Jdurg

I was hoping to get a photo taken of the completed display case to show here, but sadly it's taking a very long time to get all the parts to me from Lego. From the parts I have available right now, however, this is going to look great! Tomorrow, a BrickLink order of Celebration Luke Skywalker, General Lando Calrissian, Nute Gunray in the orange robe, Padme with the white battle damaged shirt, and Qui-Gon Jinn with the re-breather. (Bought him before I decided to impulse buy the MTT on Friday). So I'll have a bunch of characters in need of a display case coming in, and just wish I could get the parts sooner to get the case completed. I think a great feature for BrickLink, if this was even possible, would be to put a bunch of pieces on a wanted list, call the pieces a "custom set", then have BrickLink automatically go through the stores and tell you the cheapest way including shipping, and/or the fewest number of stores, so that you could pick up all the pieces. I might just go and BrickLink another bunch of parts for a display case since I'll need it anyway as more characters are obtained, and likely wind up getting it sooner anyway. Heh.

After building them, I agree. The 75014 set looks much better. The only "issue" I see with it is the use of dark bley 2x2 round plates in the center. When I went and purchased a bunch of parts from Pick-a-Brick, I bought black variants of that piece. Got enough parts coming in to build me 5 more of those. When they get here in October, they'll look nice in my growing Hoth scene. (I'm still really irked that it takes so long to get the pieces from Pick-a-Brick. Had I known it would take months to get the pieces instead of a week or so like for full sets, I'd have just bit the bullet and done a bunch of purchasing from BrickLink. Lesson learned though).

Heh-heh, mine did too. Finally made the trek up on Friday to the only local Lego store near me (West Farms Mall up in West Hartford) and saw all the new sets. I ended up picking up pretty much all of them. The AT-AT, the ISD, the Cantina, Snowspeeder, and on a whim since I don't have much, if any, of the Episode I sets, the MTT. Yes, it was quite the expense, but considering what I used to spend money on that was incredibly stupid and a dark period in my life, I had no issues. (Also helped re-financing the house last year and drastically cutting back my mortgage payment each month thus allowing me to save a ton of money in the past year). I will say that all of the sets I picked up were REALLY fun to build. Yes, the AT-AT had some repetitive sections but that's to be expected as you have to build all four legs. In the end, it looks really great and it's nice that I have so many Luke Skywalkers, and a bunch of extra "ropes" from the sets I've built, that I was able to attach Luke to one of the ropes and attach the rope to the bottom of the AT-AT and have him hanging off of it. With the Snowspeeder, I now have a gray one and an orange one which is nice. I had a whole bunch of extra thread lying around the house so I went and lengthened the thread for the speeder and also used a small dab of hot glue (barely visible) where the thread ties into the anchor to keep it there. Got the AT-AT set with the thread wrapped around the legs just like in the movie. I think what's nice about this wave of sets is that aside from the Cantina, all of the sets are ones that if you have multiples of them it doesn't really matter since there are multiple snowspeeders, multiple ISDs, multiple AT-ATs, and multiple MTTs logically in use in the "universe". I had a real blast building the sets this entire weekend. I just wish that Lego would hurry up with the PaB purchases I made. I hate that when you use the PaB at their online store, it can take up to three MONTHS for them to ship it out to you. I really want to get my mini-fig display case built, as the parts I have so far make me realize that this will look AMAZING once it is all built. Also have a bunch of parts to build some Probe Droids in that purchase which will fit in great with my rapidly growing Hoth collection.

