Lyichir

Printing the flags would remove most of the actual building in the model. These are pretty shabby as brick-built flags go, but it's not like buildable flags is a terrible concept for a set (whereas I'd be much less interested in a glorified accessory pack).

That part is very easy to break given how thin the stems are but apart from what you've already done (separating them out of a larger bin so that the leaves don't get damaged by other parts as you dig through them) I can't make any other recommendations.

The only sets I've seen any substantial discounts on so far are ones from last summer or earlier. And it's not at all abnormal for sets from a full year ago to see discounts, particularly for narrative-driven story themes like Elves or Ninjago. On another note, only two days until the summer Elves sets are released in the U.S.! I plan to get every one of them a week from now when I'm at BrickFair and can make a Lego store run with friends.

Based on this year's map, there does not seem to be a dedicated Technic section this year. Chances are you will still find plenty of Technic builds in the Mixed section, though (in addition to the Mindstorms, Bionicle, and Great Ball Contraption areas, and maybe even some of the LUG tables).

Your list doesn't include Chase McCain, whose pack hasn't been revealed but who did get art revealing him as a playable character. We'll also be getting at least one character from The Lego Batman Movie (probably Lego Movie Batman), since that's getting a story pack.

Three new Elves webisodes have been added to YouTube! (Webisode 15): A musical episode! I wasn't expecting to get an original song, much less one that was this epic! (Webisode 16): A fun webisode with Naida and Sira that also goes into a little bit of new Elvendale lore. (Webisode 17): Another amusing episode focused on Ragana, Jynx, and Dusti.

It's not necessarily associated closely with Hermione, but the Knight Bus could make a good vehicle to include.

I figure I should point out that the purported "Italian catalog leaks" have been revealed to have all been fake. Boxart with the MoUP is still possible, of course, given that it's one of many of the "leaks" that was merely an easy guess (along with the return of the PotC and Cars themes to tie in with upcoming movies).

Whoa, those look awesome! Is that one on the left Flame Yellowish Orange/Bright Light Orange/"Keetorange"?

Ooh, thank you for this info. With a price like that I might be able to assemble enough figs for my chess set design.

I could also see the parts from the castle maybe being useful to someone building an imperial fortification. Lots of tan and white...

It's only been in one set this year (the wedding favor set). Last spring it also appeared in the Valentine's Day set, and last fall it appeared in the Ninjago Temple of Airjitzu. Nonetheless, I see no reason why it'd be out of production. And I reckon even if it were, it would not have been put out of production if Lego had deemed it necessary for the Sonic pack, which leads me to believe that the choice of the larger life ring in favor of it was deliberate. I do agree that it would've been cool to get it in Warm Gold, though.

I'll be there, as usual! Can't wait!

I think the comment about a "non-yellow tint" for minifigures was a joke about fleshies in modern licensed themes.

Well, yes, but a theme's absence on the timeline in this set isn't necessarily proof of anything... plenty of decidedly Castle themes are missing from that timeline, including Fantasy Castle, 2013 Castle, and Knights' Kingdom I, among others. In any case, the absence of Ninja on this list probably has less to do with its status as a Castle theme and more to do with the fact that the theme lacked both "Knights" (like all of the figs in the interior timeline) and "Kings" (like all the figs on the exterior timeline/in the booklet).

Not necessarily the very last wave. It's entirely possible that the list we got is specifically for this year's packs, in which case there'd likely be several unlisted waves for next Spring.

I wouldn't want a hospital if it skimped on the interior anyway. And even some of the biggest modulars like Green Grocer would be quite small for a hospital. Personally, what I'd find more interesting than an ordinary doctor's office would be a dentist's office[/url]. Ever since childhood I've been mystified by the specialized equipment you see in dentist's offices, and I'd love to see one represented in Lego.

