Haltiamieli

Yeah, it seems to be almost certain that there won't be any normal Kingdoms sets in the January wave. But if on the other hand there really would be an exclusive set, January would be a natural time for its release, to give (adult) fans some fodder and not to eat away sales from the normal retail line. Compare for example to Harry Potter summer waves and January release of Diagon Alley. Similarly the Medieval Market Village seems to have been released in the end of 2009, while the last normal wave of Fantasy Era appeared in the summer. I really, really, really hope we get an exclusive set, jousting or something else entirely, before Kingdoms is finished and gives way to the next contender. Though of course I hope Kingdoms will continue at least through 2012 anyway.

The aforementioned rumour was about the exclusive set 10223, yet unrevealed, that would be called "Joust". As such, it wouldn't exactly be a "cheap way to get a barded dragon knight and lion knight", but could be all kinds of awesome otherwise! ...if it just would be true. We'll see.

I saw them first on the August 2. They've been €1.90 on both Prisma automarkets I've happened to visit, so the price hasn't hiked up - at least not in all places. According to the new catalogue the official price is still €2.20.

It is an interesting observation. Without any doubt I count myself a fantasy fan (I've been a chair member of the Finnish Tolkien Society for a few years already, for example), but still... when it comes to Lego Castle, I find myself liking the "realistic" themes more. And one reason I can come up with is that human factions are more versatile. Compared to the possibilities of all the yellow faces and "realistic" torsos accumulated through the decades of Castle theme, other factions are more or less doomed to be a bit boring: Lego trolls are nice figs, for example, but there were (iirc) only three different faces, two of which were very rare. There weren't that many torsos either, and the skin colour means that you can't easily swap different torsos from other themes or eras. This can lead to nice if a bit clone-like armies, but otherwise the possibilities are much more limited than with human factions, even if they change colours and insignia from time to time.

Today when I was going through some Series 5 bags, a little girl (aged 6-10, I guess) and her mother went by the Lego shelf, and the girl took a Belville set on her hands and said something like "These are what I'd like to have!". I suppose she will be happy, come next year. Just saying.

Early Christmas has finally arrived to Finland and the new Kingdoms sets flock the shelves - though the closest supermarket, which has one of the largest Lego collections in the city, hasn't stocked Mill Village Raid, shame on them! On the other hand, I wouldn't have been able to buy it yet anyway, because I'm soon moving back to my home from my parents where I've been spending the summer. And during the summer I have already acquired quite a lot of Lego that are waiting to be moved! So I just bought a Blacksmith Attack and three (didn't have time to search for more) Series 5 minifigs: Graduate, Cave Woman and Lizard Man. Strangely, I like the Heroica weapons somewhat more now that I own them Others are more or less usable as themselves and the bow will probably be the shop sign for my fletcher.

Well, not an odd choice without reasons, of course. But still, in my opinion (admittedly I'm somewhat colour blind and have been known to hold some strange opinions on colours ) light grey would be a bit closer approximation of the colour of the Statue of Liberty than sand green. Light grey would be blueish, of course, and that would be quire a lot off the mark too. So it's a matter of opinion: too much green or too little green (none at all, that is)? Maybe they could have added the green in print?

