Lord Insanity

This is amazing. I can't believe more people haven't commented on this. The functionality is brilliant, I wonder if the technic fans are completely missing this being in the special themes forum. I do wonder if the balls you are using are going to scratch up the transparent parts you have in the center of the board though.

The online store a2ztoy.com is expensive for a single item but get several and the shipping per unit goes down significantly. For example the box of one of each Enlighten sets. That is all 18 engines and cars and one of each of the 2 track packs for 189.90 with shipping to the US for 57.14. Grand total of 247.04 or 12.35 per set. As far as the quality comparison goes... So you think LEGO's new lower quality made in China parts (like the collectible Minifigures) are only 75-80% of normal LEGO quality? Because the Enlighten stuff is pretty much right on par with those. Maybe we are not thinking in terms of the same scale. If normal LEGO is 100% and "dissolve if you touch them" hypothetical bricks are 0% I would put Enlighten and Oxford (as well as LEGO's lower quality China parts) in the 90-95% range. MegaBloks would be in the 70-80% range. Best-Lock pre-Cobi merger (plates are half thick instead of 1/3) would be in the 40-50% range. (totally worthless) Best-Lock post Cobi merger (plates are 1/3) would be in the 80-85% range. (yes they went from worthless to better than MegaBloks) @LegoSjaak - While I have no problem with being brand loyal at least do so on honest terms. Enlighten trains are not going to fall apart anymore than LEGO trains. If anything Enlighten's train set clutch power is usually slightly stronger than LEGO's. Make no mistake I have a strong brand preference for LEGO but certain things LEGO just doesn't do (like offer separate train car sets or make modern military sets) so one has no choice but to look elsewhere to fill those gaps. When buying the parts to make a MOC of those "gaps" is 2-3 times more expensive, high quality clones like Enlighten Trains or Oxford Military sets can be quite appealing.

Well as I pointed out in this thread back in march, these Enlighten sets (or at least the Union Pacific loco I have) are easily 90-95% the same quality as LEGO. So the 80% cost difference should make people think very carefully. You can always turn the printed parts around and sticker them Santa Fe after all. Of course Enlighten red and yellow are "brighter" and do not match LEGO red and yellow very well so that doesn't work if you care about the engine color being "off". Dark bluish grey in the Union Pacific loco is spot on exact though so you can use two 1x1 wedges on the headlight bricks shown here. Some people may complain about clone brands but I really have to wonder if Lego would have ever come back to the golden age they are in now if it weren't for the clone brands nipping at their heals. *cough*Town Jr.*cough* After all competition breeds quality. Remember all of Enlighten's parts are printed, no stickers at all.

Whoa nice Hi-Res picture, thanks. It is hard to say but I am willing to bet the black knight's shield is a Red Wolf. That would be highly amusing putting him right next to little red riding hood. If that is a Red Wolf I expect the black knights popularity to skyrocket. Unfortunately it looks like I was right and the Space Marine has no visor. The only real question is does he have an orange printed face or is the whole head orange. Fortunately it looks as though a normal helmet with visor will fit as long as there isn't anything wacky going on in the back of the armor piece. If we are really lucky the new helmet could actually have a visor attach to it even if it doesn't come with one as is. The one side of the helmet looks like it might the other not so much, tough call. The classic space logo on the shoulder is just icing on the cake. Despite the visor issue the Space Marine is definitely the "Spartan" of Series 7.

Oh man that Space Marine appears to have no visor, which would make his whole face printed orange. Well hopefully standard visor helmets will be compatible with that awesome space armor piece. (Who am I kidding I will probably still try to get as many as I can, its a flipping Space Marine. Its everything the ADU guys should have been.) Valkyries are what the Series 3 Viking should have been. Poseidon/Neptune/Triton... Woo Hoo, The Temple of Atlantis has a reason for being. Black Knight, Red Riding Hood, Bagpiper, and Swimming Champion (Finally a female swimsuit that isn't red*) are all worth multiples too. All the other are worth at least one or two. Good Deal. *OK so some white tank top shirts can be used as swim suits too, like the Paradisa Dolphin and the Rainbow Stars prints.

That bandit hideout set really is the all star of the new police lineup. An awesome looking mountain cabin that comes with the new bear is really nice. The blue pickup that comes with it will be easy to MOD into a non-police vehicle and it comes with 2 of the new officers. I really hope that new torso does NOT have "police" printed on the back like the newer medium blue police torso. Kind of hard to MOD them into Forest Rangers if the have "police" on the back of their shirt. I think that looks ridiculous on the medium blue shirts too. Sure police often have coats/jackets that say "police" on them but not on their actual shirts. I have always found that quite amusing too. The only time it would matter that "ecnalubmA" shows up in you mirror as "Ambulance" they would have the lights and sirens on anyway. Fun fact: In the US (at least my home state of Pennsylvania anyway) only red lights are used on Ambulances and Fire Trucks. Police use both red and blue lights. Blue lights by themselves are only used for warning vehicles (usually the guys directing traffic around an accident and/or fire scene) and do not even confer right-of-way to a vehicle.

