Kha-khees

Sounds great, although a slight oriental spin on the tsunami fig would complete it I think. The luxury yacht with the exotic villain go hand in hand. Thinking along the lines of a blue kimono, or oriental tunic sort of thing (its a bit cliche with the female figs with dress/slope legs sometimes)

A few years ago Lego barely recognised us as a market. If they open a brand store or two they may start to reduce the disparity in rrps via direct customer feedback. And I don't think pab would be too inflated, it is comparable in price to some less expensive sets where we don't see too much markup. And its unlikely they wouldn't allow major chains to carry large exclusives (although I don't get many larger sets), but to be honest I'm more ready to pay rrp directly to Lego than what is effectively a middleman.

We can only hope.

Ahah! Swamp creature and werewolf finally going down, I can pick one up.

Here's a good one from whirlpool: Myer 20% off online stac!s with Colby city's 35 dollar clearance: 28 something for 500+ parts.

I noticed a fair bit of variation in the yellow pieces in creator aviation adventures, particularly the cheese slopes. I think Lego acknowledged this somewhere, chalking it up to a change in colouring technique/procedure. I don't mind toooo much, but I think its good to email them for feedback. Not in the vein of a complaint, but if everyone says "hey, colours aren't matching" they might make sure it gets fixed.

If apple can manage to run its branded stores alongside selling products to JB, BigW, Myer, Dick Smith, etc etc... This is a good point and I didn't really mean that local retail business would be cut out entirely (especially since I'd never expect a lego store local to me, rather in the CBD ~40 minutes away), but there are certain things that they're just never going to stock, and apart from TRU style exclusives I'd expect a lego branded store to carry pretty much everything (Well, maybe not the clothing and other accessory stuff they sell). This would make finding a certain set less of a chore if they are selling out elsewhere. It is very nice to get lego at sale prices (and I rarely buy elsewise) but if they never sold anything at rrp they'd either stop shipping it here or the quality would be forced to drop as a result. Either way I think the case for a lego flagship store is very viable, but maybe they don't feel it's worth the hassle for the 5 or 6 they'd expect to fit into the entire country (I don't really feel they'd do well enough in anything but state capitals, unfortunately. Whereas the market in the US is so huge they have some areas where it seems most towns would have one...).

You think they'd get the hint after the successes of lego exhibitions here, particularly brickvention which continually sells out. They run their own promotions, VIP, pickabrick (bloody hell i want this), events.... and at least that money would be directly injected to lego, rather than to distributors and retailers here.

Was hoping for these to come out much sooner.

Rub it in some more, eh? Haha im only joking with you. But since your first post was telling us all about the price of Lego in the us being so low (after black Friday where we get to see the sales but barely take part), combined with your screen name it just seemed you wanted to stir us up a little. :p On topic, does anyone have details on DJs upcoming sale? (As in, in store, start date? I haven't seen these) One store I know has a small heroics set in stock, which I'd get in a heartbeat with discount. Reckon I'll get one of the new ninjago sets from target for parts (probably the mech\tracked car one) to tide me over til we get the legend beasts with new joint pieces....

gotta be a troll.

Another target sale is good news, but with dol guldur ambush, the smallest of the wave @ 217 pieces being twice the US RRP of 20 dollars I might have to vote with my dollar. Hopefully the new chima sets (review of the legend beasts with new parts http://www.newelementary.com/2013/12/new-legends.html) won't suffer from this as badly since they're all in-house...

Been to 4 targets over the last couple of days, melbourne CBD/southland yesterday: no new hobbit stock yet, unless they're out today we'll have to wait for the next sale. Today I checked out mornington and frankston, both had a few of weathertop/warg attack/council of elrond all marked as clearance (69/59/49 respectively I think) which also stacked with the 20% sale.

The muppets would be possible in system scale if you consider the old monkey fig. But their development would mean new,complex molds.

http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=70704-1 on clearance at eastland kmart for $45

Any more development on this? I'm thinking of trying to get the parts together to make a set in the regular game scale.

they hadn't even taken down the tags that ended on the 18th at southland...

planets were 10 dollars from 15 on clearance in Big W today. This was southland in vic, can anyone confirm it in other stores? They only seemed to have bespin/lobot, I was only interested in endor/bwing and pilot but it'll never make it here :(

Hobbit half price at target again. Looks like it ends 16/8 but wouldn't expect stock to last. I stopped by to double check that the 20% off was really online only, which it is. Southland had a few warg attacks, goblin kings and plenty of gollum sets left. I'd probably get another bag end but all gone. :/

maybe it'll filter through like minecraft at EB but expect markup.

A suitable workaround. If the original purchase was within 1 or 2 weeks I'd ask for a direct refund of the difference on the off chance... but then it is TRU. Works in places like JB/Dick smith though.

yeah I get that... you think if all stores were directed to put these on clearance the managers would make sure they were out... to clear? I visited another on saturday and they had plenty left. I sort of expected ebay sellers to empty them out.

Tiger said it was thursday to sunday only.

Isn't elrond a lotr set? It's got gimli... I would've bought that one out of my own pocket at 50% off. Nuts. And on the US prices note the creator aviation adventures set is going for ~58/59 here, US RRP 59.99 http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=31011-1 I got it from big w @ 48, so we are seeing some improvement in pricing. Just not in licensed sets.

top tip on the hobbit sets, got bag end and warg attack. Wraps up my gift card purchases nicely. For those in melb se there were several of Bag end left, at least one goblin king and plenty of the rest (except the wargs :) ) at southland target. My plan was to loop chadstone and waverly gardens if they'd been raided already!