Finally made the trip up to the only Lego Store one could call "close" to me. They also had the summer wave in. Having money to spend, I sure as heck did that. Now have the next week or so set for builds. I picked up: 75049 - Snowspeeder. 75052 - Mos Eisley Cantina 75054 - AT-AT 75055 - ISD 75058 - MTT

Well, I needed to find an excuse to head to a Lego Store, and part of the treatment my doctor has suggested for me (recently diagnosed with stress/injury induced clinical depression) is to just get in my car and drive somewhere to take my mind off of what is constantly bugging me. So I went and made the 40 minute drive up there (yes, speed limits be darned) and took a look at what they had. $450 later, I now have a Cantina, AT-AT, ISD, Snowspeeder, and MTT in my hands. It looks like all of the sets are now in all Lego Stores which is nice. Why didn't I call ahead of time? Well, I have had far too many experiences with stores where I call about something and either the store has a computerized system for accepting calls, a moronic voice-can't-recognize-anything system, or a person who answers the phone and simply doesn't have any idea about what is in stock. So it ends up just being too much of a hassle. Heh.

I see that these sets are now on the Lego Shop at Home website. Unfortunately, they have a release date of 01-Aug-2014 so you can't purchase them yet, even if you are a VIP member. I'm thinking of making the hour long drive up to the only local Lego Store here in CT up at the West Farms Mall in West Hartford. Just wouldn't want to spend the hour driving only to find out that they don't have the sets yet. If they do, I'd go and purchase them. Does it seem like the Lego Stores here in the US have them available? I know Lego's distribution headquarters is located here in Enfield, CT, so there's a chance that they actually do have these. Hell, I think I'll make the drive in a few minutes anyway. Even if they don't have them in stock, I'm sure I could find other stuff to blow money on. :)

8017 - Darth Vader's TIE Fighter 9492 - TIE Fighter

Same here. While it's great having accurate looking sets, including play-features is a nice bonus that can help kill the pain of paying such a high price for these sets.

Hey guys. Was just wondering how many other people have done what I'm doing and your thoughts on it. I've recently purchased a few Hoth sets to fill in my admittedly barren Episode V collection. Got me the Wampa Cave (which comes with a snowspeeder) and the Echo Base with the awesome Tauntaun, Bacta Tank, snowtroppers, etc. One thing that I'm still missing is the AT-AT, but that's coming in a month or so in the next wave so I'll pick that up then. Still, I'm missing the Imperial Droid units which are fairly key to these scenes. The thing is, when looking around on BrickLink many folks are charging quite a bit of money for them as complete. Thinking that it would be cheaper, I also looked at the parts inventories those folks were selling, and found that if I bought the parts I could build the probe droids for a much lower cost than buying them "complete." It also helped that I had many of the pieces in my spare parts bag. Black 1x1 rounds, transparent bright orange and red-orange 1x1 rounds, black antennas, and the black droid arms. I guess there's a moral dilemma here. Is it wrong to buy the pieces from the same seller who is charging two to three dollars more for the fig than for the combined pieces, or is this just smart shopping? Many of the pieces can be bought directly from Lego's pick-a-brick area so you can build multiple versions of them. I ended up getting the parts needed for the 7666 set Probe Droid as well as for a 75014 set probe droid. Going to end up building both to see which I like the look of better, then probably going to build a whole bunch more of what I like. From LDD, the 7666 set looks a lot better to me so I may end up building a whole bunch of them. Many of the pieces from the 75014 version are usable in the 7666 version. So have any of you guys done this? In the long run, did you find this cheaper than buying complete figs?

Very nice! Hopefully they will also go on sale at the Lego Store shortly. Would definitely like to pick up the Cantina and AT-AT since I don't have an AT-AT yet. (Just got my first Episode V items last week when the Echo Base and Wampa Cave arrived. Need to get an AT-AT now, and really looking forward to the ISD).