One complete set.

First off, why is it that this picture of one complete set is not on the main page and first page of this thread? Don't get me wrong the doubled up tower looks great but the first thing I like to see with any new set is that linked picture of "everything in it". I totally agree with this. We had blue/gold with the Crownies, we have red/gold and green/gold with the Lions and Dragons, the new Falcon would have been perfect with purple/gold. As it is I will give him a white plume and make his tent white and black. That will free up the green tent for a Dragon champion. I'll add a blue tent for a Crownie Champion and make an instant 4 way joust. I am actually glad they included the new Falcon even as is. A Dragon champion can be easily acquired in a $20 set but we probably would have never seen the Falcon champion otherwise. (Unless of course he is a herald for a new Falcon theme, but that would be something of a mixed blessing if they were in green like the Dragons. Once again purple would be perfect for that hypothetical possibility too. It also would contrast nicely with any potential new forestmen theme. If only.)

Wow the buildings in this theme are awesome. The Veterinarian's Office, Cafe, and Beauty Salon would all be quite easy to MOD into my town. If these are competitively priced I will definitely be picking most of them up. If these have the "girl" mark-up Belville sets had I will be far less interested. As these sets will obviously be in direct competition to the likes of Polly Pocket, I expect competitive pricing on this line. Fortunately for me I have plenty of female mini-figs in my town that would fit in these sets nicely. I'll just have to put the bald doll-figs in my "Area 51" quarantine and dissection lab under heavy ADU guard.

Hmm... Those police shirts in the new station appear to be dark tan. As they have the new badge logo I bet those are either final designs or really close to it. Combined with the tan "ranger" hat and dark blue pants, they look really nice. It also would make it very easy to switch the pants to dark green and make forest rangers out of them. The crooks vehicles all look really cool. The police vehicles with their primarily blue color scheme, not so much. I would probably convert the K-9 truck and Chinook into cargo company vehicles. So despite blue not working at all for "police" in my mind, I prefer the vehicles in these sets in blue for the non-police MOD-ability. This would be one of the few times I am hoping the "printed parts" are stickers. Aside from the yellow car... (dark blue, dark green, dark tan, dark red, any color resembling the majority of cars actually on the road would be nice) The camper itself is awesome though. I love the SUV towing the motor bikes. The garbage truck color scheme is perfect and the front looks awesome. I hope the back "looks right" too. That ambulance is great. The road repair truck is good but that wheelbarrow is awesome.

In the U.S. (in the area I live anyway, keep in mind several individual states are larger than many European countries) the local town hall (or city hall) is often a much larger building than the houses and shops nearby. It often includes the Mayor's office, the city or township council (basically a small congress or parliament of a dozen people or so responsible for local laws and ordinances), all of the council persons' offices, the local courthouse, the judges' offices, and sometimes the local police department and sheriff's office too. (Sometimes the local courthouse building is the town hall building.) That prototype town hall being larger than a normal modular looks like it could work for a U.S. town hall quite well to me. I actually think a town hall would work better as a larger stand alone building but that would be easy to MOD from a modular.

The newer couplers LEGO makes can be "locked" together with two 1x2 tiles (or a plate for the top). That seems like it would be far easier if all you want is pulling a long train. If you intend to try and make an automated decoupler or something I can see trying to find another solution, though.

This seems to be a fairly common opinion. I, on the other hand think this is the first modular that is not a corner building worth buying. The Green Grocer and Fire Brigade just look "wrong" to me. The Fire Brigade just screams "turn me into an elementary school" and the Green Grocer was just ridiculously large. Either the corner buildings are way too small or the GG and FB are way too big. The Pet Shop and companion house really drive that home to me. Maybe it is because I am looking at these from the perspective of a classic town fan. The Cafe Corner being a grand hotel and the Grand Emporium being a department store are actually classic town scale to my eyes. The Pet Shop (and to a lesser extent Market Street) actually look "right" as large buildings in that context.

They are not currently available from Lego Direct/Online PAB in the US. They have phased the two door parts out of current sets too so I doubt they are still in production. Anything that might be left in other countries is probably the last of the stock.

The Cafe Corner used the newer 6 high windows. I believe the discontinued parts in question are the 5 high doors.

