Jdurg

Speaking of Imperial Shuttles, I was able to find Set 10212 on BrickLink for $350 from a seller located in my homestate. So I picked that up using the b-day money I got and will finally have an Imperial Shuttle in my collection. Can't wait for it to arrive!

I know it doesn't really "fit", but I took the gun from this battle pack and placed it on the very top round dish that caps the Death Star. I bought one of these packs a while back, and just recently picked up another one to get more DS Gunners, and more of the Royal Guards. I figure you can never have enough of those, and now have 6 of them which I think is a good amount. I just wish they'd re-release the Imperial Shuttle so that more scenes can be made with the Royal Guards and the shuttle.

Yeah, I picked them up off of BrickLink but don't recall what shop they were, or if they had more than one for sale. Just spend some time looking around BrickLink and you'll find them. Today, however, I hit the JACKPOT! First off, the Podracers, TC-14, TC-4, and Y-Wing arrived a day early! I'm INCREDIBLY sore from the procedure yesterday and the PT that took place this morning, but I was so psyched to see the sets came in. Both of the TC's came in the polybags so I VERY carefully cut open the top so I could keep the bag in good condition but still see the figures. They are beautiful! Then, the biggest LEGO hit I ever got was found. Near the physical therapist, there was a toy and hobby shop that I used to visit when I was in my scale model car building phase, but recalled that they sold LEGO sets. I figured I needed some baseplates to put my sets onto and wandered into the store to see if they still sold them. Much to my great surprise, the baseplates were nowhere to be found but a whole bunch of old sets were available WELL below the MSRP for the sets. As a result, I was able to pick up the Gungan Sub, Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator, and Palpatine's Shuttle for a grand total of $115!!!!! All still brand new and sealed in the boxes with the original tape! I guess this store doesn't keep up with LEGO Star Wars, or jacks up the price for retired sets, as these sets have all been retired for quite some time. Taking a look on BrickLink, picking these up from there would have cost me quite a bit more. I can't recall which year had the golden C-3PO's potentially mixed in, but that would complete a pretty damned good birthday if one of these sets had that in there. Heh. Not keeping my hopes up, but if this comes to fruition I will definitely post about it here.

While recovering from my recent medical procedure, I thought that assembling some LEGO sets would be a good way to gradually reintroduce activity into my shoulder. It worked well the first time, so why not this time? Anyway, I went on BrickLink and with a birthday coming up tomorrow I figured I could afford to spend some money on things I wanted. So I got the following: 7962 - Annakin and Sebulba's Podracers (Many of the Episode 1 sets were released early in the theme's lifecycle and weren't the greatest. This one, was released more recently and just looks like a really good set of a really key scene in TPM). 7658 - Y-Wing Starfighter (I've picked up basically every different form of ship in the series, aside from the Imperial Shuttle which I'm not too keen on paying the huge prices for and also figure that along with Slave I it will be re-released again soon, but I didn't have a Y-Wing so thought it would be a good idea to buy one). TC-14 Minifig (Have wanted this for a while, and finally found a reasonable price so I scooped it up). TC4 Minifig (Just saw this while browsing around and thought, why not? It wasn't too expensive, and it's a nicely detailed dark-red version of C-3PO). K-3PO Minifig (Have no desire to get the Hoth set this is exclusive to as I have the much better Hoth Base set with Bacta Tank Luke, but wanted it for my droid collection). Magnaguard Minifig (I always thought these were the coolest of the battle droids, but alas, I didn't have any sets with them in it. Although I believe they are from the Clone Wars line, the droids in that line don't bother me like the "regular" minifigs do, so I picked htis up). Senate Commando Minifig (As this is the precursor to the Royal Guards, I thought it would be nice to have). Super Battle Droid w/ Blaster Arm (Didn't have one of these in the sets I've purchased, and wanted one. It was more cost-efficient to just buy the whole minifig as opposed to just buying the blaster arm).

Thanks Tronedor. Surgery went well. They thankfully didn't need to cut me open as the manual manipulation tore away the scar tissue. In a huge amount of pain at the moment, but that will pass. I'll certainly post photos once/if I ever get the shelves built. Won't be for a while as I'll need to allow time for my shoulder to get back to full strength before tackling a project like that, but my idea is to have multiple levels of shelves and segregate the shelves into the different movies, thus allowing me to put a snow field behind the Hoth sets, a forest scene behind the Endor sets, and a space theme behind the various ships. (Have a Y-Wing set on its way to me).

Trust me, it's worth it. There is zero buyer's remorse with this one simply due to the incredible number of minifigs, the amazing scenes that can be recreated, the incredibly fun build, and everything you could hope for in a LEGO set. I HIGHLY suggest picking it up, since when it is eventually retired it will likely skyrocket in price.

