Artanis I

Pfft maybe on yours it can be a mere antenna. Mine is a laser cannon, and is capable of destroying enemy ships! The base already has 4 other antennae, it doesn't need a giant one!

I thought it was kinda set around it - as it starts on Geonosis immediately after episode 2, and ends with the battle for Coruscant and Palpatine's kidnapping - but for the most part happened before the new series. I did read the chronology but I forget the details. It also ends with Anakin becoming a Jedi... which surely happened before the Clone Wars movie because why would he have a padawan if he's still one himself? In any case it wouldn't be the first time there was a contradiction in the Star Wars storyline...

"Grievous is a coward, he will always run" from ROTS. So there's your answer! How many are gold? You may be right, but I reckon it's him. I reckon she is either bumped off by Palpatine or seduced to the Dark Side for uncovering him. Just like Anakin.And yes, that's Aurra Sing, and no, she is not dead. She lives past the original trilogy I think. I don't know why she's the only "normal-proportioned" female so far in this cartoon, (the rest of them look weird) but as the nastiest it's a shame, because she looks hot haha. Me? Well I'm glad Shaak Ti FINALLY makes an appearance in this version of the clone wars, it's like Ahsoka is the ONLY Togruta in the entire galaxy or something. I'd also like to see Saesee Tinn in this version too. Any of the other Jedi that didn't die on Geonosis or in the 2D cartoons. Come on, Anakin isn't the only Jedi... and he also seems to have forgotten that he's on the way over to the dark side.

M:Tron? Where? Did I miss something? Blacktron I was the best. The only truly tough looking characters. Despite only having 1 set (Invader) as a kid I had plenty of these guys, as minifig pack 6703 had 2, 6704 had 1, and (most) Space Police I sets had 1 each. That helmet would be killer. It would bring out the EVIL in me. The angry eyebrows...Galactic Enforcer, be prepared to be ground to dust...

Got to Myer yesterday 10 minutes before close. Walked straight past the massive Lego section in a hurry to get to where it (tiny section) usually is... found it on the way out haha. At long last they had all the new SP3 (too bad I've got enough already) but for some reason I got another Raid VPR. No K-9 Bot!!! :sad: Will head into town & try other places during lunch break. There was a huge range of Toy Story, Atlantis, City, Star Wars too. They had a very large table with only two boxes left standing up, both were the cargo train. 3 fire stations and 1 other big set (I forget what - Star Wars I think) were all that was left of the other "big set" table. I asked the young guy at the counter if they sold many train sets, he said "heaps - it was amazing". Didn't ask about Flagship. They had a few of the police car left, about half of the Space Police Central. There were a few empty shelves but for the most part it appeared that the big sets went and little else. I think that means the AFOLs & Christmas layby parents turned up and not many others? On a side note, I find (local) Myer customer service to be very poor. The only person waiting in the queue, 3 employees right there, 2 registers, yet I had to wait a few minutes for them to wrap up the previous transaction (that was paid & bagged before I got there, what the heck were they doing?). This is not an isolated case, in the past I've had to go looking to ask if someone was going to come to a customer service desk so that a customer could make a purchase. Other times I've stood there for long periods while the "service" people are having a gas-bag behind the counter. How rude?! Is it this terrible at Myer everywhere else or just ours? Every other department store here is fine. (Although the K Mart checkout chicks/dudes are very slow, and Target has very long queues, not enough registers open.)

That's the problem with SP3, all the stickers & all the new pieces make it difficult to get all the bits for a half decent price. I'm not too fussed, there are so many different sets for the fleet that I've made up for it with them.Yeah I bought another Raid VPR last night for some reason at Myer's 20% off toy sale. At least I resisted from buying another big set. That would've been overkill to the max. Only thing is I'm getting quite a number of these Rench characters, but neo-Blacktron outfits you can never have too many of! I would've gotten a 3rd Undercover Cruiser last night but I decided there's too much SP3 in terms of large and medium ships/vehicles in my collection. The 2010 sets are much better than the 2009 sets. Less stickers, better police minifigs (new full helmets, red visors & more airtanks), better aliens (3 are repaints, but they're better than the originals), more hinged cockpits, more purple & trans yellow, better secondary ships... despite having less prison pods than last year. Here's what I have (not set aside MISB): 3 Raid VPRs, 2 Smash n Grabs, 2 Undercover Cruisers, 1 Lunar Limo & 1 Space Police Central. Add them to last year's swag and it's big. I really like all 5 sets.

