Runamuck

Sorry for bumping…..again, but since the new Pirates of the Caribbean sets are getting closer to release I thought it might be an idea to add some of the named pirates we have seen so far. Captain Jack Sparrow Elizabeth Swann Captain Hector Barbossa William Turner Jr. James Norrington (no rank since the figure represents his “bum” period) Hadras (the fish man with the seashell on his head) Joshamee Gibbs (it looks like him at least) Blackbeard a.k.a. Edward Thatch/Teach Angelica (using the POTC wiki a bit) There are other figures, but I haven’t seen any sources for what their names might be and none of the pictures I have seen of the LEGO set boxes have had their names in a readable size.

The poll says that the old Imperial Flagship and Armada Flagship don't have any figureheads, but to me it looks like they actually have some brick build ones. The Armada Flagship has a lion's head, I think, and the Imperial Flagship has a bull's head. But if you don't like them you could always call it a load of bull.

Since the very first post suggests a battle between the two let’s make some comparisons. Armament: The Black Seas Barracuda has 4 cannons set up in permanent positions with two pointing out to each broadside. The Skull’s Eye Schooner has 4 large cannon that can be positioned on one broadside or the other all at once. Additionally the Skull’s Eye has 2 deck guns and 2 smaller cannons. Crew: The BSB has 8 pirates. The SES has 9 pirates. Speed: I know very little about how ships work, but I’m trying to go with some kind of logic perspective. The BSB has 5 sails and a “weight” of 906-909 pieces. The SES has 6 sails, some of which are slightly larger than the ones on the BSB, and a “weight” of 912 pieces. Since the “weight” is almost identical I assume that the larger number of sails would make the SES slightly faster. The Skull’s Eye Schooner has the Black Seas Barracuda outgunned, outnumbered and maybe outmanoeuvred, so I guess that the Skull’s eye would win.

A battle between the Black Seas Barracuda and Brickbeard’s Bounty would be a rather interesting comparison. Armament: The Black Seas Baracuda has 4 cannons set up in permanent positions with two pointing out to each broadside. I assume each cannon has 6 cannon balls. Brickbeard’s Bounty only has 3 cannons in total, but than point more cannons out to one side at once than the Barracuda can. The Bounty also has 2 deck guns. Unfortunately the ship only has 2-3 cannon balls for each cannon. Crew: The BSB has 8 pirates. The BB only has 4 pirates though the set has 8 figures (2 soldiers, 1 girl and 1 figurehead) Speed: I know very little about how ships work, but I’m trying to go with some kind of logic perspective. The BSB has 5 sails and a “weight” of 906-909 pieces. BB has 5 sails of a size that’s very similar to the BSB, but it only has a “weight” of 592 pieces. I guess that the weight difference would make BB significantly faster. I assume the BSB would win due to the larger amount of pirates and cannonballs, but at least I guess that BB could run away from the BSB. Oh and the boat with the 2 soldiers and 1 deck gun is probably little more than a speed bump for any of the ships.

Those 1x8 tiles with Octane stickers look a lot like those on 6515. http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=6515-1 I should know that, my brother and I have 4 of those things in total.

Just form a pure mathematical point I doubt that this would work, I mean the shelves with the platform it is standing on is 14 studs wide, and the standard big ship-hull is 12 studs at it's widest point. Although most picture I have seen aren't particularly good for judging this I doubt that the cabin will be deep enough to have it standing along one of the sides. It might fit if you remove the plates it is standing on and switch the 1x4 slopes for some 1x1 bricks, a 6-8 studs wide shelf should be possible to fit in. I don't know how well the skeleton leg table would align with studs, but there is some wiggle room. The globe does not look like it could attach to a plate unless you extend the golden "pole" in the center.

I just wanted to point out that the cannon system problem wasn't anything particularly new. Nor do I think that it's particularly good, while I do have a soft spot for the RBR, the cannon system only gets the job done on the most basic level and nothing more. In general I guess I have lower standards than some people. Although if you compare it to say the Indiana Jones sets it could be a little better, but it is quite similar to traditional pirates theme.

My town mostly consists of sets, from the 70's up until today, but when I do build houses myself they tend to look rather 80's. I build them on the sidewalks on the road plates with open backs so I can use them for more than just facades. The 80's style is rather easy to learn and imitate. In fact my houses tend to look rather 80's like no matter if I'm building town, castle or pirates.

