Vindicare

Have you gotten around to messing with yours yet? I still don’t have the new Buckbeak set but I arranged it as it’s shown in the back of the manuals both to see how it looked & to see how I might be able to rearrange. And I can’t find a good cohesive spot for the Staircase.

Hmm...I always assumed they all got the same stock of stuff. A buddy was at ours the other day & it had the Bad Batch Shuttle & Imperial Light Cruiser. It would’ve been nice to get the Scythe for as cheap as Costco, as it’s a deal even at normal price. Speaking of...... I really do want the Justifier but man, that price to piece count is hard to swallow. The ship looks to be big enough to make it seem worth it & Fennec with her helmet & Todo 360 are huge draws as well. I’m really hoping it shows up at Costco so the purchase won’t hurt so bad.

75333 Obi-Wan’s Jedi Starfighter & 75336 Inquisitor Transport Scythe. I preordered them because I figured they’d be on the price hike list...turns out they weren’t. But hey... Both are Greta sets & builds. JSF was a really neat build. It’s so much better than the old ones, which is to be expected with that kind of time in between. Taun We is fantastic & a long overdue addition. The Scythe is just awesome. Minifigs are amazing. Build was a lot of fun, especially that nose. They ship is bigger than I expected which was a surprise to be sure, but a welcomed one. It feels like a great deal at $100.

I’m a bit disappointed by the Calendar. As others have said there isn’t much usable stuff here. The mini builds are fine, just not anything really exciting or useful. The best is chair Slughorn. Minifigs are mostly good, but can Sirius please get a new face print already. The GoF paper print tile is cool as well. But this especially underwhelming when the price is $45. They were already hard to swallow at $40. They need to do better if they’re gonna charge us this kind of money.

Oh man, I am with you 1 million percent. That JP mech set is a good example. While I like the molded dinos(as well as all the babies) I have no desire to get that volcano. I would’ve been all over the set had it just been the mech. And while it wasn’t in your exampes, those big “square” City sets. They usually have 20-30% of a $150+ set that I actually want/use. If they broke those down to smaller, individual sets that would make them so much more appealing. I also agree completely on your conflict angle. So many toys didn’t need that. G.I. Joe, Transformers, & Exo Squad popped in my head right off the bat.

Just finished building the Horntail. It’s everything the old one wasn’t(even taking price into consideration). I thought the old one was okay(except for the head), but boy did they knock this one out of the park. Head looks great & it’s appropriately spiky. I remember the comparisons to the Mega GoT one. It feels like the designers read that & used it to make what we got.

I went a bit nuts on the 19th when they released, grabbed Grimmauld Place, MoM, & the Shack. Went with Dumbledore’s Office, Thestral Carriage, amen the Horntail. As an aside, how(if) are people planning on adding on adding the Staircase set to the Castle sections? I need to rebuild mine in order to get a hands on look, and still need Buckbeak’s Rescue, but looking at the full Castle in the back of the instructions & im not sure where it’ll fit.

This. I love everything about this set & I certainly hope to pick it up but there’s just so much on my list that is sitting on top of it.

Yeah man, those look to be pretty heavy duty tables. What about putting wheels on them(with stoppers of course!)? Buying LEGO is way more important than a finished basement...take your time.

Yeah, in years past cars weren’t all that impressive because the catalog of parts just wasn’t there. Ever since Speed Champions has come around there’s been a whole host of curves & slopes & tiles that make for nice cat building. And also with SC comes more opportunity for inspiration for what can be achieved with LEGO.

That, along with the others, is excellent. You really nailed the truck beautifully.

That’s a nice step in the right direction. It was unnecessary anyways. Now if they would just get rid of the need to redeem all together. While it’s a very minor inconvenience, it was also unnecessary.

This sounds like a copyright issue more than a custom printing issue. I know of at least one person whose sigfig has their Instagram name along with the app’s logo printed on the torso. I doubt they’re dissuading people from doing that sort of printing. But I haven’t dug into this much yet. Although...the above example does have a corporate logo...oof. I don’t know.

This. If they were $2 or $3 I wouldn’t mind it being completely blind because that wouldn’t be a huge loss to get an unwanted minifig. But at $5(and it’ll probably be more in another year) is too much to risk on that.

So that’s what everything looks like. It’s cool seeing the bigger picture after all these years of seeing parts of it all. Love the highway at the back.

The part that irked me was how they highlighted that they had the customers best interest at heart...I think it would’ve been better to do a slight increase across the board personally. Looking at the list on Stonewars & assuming it’s the same list as we’re gonna see in the States, I’m gonna take a quite a hit, which will almost certainly lead to less LEGO buying from me. Fortunately for me though that all the sets I want are pretty much in the 5-10 euro increase, but still that times a lot is still a decent hit to the wallet. While I would never say a company could make too much money, having the record profits year after year makes me feel like they could eat this higher cost of materials and still come out on the other end with a big profit. But, that would be if they did in fact have their customers best interest. I understand the move, just pretty weak from where I’m sitting. All because of how they framed it.

Well, I took the chance. Now watch, those sets aren’t even on the chopping block. I did plan in getting them anyways though. I’ve only preordered twice & once, which was the Mando Forge, shipped a week before release. So maybe if this increase hits them it won’t happen until they’re officially released. Worse comes to worse, if the increase is a lot I can always call & argue my case.

In light of this coming price increase I may do a preemptive pre order on the Jedi Starfighter & Inquisitor Transport Scythe sets. I imagine the sets on the Stonewars list will be the same here in the States. If I pre order(and assuming the sets are in the list) will the prices be safe do you guys think? Since they should ship out before they’re officially released...

The Police Station got one & I know Bookshop did as well. Maybe something came up or didn’t come together to get a video for BH.

Excellent job recreating the ship. You nailed it! Great little scene you created as well.

If it’s anything like around here...it would be sporadic. The two closest stores to me don’t have any on the shelf. Went a different store a few months back that’s a bit further away & they had a small handful of them. Maybe they’re testing the waters with a few at a time. I would love to be able to find these in stores. Not just LEGO stores either, so there’s a better chance at a discount.

Imagine the madness that would ensue. If you don’t get there when a fresh box is put out...tough luck! That would definitely be the hard to find minifgure & seeing as LEGO loves to troll, that would be only two to a case.

That pretty much goes without saying though. As an AFOL site we won’t give much air time to 4+(although the Farm is garnering a decent amount of attention) or the smaller sets. I suppose it does happen elsewhere but I’m only here & on Instagram. Outside of the “influencer” types, the ones I follow showcase all kinds of sets that they buy. As someone who doesn’t MOC to any great degree I don’t feel like I’m missing out. I’ve made a small handful of things for my town to add details, but I build Modulars as they’re meant to be & plop them in town. I get my creativity’s worth from making scenes throughout town that are fun to look at. You could say people who don’t MOC aren’t using the bricks to their full potential I reckon.

Do they though? They released 933 sets in 2021. I didn’t look through all of them but I’d wager a small minority were big & fancy.

Yup. 3438 McDonalds Restaurant, 1999. Rinky dink building that served as a drive thru with one table & chairs.