Finally got my Pick-A-Brick and BrickLink orders in that I needed to complete my minifig display stand. I think it came out awesome. It's 492 bricks and cost a bit of money to put together, but I think it's worth it as this looks really good. I've actually got most of the parts to build another one, but after I had placed my order I went and made a modification to the stand in order to put more height into each row. I guess what I could do is go and extend the width of the display stand. Regardless, this looks good and I'll definitely need to build another. I've got an .lxf file for LDD in case anybody else wants to build it. For some reason, I can't attach it to my post.

Now that I have been in the good land of LEGO for a while now, I will say that I am a movie collector. So if it's from one of the movies then I will pick it up and own it. Hence my desire to get the Super Star Destroyer and Imperial Shuttle. I've realized that I really enjoy the sets that not only look good, but have some fun play features to them. It's not like I sit around playing with the sets every day, but if there are some nice play features in there that don't hugely impact the look of the set, I enjoy it. Like with the B-Wing how the cockpit auto-rotates so that it's facing the right direction is amazing, and doesn't detract from the look.

Heh. This is something I need to work on too. When I first got back into LEGO, and LEGO Star Wars more specifically, I never foresaw the massive addiction I would have and all the sets I would buy. So I simply placed my sets on the floor of my home office. Now that I have a massive amount of sets, I am quickly running out of room. I still have plenty of space and I'm in no danger of stepping on any, but the nicely laid out "scenes" are now looking more like sets just placed randomly as I'm running out of room. For my minifigures, I've designed a stand to display all the minifigs I've either purchased, or have left from sets that I can't really place them in. I am hoping that once my shoulder problems are finally fixed (going in for a second surgery on Tuesday) and I have my strength back, I can build some shelves onto the one wall in the office that is free of windows/etc. and place my sets on those shelves to keep them neatly sorted and also off of the floor. Would just need to calculate how deep I need to make the shelves, and also ensure that the shelves don't look "out of place" there.

Was bored yesterday evening and decided to make the trek up to the West Farms Mall and see what they had. Since I don't foresee any "must-have" purchases coming up in the near future, I decided to make use of the $30.00 off in VIP points that I had and picked up Set 75050 B-Wing. At only $20.00 for it, it's a good deal. I really like the set and had fun building it. I was also happy to check my mail today and see that the replacement 3x12 wing piece that was missing from my Republic Gunship set had arrived. Only took about a week for the piece to come in. In the set, I had gotten an additional white plate instead of the right wing piece and was happy to get the missing piece so I could "complete" the set. Thankfully, it's absence didn't stop me from building the set since it was easy to put it where it needed to be. I also am happy to see that my Pick A Brick selections I made many weeks back are finally here in the states. Per the last update, they are in Atlanta so I figure I'll get them sometime this upcoming week. I also finally had a massive BrickLink order sent out to me that will arrive on Monday. This will allow me to finally complete the figure stand I had created to hold all the extra minifigs I've accumulated recently. I may need to add another row of bricks into each level to provide enough room for the taller figures. My PaB selections were made when I first designed the stand, but after seeing how long it was taking to get here I went and made a purchase of the parts on BrickLink. So I'll have the parts to build two stands, or just increase the height of one stand and add another row or two. When the PaB parts get here, I'll also be able to build me four more of the Imperial Probe Droids from set 75014 as those things look AWESOME!

A few weeks back I was able to pick up Vader's Tie Advanced, as well as the "regular" Tie Fighter from BrickLink at a very good price. I must say, those ships look great. I think they were very well done and amazingly simple to build. I know that many AFOLs out there aren't so happy with all the "re-releases" of sets, but honestly I think it's a good idea. It seems that sets get retired fairly quickly and if you are someone who is just recovering from their Dark Ages it can be next to impossible to get those older sets without taking out a second mortgage. By re-releasing sets, people like me are able to pick up some of the iconic ships and settings that we missed out on previously. An example of this is the Super Star Destroyer Executor. I missed out on this one as I just came out of my Dark Ages earlier this year. A few days back, I saw that the Lego Shop At Home store suddenly had them available for purchase with a shipment date of 06-Oct-2014, but I hesitated and the next day they were Sold Out again. Now, it doesn't even appear on the S@H website. (So I'm thinking that they were in the process of removing it, and there actually were none available). I would love to see this re-released even if it isn't a UCS set and one with more play features. Another one that I think everybody would like would be Cloud City. With how detailed modern sets are, I think TLG could produce an amazing set now. I know that many years back they tried to produce Jabba's Palace with "modular" sets that didn't really work out all that great, but why not try it again with Cloud City? They could release the different areas as different sets and allow the user to combine them all. Imagine if they sold the Landing Bay with a landing pad for the MF, entrance to the main building, and an open area/hallway that the other sets would merge with. They could include Lando, C-3PO, Leia, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and a bunch of Storm Troopers so you could re-enact the escape scene. Another "module" would be the Carbonite Freezing chamber that would include the little dwarf like creatures in there, Han Solo, Han in Carbonite, and Boba Fett. The next module would be the Duel between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. It would include a separate part of the Carbonite Chamber, the balcony area where the famous quote is stated, and include Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. Another module would be the Dinner Area where the trap is sprung. You'd have various bounty hunters in there, Lobot, Imperial Troopers, and more Storm Troopers. By having all these separate modules, an AFOL could easily combine them all into one massive set, or if you only wanted let's say the Carbonite Chamber but couldn't care less about other parts, you could purchase just that. I think this would be a great way to re-release this set, and once all of the "modules" have been released, TLG could go and release them all in a massive combo pack.

