Captain Blockbeard

I ordered the Petshop way back in mid-March, and finally today, I have received the official email that my order shipped. Definitely looking forward to assembling it along with the Detective's Office I received recently!

Similar to the topic creator, I ordered a Petshop along with the new Detective Office a few weeks ago and have since received the latter. I hope that Lego keeps a sufficient inventory of available sets that so long as I ordered the Petshop before it received the permanent "out of stock" label, I will still receive the set. There is no rush to receive it, but I have not received any emails since notifying me of the order status. Recently, I saw the Petshop status on the S@H website change temporarily from "expected to ship in 30 days" to "expected to ship April 4th" (or some date similar to that) before returning to the "expected to ship in 30 days". I had my hopes that the temporary switch meant my order may be shipped soon. Also, I genuinely hope that the Palace Cinema will remain available for a while longer. I've noticed it has been temporarily out of stock just as often lately as the Petshop. It was my intention to purchase the Palace Cinema (and perhaps the Parisian Restaurant) during Lego's other double VIP point event later in Fall 2015. I've only just now decided to enter the modular world and wished to acquire the four currently available sets.

On the rare occasion that I see job postings/openings for Lego, the offerings are either for graphic designers, store managers, and various business-oriented professions. As someone with an engineering background that includes material testing, I have always wondered if Lego ever posts openings for materials testers. I assume Lego performs engineering-style examinations of their plastic parts' tolerances of stress, strain, fatigue life, etc.

After having seen the image of the box and packets on Brickset, I came to see if the "series 12 or not" line of thought had been discussed here...and it clearly has. I'm taking the side of "it's not Series 12," but I don't see that as something about which to be overly concerned. However, I do hope that this collection will be more widely distributed compared to the GB Olympic collectible minifigures that remained exclusive (in an official sense) to Europe. Sadly, I was unable to fully complete a GB Olympic set through third party sellers (without accepting outrageous prices). No matter the naming scheme, I look forward to this series based on the movie arriving, hopefully, in January with Series 12 returning in April/May after the brief hiatus. At least, that seems like a logical release schedule.

That last figure looks great, but it's the face print on the criminal that has caught my eyes. I could make a decent Zorro minifigure with that head.

While I like nearly every modular Lego has offered and wish I could afford one of them, I must say that I absolutely love this particular set over the rest (with the exception of the Green Grocer, my all-time favorite). If I were to buy just one modular, the Parisian Restaurant would be it.

This will certainly undermine my plan to buy last year's Winter Village Cottage when it returns to stores later this month. Typically, I only buy exclusives at the official Lego store, saving coupons and VIP points specifically for those purchases. I can already buy non-exclusives for reduced rates on Amazon or in local brick and mortar toy stores.

Both sets are fantastic, but I'll probably aim only for acquiring the Christmas Tree Vendor. I can't recall what the minimum required amount spent at S@H was in previous years for these holiday limited edition sets, but hopefully, purchasing the Winter Village Cottage this year will be sufficient to nab a set.

I've been holding off on purchasing the Winter Cottage, but after reading this thread, I may have to finally acquire the set this holiday season since there's a strong chance it may not be available holiday 2014. It's a shame that the Bakery (and possibly the post office too) has been discontinued. I would have loved to buy a duplicate as a parts pack to make my own Winter Village shop.

^I agree that Lego Space should have its share of human villains again. In a sense, the Space theme has been a bit racist with all aliens categorized as "evil." My top picks are: Blacktron, M-Tron, Ice Planet, and Spyrius.

Thanks for the excellent review! This is one of the 2013 City sets that I've been looking forward to for quite some time along with the Octan Race Car & Truck.

I must tend towards the opposite extreme since I rarely disassemble any of my MOCs. Some built 15+ years ago still sit on shelves alongside official Lego sets. Lately, I've focused myself on just one large-scale MOC per year to keep the hobby affordable since for each new project, I must place a series of substantial orders on Bricklink. For me, disassembling older MOCs would not help with new projects as I now try to make each new MOC use a fresh palette of colors that I consider "new" or "experimental" since the colors are either uncommon or non-existent in my current collection.

I was skeptical when the earliest image became available, but now that the minifigures are confirmed (and looking quite excellent!), I find myself nearly sold on it. It just depends on the price. For the piece count, I'm hoping for 29.99 USD at most but expecting it to be higher.

The set has a number of fantastic pieces that, individually, are great to see, but the overall set is the absolute worst in the Winter Village line for me. From the pictures, I can't imagine how there are more than 1200 parts,, and the price is ludicrous. Even an earlier rumored estimate of 89.99 USD seemed steep so I expected much more than this. Now, to see a price $10 and for much less, it is disappointing. I realize it is more of a carnival and not a true outdoor market, but the color scheme feels jarring to me compared to the more subdued color palettes of past winter village sets (dark orange, dark green, reddish brown, tan, dark red, etc.). Last year, the light blue color scheme of the cottage was a prominent factor in disliking the set. This year, I feel colors are an issue again. I prefer greater cohesion in my winter village.