Despite the Temple of Airjitzu's name, the actual Airjitzu spinner sets generally don't have any sort of natural integration with it. The only actual "Airjitzu" set that I think would complement the Temple of Airjitzu particularly well is Airjitzu Battle Grounds, which should be coming out later this year. While that set's emphasis is on playability (unlike the D2C Temple of Airjitzu), its design is similar to the Temple of Airjitzu with more traditional Japanese architectural design, two ninja statues, and the ghost of Sensei Yang (who the statue in the Temple of Airjitzu set depicts). And since that set is yet to be released, it most likely will be available for some time. If you're interested in other non-Airjitzu sets that might complement the Temple of Airjitzu relatively well, my top recommendations would be Master Wu Dragon (a great dragon set with a small tea farm and a haunted food cart), and maybe Attack of the Morro Dragon (another dragon set, featuring a small temple/tomb) or Final Flight of Destiny's Bounty (a slightly less traditional set, but still a decent complement to the Temple of Airjitzu, with a small ghost dragon and a very nice Japanese-inspired ship).

I disagree. Characters need to have at least SOME abilities that make them useful in gameplay, though I wouldn't consider it essential for those abilities to be one-of-a-kind (since having choices of which characters will help you get past obstacles is nice too, and the abilities of their mini-build/vehicle could offer additional incentives to buy the pack). That said, even if there were to be additional Doctor Who packs, there are a wide variety of non-companion characters who would have a wider range of abilities AND a more distinctive appearance than most of the Doctor's companions. For example, Strax or The Master would both offer a much wider range of abilities than characters like Rose Tyler, Amy, or Clara, along with being more visually distinctive than ordinary human characters.

Of all the monsters in the book, I imagine that one's the least likely to appear in a set! I mean, it could MAYBE be buildable, but even in MOCs it's tricky to create beach scenes with both surface and sub-surface features, especially if you're intent on keeping a clear dividing line between the two. The main two ways I've seen to do so are to use actual water (tricky) or a sheet of glass/plexiglass (nonpurist). As far as the other monsters in the book are concerned, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't appear assuming the sets and story do cover the forest and sea monsters in future years. One other thing I love to see people MOC are some of the lava monsters that aren't in the book but ARE in the app game, and I've seen some great MOCs of some of them already!

I'm a little surprised that you consider the Elves theme "too big to get into". I considered Elves a fairly small theme in general, with only eight non-polybag sets last year and ten non-polybag sets this year. But looking at the numbers I suppose that while that's small compared to a lot of the other themes I'm interested in (Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Bionicle) and definitely small compared to some of Lego's other highly successful evergreen themes (City, Friends, Star Wars), it actually could be considered larger than themes like the 2013 Castle (5 sets in its first year) or 2010 Kingdoms (7 sets in its first year, minus polybags and battle packs). Still, I'd think that if you were only interested in Castle-like sets you could still limit an Elves collection to a sampling of the sets. There have really only been two actual "castles" so far (last year's Sky Castle and this year's Shadow Castle, though you might also count the small guard tower in the Queen Dragon's Rescue or the slightly larger Dragon Sanctuary), and even if you're interested in more village-like architecture there's still only a few sets that really qualify (last year's Magical Bakery and this year's Dragon School, Starlight Inn, and Secret Market Place).

Keep in mind that the leaked list of Dimensions packs does not seem to represent the entirety of what we'll be getting in "Season 2" (considering several of the announced franchises including Powerpuff Girls, The Goonies, The Lego Batman Movie, and Lego City Undercover were nowhere to be seen). So the list only having a certain number of characters from any given franchise is far from confirmation that those are the only characters we'll be getting before this "season" wraps up next summer (and makes way for yet another season of brand-new franchises for Season 3, presumably). In "Season 1", there were plenty of characters who debuted long after other characters from the same franchise, including Doc Brown, Bane, Sensei Wu, and Slimer. In other words, getting other Sonic characters in packs is far from impossible.