While the R2-D2 kit is nice, it's really just a sculpture that lies around. Not really any play value, if that matters to you, nor any real great aspects. While the Death Star has been around a while and is constantly discussed about retirement, it is an absolutely fantastic set. It includes a bevy of minifigures, and by purchasing the Death Star you'll get figures of Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, RD-D2, C-3PO, Princess Leia, Imperial Guards, Stormtroopers, Grand Moff Tarkin, Death Star Troopers, Emperor Palpatine, and a multitude of droids. You'll basically have every "key" figure in the Star Wars pantheon in one set. In addition, the build of the Death Star is INCREDIBLY fun. It's not real challenging, nor is it very repetitive. It's an awesome experience as you put it together and you see the iconic shape forming. The set also includes a small scale Darth Vader Tie Fighter which is nice to have, and includes all of the great scenes from the movies. Palpatine's Throne Room from RotJ, Trash Compactor and Prison Cell from ANH, The Destruciton of Alderran, The rope swing across the chasm from ANH, the Conference Room from ANH where Vader uses a force choke, etc. I came out of my "Dark Ages" earlier this year by picking up set 7965 - Millenium Falcon which was a great choice as well. After building it, I then found out about the Death Star and was so happy that it hasn't been retired. At first it was tough swallowing the $400 plus shipping and taxes price tag, but that tough swallow soon turned to glee when the MASSIVE box arrived at my door. I spent a good three nights, with multiple hours spent each night, building the thing and have been severely addicted to Lego Star Wars ever since. In the past few years I've reviewed my financial planning and re-financed my house and was thus able to save a LOT of money. Since picking up the Death Star, I've spent probably far too much on Lego Star Wars, but feel that it's worth it. I mean, what's the point of saving up money if you aren't going to spend it? My collection now includes the new Sandcrawler, an AT-AT, Imperial Star Destroyer, Jabba's Palace, MTT, Hoth Echo Base, Wampa Cave, Jabba's Sail Barge, Mos Eisley Cantina, X-Wing, Tantive IV, etc. etc. So if this is your first purchase and you won't be making another purchase for another few years, I'd say go for the Death Star as you will definitely get your money's worth, and the huge number of mini-figs that comes with it is also a huge positive.

Trust me, you absolutely will NOT get buyer's remorse with this set. I had the same thoughts as you when I spent a good chunk of change on it, but when it arrived and I saw the huge box, the massive amount of parts, the huge instruction booklet in a spiral bound format, the insane number of minifigs, and all the awesome features coming together as I built it, not a nanogram of buyer's remorse kicked in. It is an incredible set with so many features, and the build is incredibly enjoyable and not repetitive at all. You are going to love it!

Definitely! As I had recently purchased the Hoth Base set with the Bacta Tank Lukeskywalker, I already had a Snowspeeder with the Orange Coloring. I didn't plan to pick up the new Snowspeeder, but when I was at the Lego Store a few weeks back I decided to pick it up due to the gray coloring. This way I now have an Orange and Gray highlighted Snowspeeder just like in the movies!

I got into Lego Star Wars a bit late (just a few months ago), so I didn't have an AT-AT but really wanted one. I was happy that the summer wave came out a bit early at the only Lego Store near me, so I immediately picked it up. (Was an expensive trip as I also got the ISD, Cantina, MTT, and Snowspeeder!). I think this new one looks great! It really captures the look of the AT-AT that I remember so well from the movies, and the build was pretty fun. Having a bunch of extra "rope" things from the Death Star build and the Ewok Village build, I attached one to the underside of the AT-AT and have a Luke Skywalker hanging onto it. Looks great displayed in my Lego Room/Office. The really nice thing about this set is that if you already have it and someone buys it for you, since the AT-AT is just a type of vehicle and not a unique ship, having more than one is just fine. Overall, I'm very pleased to see a great plethora of OT releases this year. I know that with the upcoming Rebels series and the sequel trilogy of movies coming up, the number of OT and PT sets/re-releases will dwindle.