Since most of the buzz is about the Queen Anne’s Revenge I would like to add my thoughts into the mix. The ship looks like a quite interesting ship to me, but it does have its pros and cons. Many of the flaws that people point out are nothing that hasn’t been seen before on other ships. People mention the lack of a deck, but among LEGO pirate ships it’s actually far more common not to have a deck rather than have one. The cannon system without wheels is rather similar to that on the Red Beard Runner. The cabin is apparently open with no doors and rather small, which seems rather similar to that on the Caribbean Clipper. I assume that sets are created with a balance between looks, cost and playability. A deck could limit playability a bit because most cannon systems requites the cannons to be moved. The deck might limit access to the lower floor if it is non-removable. The masts and sails can already be limiting the access, so a deck might make cannon movement even harder. There are also some other complains and some personal ones that I would like to add. The inaccurate flag is a bit odd, but nothing that can’t be fixed with 10min work on a computer. I’m a bit disappointed that 2 of the cannon ports on the side appear to only be there for show, but I have also heard that scare tactics like that were used in real life. I hope that the will be 4 cannons, but most pictures only show 3. On the positive side I also have a few things to say. 7 figures seem like a good number for a ship of this size. I prefer the old types of masts, but the parts that are used for keeping up the sails seem to be an improvement over the ones used on Brickbeards Bounty, castle the skeleton ship and troll warship. The figurehead looks really neat. The ship actually has an anchor too. The general level of detail is amazing to me at least.

Personally I have always preferred the cannon setup type on the SES. Perhaps it’s something about realism/partial look vs. playability/functionality, as I have always enjoyed being able to point as many cannons out to one side, and the BSB does as far as I know not have the cannon ports to make this a possibility.

Yes, it sounds rather feasible that they actually didn’t have the final product to work with. Just like with licensed video games it’s often more about release dates than 100% accuracy. I was trying to mostly pick issues that weren’t related to downscaling, up scaling things or adding play features for the sets, hence why it’s mostly continuity. It could maybe be interesting to make similar comparisons between movies and the sets based on them. I mean, stuff like that the Indiana Jones Shanghai Chase includes the diamond that was lost in the club earlier or other oddities like why the Cairo swordsman uses a troll sword rather than the much more appropriate scimitar that already existed.

Ok, so I have just seen the movie on DVD, and I’m sorry if there is already a thread about this somewhere. Mostly picked this movie up out of curiosity and because I had already bought the LEGO sets because I thought they would be useful for multiple themes. I like the movie, there is nothing too overly stupid in it for me, nothing intriguing or special, but a nice movie in my opinion. But I have a few thoughts on the LEGO sets after seeing it. Mostly I think that the continuity is a bit messed up in most of the sets, and Dastan’s wardrobe could be a little different. If they had created a west and white shirt for him he could use it if most of the sets. So, going by rough order of continuity of the movie, spoilers will probably show up: The fight for the dagger One of the sets with only few continuity problems. I think that a couple or Alamut guards would fit better with the scene than the merchant and camel, but the merchant is a rather useful thing. I don’t remember Asoka, the guy with the time dagger, looking all that fancy in the movie compared to his figure. Dastan’s clothes actually fit the scene. The ostrich race Why does Dastan not wear a shirt? The bare-chested torso is useful though. It could use another ostrich rider because Dastan doesn’t ride one in the movie. Also the weapons are oddly enough freely accessible compared to the scene in the movie. Some of the problems could though be explained by keeping a price point. Desert attack Very messy continuity here. With the skeleton it looks more like the entrance to the valley of the slaves, but the Hassansins ambush fits better with the scene at the temple. Also switching the Hassansins with those from 7573 would make a lot more sense. Battle of Alamut As I mentioned earlier I think the Hassansins from 7569 fit better, the sword guy died earlier from a knife to the forehead, and I don’t think the claw and blade guy was seen again after the temple ambush. The axe guy and the arrow guy would fit the scenes much better. The arrow cart seems to fit much better with the attack in the start of the movie (we see some flying fireballs), than the part where they are digging for the sands of time. Why is Seso, the knife thrower, equipped with a sword rather than a knife? I guess it’s a really big knife. Also the on the box so called Alamut guards look more like the Persians, rather than the more tan clad guards from the start of the movie, though they were probably replaced by the invaders at this point. Quest against time The second half is pure Prince of Persia, but the first half is more like some leftover from the Indiana Jones design group. I guess that is to make it more interesting and bigger. The snake Hassansin looks freakier as a LEGO figure than he does in the movie. Judging from the figure I thought he was blind, and not just had some very pale blue eyes. It’s not really that I’m complaining about the sets, they are very fine in my opinion. I just think that some of these things are a bit odd. Most other movie lines don’t make continuity messes, I think. They got almost all the Hassansins, but missed the whip and bomb guys. In general the figures are rather good.

