dr_sarcophagus

woohoo! They have come to Oz. Fantastic!

Any word on whether this theme will make it to Australia this year? The 2016 catalogue is suspiciously bare of SC. my sister is visiting from the US in April so if they aren't coming I may need to get them to bring me some. Best options for mail order in the US?

Fantastic! love the battle droid one. They look awesome, especially the superbikes. Do they roll?

The amusement park friends sets have great potential for a sideshow alley.

10 10 14 15 26 It was tough deciding where to give my two votes to 10 or 14. Was a lovely overall presentation and some amazing building techniques, but in the end the cider mill was just too delightful.

I find duracells won't work very well. The bump on the top is too fat for the terminal. Energizers are fine though.

If you are American, 60052 is where it's at. Its miles better than the high speed train, and the extra and better track configuration is important. The oval of the passenger train gets boring real quick. A box of flex track will allow more diverse configurations, plus the flex pieces are real short which allows you to line up more complex configurations. Never underestimate the importance of track.

I think you pretty well have it covered. Although once the team have finished the foundations they'll need a large crane, scaffolding, a cement mixer (and the hosy sucky thing to get the concrete to the upper floor formwork) and prefab concrete panels on a low loader..... :)

Ironically I'm going to pass this up in favour of the temple of airjitzu.

The dollhouse format allows for very good options to display the interior. Architecturally it very much fits in the 'big rectangular box' school.

Yes, now that you mention it. Looks uneven for the outer arches. I'd like to try all square radiator bricks which would better bring it into the 1930s period.

Thanks all. I've been tossing up between this one and Parisian Restaurant for my next large purchase. It's $300 Australian here and although many sets have been faring reasonably well against our dollar lately (or the US is undergoing a Lego price correction) this one hasn't. $250 would be a much easier decision. However I do really like the look of it.... I'm so sorely tempted.

I agree with L@go. People laugh when I describe Lego as a 'medium', but this proves it.

So now that this set has been out for a little while, what are people's thoughts on it who have bought it?

I have no issues with the bricks. They make perfect sense. Many rarer colours only come in 1x2 or 1x4 bricks so they have to use them to get a greater colour diversity. Also they need to maximise the use of the same part in the same colour to get economies of scale / allow easier sorting. For example in the DO all 1x1 black rounds had a hole, but they only needed them for the stove and I think a light fitting. All other applications of the part could have used a bog standard round, but that would have introduced another unique part. Whenever I've encountered a part which at didn't seem to make sense, in all cases it could be attributed to part limitations or reducing the inventory range in the set. I.e to be able to make it cheaper or less frustrating to build. In Europe and Australia they don't even disclose the piece count on the box, which casts further doubt on this whole "artificially inflated piece count" theory. Apologies, this is probably not what you were referring to in your post, but it has come up pretty frequently with modulars so I wanted to provide a different view.