Artanis is a (male) protoss character from StarCraft, (also apparently another name for Tolkien's Galadriel). Someone once pointed out that it's Sinatra spelled backwards, but that's not why I chose it haha. I've used it for 10 years or so. Unlike some, I don't look anything like who I'm named after... for starters I have more nostrils, haha.

Poor Slovenia... the only way for them to miss the next round was if BOTH England & USA won. Any other result for either game (including draw) they were through. They totally lost the plot in their game, and then were unlucky to miss out by the USA extra time goal. Every so often I'd change the channel to see how Spearmint vs Peppermint was going. Still nil all? There goes USA with another poor attack, oh there goes Algeria with another poor attack... let's go back to the game with skill on display. (Wayne Rooney, that really should've gone in tsk tsk.)Then group D. Australia & Ghana win, both through. Australia & Germany win by a total of 5, both through. Serbia win, Serbia and winner of other game through. Australia & Germany win by total of <5, Germany & Ghana through. So why did $#%$# Germany have to win 1-0 over Ghana? Oh well, at least Australia got a good win. Pity their game plan was terrible in the first game, it cost badly. Oh and no rubbish red cards or penalties this time!

Problem with the VX Falcon is it doesn't come by itself. You get 2 more skull twins and another street machine thing with identical marks and scratches to the other one you already have... Otherwise I'd buy a few instead of just one. Galactic Enforcer is too big to have 2 of, (there'd be more police than the rest of civilisation), for a similar reason there should only be one base and the Gold Heist ship looks silly. That leaves the small sets and Undercover Cruiser as the only fleetable police ships. The Max Security Transport you could have a few of I suppose, but the price of it has gone through the roof due to its limited edition-ness.I've got 3 or 4 of most aliens, it doesn't make much sense but I'm limiting to 1 Brick Daddy and Craniac. That gives the group some stable leadership, and I don't have to make up some ridiculous story to justify 2 bosses haha. (As opposed to before, where I had 2 Squiddies, 3+ of just about everyone else. How do you explain that? Who is the leader? etc.) Their ships/vehicles have far too much character to multiply, so other than the small ones the only one I have 2 of is the Smash n Grab (because it was on special, and because I wanted more than 1 Squidtron who I thought cooler than the original). The Lunar Limo is quite something, and the SP Central is really good too. Have fun with that!

Transformers 2, Neverending Story 3, Police Academy 7, Shrek sequels, any Disney sequels (except The Rescuers Down Under), Happy Feet, Starship Troopers 2, Fantastic Mr Fox, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, The Magical Mystery Tour, um that's all I can think of at the moment. Actually most of those "family" CGI movies of late. (Some are good though.) All of those movies I will never watch again and wish I'd never seen. Transformers 2 is the only movie I've ever watched where I've wanted to stop watching in disbelief, but I kept watching out of curiosity for how bad it was going to get.

Easy mistake to make, very similar words in spelling. Simply put, a faction is a group of people with similar ideals or goals, and a fraction is a smaller part of an entire object (or collection) like a piece of cake or a handful of M&Ms from a packet.

Unless you look at it from a 3D perspective? Then the ARCs are in the foreground (& therefore bigger), with the rest of the scene in the distance (& therefore smaller).

Cardinal Brick: yes, I agree. This is another example where you appreciate the set much more when it's right there in front of you. KurttKrueger: I like your avatar! The new space helmets look great, don't they?