I really like the interior of the cottage and the cozy igloo but little else. The light blue color scheme bothers me, and I'm not as crazy about the plow truck as I was for the mail truck last year. The shed is a nice design though. But, Lego, the price and piece count... They're sickening, repulsive, insulting ... I could go on with the adjectives. I agree with what was said before about hoping Lego would maintain the previous scale of the Winter Village sets. I did a double take when I read the price and piece count for this. The other day, I had the same reaction when I saw the City Garage on Lego S@H. Lego, you're beginning to convince me that your new aim is to be an elitist toy company that caters only to the wealthiest consumers. While it could be argued this particular set can afford the hefty price due to the adult collector being the possible targeted audience, the same can't be said for sets in themes that are unquestionably aimed directly at young boys and girls. After 25+ years of continuous collecting of Legos, I'm finally reaching my breaking point when I see sets such as this Winter Village Cottage!

I'm uncertain if I would buy a series of modular western town sets, but I greatly appreciate seeing a non-licensed concept of this quality reaching the 10,000 mark. For a set based on this, I would settle for something akin to the Medieval Market Village with two structures of higher detail than typical Lego sets while not quite attaining the extreme detail (and associated price) of a full modular set.

Great review and I absolutely love this set! However, is it just me or did Lego go back on their press release prices. Your review quotes the US price at $59.99 which is what I remember from the press release. However, I just checked the official S@H website, and it's now quoting $69.99. Lego's being cruel to me. I was hoping the price would stay at the same level as Winter Village Toy Shop.

As a single adult male collector of Lego, I find it interesting that I'm more interested in this Friends theme than some of the other 2012 themes. After seeing the pictures of the sets, I can already imagine how easy it would be to slightly modify a number of these sets (Beauty Salon, Vet, Cafe) to fit in with my regular City sets. Even the sets' original color schemes would work well and provide contrast to all of the yellow, red, and white buildings that overpopulate my town currently.

Wow! I absolutely love it! The combination of regular parts and Bionicle/Hero Factory parts really suits the Insectoid aesthetic well. Also, the green-tinted canopies from Atlantis sets work as a perfect stand-in for the original neon-green transparent parts from Insectoids.

Thanks for the suggestions. I was considering the Dragon Knight Helmet, though I wish it came in either pearl gray or custom chrome. I hadn't thought of the pith helmet, but that might work even better, especially, again, if it came in pearl gray or custom chrome. I'll have to check Bricklink to see if anyone has modified either of those helmets to that effect.

Not to divert the topic, but I'm trying to do something similar. I have been considering converting one of my spare CMF Royal Guards into something resembling an English Horseguard as seen in the picture below. My parts combination is: CMF Royal Guard torso (yellow hands replaced with white) CMF Royal Guard head white legs white epalettes [need an appropriate helmet] white Minifig, Plume Feather Large (Bricklink's name for it) Note that I'm ignoring the armor, instead opting to let the CMF torso pattern show. If anyone has any suggestions for the helmet, I would appreciate it. Back on topic, I really appreciate your attempt to mix and combine the parts of the IG and the CMF Royal Guard. The IG with the bearksin hat doesn't look too bad, considering it fits a Lego cartoony/exaggerated styling of a Royal Guard.

I don't expect this Town Hall set to be a modular. Or at least, I would hope it's not one because the scale would be completely off. It doesn't make sense for a city hall to be the same size as the everyday shops and homes of the other modular structures. I would instead expect the building to be a standalone building of the same size as a modular but intended to be more appropriately scaled against the Town Plan buildings.

I agree with everyone else to disagree with that list of top ten Lego castles. First off, probably any of the other medium to large sized Forestmen structures are better than 6046 Hemlock Stronghold. Also, the Knight's Castle is so similar to the King's Castle in general shape, that I probably would have replaced it with the Black Falcon Outpost. However, I would agree with their choice of 6082 Fire Breathing Fortress and 6098 King Leo's Castle. Since the list is not limited to castles (due to their inclusion of a Forestmen set), I would probably insert the Dwarven Mine somewhere in the standings. I would also probably replace the 1984 King's Castle with the 2010 King's Castle.

Great review! I love this set, and while some local stores still have many copies (along with multiples of all of the other Wave 2 Space Police III sets), I just can't bring myself to buy it at full price. Someday, though, I will own it. In the meantime, I appreciate your review's closeup pictures of some parts of the ship that I had not previously seen.