Oh yeah, one more neat little thing that can be done with this build. One can take a 2x4x1 angled bracket piece, put a SNOT tile onto it, then put a custom printed label to add a name plate to the characters you have on there. This can be attached to the underside of each roof piece, and if using a 2x4 or 4x4 SNOT tile, you can label the mini-fig that is up above, and directly down underneath it on the level below. This way you can just change the sticker/decal you've placed on the SNOT tile and you'll have a customizable display case! Since posting the .lxf file and searching for parts on BrickLink and the Lego Pick-a-Brick site, I did make some changes. I changed the lightsaber tubes into Transparent Red colors instead of Transparent Bright Green. This gives the display case a Sith-Type feel to it which I really like. For the top roof, I also discovered that there are 2x4 45 degree tiles, so I used those to reduce the brick count, and also make it cheaper to purchase the parts for. I also found out that black tile in 8x16 either doesn't exist, or is super hard to find. By changing those tiles to 2 8x8 black tiles in place of each 8x16, I was able to find the bricks readily at the Lego Pick-a-Brick site. I have just a few parts left to order, and then hopefully I'll get the orders in my hands by the end of next week. (I'm discovering that some folks at BrickLink are incredibly slow to send the invoices, or extremely slow in actually shipping the goods. Been waiting since July 5th for one order of mini-figs from a seller. I placed two other orders on that same date, and got them earlier this week. This guy hasn't even indicated that the pieces have been shipped. I'm not going to black-list the seller here, but rest assured I will never purchase from him/her ever again). Totaling the parts up, this set has close to 500 bricks in it, and the total cost, including shipping for all the parts, is indeed around $100 so this hasn't exactly been an inexpensive set, but I think those who purchase bricks in bulk or have plenty of spare parts lying around will be able to readily build this if they like. I'm thinking that some day in the distant future I'll buy all the parts again, but change the color scheme to a light bley for the main color, and then perhaps a Brick Yellow or white for the floor tiles. Use some blue or green translucent light saber blades, and just store the "good guys" in there while the "bad guys" go in the design up above. Can't wait to build this and see how sturdy/useful it is. I'll definitely post a bunch of pictures here.

Okay, made some updates to the stand. (Will of course need to buy a whole bunch more parts for it, but hey, has anybody ever complained about having too many Lego parts? Haha). I went and made the stand much larger, because after laying out some bricks in real life I realized that this would be pretty danged small. So I extended the width to 32 studs, with 30 studs available for the figures. The depth of the upper floors, of which there are now three, has been increased to 4 studs deep. This will allow any of the characters with large bases to fit in there. I decided to add a back wall to the stand as well. This allows me to have more stability and "sturdiness" to the build. The torches have been replaced with clips to hold light-saber bars in there. I think this fits in more with the Star Wars theme and also looks pretty damned cool. I did not include windows as the larger transparent clear pieces for Lego simply doesn't exist. One could, perhaps, include a wall piece without studs on the first row of the bottom and custom cut some Lexan to lean up against it and keep dust out. There just doesn't seem to be a well made Lego clear transparent piece that can be used. Finally, I omitted the connector pins on the sides. I think this is bulky enough that one is not needed, and it can also be very easily modified if one wanted to extend it out to the sides. The second and third levels are exact copies of each other, so if one wanted to move vertically they just need to repeat the second and third floors. Easily done. I've linked to a photo of the new mock-up in LDD, and attached the new .lxf file to this post. (Once I clear up the first entry. 100k limit to a thread that you start is incredibly tiny). Large Mini-Fig Stand.lxf

Thanks for the feedback! I couldn't attach the .ldd file to the post as it would put me over 100k which is the limit. I'll PM you the file, and then perhaps someone can figure out a way to post this in the thread. (It limits me to just 100k total in a thread for attachments! Edit: Okay, files can't be attached in a PM. I'll edit the first post, reduce the quality of the photo, and see if it will allow me to add the .lxf file. Edit 2: Finally got it. Had to reduce the size of the image, then I was able to add in the .lxf file I got out of LDD. Have fun with it!

