Lyichir

I could have sworn it was, but I'm starting to question it. Today I asked at Gamestop, and they didn't even have the 3DS version in their system. Perhaps that one's not coming out until later?

Good point. That's especially likely to occur with two parts of approximately the same weight (like the Hero Cores would be). This fools the weight check that is supposed to ensure that there are no missing parts. My personal anecdote involves the Bionicle set Umbra. When my little brother built him, he found that one of the silver Toa Inika shoulder armor pieces had been replaced by a 1x4 red brick!

I'm mostly okay with the acquisition, but even I admit it'll feel weird without that fanfare. I guess it's just something I'll have to get used to.

That was a good article. Personally, I think it's ridiculous how many people are freaking out at the mention of Disney. Disney has done good by Marvel, and by Pixar. I obviously can't guarantee that the next Star Wars movies won't suck (although I too was okay with the prequels, which at their worst were still decent popcorn flicks). But if they do suck, I doubt Disney will be to blame.

I don't think any of the characters were ever actually released as figs (besides the ones from other themes, like the Fantasy Castle Wizard). Clutch himself wouldn't be impossible to make as a custom, though. His teammates would be harder, since two of them have hairpieces that never actually existed in Lego.

Check the date of what you're replying to. That's a post from April, back when the only information we had on this season was the episode titles and a bunch of bogus episode summaries based on those titles. In those summaries, the Stone Army was purported to be another faction of the pirates (which were assumed to be the main villains of next year's sets instead of the antagonists of a single episode), and the ninja's next costumes were purported to be "PWR armor". In fact, no such armor exists, and the ninja's new costumes are something entirely different. But yeah, try not to reply to things that old. It's not against the rules or anything (unless you're reviving a dead topic), but even if that member is still around, they're probably well aware of the ninja's new costumes by now.

On the one hand, yes, it does allow those without access to real Lego to experience some of the same joy. But it's far more complicated than that. Because part of the reason why Lego has trouble expanding their market in these countries is that knockoffs like these are already readily available, often at a far lower price than Lego can afford to sell their own products at. I have little against brands like Mega Bloks, which suffers only from lower quality in both materials and set design. But Enlighten is far worse than that. Enlighten has a history of copying Lego all the way down to copying the molds of specialized parts (not just the basic bricks, like with most clone brands) and even copying entire sets (which has gotten them into serious legal trouble with Lego in the past). Moreover, while some AFOLs champion the notion that competition from clone brands breeds success for Lego, I would argue that the kind of success it would result in would be against fans' interests; after all, the only way Lego could compete with clone brands like this in the markets they dominate would be to lower their prices, and by extension, their quality. In those markets, there's little room for a premium toy brand like Lego as long as cheaper options remain available.

Not sure whether to believe this... but if Lego does make a battle mech minifig, I want it to be a tokusatsu-style giant humanoid robot, so I can have it fight my lizard-suit guy over the wreckage of a microscale city.

Before I answer your question, I have one of my own: did the people at Target specify whether you get the fig just for preordering the Wii U version, or is it available for 3DS preorders as well? I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer for this yet, and it's driving me crazy! As for why the fig is so desirable, it's based on a lot of factors. Firstly, it's exclusive, and any exclusives sell. Secondly, it's the main character of a highly anticipated game. Thirdly, it's aesthetically compatible with other Lego City figs while being unique among them (non-fleshie, has the same uniform as traditional Lego City cops but with a bulletproof vest and badge on the shoulder). Fourth, unlike the majority of licensed exclusive figs, this one is easier to army build, and no one's going to preorder multiples of the game just for that, meaning the aftermarket is the only reliable way to get multiples of this fig. However, I doubt those current prices accurately reflect what the going price will be later on. Not every store is carrying this fig yet to my knowledge, so sellers are probably taking advantage of the low accessible supply and charging through the nose. Plus, a modified version of this fig seems to appear in one of next year's sets, and while it won't be as accurate to the character it should still cause a decrease in demand, lowering the going price even more.

I don't think I'd really find much use from a mobile S@H. But you know what I would like? An app that recreates the functionality of those Augmented Reality screens in Lego stores. You know, the ones that let you look at what select sets (primarily City and Star Wars) look like out of the box, simply by holding up the box in front of the camera. That would be a natural fit for smartphones, and would probably be well-received by retailers who carry Lego products, as well as consumers.

Pun intended? Anyway, I personally think that design-wise, the nighttime setting is a great way to differentiate this year's sets on store shelves. It also makes a lot of the sets make more sense, particularly the museum heist, which would look a little ridiculous in broad daylight.

Scarox is definitely gold. The only darker yellows I can think of that Lego currently uses are Flame Yellowish Orange (Keetorange) and, to a lesser extent, Sand Yellow (Dark Tan). And Scarox doesn't really match either of those. And personally, I'm quite happy with them including more recolors than new molds in terms of armor designs for the heroes. In Bionicle you could never really count on an armor piece ever appearing again after the year of its debut, let alone in a new color. With Hero Factory, whether parts will come out in a desired color has often been not a matter of if, but of when.

