Alexandrina

Plus it's not like we aren't all going to spend stupid amounts on PaB buying more soldiers anyway. My pirates will probably be outnumbered 20 to 1 by the end of the year, so they'll have no chance!

I get that totally and agree - just don't think female soldiers is a bad thing. Soldiers are essentially just the same minifig with different faces, and having them be a mix of male and female is no issue whatsoever as they're generic at their core. But this isn't happening. Not now, at least. Pirates as a classic theme has been dead for twenty-six years (the revivals don't include the same characters). Sets coming out now don't in any way negate sets released in the Golden Age, and the Eldorado Fortress rerelease isn't making this old supplemental material be forgotten any more than a quarter-century of mothballing has.

Yeah, I'd argue that Broadside is the notable minifigure on the good guys' side in early Pirates. (In the same way, Colonel Jefferson is the head of the Western cavalry, but if the rest of the soldiers have names we don't need to know what they are). I think that complaints about Broadside not being included are distinct from complains about 'female soldiers' (which I'm not accusing you of, btw) - Broadside's replacement is very distinctly a male minifigure.

This is true (and it's always good to see new female pirates) but it's not - or shouldn't be - a zero-sum game. Minifigures of any gender shouldn't be loaded heavily onto one 'side' of a theme; there's room for female pirates but there can and should also be female soldiers. Eldorado as a set doesn't have lots of pirates full stop, though - which makes sense because it's a soldiers' base. Hopefully we'll get another set soon with more pirates, both male and female.

The people arguing that Lego including female soldiers is a bad thing because it's taking the place of the original minifigures from 6276 are indirectly arguing for only using original minifigures. This is just gatekeeping to an absurd degree. Just because you don't know the name of old characters doesn't mean you're not a big fan. On top of that, lots of those who do know who the characters are won't be fussed about whether they're updated or not. (And every source I can find says that the Lieutenant was never actually included in any set. Certainly the scans of the comic bear no resemblance to the officer actually included in the original 6276). Yeah, my ire is not aimed at people who would have liked to see those characters but don't see it as the end of the world. What bothers me more is people acting like not including the original characters is a cardinal sin, because the actual minifigures happen to be female. (It is interesting that nobody complained about Tattooga in Barracuda Bay, who was not in the original set but is a modernisation of a figure from different Pirate sets) I'm not saying you're wrong here - I've never held the box myself - but do you happen to have any images on hand? All the ones I can find on Google are too low-res to actually read the text.

Much prefer having the money go to plumes. Leg prints are never good. I'd go so far as to say I'd accept no plumes if it meant having unprinted legs.

The fact of the matter is, LOTS of people (including almost every kid currently buying Lego, and a large swathe of AFOLs) has got literally no idea who Anne Anchor or Camilla or Lieutenant de Martinet is. These are characters only ever identified in an obscure comic from thirty-four years ago, which the vast majority of the buying audience won't have even heard of, let alone read. The original set includes eight minifigures: Captain Redbeard, a pirate with a red vest, a Governor, an Officer, and four soldiers (all of whom were generic smileys, so were not explicitly male or female). Of those eight, we have the pirate with a red vest, the Governor, the Officer and four soldiers (not given generic smileys this time as they'd look out of place with the rest). The only minifigure from the original set not directly modernised here is Captain Redbeard, who we had in Barracuda Bay. When there's a full range of sets, you expect the main cast to be repeated at times. When the theme consists of a big set every few years, you don't really want duplicate minifigures (especially since, let's be real, all the people so irate at the figure selection have Redbeards galore). Instead of him we get a female pirate. I'm not sure why you've put equality in inverted commas as if it's somehow a bad thing. This is a kid's toy. Boys and girls alike play with Lego, and I fail to see how there is any problem with putting a mix of male and female figures in a set. If you limit yourself to only replicating the explicitly female minifigures of the original themes' runs, you're just going to replicate the same poor disparity. In the entire Pirates I line, there are five distinct minifigures - two female islanders, with and without a quiver; and three red-bodiced pirates, with varying leg and bandana colours. Fundamentally there are two minifigures. Islanders are never coming back for obvious reasons, so a rigid adherence to the 80s and 90s run would allow for exactly one female minifigure in the whole pirates line. (In fact, the other themes aren't much better. Castle had a few maidens in the 80s but the only female Castle minifigure introduced in the 90s was the Fright Knights witch. Space is even worse - Doctor Kelvin from Ice Planet is the only female minifigure other than aliens and a rare polybag exclusive until 2009(!!). There were no female Western minifigures. No Time Cruisers minifigures. No Aquazone minifigures even if you include the 2007 reboot. The only theme where there was even moderately good female representation in the 90s was Town, and even there it paled in comparison to male representation - outwith Paradisa, there was exactly one explicitly female face print in Town sets prior to 1999, and even that has 66% of its total 90s appearances in 1997 or later. Lego is inherently unreal. It's a vessel for kids' play at its core, and fixating on female soldiers as the breaking point for historical accuracy over the myriad other concessions Lego makes to playability is just weird tbh.