So how do you guys display the random mini-figs you have which you don't have sitting within your builds at the moment? For many builds, TLG seems to give us a vast number of mini-figs, some of which you really can't properly "fit" into the set without overcrowding it, or just making it look "off." Currently, I just have these mini-figs on spare plates that I got from my attempt at completing The Simpsons mini-fig collection. Still, even with plenty of those as spare parts, I ran out of room. Especially as I have now been perusing BrickLink for mini-figs that I really want. (I REALLY want to get the chrome gold C-3PO figure, but can't justify the $$$ for it. heh). Now comes the matter of how to display them. I have a few shelves in my work-from-home-office that I can put them on, but they'd seem kind of random in there. Since I was browsing around BrickLink and also have been making use of Lego Digital Designer, I decided to mock up a display case made out of Lego that I could put figures in, and would also be modular so I could expand it if needed. I ordered the parts needed on BrickLink and will hopefully get them in the mail over the next week or so. In the meantime, I've attached a photo of the display case that I'll be using. It has three shelves and is a total of 20 studs wide from left to right. There are 18 studs worth of empty space on all three levels horizontally. On the first level, it is 8 studs deep, and levels two and three are 3 studs deep. So any really large based figures (Such as Queen Amidala, or the newer revision of Nute Gunray) would be displayed on the bottom level. Other mini-figs will fit just fine on the other levels. In LDD, I was able to comfortably get quite a few figures in there. The design of the stand also allows it to be modular. The first and second levels have friction pegs in there, so if one wanted to add more to the left and right they could just make another build and not put the pegs in there so it can connect. In addition, for the end pieces one could put in a short connector and put a flat tile on the outside, or replace the Technic brick with a 1x1 brick with one hole in order to hold the torch. The same piece that is used up on the third level. If you wanted to increase the height of the display case, the second "floor" can just be duplicated and inserted on top of that second floor to increase the height to as many levels as one would want. The color scheme is black with Dark Bley used for the floor. I thought that this color would contrast enough with the various different colors of min-figs in the Star Wars series. Having the flooring be black would simply "hide" many of the darker colored characters like Death Star Troopers, Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, etc. Once I get the parts and have the display case built and populated with my plethora of mini-figs, I'll take an actual picture instead of the screenshot from LDD. If anyone wants my LDD file, just let me know. I only wish LDD would allow you to modify the build instructions since the automatically generated instructions are pretty poor. Heh. Mini-fig Stand.lxf

Was out and about today and stopped by Target to see if there was anything there I liked. They did have a few Star Wars sets that were at a pretty good price, so I picked a few up. I got the Microfighter Tie Fighter as I really liked the Pilot in there, and thought it was a neat little set. I also picked up the Droid Tri-Fighter and Droid Gunship that were released this year. While I typically avoid any "Non-Movie" themed sets as I only really care for the actual movies, I thought these sets looked nice and can consider them a part of Episode II if I stretch my criteria. Heh. The Tri-Fighter was a simple build, but a really neat one. I'm quite happy with that purchase and thought it looked really good. A bit too many stickers for my taste, and I think for many of them they could have printed the parts, but oh well. Se la vie! I was happy to get a Chancellor Palpatine figure in there, as the only figures of Palpatine that I have are his decript emporer form, or the version from the Palpatine's Arrest set. The Droid Gunship was a really nice surprise. That set was a blast to build and I had a great time doing it. It's VERY sturdy and solid, and just looks really neat. The bomb dropping feature in there is also pretty neat and a nice little design choice. What turned out to be the best thing, however, is that this set includes the 2014 version of Chewbacca! The first true "update" to this minifig ever since the other update was simply a change in plastic color. The new Chewbacca is incredible looking. I will definitely have to pick up some more of these minifigs in order to replace all of the bland Chewie's I have in my collection. Heh.

Just picked up a whole bunch of random parts from BrickLink. Last night, in LDD, I mocked up a display case for minifigures made out of black Lego parts, with dark bley plates for the figures to stand on. I think it looks pretty good, so now the real test will be to assemble my creation out of real parts and see how it looks. It's three levels high, and the sides can be attached to each other so you can make it as wide as you want. If the build ends up looking as good as I think it will, I'll post it here with instructions so others can build one as well. Will also let you know what the total cost of parts was for this. Might end up being a bit pricey as I had to buy all the parts, but if folks have a bunch of spare pieces lying around they could easily build it.