Ok, lets take a little look on what we have in this wave. Royal guard A bit disappointed, I was hoping for a Danish one, although it would mostly mean blue pants instead of black. Ice fisher New hood I guess. Looks fine, but nothing too special. Boxer Cool. Girl with boom box Great….another “Flash dance” reference. Gladiator Awesome figure form what I can see, he just needs an opponent. Gangster Loving him, nice “violin” case. Snowboarder Ugh, can’t we for once have a wave without someone with a board (skateboard, surfboard or snowboard). Dwarf He’s going to fit right in with the others. Monkey trainer Nice, a new monkey mould. Clown A nice match for the old one. About time that LEGO created a bowler hat. Nice pie too. Sherlock Holmes Really neat Lumberjack? A LEGO hillbilly? Cave woman A good match for the old cave man, reminds me of Pebbles from the Flintstones. Rubber suit monster Now we just need a camera crew to film Godzilla vs. King Kong. Graduate Kind of neat, but a bit of an odd choice. Cleopatra A good match for the old Pharaoh.

Since the title of the thread also suggests worst set ideas, and I haven't really seen any so far, I'll come with one. Life sized ultimate collectors Jar of Dirt! Although that might actually have some fans due to the sheer goofiness.

If you want a really big officially released castle you can combine a few sets to make a really big one. Combining http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=6073-1 http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=6061-1 http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=6074-1 http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=6062-1 And maybe http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=6040-1 http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=6041-1 http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=6067-1 That should make one quite impressive castle, but it is definitely not an easy or a cheap option.

OK, so this clears out a few things. The girl form the flagship is the captain’s daughter (despite the wrinkles around her eyes). Where did Brickwiki get admiral from? It is good to see the picture from the LEGO Battles game. Another thing is that the Camilla figure does not look exactly like the girl from the flagship or the one from Brickbeard’s Bounty. A full body picture would be better for identification, but I assume it’s her standing in the background with a sabre. So her figure would more or less be the figure from the Bounty but with brown hair instead. Edit: As confusing as Brickwiki has been earlier it has actually been helpful too. I found the name of the pirate from the LEGO Island game, he is called Captain Click and is apparently a living talking skeleton although he is only heard and not seen in the game. Another Brickwiki thing, the LEGO.com description there says that the girl on Brickbeard's Bounty is the admiral's daughter, that leaves the question of what admiral they are talking about.

I have not been too sure about Brickwiki’s reliability after looking at the article about the female figure from the new Imperial Flagship, it switches back and forth between calling the figure the governor’s daughter or the admiral’s daughter. What is the Talking Skull? Is it that thing that you could win in a contest recently? Ok, so let’s see what I can think up to the Missing Minifigs: Let’s start with a few “improved figures”, it’s more or less to make the sand out from the masses and make them a bit more accurate to their comic appearance. Rummy: Replace his head with: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpx9 He does have white hair in the comic. Lt. de Martinet: Replace head with: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpx158 or http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpx166 Just to get the Dick Dastardly look. Flashfork: Blue bandanna Head: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpab he has a brown moustache in the comic. Black and red striped tank top torso to resemble the blue and red striped one he has in the comic. Gray legs Now for those who don’t have any figures: Captain Foul: Black bicorner, dark gray would be closer to the comic but I don’t think that actually exists Head: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpx30 Torso: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/973p3d maybe we should ad one of those new POTC saber holders when we get our claws on them. Orange legs Culverin: Brown tricorner, green would be closer to the comic, but I don’t think it exists. Head: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpx153 Torso: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/973p3c with green arms Green legs Bessie: Red bandanna Head: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpx67 Torso: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/973p38 White legs or maybe a white “dress slope”. The Blackdeed/Blackheart cousins, I don’t know who is John and who is Brian: Brown tricorner, green in the comic. Head: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpx132 Torso: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/973px604 Blue legs Green bandanna, or a cheaper dark green one. Head: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpx133 Torso: A custom sticker and the CMF mime arms would probably be the best solution. Red legs I have no idea what Captain Johan looks like, so I can’t make a parts list for him. Aunti and Camilla: I think the queen from the resent castle advents calendar might work with some new hair, but otherwise I’m a bit clueless on this one. The same cluelessness goes for the comic version of Camilla since there are no brown or tan pigtail hairpieces, otherwise you could use http://peeron.com/inv/parts/973p72 for the torso and some bricks for her sash and the dress. Old Binnacle, I assume, he is not named in the Danish comic: Brown tricorner, green in the comic. Head: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3626bpx34 White wizard of CMF fisherman beard Torso: http://peeron.com/inv/parts/973px519 but with matching dark gray arms. Blue legs with peg leg on the left side, I know he has no peg leg in the comic. Brown stick to represent the crutch. These were the best solutions I could come up with at the moment, and I think that there is room for improvement on some of them. I really need to keep my posts shorter...