So, my personal opinion of all the figures, as if anyone would be interested after so many other comments already Statue of Liberty: Great figure, interesting to see whether the skirt is printed... I suppose not, considering that the photographer managed to put it on wrong. Green is a bit strange choice of colour, certainly grey would be more useful for a statue. But kids might think it dull. Nevertheless, I will probably use the figure as a statue somewhere in my Lego village. Turning the head around though, otherwise it would look too much alive. Alien: Well, I'm not very excited about this, but the head might look a little better from another angle? Dunno. I suspect that the designers have been trying to avoid the figure turning out too scary, which has led to a quite cartoonish headpiece, a bit simplistic, robotlike torso print and bright red hands. Mechanic: Nice hair style, apparently Elvis didn't die but changed his profession. The greasemarks on his face don't look that good in my opinion, they shouldn't be so clearly defined. Nice torso print and red toolbox. I won't be buying this, but it's not to blame on the minifigure himself - I just don't build City. Skater girl: Now there's a girl with (emo) attitude! I'm not well versed in fashion like this, but Avril Lavigne springs to my mind? The hair is black with purple streaks? Wonderful! Hopefully BL prices for the hair won't jump too high. The skateboard is getting a bit old, I admit, but I don't think any other accessory could be as fitting for this girl. Highlander: Great figure! Very nice and detailed torso design (the photo is a bit dark and doesn't really show it very well, I think). Personally I'm very happy that they printed the kilt instead of adding it as a cloth. When most skirt-wearing minifigures do with normal legs and leg printing anyway, the few cloth skirts just stand out a bit awkwardly in my opinion. Also personally I think that's the best sword design Lego has come up after the original Castle and Pirate swords from the 70's and 80's. The simple and elegant design beats the crap out of those oversized chrome greatswords and their ilk. Not that Series 4 gladiator sword was bad either, but this one is more fitting for medieval times. Minotaurus: Wow, more cow-horns! Too bad that the figure is too good to be robbed of its horns in favour of my vikings/barbarians, just like my cows. Nice torso, but I would like to see a profile shot of the headpiece to really be able to judge how good it is. The eyes sadly look like those big yellow globes of the Series 4 Werewolf, which I disliked. Genie: In some ways it seemed inevitable that sooner or lated we'd get a genie in these series, and on the other hand it seemed very doubtful, considering the "leg" piece would need to be somewhat groundbreaking new design for minifigures. But lo, they did it beatifully! Solid design all around, and finally the little hole in the turban mold is put to use (it hasn't ever before, has it?). Great lamp, will a flame piece fit in its mouth? Pink space girl: Aww, that's the first CMF ever that has had me burst into a bit of a laughter (while at work in a library, mind you!). I think the pinkiness is so overdone that it's obvious it's a sort of an ironic nod towards us AFOLs: "Yes, we know it's VERY PINK, but what can we do when it sells so well? And isn't it cute?" Despite the pinkiness, the torso and leg printings are well designed. New colour of a good hair piece and her smirky expression are great too. Leprechaun: Great new figure, once again. Nice detailed torso and the pot will be useful in so many ways. I really hope it can be attached to the new bucket handle as I suspect. Butcher: A solid City figure with a torso and hat that can be used in many different shops. As I don't collect City, the only useful things for me will be the steak and the cleaver, which are both useful for medieval settings too. Great! The head with sideburns is also nice, there hasn't been too many around. Summa summarum: The grey alien is in my opinion the weakest one of the lot at the moment, and even it might turn out to be quite good if the picture isn't very representative.

Gaahh! That page is absurdly slow to load, it's like the 90's all over again for crying out loud! I've been waiting for close to ten minutes and it's yet managed to load completely only the leprechaun (which looks fabulous!) and the emo skater girl (looks cute). I wanna see the minotaur and the warrior! Ok, now their all loaded! It looks this upcoming series might even become my favourite so far. Great figures and an abundance of very useful new accessories! There seems to be a small knob in the outer rim of the leprechaun pot, could it be that one of the new bucket handles could be attached to it? That would be awesome!

But... it's cute! I'd rather give the scariest minifig prize to the Atlantis Portal Emperor (without his helmet), for example. But we all have different sort of nightmares. Statue of Liberty looks absolutely great, I really hope it's legit! And then Venus de Milo in Series 7?

Today I built the Drawbridge Defense that I had bought from a Finnish auction website last week for 21 euros - it was missing a few common bricks and three minifigs, but I've already bought the jester from BL and two skeletons aren't worth much anything anyway. Considering that even the cheapest BL set is ~30 euros (and obviously located in the US) and the golden knight alone is not usually sold under 10 euros, I'm quite happy. Now my few Crown Knights have something to defend - as the Lion Knights have taken over in the Medieval Market Village.

Thanks Well, it looks simple but not bad. On the other hand, it may (or may not) look somewhat different once the design is finished. At least the handle might turn out to be brown.

Has anyone taken a pic of Thor that would show the hammer better?

Well, frankly I'm personally not that interested in DC superheroes as a Lego theme, but this is good news nonetheless. There will surely be plenty of nice new pieces and minifigure parts, like Superman's hair in the preview picture. Congrats to all of you hyperventilating DC fans!

