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Cool, have a good trip! i honestly cannot await the news for new figs!

I asked them, they said only 360. I hope you are right and they just don't know what they're doing.

Love the Clones and Ahsoka! I believe TLC is not allowed to make sort of action figures for SW, like their Superheroes, but if they did, I'd buy them at once!

Both are good looking vehicles and have one super cool female figure. Personally, the plastic sun shades really turned me off. Also, remember that you might need some figs from the Palace to complete the scene - Han, Guard, Chewie, Crumb. The LAAT/i suffers from not enough troops, even more than the previous 7676 (which along with a battle pack that was available at the time was ok). And it's difficult to get some 'normal' E2 clones, as the current battle pack only contains one. For me, the plastic shades would be of the essence here. Try to take a look yourself in real, and not judge by the rendered / prettified marketing pics from TLC.

The Iron Patriot is available as pre-order bonus at german Gamestop - but only for the 360 version

I believe we'll see a new one in the summer 2014 line, 100€, 800 pieces, coming with Camo Han, Leia, Luke. January 2014 we'll probably see an AT-ST.

Great review! This is a really great flagship set for the LotR fans around, and I think it absolutely delivers, as it looks great amazing from the outside, has some cool play features in the inside and comes at a really good price for the amount of bricks you get. The similar priced Jabbas Palace + Rancor Pit for the SW fans (210€ even for only half the bricks) cannot compare to this beauty!

I seriously miss an Adventure theme and I believe I have to wait long to see another one coming. So many licenses these days, so little space for other themes. Also, PQ didn't do that well I guess. I think problems with that theme were TLCs fault, basically. They didn't spend enough time, money and effort into marketing the theme, and the sets were also not very well executed. The characters were not too interesting or got a back story, the flagship set was boring and lacking play features, there were too little figures, as they were all either mummies or Britains, no second faction for the tomb raiders, no locals. In the end the theme suffered from not having any idea what it wanted to be. British war planes, giant scorpions, heroes without a motive? I would have loved the theme to evolve into Himalaya, but I don't think it's gonna happen. Still, I feel there is space for a more serious adventure theme, now that Indy is gone. Ingredients= Good story, interesting characters, different factions on the hunt for the treasure, realistic vehicles, interesting monsters, playsets with actual play features, marketing (web comic, background story). Take place in todays time, make them travel the world in their trucks, planes etc. There are so many adventures even today, no need for 1920s or so. And did I say 'story'? Focus on that. Tell an adventure, everyone will want to re-play that with the sets. Make it more like Uncharted, less wacky - everyone loves that! Don't waste all your resources and money on the licenses, you can make better and keep your earnings, TLC!

6 sets from Episode 2 this year - you can also check brickset, which is pretty accurate about keeping the episodes / CW apart, for example E2 = http://www.brickset.com/browse/themes/?theme=Star%20Wars&subtheme=Episode%20II It's also nice to keep track of your collection / wanted list.

I am with Darth Dino here - sets tell stories, and for the main part these are told by the minifigures. In many themes they are specifically important, as they have a background, or a character from other media. This is most often the case for licenses, but also for e.g. Ninjago, where a TV series contains the characters. Still, we all have different reasons to be happy or unhappy about the current direction for LSW, and we can only deal with what we get from TLC, and not make any decisions. If they are focusing on the figures, then we all have to make the best out of it, and while I understand the concern about certain decisions, in the end it's us who can manage our hobbies according to what we get. For the record, I once had an almost complete LSW collection, but I started losing interest and sold the biggest part in the past couple years. Nailing it down on the minifigures and TLCs policy to keep them rare and desirable would be just too easy to say, since I have very specific reasons, which are a mixture of being unhappy with all the re-designs, the line getting too big, prices, space and many other reasons - including issues with the minifig availability. A good example is the new Hoth Battle set, which contains nothing particularly new except one minifig. It's just a mixture or old and old and for a collector of older sets it's disappointing to see so few new things, and only slightly updates on Snowspeeders or the Luke minifig. I want new things, not little updates. But that's just me. And while there are probably people like me, who lost interest due to these same reasons, there are others who exactly appreciate all this. Or in short - you cannot change the system, but your approach towards it.