Haha, it's "faction" ... and yes, I think SP3 is done. I have a pretty substantial looking police fleet, it rivals SP1 & SP2 for numbers already. The BHG doesn't have much of a base or many decent sized ships/vehicles (actually it only has 1 small vehicle) but I don't see them as a "fleet" faction, more a "nuisance" faction.As for the 2 years argument, how many other space subthemes (classic doesn't count) got 5 or more sets a year more than once? Futuron is all I can think of. This is highly irregular! (But I like it.) Goodbye SP3, it was okay knowing you last year, but it was good this year.

Well done. Such a sad part of the movie. This is all I can say. *sob*

This set is a lot of fun, there's so much to do. Hidden guns that rotate 360, main part of the base rotates (that's different!), big laser cannon that folds out and spins around, really cool looking buggy with some clever piece use, slick mini pod/ship... I built a MOC vehicle that can hold the mini pod ship things, I think the one disappointment with this set was the lack of docking the pod with anything. The laser cannon thing is pretty cool, it reminds me a bit of when Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are shooting TIE fighters. In case you're wondering, no these sets (excluding monorail - which I never saw anyway) didn't come out in Aus, so I bought them from Bricklink. I had the 6705 minifig pack in my younger days, and my favourite figure was the Unitron chief (although it wasn't until years later that we found out what the line was called - the catalogue didn't have a subtheme heading for the monorail, it was on the opposite page to Spyrius). Fast forward 10 years to when I discovered via Internet that these US sets existed. At first I didn't like the colour scheme of the sets but after buying the monorail from eBay (already had 6990) and a bunch of figures from Bricklink I thought I'd give the US sets a go. They really are cool looking sets in real life! Colours really work together. I don't think Space Station Zenon (should it be an X?) is too open, sparse or spread out, it leaves room for parking the vehicles! It also has that isolated "frontier" feel about it. (There's hostile aliens nearby.) It does seem a little bit undeveloped, but then again, it's not the only base. Stick it next to the monorail and it's fine. Such a shame it's such a rare (therefore expensive) set, it's a good one. Don't let these photos fool you, they don't do it justice. It's up there with the best medium-sized space bases.

D'oh! Although I'd be happy with 7 spacemen.

It looks too clean to be an IGA, or are they only dirty and run down in Tassie? Also, never seen a supermarket (I use that term loosely) next to a Mensland haha. Who on the council authorised this kind of town planning? Everyone knows you put an independent video shop next to an IGA, and a dodgy takeaway shop or bakery on the other side! Maybe a real estate agent or gift shop in a country town. Looking good so far. edit: don't forget the UV light bug zapper!

Alright for you, the 2nd & 3rd games start after our midnight! Do you think our team got any 8:30pm games? Hell no. 2 of our group matches end at 6am! Painful. It sucks for us when there's sport happening in South Africa!

Lunar Limo for $54, SP Central for $99 whoever it was that was wanting them. Starts Thursday the 24th.

Whoever heard of a surfer with dark hair?!? Haha.

I find Peeron useful for finding "similar items" like slight variations of a piece. I also used it for downloading instructions for sets I've bought from eBay or Bricklink that didn't come with any. I also find it strange that it has many inventories & instruction scans absent these days. I don't go there much any more. (New sets have an inventory in the back of the instruction booklet, and the instructions are on the Lego website.)

I have to admit, I could never figure out how to construct the alternative models. But I did like looking at the pictures, it kinda inspired you to try different builds with those pieces. I think a lot of the modern sets have so many small and specialised pieces and so little bricks and plates that it's difficult to actually make much else with what you've got. I tried to build something out of the Gold Heist pieces but couldn't come up with anything that looked a fraction as good as the original - and I think the original looks ridiculous. I'm sure I could build something if I used other pieces from elsewhere, but that's beside the point.

Pfft everyone knows that Roman soldiers look like this: Haha And soon thereafter: Asterix should be made in Lego...

For my work I edit music, I used to work in radio (now volunteer once a week) in production & also as a DJ. 18 months ago I played in 4 bands all of a completely different genre. I play drums, bass, guitar & piano. Funnily enough I'm not in a gigging band at the moment, nor recording anything, but I'm playing regularly. Lego is winning at the moment.