Thanks guys for the explanation. Had I opened my eyes and read the last few pages of the book, I'd have seen the details given about the figure in there. Heh. I now see the Celebration Leia, and it's not all that expensive on BrickLink so I'll eventually pick it up. Not really interested in the entire set she comes in, at this time, so I'll go and get the figure and have the characters for the end scene. Also looking forward to getting a new Chewbacca at some point. The new version for 2014 looks so much better than the tired old version we've been seeing since the dawn of time. Must have about 12 of those as he, like R2-D2, seem to be in every single Star Wars set out there. Haha. The Wampa Cave, Hoth Echo Base, Queen Amidala, Darth Maul, and Jar-Jar Binks orders I placed came in today. They all look great, and since I have an extra "horned top" for Darth Maul, I can display him either with the hood on, or without. I kind of goofed and the Jar-Jar I ordered is the old version with no printing on the head, but I might pick up the Gungan Sub at some point and get the newer version that way. Not really a big deal. Once my last order arrives with a bunch of minifigs in there, I'll basically have one of every main character in the 6 movies released thus far. :D

So I got the Character Encyclopedia and the Visual Dictionary on Monday. Those books are amazing! I love how detailed they are, and how it shows off just how many different minifigs there are. Yes, there are likely some errors or omissions in there, but it's a neat little reference book that I flip through during slow periods at work. Even cooler are the minifigs that came with the books. One of them has the celebration Han Solo from the end of A New Hope. Really neat minifigure, and I have the Celebration Luke (also with the white pupils) in the mail on its way to me. (I should be getting the Echo Base and some of the minifigs I ordered from BrickLink in the mail tomorrow). I'm thinking of maybe going gung-ho and getting a whole bunch of Rebel Soldiers and whatnot and creating a MOC of the celebration scene now that I have the versions of Luke and Han with the medals on them. The other minifig that I got with the books is a supposedly "exclusive" Luke Skywalker figure, but I'm having trouble figuring out what is so "special" about him. He came with the updated Visual Dictionary, and is a yellow colored Luke with the standard Lego Minifig head print (Two dots and a smile). He's wearing the Tatooine white outfit which also doesn't appear to be new or exclusive. If anybody else has this minifig, I'd just be curious to figure out what is so special about it.

Yeah, my bad for not describing it properly. I meant to say "Death Star 1 style massive set" for the prequel trilogy. My bad!

Well I'm now able to receive Lego e-mails. As suspected after checking everything on my system, it was their internal SPAM filter that was blocking it. I guess Metrocast has never heard of Lego before. Oh well. All is good now.

That was pretty incredible how far all those pieces went flying. The 10188 Death Star set is simply an incredibly designed set by TLG that I think is well worth the very high cost it demands. I remember picking that up a few months back when I was just recovering from my "dark ages" and it was the first really "big" set that I had picked up. (My previous two purchases where the 7965 Millenium Falcon, and The Simpsons House). The UPS guy delivering it was having trouble getting a grip on the box, and I nearly took a tumble trying to get the thing in the house. (Having just recovered from shoulder surgery a few months prior. Going back for a second procedure in about four weeks. :( ). It was just amazing opening up the box and seeing four more large boxes in there stuffed with bags. The instruction manual stunned me the most. That thing is HUGE and weighs a ton!!!!! Simply remarkable. It took me a good two to three days with many hours spent each day putting it together. (A nice side-effect of working from home is that during down times at work, I can spend some time with my Lego sets). The design of the build is incredible and it's so much fun seeing the complete build slowly take shape as you add more and more levels, and more and more details to the set. I guess it's kind of a let down for me having built that set first, as no other sets will come close to that in terms of fun builds, playability, and shear awesomeness. (Though the Sandcrawler and Ewok Village did come somewhat close. Ewok Village was just at total blast to build and extremely fun to play with. Yes, I'm an AFOL who likes to play with his Lego sets. Haha).