Private households have less and less money to spend on unnecessary things like toys, people start spending less on their hobbies, all effect to the current economical situation and a slight fear - or better - carefulness about a real crisis. Meanwhile, there are more Lego sets coming out every year and they become more expensive. Even if the amount that people spend on Lego stays the same every year, it will spread among more and bigger sets. People start getting more picky, they've to choose, also on Ebay or Bricklink. But the amount spend on hobbies is decreasing in the moment. Now let me take LSW as an example. We all know it's highly popular and it's the theme were all the money-makers gather around. Opening sets at release to sell individual minifigs on Ebay, sets being sold for several thousand dollars etc. - here everything comes together about making money with a toy. The demand is there, so is the offer. I checked just the other day out of curiosity - if I bought all available LSW sets on s@h right now, I would spend 4500€. The offer is getting much bigger and more expensive than before these days, and most people don't have this amount to spend on a toy, especially in these times. Still, Lego is shoveling more and bigger sets into the market, which might - perhaps - lead to something like a market saturation. The fact, that most sets are re-designs of older sets is another point that cannot completely be left out. How many X-Wings does one need? And many other toys went through this entirely natural process, the interest in the product just faded due to everyone in the market being satisfied already. Nothing goes up forever, everything drops once in a while. No hype lives forever, no trend is eternal. I am not predicting the end of the world, but just want to say that private households only have amount X to spend on Lego. Keep in mind how this amount is changing (due to economy) and on what products this will be spent on (due to higher diversity and bigger sets from Lego). In short - just because you can re-sell older sets in the moment for a higher price, will this forever be like this?

An amazing addition to your Super Heroes X Modular! It makes me wish to get a Marvel Modular some day....

You're right that it doesn't stand comparision with the Death Star, but as you said, the DS is 170€ more. It's just another great set and due to the different price very difficult to compare. And regarding the Imperial Shuttle, I strongly feel we're gonna get that in 2014 with Camo Luke, Leia & Han.

I think TLC became much more predictable with all the recent redesigns. We saw a lot of those in the past couple years. These are the sets that haven't been redesigned for at least 5 years (system sets only / different colour versions counts as one, eg. JSF or Slave I / smaller sets now part of bigger sets don't count, eg. 9494 incorporating Ultimate Lightsaber Duel, or Jabbas Palace containing Jabbas Message etc.): PT&CW: MTT (2007) Hailfire Droid (2008) Tusken Raider Encounter (2002) Bounty Hunter Pursuit (2002) Grevious Chase (2005) Wookie Catamaran - or anything Wookie-ish (2005) AT-AP (2008) Magna Guard Fighter (2008) V-19 Torrent (2008) Droid Gunship (2008) Republic Fighter Tank (2008) Twilight (2008) OT T-16 (2003) TIE Bomber (2003) Mos Eisley (2004) TIE Interceptor (2006) B-Wing (2006) Imperial Star Destroyer (2006) Cloud Car (2002) Cloud City (2003) Imperial Shuttle (2005) Imperial Landing Craft (2007) We can surely find one or other of these in the next years as redesign. But I'm afraid not the ones only appearing in CW.

The other day I saw an ebay auction for new SW sets which were meant to be easter presents for 2 boys who didn't want them. They were about 160€ retail price. People spend amazing amounts on toys for their kids these days, which cannot be translated to the amounts our parents spent back in the days. Also, as bitter as it sounds, if you belong to the people who usually can afford 250€ on a toy, you probably didn't even notice any effect of the recession in your life. Recession always hits the lower class first. Back to the topic - it's a beautiful set, no question. But the Ewoks are the Gungans of the old trilogy to me, so there's no real reason to spend so much on that faction. Also them changing Leias clothes and doing her hair still freaks me out. I got it in Jabbas palace, there she was a mistress/ slave. But here? Those creatures? Freaks me out. Also I didn't like Episode VI. It's worse than Episode II I would say. / rant over It's a lovely set and I admire everyone who'll get it!

Remember the SW problem with the small minifigure sets? It might just be the same here, that they have a license for 'building toys including figures' or whatever it's called. So it might just be impossible. Writing this, I remember Megabloks did this with the Marvel figures... And about the Lego Batman I video game, I am not sure if the games raise a lot of interest in the sets. Perhaps it was the movies that started people going after them.

I am with you guys here, for some part. They're still too shy trying out more. But something tells me, they don't want the sets to become too expensive. For example the Malibu Mansion, which I like to be as it is. Not everything has to be 250€ in my opinion. On the other hand you could call it a missed opportunity. I believe it's difficult to sell bigger playsets or vehicles, cause the line is more focused on the heroes, not how they get around or where they live. Another problem is creating and selling something, that doesn't exist in any movie or comic. The Xmen set or the Arctic Batman set for example. I think those are pretty great sets, but I can see they're careful not going out more (more sets, bigger sets) on something that is only partially known. They like to stick to the movies coming out. Every toy sells better when there is something telling the story, like TV series, movie, etc. On the other hand, we got the exclusive Arkham, which even lures me, who doesn't like DC stuff too much. This is a prime example of how all my points above, in explaining why they could be shy, are invalid. If it sells. And that is something we can only guess. Was the X-men set only a test ballon? If it didn't sell too well, are we not gonna see another X-men set? I totally agree here with others, the more you think of it, the more your head starts spinning. We will know more in July, I believe. And I would already be happy with one small X-men set with 3 new figures.

