VK-318

Good idea, I hadn't thought of that issue. Since you are in fact an SoNE bigwig, you might be able to coordinate these challenges such that the SoNE admins and judges don't have to work quite so hard to keep up with demand. That is to say, if this is worked our right SoNE and this as-yet-unnamed game could have some sort of staggered schedule, with a challenge for one opening when a challenge for another one closes or something like that.

OW! Confusing much? Anyway, congratulations to both of you. Hopefully all the new responsibilities won't prevent BEAVeR from continuing to write novella-sized SoNE posts and comments!

... And I didn't even notice that that was a MOC Defender-Class! Shame on me! That MOC absolutely deserves its own topic in the main Lego Star Wars forum, if it doesn't have one already. (If it does, could you put the link in a comment? I'd very much like to see the whole ship.)

Congratulations, MKJoshA! You've earned it! Generally the rule hasn't been needed anyway. The original purpose, to create rewards for winning teams, is kind of irrelevant anyway since people seem to be motivated more by the challenge of taking on the other team, and people seem to be keeping pretty good mental track of who's in charge of what planet at what time without that rule, and adjusting the nature and tone of their builds to suit.

Wow, Galen82. That first one is just about perfect.

Nope, no symbolism there. I own the head in both flesh and yellow, but I prefer the yellow because the flesh has a chipped mouth - I think you can see it on one of my pictures. I like to use yellow because I've got a far more diverse array of yellow heads, but I used flesh here because the face I could use for you was flesh, and mixed yellow and flesh heads in a build doesn't loot very good to me. The choice of colors from one build to the next is purely an issue of practicality, which perhaps is appropriate given Volker's personality. To your remarks about the ... blandness of the build, you are quite correct. I should have hunted down enough parts to make another part of the wall, given it more texture, and added some more furniture or other details. I really wish I had made more time available than one afternoon to rework two episode builds, design a third one, and design this freebuild. And, I probably shouldn't have tried to keep so many builds all intact at the same time. Lack of time + lack of parts = lacking build. Oh, well.

H'm, good point. I'd say that right now the biggest issue is that Shadows of Nar Eurbrikka seems to require the administrative efforts of every single one of the SW Forum moderators. I think the issue is going to be finding people to host and organize and timing it so that it does not conflict with SoNE. And I agree: SoNE is great, but it would be nice to have some different kinds of contests every now and then.

Aw man, all mine are tiny! Congratulations, MKJoshA, on hosting such a successful episode! This is much, much closer than the last one - it's really anyone's game. With Ninja Nin and the long-lost Jacob Nion back in the Rebels' ranks, and BEAVeR, Goatman461, markus1984, and Disco86 all turning out their maximum builds, and a total of 91 builds all around, this is really impressive. Now, to wait for the judging to be complete. I'd probably better take apart my episode builds and get them back into my sorting system, otherwise they'll be liberally frosted with dust by the time they're scored!

Category 1: #12 #8 #7 Category 2: #11 #1 #3

Greetings, Beltar! Don't worry about not being indexed. The index is only updated every couple of months, because the guy who's responsible for that, Brickdoctor, is very busy and very good at procrastinating. This freebuild will be judged when the group of freebuilds of which it is a part (the group posted after the deadline for Episode VI but before the launch of Episode VII) is judged. That could take a while, so don't worry if you don't get a score for a very long time. And freebuilds, by their very nature, don't need to be associated with an episode. A freebuild is eligible to be scored if you ask for it to be scored and if it is sufficiently within canon as defined in the core rules. As far as I can detect, this freebuild meets both qualifications, so it'll be judged eventually and you'll get points for it. I like the display and control panel. The wall looks a little complicated and busy for an Imperial ship, though. I don't recall if updates to freebuilds are allowed, but in any case you might try breaking up long walls with angled supports (for example, 1x2x3 slope bricks and/or 1x2x3 inverted slopes) or a wall pattern like you see in the Death Star. Otherwise, it looks pretty good. Welcome aboard!

Actually, somebody asked about this in the Introduction and Discussion thread a little while back, when Brickdoctor was editing people's scores and images in the Player Index. His ruling was that you could continue to accumulate XP normally but choose not to rank up as you did so. In other words, you can remain an infantry grunt even as you climb past 100 XP, if you so choose. Personally, I think it makes sense for you to climb the ranks all the way through the Dark Troopers/Shadowtroopers/Storm Commandos. All the ranks below that have significant bodies of troops detailed to your kind of mission. Just to clarify that statement I made paraphrasing Brickdoctor, you can at any time claim any rank you may be qualified for. So if you were an infantryman when you reached 100 points, you could choose to claim any rank that you had earned, including IDMR. You could choose to take an intermediate rank for a build or two, then the next one for a build or two, then the next, and so on, or whatever you wanted. But once you reach a top rank, you can't climb back down. The reason for this is that the rules already allow you to perform duties below your rank. General Veers directed the Battle of Hoth from the cockpit of an AT-AT. General Solo commanded the Battle of Endor from the middle of the battlefield, and General Calrissian from the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. Atypical? Yes. Acceptable? Certainly. Essentially, you can take whatever rank you want if you've got the XP. And higher rank doesn't really preclude any low-ranked activities - generally speaking.