Nice to see that the tread lives on, I was considering to bump it with a ”missing minifigs” style guide on how you could build some of the figureless characters. It is good to see some names assigned to the RBR crew, but as far as I can see we are missing two figures (black bandanna, moustache, white shirt with green west and black pants guy and blue bandanna, eye patch, black and red striped tank top and red pants guy). I thought Flashfork had grey pants, oh well. So Uhu is the princess? Odd, the Uhu I know from LEGO Racers is a dude. By the way, is the prince and princess thing form the LEGO Mania Magazines? Sure it is Ben Gunn? On the other hand it can’t be Herman Toothrot, his is wearing pants after all. Scans of books and comics? Now that sounds really interesting.

It is nice to see so many different ideas and impressions of the castle factions. The reason that I call the newest knights generic is that I haven’t formed much of an opinion about them yet, and I only have 4 sets with them yet. I’m not quite sure how to use the elf yet. I only have one, so he might end up hanging out with the Forest-men or the Crown Knights. My brother suggested that he might serve as a kind of forest ranger, a protector of the woods. I didn’t include the Ninjas for two reasons: I don’t really see them as a part of the castle, they are something separate for me, they are from the other end of the world compared to all the other knights. The other reason simply is that the Ninja theme seems to be a true mess when it comes to factions.

I'm aware that the crusader name is a later one, but is is a bit easier to use that than keep track of the 5 different factions that could be meant by saying lion knight. Yes, it is a general stereotype for black knights, but the dragon is often seen as an evil creature. I do actually have a hard time seeing the Black Falcons as particularly evil, as they in Danish just are called Falcon Knights or maybe Eagle Knights. I have a habit of having some factions as archenemies, but otherwise my usual castle setup is relatively peaceful.

I have seen that some people have talked about prints to indicate "curves". Personally I don't mind it, and I think that if you can use lines on the torso to simulate being fat (like the sumo wrestler or the town chef) you can also use line to indicate that the figure is thin. My brother also says that some licensed figures would look kind of strange without the "curves".

