price, but at least they have the new Kingdoms sets. So I bought the castle at full price. And witnessed non-physical road rage from an old lady, barking at some Asian students wanting to do a reverse park. So traffic was banked up in one lane because she hadn't given them enough room to pull in, and was adamant they couldn't park there, "read the sign: taxi zone". She was wrong: for starters, the arrow was pointing to the other side of the sign and secondly, the time on the sign said 10PM-6AM anyway. And yes, I did get involved haha. After telling her they could park there she said "yes, well he's pushing it"?! What kind of dumb statement is that? They'd tried, but the gap was too small so after a few minutes' stand-off they gave up (and she wasn't moving out of the way).

I disagree... ...I very much agree... and I think minifigs have always been very popular, it's just that they are marketed a lot more than they were previously. Lego marketing was originally all about "wow look at the creative aspect of building this set out of bricks - and we've thrown in some figures too, they're pretty nifty" (they're actually quite plain but we all thought they were awesome at the time, and the model is also very disproportional) but over time it's evolving to "wow look at all the cool figs and the things this set does" (and the figs are a lot more awesome than they were, the model looks more realistic but uses a lot of specialised parts). I originally thought I was a set buyer for the model until I looked at all the Lego I'd bought (or asked for) before I became an exclusive collector of specific themes. I considered one-by-one and realised a lot of the sets I bought were mainly because I liked the minifig or the accessories that came with it. (On the other hand, a lot were because I liked the colour scheme of the theme and I could afford that particular set.) I don't want to bore you all with a big long list, but all these sets are from the 80s & early 90s when minifigs weren't all that special compared to today's. And I used to get those boxes of 5-6 minifigs in preference to a set, except that there was always a new set with a new fig you couldn't get in those boxes. Someone else mentioned castles and the way the new sets look the same as the mid 80s ones (my words, not theirs). What's different about them? The figs are nicer & less plain, the accessories are better, the new pieces are less blocky, and the colour scheme is different. I was looking at the old castles and noting how the figs were dull as a bus ride into town. The knights were the same for both sides apart from the shield. Having said that, I REALLY love Blacktron and how they are all identical nameless faceless evil cool dudes.

Reasonable assertion I suppose - but the word 'nutbag' still applies.

As soon as you said "gorilla" I thought "I bet it's a bloke in a costume" And I hope the alien is good, I'll probably get that one.

It's a great set, but I think maybe the bigger ones overshadow it. I got this set as a kid. I loved it a lot... I never saw the other Forestman sets so the two figs that came with this set were the only ones I had, and none of my friends had any. Of course, I used to muse over the catalogues with the other (2 released outside the US) sets and that picture of an army of green bowmen attacking the Black Knights. Green was my favourite colour, so any green parts or figures were awesome. Space Police II was next in line. I believe the catalogues we had used completely different set names, and I think this one was Robin Hood's Hideaway. So I made Robin Hood be the one with the white feather. Made perfect sense to me, he was the only one. Little John was the one from the cave set with the black feather. (Not that I ever got that set mind you.)

There's this thing called "petrol" and this other thing called "petrol price" and this other thing called "work" and this other thing called "work in the morning" limiting the frequency for trips of that distance quite considerably. I've just gotta keep reminding myself that @$200 is not an appropriate price for 1 minifig... since that is what I'd be buying it for.

I looked a few times, so I don't think it is there but apologise if I'm just blind & missed it: 8781 Castle Of Morcia (Knights Kingdom II) doesn't appear to be on the list.