If geared actions are incorporated, I hope they are done better than they were for the Toa Metru. I spent an incredible amount of time trying to come up with a way to make my Toa's arms a) independent and b) able to hold a position without destroying the proportions. The original Toa had a better system. To the original question asked by the thread, I really like three features of the Bionicle system: the feet, the hands, and the heads. Bionicle feet are very diverse, so you can find one that suits size, shape, and character of your build. Thankfully, some of that has carried over with CCBS. For many years, Bionicle used a generic piece, which is really hard to describe but which most people here are probably familiar with, as a hand. I kinda miss the ability to pose that was lost when that hand design was replaced with the Glatorian/HF hand. I really wish there was a good way to incorporate old-fashioned Bionicle heads and masks into the HF models. The Toa Metru heads are my all-time favorites - but they don't attach to CCBS bodies! And their masks don't really go very well with the various kinds of heads that I've seen designed for CCBS. Otherwise, while I will miss some of the gigantic Technic-based titans from Bionicle, I really like the CCBS. Overall, I just wish it was a little more backwards compatible.

Cool! It would look just about perfect if you could switch out some gray for white and find a clear cockpit. I personally don't mind the studs, though. But no matter what you do with it, or if you just leave it as is, this is one very dangerous-looking fighter. Very menacing.

You can create and post freebuilds at any time. Generally, it seems that freebuilds will be scored at the same time as the next episode is released. If you ask for your freebuild to be scored, it will be scored unless the judges deem it to be too non-canonical. Humor per se is not a problem. If you check the "Core Rules & Player Index," there's a pretty clear description of what is and isn't allowed in freebuilds; I won't try to paraphrase that here. And if your freebuild is determined by the judges to be non-scoreable, it won't be counted toward the 4 freebuilds you are allowed to build for score between episode deadlines (you can build as many unscored freebuilds as you want). Hope that helps.

As a lifelong resident of the "frozen tundra" that is the state of Minnesota for five months out of the year, I give the snow-trench my official stamp of approval. That's absolutely the way a snow-dug trench looks, and those studs are in all the right places.

It sort of depends on which Microfighter is being discussed. I think they are, in fact, supposed to be chibified, but some of them show it far more than others. For instance, the TIE Interceptor doesn't look very chibified, even though it definitely is, and the Millennium Falcon and the Clone Turbo Tank look pretty straight-up, actually. I guess I like this model more as a micro AT-AT than as a Microfighter, but then, I only own the handful of Microfighters that I own for the parts and minifigs.

Sorry about the broken images. I got up this morning and Brickshelf is down again! I'll try to find a way to get them up, but I'm going to be out of the house until 10 p.m. CST or later. Edit: The images are back up. Judges, MKJoshA, sorry for the inconvenience.

Sorry about the broken images. I got up this morning and Brickshelf is down again! I'll try to find a way to get them up, but I'm going to be out of the house until 10 p.m. CST or later. Edit: The images are back up. Judges, MKJoshA, sorry for the inconvenience.

Sorry about the broken images. I got up this morning and Brickshelf is down again! I'll try to find a way to get them up, but I'm going to be out of the house until 10 p.m. CST or later. Edit: The images are back up. Judges, MKJoshA, sorry for the inconvenience.

Sorry about the broken images. I got up this morning and Brickshelf is down again! I'll try to find a way to get them up, but I'm going to be out of the house until 10 p.m. CST or later. Edit: The images are back up. Judges, MKJoshA, sorry for the inconvenience.

Vakama all the way. He's a capable leader, and I can get "into his head" very easily. And he is clever and powerful enough to be the only toa aside from Takanuva to actually go head-to-head with Makuta and defeat him. Makuta Antroz is actually a very close second, though. He's also very clever, a strong leader (which is really a demanding occupation when his "team" is composed of Makuta), and he is the only Makuta ever, aside from Teridax, to openly realize the danger Toa can present and to warn against underestimating them.

I really liked the disk launchers, but the spinners and Zamor spheres were also excellent. The Cordak revolving blasters were a bit of a disappointment, and the squid launchers had a tendency to tear the squid apart after repeated use.

Welcome back, Nion! Now, if you don't mind, I think I'd better hunt cover, because two of the best Rebel builders are now BACK!

Yup. I have three episode builds and two freebuilds built at the moment, and I was fresh out of good parts when it came time to build the base. So I just went with a brown field, propped it up with green to make part of a road ditch and some posts at the back to keep things level, and called it good enough. Normally I do try to be more professional, with my bases, but this time it just didn't happen. My apologies. By the way, I'm glad you like the field. I really wanted to do a build on Bothawui, since we already had an abundance of Felucia builds and I don't have enough parts of the right colors to feel comfortable taking on Mon Calamari. It was ... interesting, trying to find a way to make a Bothawui build what wasn't a city scene or building. And I guess they grow some pretty short corn on Bothawui, because I was running out of 1x1 green parts.

Oh. My. Gosh. I'm really awestruck at your transport. Up till now that vessel has really never appealed to me, but now I think I'm really starting to like it. Good work!