It's a little hard to say what will get its own full game and what will not with the news that Lego Dimensions will be getting multi-level "story packs" for movies like the new Ghostbusters, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and The Lego Batman Movie. It's hard to tell how much this will affect games based on licensed themes—will it prevent full games we might otherwise have gotten, or will it mostly allow a longer play experience than we might otherwise have gotten for less prominent licenses? If Lego Dimensions didn't exist, would we be getting a Lego Ghostbusters game that covered all three films in the series, or would it be yet another license that never got any representation in a full video game, like Toy Story, TMNT, The Lone Ranger, or Spongebob Squarepants? And are shorter play experiences for games based on individual movies (like past games based on The Force Awakens or The Lego Movie that have largely had to pad the story with supplementary material in order to justify a full-priced console game) a good thing or a bad thing? As someone who generally prefers Lego's original themes to their licensed themes, I'm even less sure of what the future holds. I was super-excited to get representation of Lego City Undercover in Dimensions, considering that game was one of my favorites among recent Lego games. But we still don't know what that representation will constitute (other than a fig and vehicle for lead character Chase McCain), and it's still up in the air whether the series will ever get a full sequel (the Lego City theme has branched out significantly in recent years and is presumably not going away any time soon, but it's unclear how successful the Wii U-exclusive original was). Similarly, I have to wonder what the future holds for some of my favorite themes like Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Bionicle, and Elves. All four of those themes have generally favored mobile apps (and in Ninjago's case, games for handheld systems) over full-priced console/PC games. It's hard to tell if that will ever change, and if so, how. Will next fall's Lego Ninjago movie finally what pushes the now-evergreen Ninjago theme to get a full console game, or will it, like The Lego Batman Movie, only get a story pack in Dimensions? What are the chances of Lego Elves (a mini-doll theme) or Bionicle (a Constraction theme) getting anything more involved than a time-wasting mobile app after the mediocre reception to the handheld Lego Friends game or the even older Bionicle Heroes (the only Lego video game by TT Games to take the form of a shooter)? Frankly for any of those themes I'd be more than happy with them at least getting representation in Lego Dimensions, particularly Bionicle since it would presumably necessitate minifigure versions of the characters. We can probably be sure that at the very least, major movies from Lego's major licenses will get full games of their own. Star Wars Episode VIII will almost certainly get its own dedicated game, though anthology movies like Rogue One or TV shows like Rebels are still less certain. With TT Games being a subsidiary of Warner Bros. and the Super Heroes games being consistently successful, it's likely that the upcoming Justice League movie will get its own game (probably including content from Man of Steel and Batman V. Superman as well), and other DC Super Heroes games not based on movies aren't out of the question, either. Marvel Super Heroes will also likely continue to get its own games, though it's not totally clear how often—we'll probably get more games based on the cinematic universe for Infinity War Part One and/or Part Two, at the very least. Similarly, even if The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie don't get their own video games, The Lego Movie Sequel in 2019 most likely will. Even then, there's still a lot of uncertainty. When future Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones movies are made, and get tie-in Lego themes, will they still get their own games, or with Disney Infinity out of the way would they be worked into Dimensions? What about Jurassic World 2? And of course beyond that, we have no idea what sort of brand-new licenses and original themes Lego might have in store in the future.

Does Lego officially consider Ninja a Castle theme? I'm pretty sure that it was never really branded as such, unlike earlier "faction-based" Castle sets like Dragon Masters, Wolfpack, etc. (then again, the idea of "themes" and "subthemes" is somewhat outdated considering the shift toward independent themes with multiple factions versus every faction getting its own subtheme while crossing over regularly, and Ninja is one of the earliest examples of that shift). But I think Nexo Knights is a different sort of situation than Ninjago, in any case. Many of the sets in Nexo Knights fill the same sorts of roles as classic Castle sets—castles, ballistas, catapults, siege engines, horses, monsters—even the larger mechs can be considered an extreme extrapolation on traditional armor, while many of the more futuristic vehicles are styled after large-scale versions of the knights' chosen weapons. The setting of Nexo Knights also feels like a classic medieval setting that has had its technology accelerated, with peasant villages that have Tron lines weaving through their thatched-roof cotttages and a very traditional feudal government in place. While also eclectic, Ninjago is not trying to imitate feudal Japan. The Ninja have more in common with Tokusatsu superheroes (from shows like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai) than anything else, in a Japan-inspired setting that is functionally modern day—more traditional dojos, temples, and villages exist but do so alongside urban cities, and while the ninja sometimes ride ancient dragons they also frequently use vehicles like motorbikes, jet planes, mechs, and muscle cars. The Ninja's foes vary even more wildly, from the cyberpunk-esque Nindroids to last year's much more traditional Ghost Ninjas. Essentially, Nexo Knights has taken all the elements of a traditional medieval setting and theme and dressed them in a sci-fi skin, while Ninjago's setting and story take the opposite tack, infusing a setting and theme akin to other modern-day "Action Themes" like Agents with heavy Japanese influences, ranging from the country's history and legends to its modern technology and visions of the future.

It shouldn't happen IN the catalogs either, but that doesn't stop it from happening. :P