I don't think the hair is new. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be just regular tan, in which case it's the same as the hair of the Collectible Minifigures Race Car Driver. Still, such a glaring inaccuracy in the exclusive minifigure makes the preorder slightly less enticing, even if I can use it to make a fully-accurate version. If I had to speculate why the hair is wrong, I'd guess that some issue may have arisen like with the non-chromed PotC gold pieces, where Lego was unable to produce the necessary parts in time, so they used what they could. If the preorder minifig is available for the 3DS version, I'll still probably preorder it. But if it turns out it's only for the Wii U version, then rather than going with my original plan of preordering the Wii U version and just holding it until I actually get a Wii U, I might just buy the 3DS version and get the Chase McCain fig from next year's sets.

You're not alone. I was a little disappointed that Sting didn't glow in the original LotR wave, seeing as they had just introduced what is so far their best glow-in-the-dark color yet. As ZCerberus pointed out, though, color would be an issue. I wonder whether that could be solved (at least partially) by blending it with another color, like in the Prince of Persia Dagger of Time piece. But making that piece blendable would probably require a whole new mold, so it's still unlikely.

I used to have that problem. Now I either use LDD to plan MOCs or limit myself to parts from only a few sets so that it doesn't affect me as much anymore.

Apply Occam's Razor. If it looks like a drill, and it works like a drill, it's probably a drill. Lego has many molds currently in production which would be ideal for a gatling gun, so I doubt they would make a gatling gun out of an obvious drill piece out of laziness. Plus, a drill would fit in with the other heroes, who all seem to have melee weapons of some sort (Breez's weapon could possibly be a bow, but even then I doubt those spikes are purely for show).

I think many of those inconsistencies have nothing to do with any disconnect between the show and the sets, and have more to do with what will sell better. For instance, Pythor makes the USR a much more desirable set, since there's only one fig exclusive to it. So why not use a must-have fig like him, to make sure kids buy it? After all, the only antagonist of the USR was the Devourer, which fits better in the set with the Ultra Dragon. In the case of Samurai X, perhaps focus groups just reacted poorly to the masked version. The Kendo ninja make sense in the Bounty because they only appear in one scene of the show, and that setting had already been made into a set. So instead the Kendo Ninja were shunted in whereever they fit, and the Bounty was the closest thing to the dojo released this year. I think for non-licensed themes (even ones with a TV show attached), the distribution of content among sets is according to sales potential rather than on recreating particular scenes from the story.

Actually, it was the Spinjitzu Dojo that burned down (and that happened like a year after it was introduced as a set). Nothing at all happened to the Fire Temple. And personally, I don't mind that Ninjago's story ties up loose ends like that. Eliminating things like the Spinjitzu Dojo or the Serpentine helps to keep the story from stagnating by focusing too much on old settings or characters. By the time the Serpentine were sealed away again, they had basically just become comic relief anyway. By giving them a sort of karmic retribution, they're given a fitting end instead of becoming background characters like Nuckal and Kruncha. Besides, many Lego fans will buy sets because they're cool, whether or not they're relevant to the story as it stands currently.

I wouldn't agree about it being the best episode of the season. The last episode was stunning, but I think this one fell apart shortly after the ninja went to sea. The farewell scene was epic, but Zane's dad (does he really have a name?) spent way too much time expositing to try and justify the out-of-left-field reveal that he was in fact alive. Don't get me wrong, I love him as a character, but I think his return either should have been handled better (Why did Samukai feel the need to revive him? Doesn't the skeleton army prove that he could be just as useful to them dead? Couldn't the ninja have rescued him from the Underworld anyway the way they rescued Sensei Wu?), or not done at all. From this point forward, though, I agree with Wall E2624 that he'll have a hand in designing the new ninja vehicles.

Not to mention that that effect was used in the original theme those mountain/ice pieces originated in, Alpha Team.

Do you mean pre-2012? Because this year's sets had some of the most complex functions I've seen in any theme. The transforming functions of the Storm Fighter, Blade Cycle, Tread Assault, and Destiny's Bounty were all quite unique, and the Ultra Dragon's flapping wings are worthy of a mention as well-- seeing them in action cemented that set as the must-get set of 2012 for me!

The original Lobot had his electronic brain thing printed on the back of his head, but not the sides. The new one is the first one to be printed all the way around the head. I also wonder why they didn't do this for Bane, but part of it may be that they just don't have enough machines capable of printing the full head to produce enough parts for this set. After all, I believe the Star Wars planet sets are done in limited production runs like the collectable minifigures or Ninjago spinners and booster packs. This set is probably going to have massive demand, and it could be that to satisfy that demand, they were forced to skimp on the full-head printing.

Where in my post did I say using tactical vest pieces would be expensive? I only a) pointed out that they don't need to make a new piece for it, since a suitable piece exists, and b) explained how they probably had good reasons not to include such pieces, unrelated to price. Personally, I'm glad the vest is printed, since I think the way the vest piece raises up the head without covering the shoulders looks fairly ugly, and doesn't work well without at least a large helmet like the Power Miners had in their second year. Regarding price, I think the museum set will be a good value for its cost. We don't know the prices of any of these sets yet, but the set seems to feature a lot for what doesn't look more expensive than $80. A museum facade, two decent-sized vans, and a helicopter? I'm on board for that. Yeah, the museum building itself is small, but it's Lego, and as such it looks like it'd be easy to mod to make it bigger.

Dang. I'd tried making the mecha tank on LDD and never got it to work the way I wanted. But yours looks fantastic! Well done!

Is that sarcasm? Your existing collection is worth exactly as much as it was before these sets were revealed.