Vorkosigan

I have thought about picking that one up recently, and sealed copies have sold for under $100 on ebay in the US.

If you're always standing, I don't know, but if its adjustable height that would be nice. At my work several people have gotten those with a powered raise / lower mechanism. Gotta be expensive though.

So while rebuilding LEGO train 4559 I found a mini catalog in the bottom of the box. I'm guessing I got this set around christmas of 96 or 97. Looking through the catalog I was amazed at some of the great themes back then. While 96-97 is probably not considered the golden age by most, it had Divers, Aquazone, Western, Forestmen and generally some awesome sets. Lets take a trip down memory lane... Ok now Robo Force is probably not one of the most revered themes, actually none of the 97 space sets are BUT they did have 3 non-licensed themes, something to be envied. I do like the colors on these sets and the figs. Exploriens is another so-so theme IMHO. UFO I actually rather like, especially 6915. The alien figures quite look like the Predator which I enjoyed then and now. Fright Knights, an interesting spin on Castle. Again some nice figs, I was really into the dragons at the time. Forestmen, now we're talking. Also a nice 90s style castle although I think this heraldry is even more "<insert that tiresome argument>" than the decried 2013 version of the lions. Now we're getting to the really good stuff as in my opinion. Wild West was a truly great theme that was far too short lived. Although the old west is not really a top time period for me these sets were just so good: amazing new pieces, great figures, a nice civilian town, and all around great builds. Fort Legoredo is one of very few sets I kept stored its original box since I was a kid. The Native Americans theme was also quite good with some great figures. I love the stump piece that was used in some of these and almost nowhere else, and the great printed horses. Here is another big one for me, Aquazone. I love undersea sets and Aquanauts and Aquasharks were both great. Those octagonal pieces are so cool, as well as the chrome crystals and weapons and the minifig armor. Aquaraiders was not as good with odd looking builds except 2160. I do quite enjoy the trans green hook hands though. Ok here is one theme that really does nothing for me, Time Twisters and Cruisers both look so slapped together and ugly. Some decent pirate sets from this time as well. Ok, possibly my favorite of this year. Divers is another really stupendous theme. I love both the concept and the execution. The subs, the undersea environments, the great snorkel face mask piece (even though it doesn't really match with having a scuba tank). Manta rays and dolphins! Those panels with the porthole windows! Can't wait to see what the new Explore under sea theme looks like, hopefully it lives up to Divers. Outback is another great little short lived sub-theme. I still have the plane from 6444 put together. Some nice city sets although the construction stuff looks too simplistic. I like 6553 news crew. Boats that really float! I don't know why this was very exciting as a kid but it was. I wasn't big into technic at this time but the submarine is pretty awesome, and it has pneumatics. I have a few of these technic figures and I think its a shame they didn't catch on. Obviously it does limit the scale which can be bad, but they are very posable good looking figures. That's all folks, interested to see what others thought about this year.

I made another small MOC based on these guys, a high speed assault drop pod for rapid deployment from orbit. In my mind the Galaxy Trooper's follow Batman's rule of only building in black and sometimes very dark gray.

Very nice review! I'm not a big fan of police sets but I quite like how the plane looks without the decals, might have to think about this one.

Honestly I agree there should be some minimum quality filter. I also think it is annoying when it seems like a lot of MOCs are posted on Ideas that may be a nice build but are not practical or marketable as a playset. Really people should self filter on this aspect. A fee could possibly help but I think it should be pretty low if implemented.

One comment on getting more people - the swamp police starter set has 4 minifigs for $10 and is probably the best bang for the buck in that department: http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Swamp-Police-Starter-Set-60066 Series 12 minifigs are also marked down to $3 so those are a good deal. If you can get to a target you could grab some of the police and friends polybags in the valentine's day section. There you are getting a figure and some useful pieces for $3.50 or $4 so not much more than a collectible minifigure bag. Also this is probably the cheapest way to get multiple Friends girl figures. Lastly there are the police and fire accessory sets, you get 4 figures for $15 which is a little more than other options but still a nice option: http://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-City-Fire-Accessory-Set-850618?fromListing=listing http://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-City-Police-Accessory-Set-850617

This pretty much confirms that this picture is of 60095:

Very detailed, clever!

