Artanis I

First one was really good, Oky

Why so many Bards yet no Alfrid? Not that I like him, but besides Bolg he's the only main or secondary character not represented. He could've been in one of the 2 sets (or disc) instead of another Bard. I have an army of Bards, Thorins, Legolases, Gimlis, Aragorns, Gandalfs...

Last year's Ultra Agents have clearance tags at Kmart, I suppose that means that the new sets aren't far away. Pretty crazy, as they're good sets and haven't been around for very long at all. Big truck was @$100 I think. And some Chima sets (mammoth & phoenix temple thing) on clearance at Target.

Catalogue starts Thursday

The Hobbit blu-ray combo is in the next Big W catalogue for $25 with 2 bonus minifigs, Bard + an exclusive Bain. I didn't even know the movie was on disc yet, I'm either under a rock or this is news? (Price after 6/4 is $34)

Is Youtube Artifex the same person as Eurobricks Artifex?

Even better if they aren't named characters

Imagine BL & eBay sellers trying to get rid of heaps of minifig-less books to recover the cost of army-building it!

So do what I and others do, MAKE THE OFFICIAL RULING YOURSELF. If the only person you bind the book's 'official' canon to is yourself (by saying that anyone else can do what they want), why do you need someone to tell you what that is? Use your own brain or imagination. Who are you settling arguments against, and why? This isn't Star Wars or some other fixed licenced theme, everything is up for interpretation, and it's refreshing to have Lego themes that are like that for a change. Your Lego, your rules.

They made OT sets right through the time of PT, CW, Rebels... why would PT sets suddenly go off TLGs radar? They made PT sets during CW & Rebels time, why stop now? You may say that OT lives forever is an exception, but I don't think PT is going to end during this time either.

I got mine from S@H ages ago for some reason I can't recall, finally built them the other day. Great presentation, some really awesome prints & fun builds. Smaug kicks. But with such limited availability the 2 new orcs are going to be much pricier on BL than the previous wave 2 orc. Finally some variety in face prints and it's just too bad I'm unlikely to be forking out for an army at reasonable cost. I have 2 of each new print, versus 20 odd of each previous one.

If you are a collector (who wants to have all/most sets/minifigs in a theme) then you ought to decide which themes you are going to stick to. Star Wars is huge. If you are selective within that (maybe you only want original trilogy or clone wars or whatever), that helps, but otherwise you're in big trouble if you don't have a budget. I personally collect all castle-related and space-related themes & minifigs. But SW I try to stick to certain things and stay away from others. This means that I spend a lot of money every year on Lego sets. For SW, I mostly want certain minifigs, so if it works out better to just get them from Bricklink than to buy the entire set I'll do that. If I was buying Superheroes I would do the same. I ruled the theme out though, because I could see how much money I would be throwing down the toilet just to get all of those characters, with so many new ones every year. I'd prefer to have food & clothes.

No they shouldn't write a book. It should be whatever people want it to be. That is the whole point of creativity: YOU write the story. If Bobby wants to lump all his dragon soldiers in together that is up to him, if Timmy has it another way that's up to him. I have my way, it follows certain logic according to the minifigs appearance, the castles they appear in and the accessories they used, but others use their own logic to come up with slightly different outcomes, as evidenced by this and the 3 other similar conversations this year already. This is one of the cases in life where there is no "1 correct answer". TLG: just make cool sets & minifigs, let us make up our own stories, characters & alliances.

Only problem I've ever had is being sent back to the home page every now and then, if I've been inactive for a while, or sometimes when the site is being updated for new promotions. I pretty much just use it in Firefox on Mac these days. I don't ever recall any problems on Windows.

What is with that? I still haven't seen any Hobbit 3 sets in chain stores. Hobbit 2 sets lasted days or a few months only (depending on the set). LOTR and Hobbit 1 sat for quite a bit (except Uruk Hai Army).

What's really funny is I bought some clothes online last month, they turned up today (so I'd sorta forgotten what was on them) and one of them says on the front: SPACE PIRATE How cool is that... Great! I considered mentioning all 3 together but didn't think it could be pulled off properly

I was thinking camera, but I reckon button is it. That or toggle switch. I can't tell what the parts below the round plate are though. At first I thought a technic cog, but how would that connect?

I'm interested in Lego news, I'm not interested in movie plot or character/setting involvement until I've seen the movie. Sadly the set info has the characters & vehicles in it, but that's as far as I'm prepared to go. The title of the film and the Lego sets. Could we have an announcement or some kind of update flag to let us know if/when the first post is updated? I saw one somewhere on the board that had "updated *date*". Kim T used to have a locked pinned thread that was "all the news with no fuzz" you could just add a new post to that thread when there's new information and we'd know to check it for Lego news. Any of that would be helpful.

We are unlikely to be getting obscure astromechs re-released. If there's one out that you like, it won't come again. Something similar perhaps, but not the same one. There will always be more R2D2s, and there will likely be other new astromechs to come.

Just like the 18+ rule that gets glossed over

Space Pirates! The only thing better is Space Castle. Could be fun! Can we enter category B by ourselves? Or must there be 2 people working on it?

I got one of him too, for the sake of having one. One was enough because they don't look great next to my originals.

As part of a colour overhaul the old greys were discontinued and replaced by new ones. The colours were changed so that different coloured parts looked better together. The older greys don't look as good next to other colours as the new ones do. Same with the brown.

Interesting, but I would leave the hips as original. Looks like Spyrius is the top pick so far! Also interesting that although no-one has picked it as favourite, the white mech has no dislike votes either.

Chicken box for me today! My Unikitty army grows (from 1)! (No special secret, unless it's the Swedish newspaper?) Thanks again CopMike and everyone who helped this year.