Wow. The roof is so much better looking in a "roof" color with white tiles as snow covered patches. The solid white roofs always looked slightly off. I am going to have to MOD the Toy Shop and Bakery to black roofs with white snow patches. (dark brown or dark blue would look good too but I doubt I have the parts to pull that off.) I like the use of trans-blue flames as icicles. (would have looked better trans-clear but trans-blue is better than not having that detail at all.) The lamp post is really cool, but a little too short for that specific design. I still think the Toy Shop lamp post is the best. Its too bad the bubble domes are so hard to come by in quantity to make a proper row of lamp posts along the street. Overall, I think this is now the best looking winter building straight out of the box.

Well I haven't needed more police or fire sets for many years. However depending on what they contain, the color schemes, and torso prints, I might be very interested in Forest Rangers. Its just different enough that it could fill a "gap" missing in my town, like 2011's "City Bank". Hopefully there will be plenty of foliage, I can never get enough of that.

Well 4 out of 7 train sets sold by LEGO right now are push-along sets straight out of the box. Personally, I would like to see a remake of 4454/2150 in dark tan "brownstone" with modular building size and detail. The modern color and part pallet could really make that the ultimate train station.

Anyone else think that 2 (or 4 or any even number) of Liberty figures combined with the Greek/Roman temple starter set will make a nice temple, courthouse, or city/state capitol building. The sand green color and size is just right for the numerous similar Liberty copper statues around the world too.

This was my first 9v train set. (Only had the 4.5v 7722 Steam Cargo Train before that.) It was the color scheme and cranes that sold me on it. I even got the 2126 Train Cars to go with it back then. (Christmas then Birthday presents respectively) The engine was always kind of weird looking1 to me, in a good way though. I too would be curious to know if anyone knows what type of engine was being represented by this set. I don't think LEGO has ever otherwise released an engine that wasn't at least close to a real one. 1The whole reason I bought the Super Chief was to have a "real" engine for this set. At the time I didn't realize the Super Chief was supposed to represent an old passenger engine, it looked like a modern freight engine to me. When the passenger cars for the Super Chief came out I kind of scratched my head and ignored them thinking that was just plain crazy.

The motor with the short couplings was only ever used in the Futron Monorail Transport System. So that means you want the long couplings for the Airport Shuttle.

Well that makes two ships in a row now that are missing half their mast rigging. (I'm looking at you QAR.) The Pearl doesn't even have a stern hull. Its actually kind of wacky that the first pirate ship LEGO ever released (6285 Barracuda) is still the best designed. The QAR came so close to beating that but it, like the Pearl, looks half finished because of the missing mast rigging pieces. The Pearl being the ship of POTC should have been a rival design wise to the solider ship 10210 Imperial Flagship. Ah well, with the number of awesome sets in general that I otherwise want, I probably can't fit it in the "fun stuff" budget anyway.

You can just use two 9V to PF and maybe a PF to PF in the middle if needed. Connect the PF ends together and the 9V ends to your regulator and track connector. Instant 9V to 9V wire. That LEGO made the 9V to PF wire is a very nice and useful thing.

Most of my figs come from buying/getting as gifts actual sets or yard sale lots (think Ebay but in person) over the past 30 years. The Blacktron 1 and Yellow Futron figs are some of the few that were straight up bricklink purchases. They are also promo figs that are glued together with no airtanks. The hands, arms, and legs still move though. It was almost 10 years ago I got them for $0.25 a fig. At the time the guy had like 10,000 of each for sale and that was the only thing in his store. I wish I had gotten more of them, they work good as generic troops under the command of "real" figs. Here is one of my Blacktron 1 platoons of 80.

Well I own 100 copies of the Rock Raiders Mini-fig pack. (3 space figs, a construction worker, and a Confederate troop per pack ) I know how much space those 500 figs take up compared to the rest of my figs, so I would say at least 5,000. Probably closer to the 6,000 - 7,000 range. I have also been collecting Lego for almost 30 years and I never had that weird "Dark Age" that so many AFOLs seem to go through. Lets see I have over 100 Stormtroopers, over 100 vikings, over 300 Blacktron 1s, over 200 Yellow Futrons, almost 100 Union troops (Wild West soldiers), and over 100 skeletons. Those are just off the top of my head without actually looking. That is the sort of thing that happens when you like and try to get at least some sets from most of the mini-fig themes. Needless to say I love the diversity in the collectible mini-fig line, which of course only makes my population grow. Of course now that I have a kid my Lego budget has gone down to very little, so that helps limit growth. I never really thought my collection was that large but I guess that puts me in the crazy high number range.