Not sure why he bumped it with that post, but it is pretty interesting to look at this now that the result has been decided. Funny to see how much people were dismissive of Friends. While I don't have any numbers it certainly looks like Friends is the clear winner sales wise, and will continue to go stronger as the Hobbit theme ends.

Was surprised to see that that my local Target just put out Hobbit sets for the first time a week or so ago. Seems like quite strange timing. They only have BoFA and Lake Town. I haven't seen any other hobbit sets locally except for TRU.

Thanks everyone! Fair point with outhouses, I was perhaps applying a modern concept of a foodcourt to it where bathroom facilities tend to be available near the food.

What's a joust with just two contenders?

There are already clone baseplates. I saw one the other day in local toystore, I think it was 32 x 96? It was system on one side and duplo on the other, meant to have traction on carpet either side up. Probably not ideal for big layouts, but at least it looked like a good match for the old green.

Generally this is how you make things more detailed, the same size model out of more smaller pieces. Minifig accessories are also popular so there are more of them especially for girls sets. I'm ok with it, there are many cool uses for what seem like very specialized pieces.

I like those pontoons, might have to check this out. I just read about that arctic polybag that was in the halloween section, I gotta start checking out these seasonal sections at target.

Nice MOC! You inspired me to make my own version:

Yea once a day.

Well I found the raffle to be strangely cryptic, but there is a link to the rules somewhere on the site which lists the prizes and that the week 2 referred to is the 5th to the 11th. There are 18 weeks total. I think its weird that when you submit a code it says you won the character right away and you have to click through a whole other screen to get to a point where it lets you enter the drawing instead of going to the game. Here are the rules and full list: http://www.lego.com/en-us/minifigures/terms-conditions Also note that you can get a free code by e-mailing customer support, probably only one time though. Probably a legal requirement.

Sorry if this has been discussed, but how are people planning to use the win codes? Just use them as you get them or save them for a specific prize week? Here are the first round for reference, then it more or less repeats: 31313 - LEGO® MINDSTORMS® EV3 in week 2 10214 - LEGO® Creator Tower Bridge in week 3 10234 - LEGO® Creator Sydney Opera House™ in week 4 10243 - LEGO® Creator Parisian Restaurant in week 5 10232 - LEGO® Creator Palace Cinema in week 6 42009 - LEGO® Technic Mobile Crane MK II in week 7 60052 - LEGO® City Cargo Train in week 8 FYI week 2 ends today the 11th. Opera house is the most valuable but i'm planning to save some codes for the modulers and crane.

When I saw the CMF 13 Galaxy Troopers I knew they needed some more formidable weaponry. I set out to create 4 custom weapons and ended up with 12. Energy Weapon Squad - Flamethrower, Plasma Gun, Particle Projection Cannon, Laser Cannon Heavy Artillery Squad Sniper Squad The Arsenal

Its all but retired in the US, only gold getaway is still available on S@H. All my local stores clearanced it last summer.

Amazon is largely made up of independent sellers these days, a lot of them ship the items to Amazon so they can be shipped out prime, but they still set the price. So if something goes out of stock they set the price at whatever they think might sell. Sometimes people who don't do ebay or bricklink are willing to pay it.

Isn't getting parts in new colors a good thing? It is a shame there is only this one set, I think TLG could make a whole subtheme out of Frozen. I do agree that they overuse lavender and magenta, I don't see why every girl set has to have these sort of colors instead of what would be accurate to the source material .

To the point of deleting reviews: Any site with public reviews must have some filtering or deletion of reviews. Just look at youtube comments to see all the crazies posting stuff on the internet. Lego approves every review because they have a lot of kids reading their site and have to ensure there is no inappropriate material. Now imagine you have the job of determining if a reviews are legit, you have a few seconds to decide if each is genuine or spam, and you see a 1 star review with one sentence about the price increase. Probably not going to be judged as a legit review. Now if you put a well reasoned review of decent length out there and it doesn't get approved, that is more troubling. I can't say LEGO S@H reviews are something I worry about the accuracy of though, there is plenty of info out there if you need it. Regardless you always have to use your judgement on reading online reviews and try to decide more from the content of the reviews than the average number of stars.