I remember seeing set 365 from 1975 in a toy store, it must have been around 1984 or so. They had other old stuff, perhaps even older, but I only remember this one as I wanted to have it and asked by parents and well, I didn't get it. This is probably the oldest sealed set I have ever seen. In the new days, I found a new 6441 from 1997 in a toy store in Italy in 2010, so it was 13 years old then. I don't know if I regret it not to have payed the 80€ he wanted. I remember I checked BL and there was one for sale not more expensive, so I figured it's not worth it. Cool set, though.

Head, torso and leg piece are different. Hoth has the new printed leg piece, new torso and a double sided head. You might want to check Bricklink for details. I believe that Luke has black gloves flying the X-Wing, so it's basically ok to have 2 different pilot Lukes, I would say. Still strange they didn't put the gunner in there.

Having seen the first non-TLC / non-photoshopped pictures of the Sail Barge now, I am not sure if I like those sails, as they are really shiny and plastic-y. Reminds me of seeing the new Lone Ranger teepee in person, which was quite a disappointment. I had the Barge on my wanted list but I am not sure about it anymore. It's surely something that we can fix easily, but I am kind of a purist and adding a few pieces here and there is another thing than crafting new sails. Looking forward for the first picture reviews!

Man, the interior! So TLC just pretends not to know how to do it right in almost all other themes? Great review, Oky! I love your pun at the end. Judging by the looks of the minifig I wouldn't trust any of these guys to steer such a behemoth, though. Might not be a coincidence that we get new coast guard sets soon.

Not a nanosecond of hesitation for me - 8038. I feel bad for the 7127, though. Not a single vote. Aren't there any classic, 4-wide fans around? Where is K-D when we need him?

Great review and good luck with your mission putting the band back together! I for one have to say the whole Muppet show of Episode VI was really never my cup of tea as it was not actually what my image of the Wars was. I believe I prefer lasers and flying things and space adventure. I'm that kind of guy, I know. Still, I might be getting my fingers on the Barge set at one point and I probably won't be sad having this guy as well, then.

As far as I know there is only one of Shredder's Dragon Bike by Cloney, and judging by the replies it got, people were not too excited about this set, or others as well. Of course we all know that we can expect something on the level of Spongebob rather than Star Wars or Indiana Jones from these sets, still they seem to be lacking. And this is probably best shown on the Shellraiser set, as it's a missed opportunity as the flagship set it should / could have been. The nice details it has are overshadowed by rather sloppy design choices, like the graffiti panel, the visible technic bar, the overall enormous size, the unfinished interior or the too big wheels. On the other hand, one has to admit that TLC copied the original design rather well, so the problem is partially in the hands of the TV show design team. This is what I would call the "Clone Wars situation". While TLCs toys are almost perfect versions of the renders in the TV show, the original design was sometimes so uninspired that it didn't help the model TLC came up with. Having said all this, I have to admit that the Lair playset offers a lot of play features/ variety for a €50 set and it might be the best set in my book, as I am not a fan of oversized vehicles (the Dragon Bike could come straight from Ninjago or Chima and no one would notice). And against many opinions here and elsewhere, I also like the Stealth Shell (despite the rather ugly fish guy). It doesn't look too bad, but certainly is not worth 27€. Like the Robot, which is not worth 50€ anywhere close. I might pick some up on sale, and if we didn't get a review till then, I will give it a go.

I agree, a a battle pack with 4 Stormies seems unlikely in these days. No need to wait for that. I believe in 3 sets coming up (2014 or 2015) having Stormtroopers, but all are bigger = Star Destroyer (probably 2-4 Stormies, 150€), Cloud City (probably 2 Stormies, 200€), Endor (probably 2 Stormies, 150€). A Mos Isley set will be cheaper but contain Sandies. When buying older sets for Stormies, keep in mind they changed over the time. Even the ones with the newer helmet have 2 different torsos (with the Endor BP being the only set that ever contained the new torso). This move was really unexpected from TLC and I still find it very upsetting they changed the torso so slightly. (Other examples are the new Snowies.) Unnecessary in my book and a slap into lots of faces. If 'new' condition is elementary for you, you might want to consider getting the Endor BP whereever you can find it cheap and just sell off what you don't need. It's some work, true, but you get this much cheaper than older sets. This besides what's been mentioned before. Bricklink, Ebay. Consider trade. Check Ebay weekly and bid on everything you see that fulfills the exact figure / condition you want. Make a benchmark of what you want to spend per figure and just bid that. Sooner or later you'll win some auctions.