I picked up the Corporate Alliance Tank Droid to get Jango Fett, also picked up a microfighter Start Destroyer to get the imperial solider in that, and finally I picked up another Death Star Battle Pack to pick up a few more Death Star Gunners, and more Imperial Soldiers. Can never have enough of them. :D Moving forward, I may make another trek up to the West Farms Mall Lego Store to use up the $30 worth of VIP points on another set, unless of course the Super Star Destroyer shows up again as available on the Lego Shop At Home Store.

Dammit. Waited too long. Decided today to go ahead and make the purchase, and when I went to the Lego site it is indicated as "Sold Out" and the 06-Oct-2014 ship date was no longer there, and you couldn't add it to your bag. So I'm guessing they either did a VERY limited run that quickly was bought up, or it was a mistake on the site and they aren't actually bringing it out of retirement. Oh well. I likely wouldn't have room for it in the house anyway.

Just saw on the Lego Shop @ Home website that Set 10221 - Super Star Destroyer is available for purchase. Price is $399.99 and the status is "Out of Stock" with a proposed ship date later in October. So it looks like this set is not retired and they are producing more of them. Have a whole bunch of VIP points saved up due to my massive purchasing of this summer's wave of sets, and also have a birthday coming up next week. Will need to determine if I want to go and purchase this now even though I wouldn't get it until October, or go and get the B-Wing that's for sale which I somehow missed during my binge. Heh. With $30 off the B-Wing, that would only be $20 which isn't too bad. Still, now that I have the ISD from this wave it would be cool to have the SSD since I see it's still available and I won't need to pay the crazy prices for it on BrickLink. Just might have a problem finding a spot for it in my house. Haha.

First thing I noticed were the stickers on the side panels. Many large stickers in need of perfect application in order to look right is not a good thing in my own opinion.

I'm really just a fan of the actual movies and haven't delved into the Clone Wars, Old Republic, or any other EU stuff except by accident every now and then. I actually would have been more apt to pick some CW stuff if they didn't have the REALLY stupid printing of the eyes and whatnot on the mini-figs. With regular Star Wars printing on the heads, I'd have likely purchased more of those. Hopefully the new Rebels sets aren't the same horrible printing. Then again, I could probably pick up the CW stuff and just BrickLink away the mini-figs that I can't tolerate.

I don't recall off-hand, but you can always go to the Lego website and look at the instructions online. This will show you what bag(s) the minifigs are in.

Went and did some BrickLinking (what I should have done the first time) and picked up all the pieces to make another Mini-Fig Stand that I had designed in LDD. It's not exactly an inexpensive creation, but it will end up looking good based upon the small bits I was able to build from the parts I had BrickLinked for the first one. I figure that by the time the Pick-a-Brick orders come in (made two as I realized I had omitted some parts a few days later), I'll have all of the parts I ordered from BrickLink and will simply make a second stand! Not bad at all, especially since I have quite a few minifigures now and need a nice way to display them and store them. Can't wait!

I just picked up a very incomplete 4502 set via BrickLink that basically only includes the parts for Yoda's Hut and some other parts for the X-Wing. I kind of wanted Yoda's Hut for a while to go with the X-Wing I had, but didn't want to get yet another X-Wing in my collection. I have plenty of spare foliage parts that I had lying around so if I ever wanted to "re-enact" the sunken X-Wing I could just append some of the foliage to the one that I have. Anyway, this got me thinking about a set that Lego could produce which wouldn't be all that large and could be sold at a good price point, and also hasn't really been fully released. That would be a Dagobah set. The set would include: Yoda's Hut that would be similar to the one in set 4502, but a bit longer and more accurate to the movie. The dark area where Luke battles a "Darth Vader" whom he decapitates. Various boxes and whatnot for Luke's force telekinesis training. Mini-figs would include: Yoda Luke Skywalker in his Dagobah attire (Basically the same as in set 4502, but flesh colored instead of yellow) Darth Vader with Luke Skywalker's head. Separate "helmet" would be included to show Luke's head/face in Vader's getup. R2-D2 with swamp gunk on him. I can see this being something like a $39.99 set as there wouldn't be a huge number of pieces for Yoda's Hut or the Mysterious Darkness, but the set would be great for us AFOLs as there really hasn't been any sets around Dagobah aside from that old X-Wing 4502 set.

I'm reserving my hype for Episode VII. After the massive, simply unreachable, hype surrounding the prequel trilogy I don't want to set my expectations too high and wind up being greatly disappointed.

Heh. I don't know. I made the purchase about 10 days ago, and at the time it said that the produce would be delivered within 3-45 business days as the products are all coming from their central manufacturer in Europe. Right now, both of my PAB orders are still "In Process" and there's been no change. I don't really know what's up with it and can't really understand why they don't have stock "on-shore" that they can pull from. How do the LEGO Stores get their PAB selections?