jonwil

BTTF is still to be released, I suspect its taking a long time because they need to work out a lot of details with Universal as owners of BTTF.

Nice police station.

Get the Opera House, forget the XBOX :P

WOW. Just WOW. But if its $319US, its going to be over $400 in Australia no doubt :(

With the recent picture of the Series 11 welder and the new mask and welding gear, I forsee yet another variant of the BOC Gas & Gear in your future :)

ok, so which store is my best option for getting the LOTR Elf Council set on the cheap? Or should I forget about it locally due to the ridiculous markup vs the US price?

That price on the new Creator sets is probably the best you are gonna get (unless TRU repeats their price beat from last year and I can find a TRU with stock that will price match)

Damn, so much stuff to consider spending my money on. Yet the things I REALLY want (like the Cargo product and that Octan race car) wont be out for months yet :( Plus all the really good stuff (Town Square, Haunted House, some others) are only being sold at or very close to RRP and not at any kind of nice discount (unlike say last year where I got major discounts on things like Helms Deep)

The real question is, if the clone crap wasn't available, would the parents be buying the real LEGO? I doubt they would, they would probably either buy the clone crap from another store that WAS selling it. Or they would buy a non-construction toy. We as AFOLs may be purist and refuse to buy the cheap crap because we know its crap but I suspect for most parents, they know its crap compared to the real thing but they will buy it anyway because to get the same amount of brick content in real LEGO would cost 3-4x as much (which for parents who may not have a lot of money to spend on luxuries like toys is something they probably cant justify)

Went to 3 K-Marts, 2 Targets, 2 Big Ws, a MYER and a Toys R Us and I didn't find anything new. No sign of any Asylums or Haunted Houses anywhere in WA yet. Or any new City. Plenty of stock of the new Creator and LOTR though. Some stores had empty shelves waiting for stock or were in the process of putting out stock.

It might be that Target gets the Coast Guard stuff and K-Mart gets Cargo.

Given that the Bugle has not appeared since 2002 and given that it was only ever molded in Chrome Gold, a color TLG is unlikely to use for a CMF part (and given that chrome parts require different molds to regular parts because of the chroming process) I suspect that a new mold would be necessary even if they re-used the bugle design. Hence, the cost of designing a totally new part (such as a Trumpet or Saxophone) isn't that much greater than re-using the Bugle. (since most of the cost of a new part is the mold)

As of earlier today, Target Perth CBD has the LOTR Elf Council set in stock. MYER Perth CBD still hasn't put out their new stock. TRU in Morley has a whole pile of new stock including the Architecture Imperial Hotel, Architecture Villa Savoye, LOTR pirate ship, LOTR Black Gate, Creator Tree House and City Helicopter Arrest. Looks like TRU only just got the new stock in, they were busy putting it on the shelf when I was there.

From the image its fairly clear there are wheels on whatever it is. I seriously doubt that whats in that image is the Opera House. That of course doesn't necessarily mean anything about what will or wont get revealed at what events.

I just love the welder and the scientist, both look awesome. I cant wait to see the Jazz Musician and whatever instrument he comes with (a Sax would be perfect)

The information I have is that the current catalog (the one with only the brick bucket in it) is going to be followed with another catalog that features a full spread of all the brand name toys. Personally I am hoping that the $250 price is not the lowest the Haunted House goes as its a great set but I am not sure if $250 is worth it...

Considering that Disney owns Pixar is there really a distinction anymore?

Yeah the value in the Minecraft set is the branding and the 3 printed parts.

No new stock at MYER Perth CBD. Plenty of re-stock of the train station, switch tracks and straight/curve/flex track though. David Jones Perth CBD has one Town Hall in stock (at RRP though). Toys R Us at Morley has plenty of stock of the City trucks (the ones that are down to $20 or so). Nothing new (or on sale) at Target Perth CBD, K-Mart Morley or Target Morley. No sign of any Arkham sets yet. MYER Morley on the other hand has all the new stock including the dark green airplane, the orange train, the mini modulars, the Creator house and tree-house and all 4 LOTR sets.

damn, its looking less and less likely that the Haunted House is going to come to Australia at retail :( Although given that Monster Fighters doesn't seem to have sold all that well and is being sold off on clearance (the bigger sets like the castle and train in particular) and given the haunted house has a $270 RRP, I can sort of see why retailers might be hesitant to take it. Arkam Asylum could be a good score if the price is right (if I can pick one up south of $200 or so it might be worth it for parts especially if I then sold the figs to someone else who collects Batman)

That Target catalog is last years, you can clearly see on page 1 that it says "2012".

Great job. What is the other gold-colored piece visible near the tap?

Any reductions on Iron Man in this sale? (or any Marvel for that matter)

Possible ideas: Tool shop (not a hardware store more like the places that sell higher-end tools (and just tools) to tradies and such Door shop (like a Doors Plus or similar) Shop selling wood or steel Shop(s) selling carpet/rugs/tiles/wood floors/other floor coverings Electrical supply shop (selling electrical gear to electricians) Shop selling bricks/pavers

Yeah that's not a bad price. Lets hope that whoever gets the set locally doesn't add a markup on top. Checked on a couple of the other sets I wanted and managed to pull up a page for the Grand Prix Truck at $39.99 (not that bad given that it has 3 figures, a large truck AND a Grand Prix Racecar) Couldn't find any pages for the cargo sets although some of the Coast Guard sets seem to be in the database (I dont care for those so I didn't dig too deep) Creator sets are up too, tree-house is listed at $49.99, family house at $99.99 (a good sale should be able to bring both sets somewhere near the US RRP) LOTR is there with the pirate ship costing $139.99 and the elves council costing a somewhat over-priced $59,99. Its going to be hard to decide what sets to buy this year (although a local release of the Haunted House would be quite high on the list, especially if it had a discount to make the price more reasonable) Also, anyone in Perth this weekend should check out the WA Brick Society annual train layout at the Claremont Showgrounds, really looking forward to it this year (its my biggest contribution to date)