While I share the opinion that the prices of PotC sets are very steep, the Medieval Market Village (which actually has 1600 pieces) is a very good value-for-money set even compared to most unlicensed sets of regular lines (i.e. excluding AFOL-oriented exclusives and such). The MSRP of Medieval Market Village is 100 dollars in the USA, the same as the biggest normal Castle set of that year, Trolls' Mountain Fortress (7097), which has 844 pieces, or the biggest Kingdoms set of the following year, King's Castle (7946), which has 933 pieces.

I presume the figures will have skin tones like licensed themes instead of classic yellow? Porcupine sounds interesting, new animals are always great. The new horse will probably be along the lines of Belville horse and incompatible in style with normal Lego horses, but a new animal might work. Hopefully it can at least be attached to studs (unlike some Belville animals). I hope there will be lots of useful new pieces in this theme. And if it is a success, maybe TLC will someday make a fantasy/fairytale subtheme - that could have a plethora of useful new pieces for Castle collectors like me.

Still waiting. Today I bought the Portal of Atlantis (€49,90 in discount, msrp in Finland was €119,90). Initially I wasn't that interested in Atlantis theme, probably because I was upset that it was an underwater theme with subs and wacky sea monsters instead of "real" Atlantis. But as the time has passed I've noticed that the theme does include an array of great cthulhian minifigures, and even some nice structures (hopefully I will also catch the City of Atlantis 7985 in discount someday). 8078 doesn't even include any vehicle for the divers, so it's a set that is more or less completely compatible with Fantasy-tainted Castle (excluding the three divers themselves of course). The three sea monsters are all great, especially the red squid warrior and the portal emperor (cthulhiest minifigure ever! (until Davy Jones is released later this year)). I'm planning to use the structure of the set, probably somewhat modified, as the base of an evil necromancer lich lord (Voldemort) summoning nightmarish horrors from an other dimension. The sad thing is that I won't get to build the set itself until late August or September. Only fished out the minifigs now.

The ongoing series, Kingdoms, has had only two waves yet*, first one in summer 2010 and second in summer 2011, and will hopefully (but not certainly, of course!) have still at least one wave before it gives way to the next iteration of the Castle line. So you are probably jumping in right in the middle. Besides, who knows if the next one is as good as this? Certainly I would recommend getting your hands on the two new sets with civilian setting (though the set you already acquired is probably another one of them, the Blacksmith Attack), because those have been very rare treats in Lego Castle, and are easily compatible even when the themes change. * or just one, in places like Finland - still waiting for the new summer wave to appear...

Yeah, I've also considered that one. But as you say, it may have too many teeth, and I suspect the different styles of teeth (molded and printed) might not fit that well together. Besides, black heads are cheaper. But if ZeeK has the Atlantis head in question, certainly I'd like to see a picture of that combination too.

If it wouldn't be too much of a bother, could you take a picture of the lizard guy with a black head instead of the yellow? I'm planning to use it as a fantasy monster and it would be nice to see how it would look. If you have a transparent red head or something similar that would be interesting to see too.

Cwetqo apparently has some source, so I treat the theme as a possibility even if I'm not exactly convinced yet - I need some more concrete evindence before that.

The pictures of the VW Camper Van and the Winter Post Office didn't really leak per ce, as they were released in the new Lego Collector book. Apparently the 10223 (Kingdoms Joust or whatever it is) wasn't ready to be revealed yet. So I suppose the leaking of any info is not much closer than before. Meaning: it could happen tomorrow or next week or sometime in 2012.

True, but hiatus would nevertheless surely mean the end for the ongoing Kingdoms subtheme. After the presumed Tolkien theme Castle would return with new sets, factions and designs. Not necessarily worse ones, but still I'm going to be very disappointed if Kingdoms, being one of the best Castle lines, is finished after just two waves. Hopefully things will turn out better and we'll get at least one more Kingdoms wave next year with Dragon Knight fortress, jousting and a civilian set or a few.

Well, for starters red is the colour that is strongly associated with Christmas, and by extension with winter. The car is quite a big part of the colour-scheme of the whole set, yellow one would set quite a different mood. Not to mention that red is also used buy prominent real world postal offices, like the British one.