Although I can't name specific characters, if TLG ever decided to do a massive, Death-Star 1 Scale UCS set for the Prequel Trilogy, perhaps they could do the Senate Chamber and included a ton of galactic senators and various species for use in the set. I know this may be more of a "wanted sets" reply, but the inclusion of the different species could satisfy a lot of desires, plus it would be a nice big set. The only downfall is that I see very little playability there aside from the scene in Episode III where Yoda and Emperor Palpatine fight each other.

I picked up the Sandcrawler a few months back, and I have to say it looks incredible. VERY happy that I splurged and picked it up. Aside from building the treads, the build itself was very fun albeit somewhat confusing at times. I think I may have made a minor mistake at some point with the lever that raises and opens the drawbridge as it's fairly difficult to turn and I hear a lot of "clicking" when I turn it which I discovered is because the mechanism is a bit too close to a cross beam in the final build. While building it, I noticed that there were some spots where I had forgotten to fully push in various connectors, and had to back track in order to correct the problem. I don't know about anybody else here, but for some of my smaller sets in order to "feed the urge" to build a Lego set, I deconstruct them carefully and then re-assemble them. Of course, for things like the connector pins and axles that rely on tight fits to be stable/function properly, this can cause problems after the first assembly. Therefore, I have a large collection of extra connector pins and axles which I use when I re-build a set I've deconstructed. (TLG seems to give out a TON of those as extra pieces). So if/when I deconstruct this I'll pay a bit closer attention and ensure that everything is lined up properly and that the mechanism for opening/closing the front hatch works a bit more smoothly. I also decided to do a very slight modification to the R5 unit included in the set. A classic scene in A New Hope is when the R5 unit that Owen and Luke were initially going to purchase breaks down causing them to purchase R2-D2 instead. To kind of re-enact this, I added some transparent round 1x1 plates between the main body and the head, and using an x-acto blade I opened up a tiny hole in the very top where the small little protrusion from one of extra fire pieces I got from the Ewok Village will fit. This gives it the look of the unit with the head piece blowing off and fire coming out of the top. (Is there a transparent gray piece that looks like smoke?) I think it really makes the unit look pretty good, and after being a mysterious shadow on the forums for so long, I decided to use the admittedly crappy cell-phone image as my avatar. :D

So I finished building the Ewok Village today. WOW! That is an INCREDIBLY fun set to build, and it looks fantastic when finished. Especially next to the Battle of Endor set that I had recently purchased. I also went onto BrickLink and Amazon to get a few more things that I've wanted. Mostly minifigs that I really didn't want to purchase the sets for as the sets didn't fully appeal to me. So in the next week or so I'll have the following: Echo Base (Set 7879 Wampa Cave (Set 8089) Queen Amidala Minifig Qui-Gon Jinn Minifig with breather alternate face Darth Maul Minifig with dual lightsaber and cape. Jar-Jar Binks Minifig. Padme Amidala Minifig showing back scratches. Nute Gunray Minifig with orange top piece. Celebration Luke Skywalker Minfig (I've got the Celebration Han coming with a Lego Star Wars book I bought) Lando Calrissian Minifig with the general outfit. As said before, I also picked up the Lego Star Wars Character Encyclopedia, and the Lego Star Wars Visual Dictionary Updated and Expanded. I thought the books would be nice to look at and give me an idea of what sets I want to buy. Perhaps that will stop me from buying so many damned sets. Heh. I'm running out of room in the house for all them. I'd love to splurge for something like the SSD, or the ISD sets, but just don't have room. (And the ISD is being released later this year, so I won't need/want to pay the super high prices for the d/c'd sets).

Looking forward to getting more info. By the way, when do the fall/winter catalogs generally come out? I've got the Summer one sitting here in front of me, but am curious about when the next season's catalogs comes out. I just got back into Lego again this past February thanks to The Simpsons' House, and am now a full fledged Star Wars Junkie. Heh.