I apologize if this has been done before, but I thought it might make an interesting topic. Even without much fictional materials most castle factions still seem to leave some kind of impression. What I’m talking about here is, do you think their rulers may be evil and oppressive or good and benevolent. Are there any special traits that you assign to a certain faction? I’ll go ahead and apologize for the large amounts of text in advance. So let’s start where it all began: Classic Castle: Not too many personality traits, generally friendly I guess. In general they seem to be a collaboration of various noble families. Crusaders or Lion Knights: See this is where it gets interesting. They seem to be oppressors of the Forest-men, but they are also the good guys compared to the Black Falcons (even though it is the Crusaders who have all the siege equipment). Their colours would suggest that they are the good guys as both the colour red and the insignia of the lion would be considered heroic, the peasants also seem to be on their side. Judging from their name they probably have a religious agenda of some sort, I guess they would hate magic, the Vikings, the trolls and the undead. Forest-men: Robin Hood and his merry morons, not much else to say here for me at least. They seem to get along with the peasants very well. Black Falcons: They always struck me as being rather bland in the personality department. Colours and name would suggest that they are evil, but not much else to support that claim. Black knights: They are evil because…..uh…they are the Black Knights? Not much in terms of siege equipment, so they aren’t aggressive. Again evil colours, name and insignia, the evil colours are very apparent as they are the first to use black castles. Wolf Pack: Petty thieves, sneaky, shady, cheating, smuggling thieves. Might be arms dealers too. Dragon Masters or Dragon Knights: First faction to really use magic and fantasy creatures. They fall into an odd time where it seems to be evil against evil. They use less evil colours than the black knights, especially in their insignia. Armour and helmet design seem very foreign compared to earlier castles. They are more clearly evil when clashing with the Royal knights. Royal knights: Basic good guys, very proud and noble. Both colours and insignia are clearly heroic even though they use black castles. Dark Forrest-men: Somewhere in between the old Forest-men and the Wolf Pack in terms of morals. Freedom fighters or petty thieves? Fright Knights or Bat Knights: The first castle faction that is definitely evil, and not in the darker end of neutral. They use dark colours, their insignia is a creature of the night, they use black magic and worst of all their leader frowns! Very thoroughly evil. Seems to take residence in old run down castles and ruins. Basil The Batlord is differently eccentric, judging from his helmet, may even be a vampire. King Leo’s Royal Knights: Generic good guys, has a warrior princes. Bull Knights: An odd faction in the castle line as they have no castle. Evil invaders besieging other castles. They appear to be the first castle faction to really use gunpowder. King Mathias’ knights and later Jayko’s: The only time when the castle faction actually had a proper storyline as far as I know. Fiction explains the individual knight’s personalities and the general nature of the kingdom. Good guys. Shadow Knights or Scorpion Knights and other affiliated mercenaries: Aparantly a bunch of brainwashed fanatics. Kind of hard to take serious if you have played too much Command & Conquer, I mean brainwashed fanatics who wear black and red and use a scorpion as their insignia, they must be the Brotherhood of Nod. History detailed in fiction. Bad Guys. Set 10176 makes no sense. Vikings: I know technically not a castle faction, but I’ll throw them in anyways. Vikings fighting creatures from Norse mythology. Probably the usual pillage and plunder routine towards the other factions. Crown Knights?: Generic good guys who try to survive whatever TLC throws at them. Knights in shining armour. Skeletons: Because their leader looks like Ogel from the old Alpha Team line (and game) I have been using him as a medieval James Bond villain. The “volcano” skull-tower didn’t help that image, come on he is even still trying to create and undead army like Ogel. Dwarves: Your typical fantasy dwarves, probably good guys. Trolls: For the Horde! Like Warcraft 1 and 2 evil orcs (you will not look at the Troll warship the same way again after seeing the WC2 intro). Kingdoms Lion Knights: Generic good guys. Kingdoms Dragon Knights: Generic bad guys. So what personalities do you give the castle factions that you use?

Now that the review has resurfaced I might have a chance to throw in a few comments about the biggest pirate ship I have. I love the Skull’s Eye Schooner. It was THE pirate ship I admired in the catalogues. I did know from pictures that the Black Seas Barracuda did exist, but at the time I though the sails were odd compared to the SES and the Renegade Runner who both had the same types of sails. The review is very informative and illustrative. I agree on most parts. For some funny reason I never liked the figurehead (and it’s even worse on the Red Beard Runner, couldn’t they have used half a skeleton instead?). Personally I think that this is the best battle ship, most cannons that can be pointed out to one side (unless those brick build ones are dummies) and largest crew. We will have to wait and see if Queen Anne’s Revenge can change that opinion; it at least seems to have more cannon ports. I have for some time had the funny idea of giving the big ships different functions. The Black Seas Barracuda is a prestige ship because it looks so good. The Skull’s Eye Schooner is a warship because of its better cannon distribution and large crew. The Red Beard Runner is an old and somewhat battle worn reserve ship that holds some personal value for Captain Roger Redbeard because of the level of customisation.

I have been a bit around today, visited the flea market in Brørup and a big second hand shop in Fredericia where I bought some bags of LEGO. I have been researching the parts and have been capable of building 392-1: Formula 1. It even has some of the stickers. Not too shabby for a start.

It's a Fabuland Garbage bin. http://brickset.com/detail/?Set=3634-1 Peeron calls the can x679 and the lid x680.