jonwil

Which Toyworld was this?

I dont know exactly why but for some reason that lion-head guy makes me think of the lion guy from Thundercats...

Has anyone seen any reviews of, instructions for or inventories of the new Fire Truck or Fire Station?

The Ghost Train is only a 4-4-0, the Lone Ranger train is a 4-6-0 so at the very least it will have to have a longer engine. I hope though that they DO use proper train wheels and that they DO use the large Emerald Night wheels and not do what they did with the last Harry Potter train and use regular train wheels (even though the big ones existed at the time they made that train)

So don't buy from retailers that sell above RRP, find retailers that sell at RRP (or better yet, buy from a store that is selling below RRP or that is having a sale)

Y2K was only a fizzle because many many computer geeks put in a LOT of effort in the years leading up to it to make sure nothing bad happened.

Lucky Kiwis getting Hobbit sets before us Aussies do :( Wish I could get my hands on a Bag End set...

The big problem I see is that LEGO seems to design too many new parts and then use them in only one set. Also they create new parts when existing parts would probably be a suitable fit instead.

Its not copyrighted, its trademarked by Games Workshop (who trademarked it for their line of Warhammer 40000 Space Marine models). And their trade-mark objections are perfectly legitimate IMO (for much the same reason why it would be legitimate for LEGO to object if Games Workshop decided to start selling a new line of Warhammer figurines and called them "Galaxy Squad" or "Kingdoms") In any case I am sure the guy who submitted it to Cuusoo will think of an awesome name that isn't trademarked by someone else and the project will move forward to the review phase.

Well I for one refuse to pay the rip-off pricing on Superheroes (which is why none of it has ended up in my collection even though I love how cool that Hulk set is) and certainly not on Hobbit (the exception being the Bag Send set which only has a 70% markup and is too cool to say no to once I can find one on sale :) As for availability, other than the Funhouse (which is a retailer exclusive) the rest of the Superheroes line were certainly not hard-to-get when they came out. Hobbit hasn't reached Oz yet so I cant comment on that. On LOTR the markup is 53% on Helms Deep, 100% on Uruk-Hai Army, 76% on Gandalf Arrives, 50% on Weathertop, 75% on Orc Forge, 50% on Moria and 100% on Shelob.

I can confirm that its true for Australia. The following sets are all $49.99 on Shop @ Home USA. The prices after the item indicate the Australian price for the set. City Marina $79.99 City Police Heavy Helicopter $69.99 City Train Station $79.99 Pre Vizla's Fighter $89.99 Y-Wing Starfighter $89.99 NinjaGo Wrecking Ball $79.99 Technic Bucket Truck $69.99 Dino Triceratops Tracker $69.99 Kingdoms Chess Set $69.99 Attack of the Wargs $99.99 Hulk's Helicarrier Breakout $99.99 Creator Seaside House $59.99 Batmobile and Two-Face $99.99 Bikini Bottom Party $89.99 Technic Jet Plane $69.99 Monster Fighters Crazy Scientist $79.99 Hayabusa $69.99 What that shows is that as a rule the markup on licensed sets (Super Heroes and Hobbit in particular) seem to be bigger than the markup on non-licensed sets. A check of the other Hobbit sets confirms a 100% markup on all sets except for a 70% markup on the Bag End set and a 50% markup on the Goblin King set. Markups on Marvel Super Heroes shows a 100% markup on the Captain America set, a 130% markup on the Spiderman set, a 150% markup on the Cosmic Cube set and the X-Men set, an 80% markup on the Quinjet set plus the 100% markup on the Hulk set. For DC, its 100% on the Catwoman Cycle, 100% on the Batmobile, 70% on the Batwing, 100% on the Superman set, 80% on the Batcave and 120% on the Funhouse. Even the City Mine only has a 30% markup. Dino Defense HQ is a 50% markup. At the really big end of the scale, the Star Wars SSD is a 75% markup as is the Death Star. Imperial Shuttle is about 73%. Town Hall is 50%, 58% on Tower Bridge, 65% on the Robie House, 65% on the Unimog, 45% on the 4x4 Crawler and 60% on the Mindstorms NXT.

I dont think the white hat is the Indy hat. If you look at the bad guys tied up in the picture, you can see the Indy hat in brown and the white hat looks different. The new 6-shooters and the cow skull look good.

Has anyone seen the Friends horse float set in Perth lately? I want to get one (for the dark red wheel arches and other dark red parts) but so far I am not getting anywhere with locating one.

Nice trucks.

So can anyone advise as to the best (i.e. cheapest) place in Perth to buy this years police chase set with the dark red pickup truck? With all the sales going on, its hard to know who has the best deal :)

At those prices, I am definitely going to wait for them to hit retail with a good %off sale.

The parts on the garage from that "great vehicles" display are from one of the LEGO games so they aren't "new for this promo display"

I dont like this theme anywhere near as much as I liked Alien Conquest, mostly because of the different color schemes with the different human ships and stuff. Still, some of the sets look like they could be good parts packs and I DO like those big egg things that the bug aliens are using to trap the humans in. (just wish that parts like the 1 x 1s on the end of the ray gun were trans-purple like the egg things and not trans-pink) In the Star Slicer set, are the blue pieces on the side of the little robot-piloted flyer thing new?

I suspect the clone companies don't have the exacting standards and tolerances that LEGO has for the molds. Plus, they are copying an existing piece and not making a totally new one from scratch which means they aren't spending many many man-hours refining the design via computers, 3d-printed prototypes etc etc. As for shutting them down, eBay can most definatly shut them down. eBay does it for counterfeit designer goods (handbags and the like) all the time.

I too have never felt guilty about feeling the packets. For Series 8 I was sitting on the floor near the checkouts of a TRU store feeling the bags and no-one even bothered me about it...

Would never happen, The Simpsons has too many things that just dont fit with what LEGO aims for.

Does anyone know of a retail release date for the Hobbit sets in Australia?

Is the purple color in the stage set (and the purple slopes in the magic set) the same color as the purple parts (2 x 2 round brick, drawer frames etc) in the fashion design set? I need more of that color and its a hard one to get :)

I am liking these. The new cop hat looks good, better than the normal police hat seen in City sets and the police badge is a good idea. Waiter looks interesting (especially with the bottle and the silver tray thing) Judge with the gavel and wig is awesome. The back of the plumbers torso reminds me of this one http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=973pb649c01 I hope the front looks better (e.g. printed tools on his pocket or something) The space soldier (with the jetpack) could be cool depending on how the printing compares to the dark blue one from the previous series,

2013 City is looking good so far. So far I am potentially interested in the fire truck (new ladder parts and good source of parts generally), new fire station (also looks like a possible good source of parts), police ATV (new cop, new robber, wheelbarrow, police chase (just look at all the nice dark blue on that 4x4 cop car), cement mixer and maybe the Octan tank truck (although I already own the last Octan tanker and it doesn't look like the new one has anything significant about it that makes it worth buying :) The fire truck in the house fire set looks crap as does the fire helicopter and the nose on that orange flatbed is one of the worst designs I have seen on any LEGO City vehicle (the guy who did that one probably also did the bad guy van in the museum heist set, the front on that is equally as bad)