Vorkosigan

I'm not going to quote all the back and forth, but I think there are some great new parts and quite a bit of printing in this theme. The knight's armor with transparent shoulders is a marvel of injection molding. I built the Beast Master's Chariot yesterday and here is the notable printing: 2x huge curved printing on the chomper heads Printed black on the trans orange rock wedge pieces, impressive complexity. 6x printed spherical globlins, consisting of 5 different prints The book cover and tile, great parts. And of course the figures which both have front/back torso, leg front, and front/back head prints. The Beast Master is very usable for fantasy infused castle builds. I don't think any of the sets are a poor value but I personally am only buying the bad guys & the King's Mech. I do however think they should make some battle packs of the generic soldiers but I expect they will be reasonably affordable on bricklink soon enough.

Burnzie and Magmar are amazing. Is Flama's sword a new piece?

Incredible build! Thanks for making a video.

You can brick build one that works quite well: Which is not to say it wouldn't be more durable as a molded part.

Wow. They're all incredible.

So I saw these in Target - everything except the fortrex and the ultimates. There were two weird details though. Jestro's Evil Mobile was marked 49.99. Brickseek confirms this as well so I guess its real. I don't know if this is a mistake and they're going to change it... almost tempted me to buy the set even though I wasn't planning to. The other strange thing was that the names on the tags were "BB 2016 PT 7" etc like we saw on leaked set lists. Seemed rather incompetent of them to not have updated the names for the price tags.

Crust Smasher is great, the furry loincloth and claws on the feet look awesome. I like all of the bad guy grunts, and its nice that they have names for discussion purposes but are still generic enough to army build. Actually here is a summary of all the baddy minifigs (sorry no scurriers).

Good to have the info but I much prefer the lava demon figure available now.

UCS and modulars are likely to stay a safe bet over the long term but its almost like a CD - you can't take the money out too soon or you'll lose. Unlike a CD its higher risk but typically higher return.

Well there's always bricklink: http://www.bricklink.com/search.asp?colorID=0&itemID=43104

In that case I'd make sure to find some sort of survey to fill out and let them know how their cashiers are behaving. And be sure to mention the day and time. I don't have much issue with this but I will say I'm not a fan of how LEGO store employees often ask you who you're shopping for. Not because I'm embarrassed but because I'd rather be left alone when shopping and not have to engage in pointless banter and explanations.

Picked up the Chaos Catapult and Ultimate Lavaria at B&N. Both are great sets, I think they did quite well with the catapults details for its scale. The low point is the royal guard. The blue armor and the head design just don't work for me. A yellow head with an alternate tinted visor like the CMF Galaxy Trooper would've been much better. The main weakness of the current wave is that there is no good army builder. Really hope we get battle packs in wave 2, and that the upcoming polybags are made available for sale (not just gift with purchase).

The only thing is that Architecture sets tend to be very expensive for the size of the pieces involved. Of course it all depends on what you specifically need and discounts available.

It only comes with the wings...

The angry birds Castle is surprisingly decent. I expect it to be overpriced but perhaps worth it once it gets marked down. Elves is consistently delivering great sets.

Here are the DCPIs again.

I had a sort of false start coming out of my dark age. Around early 2011 i started buying Technic sets. While I enjoyed those sets and don't regret buying them, at the time I felt like anything minifig related was sort of kids stuff. I held back from really getting into the hobby and didn't really MOC at all. After about a year I stopped again. Then in late summer 2014 I saw The LEGO Movie. That Christmas I got all my LEGO from my parents house and sorted it into stack-on drawers. From there I was fully into the hobby and realized my passion was for Castle and historical fantasy building. So what I regret is that I was somewhat back into LEGO around 2011 but was totally blind to all the the great Kingdoms and Lord of the Rings sets. Luckily I was at least able to buy all the Castle 2013 sets on clearance that I wanted, several Hobbit sets, and Kingdoms Joust. I also regret missing out on the Haunted House which was still for sale when I got into LEGO in earnest, but I just didn't realize its greatness in time.

Isn't that more of a nozzle piece, used for fuel pumps and some small fire hoses? I sort of looks like its meant to represent a gun, but that is really strange.

I save them, but flattened of course. I have them stacked (in a garbage bag) on top of a big set of built in shelves, its not really taking up useful space for other stuff. I probably will go through and throw out some less interesting boxes as the pile grows.

Sweet thanks for the link to the catalog. The inn and marketplace are great as expected. I'm liking those dragon banners that are in a couple sets. The dragon book is great, I'm glad to see the new book mold outside of Nexo Knights. The shield is good as well. The green dragon has been known for a while but still a highlight.

Agree but that's just an old sword. It would be nice if they brought it back if they could improve the chrome durability.

I prefer the initial prototype sword in that article. EDIT: and now I realize its a Chima sword. Without the lion face it would be better.

I expect it will be quite a while till we get another Arctic reboot. Some of last years line are still in stores. There are MOCs out there of course, here's mine: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=105913

I picked up a used but excellent copy of Mill Village Raid for $60. I finally have some goats!

Here is my personal Ideas gripe. This is not LEGO's fault, but media coverage of Ideas is frequently idiotic. Of course there is the ubiquitous "such and such could be the next LEGO set" type headlines, which is a bit like a headline "man could become millionaire" and a story about someone who bought a lottery ticket. The language in this story is a whole nother level of absurdity though: http://www.techtimes...ce-lego-set.htm It starts out with the line "In honor of Ada Lovelace's 200th birthday, LEGO has revealed a Lovelace-centric LEGO kit" which bears no resemblance to reality. Is it really that hard for a journalist to spend 5 minutes understanding what LEGO Ideas is?