Artanis I

It used to be! It's still a far better option than ebay these days. (I got a lot of great vintage stuff quite cheap from ebay early on, back when online sellers were just people trying to get rid of old stuff. These days most sellers are people that just bought stuff to sell it for profit later.) Probably the cheapest way to collect for army building (for old stuff) is from local people selling bulk lots, but that requires chance, and many people don't have that chance. If you want to use a deliberate plan for collecting, then Bricklink is the easiest method. If you're looking to get new stuff however, then some folks find Pick a Brick to be a useful solution. You can get all that new stuff through Bricklink too, if it's more convenient for you that way (it is for me). I discovered Bricklink in 2004 (late in my dark ages), and promptly bought a bunch of vintage Space minifigs!

Good

Yes, Blacktron 1 modularity wasn't truly interchangeable. Besides Space Police cells (and some M:Tron storage boxes), there wasn't a proper interchangeable module system within a faction until Blacktron 2 octo-pods and then the Unitron cockpits. Although, I think there may have been 1 or 2 combinations that didn't quite work.

I think these 2 Castle figs are reasonable, but not brilliant. Regardless, I will be trying to build a decent-sized army for both factions. I don't think the set is worth paying that money for the minifigs, when you consider how disappointing the Fabuland, Paradisa & Pirate ones are. Set looks nice though. Some nice printed Castle parts, not sure what I'll customise them to to make them 'right'. But I might wait until some Bricklink castle submissions come up before going berserk on the minifigs.

Of all the options I didn't want the gold to get through, but that's old news by now. Getting 2x2 in the set is obviously better than just 1, however most of the other minifigs aren't great, and the set's price seems a bit high. So I might just track them down separately.

Yes.

I'm down, despite the set looking a bit sparse for how many parts it supposedly has. I prefer it that way, as it means there's more room for the balrog to fit inside.

I liked the Shadow knights, but the other team sucked. So I wouldn't want to vote for the combined subtheme.

Why did you lump the opposing sides together for KKI & KKII? All the rest are separate.

15 years ago it was $200! I wouldn't be surprised if the Renegade remake was retired early, everyone seemed to forget about it a couple of weeks after release. Same with the city spaceship.

I just went on to waste some time and check. $15 service fee is waived when you spend $40, free postage at $149. Too bad if you just want a handful of bits. $5 worth of parts was going to cost $40. And yes, plenty of Bricklink sellers will send a handful of bits, and the postage + fees total is only a few dollars. If it works for you, great. But don't bash people over the head with "just get it off PAB" as though it works for everyone.

I've never used pick a brick. Prices aren't reasonable, plus something like $30 postage or whatever, forget about it. And I can't find anything on it anyway: all the colours, items, and item numbers have weird names. Finally, according to folks on here, useful things are sold out all the time. So I'll have to buy it from Bricklink and pay the "I parted this out from an expensive set" tax, and the "lots of other people want this (unique to one set) part" tax. But at least I'll know when it's available.

My first thought was "is he talking about a Jango Fett helmet?" but I'd seen the photos already and realised they were typos

Proper horses really would've made that set.

Great, they just had to put it in an expensive set...

May

I'm not overly optimistic about a decent sized balrog if it needs to fit inside a folded book like the Sherlock Holmes set.

Guys, stop feeding the troll/turtle whatever

Come on, you and I both know that TLG doesn't give a fox

1, there's still a lot of important stuff they haven't made yet.

That photo just demonstrates how 'too yellow' it is, sadly. I still haven't gotten around to ordering it.

As an adult I was originally only collecting Space, but when Kingdoms came out, I went on ebay & Bricklink to buy all the old castles (except the sucky one with stickers from 2006), and the most expensive was Vladek's from 2005 at $200 AUD, so maybe 100 GBP at the time. Most of the rest were $100 or less. Now I wish I'd bought the Pirate sets back then too.

I won't be getting that castle, as it doesn't fit the aesthetic of normal Castle, so there's 1 more available for people that want one. On another note, my series 3 castle was supposed to arrive yesterday, but the local Australia Post distribution centre sent it off to the other end of the state instead of to my house. 4 day delay.

Blank slates allow for children to use their imagination more.

I could do without Minas Tirith if they made sets of Faramir+Ithilien rangers vs mumak+Easterlings, Eowyn vs Witch-King, and Grond+orcs vs wall+Gondor soldiers. As a side note, it's curious that no one seems to notice (except for one example) that the only human army depicted so far is Rohan, plus a single solitary Peter Jackson Corsair. No wild-men, no Easterlings, no Haradrim, and no Gondor of course. Playsets are a must, to fit in with what we already have. For me, a Minas Tirith set should just be a white cross between the Helm's Deep & Dol Guldur sets. 2 or 3 levels is all it needs, with the overhang bit, the tree and a fire beacon on the top. (But on the other hand if you want an accurate-looking model: super scaled down, no features, no minifigs. Just like an Architecture set.)