Thanks, that's exactly the info I was looking for! I'm sure if I dug deep enough I could find Lugnet discussions from the time but that site is about as easy for me to navigate as Coventry city centre I'd hope if they ever discontinued a popular colour in the future they'd do something similar. Yes, we have PaB now but anyone who's tried to get Lion Knights or tan horses knows how easily Lego run out of stock of popular stuff!

This is a big one for me. The original only having a rowboat feels out of place, almost comical - how is he ever going to catch up to the boat which has two people who could row together? I get why it existed and especially when combined with other sets on the market at the time it's not an issue, but on its own it felt weird.

We do get a bigger set, though - whatever the method they used to decide how big this set would be, we're getting plenty of pieces for our money.

This set is a beaut. Day one purchase for me, and I rarely buy on day one. It'll also probably be a day one build, even though I have a hefty backlog - I want to have it built before the original is dismantled, to have the two side by side. Slightly sad I took apart my Barracuda Bay last year, would have been nice to have the two both built.

Possible. It might also be a factor that I've never bought a job lot specifically because I could see pirate bricks in there (and don't go for the really huge lots as I don't have the income to drop several hundred pounds on what effectively is speculation). I have a stupid high hit-rate for getting significantly more than I paid for in terms of market rate, which I do by being selective with what joblots I even go in for and usually browsing Marketplace listings where the seller clearly doesn't know what they have. I would love to find one of the ships (or even just a hull piece!)

I wish!! In sixteen vintage lots in the last three years, the only Pirate stuff I've found has been a pirate minifigure, an armless bluecoat torso and two Islander catamarans without the stickers (and 2/3 of a Jack Stone pirate set but the less said about that the better!)

I mean, there's no need to be rude. The discussion literally started with somebody mentioning Soldiers' Arsenal, and several other people discussing that set and others like it. In fact, that's what the discussion was about when you said it was cheaper to PaB it. You'll forgive me for assuming that it was fair cop to compare the literal set being discussed to the parts you say it's cheaper to buy via PaB. Lol, somehow I'd never seen this one before! Now I'm imagining some poor Imperial Guard being propelled at high speed from the simple physics of firing a cannon from a rowboat. A primitive motor, maybe.

Oh wow I like this! Are those Belville/Scala lamps I see being used as roofs?

While this is true, a polybag/small set which contains just a knight and a small build (equivalent to Soldier's Arsenal), would probably include a shield. In fact the Castle equivalent set from the same period 5615 included a shield, sword, pike, armour and two helmets, for an even lower price. (£1.99) It's also unfair to compare current polybag prices, given that part of the issue is that these truly cheap sets aren't made nowadays - if they were, they would be the cheapest way to army build. I just looked for polybags released this year that weren't magazine exclusives (as those are more expensive thanks to the magazine) and for instance set 30651 includes a minifigure and 50 pieces. A set that size in the 2009 wave where Soldier's Arsenal was released would be between Cannon Battle and Kraken Attackin; the cheapest sets are more expensive now because the old cheapest sets don't exist any more.

Is it that much cheaper than something like the Soldier's Arsenal set, which retailed for £2.50 and included a soldier and some accessories. There are no soldiers on PaB at the moment (yet!) but if we compare it to the cost of a Lion Knight on PaB (specifically, cas567 with accessories). - Torso: £0.83 - Legs: £0.47 - Head: £0.23 (your pick of several appropriate heads) - Helmet: £0.18 - Shield: £1.12 - Sword: £0.17 - Helmet Plume: £0.14 That comes to £3.14 altogether. These sets usually include a build as well with some extra bricks that are nice to have, and there'd probably be either an extra weapon (halberd?) or helmet. Now sure, sets like Soldier's Arsenal would be more expensive today but it's a comparable price. On top of that, Lego's delivery is £3.95 unless you spend over £50. (In other words, if you only bought the parts to recreate cas567, you'd have to buy thirteen minifigures to reach free delivery). This isn't necessarily an issue for AFOLs who have enough income to afford that, but I think cheaper sets are primarily aimed at kids who can't afford to drop £50 on minifigures. To use a personal anecdote: I was twelve when Soldier's Arsenal came out, and getting £3 a week pocket money. It would have taken me seventeen weeks to reach the free delivery threshold on Lego.com, assuming I spent less than £1 on sweets/drinks/going out with friends/everything during that time. (And had I reached that amount, I'd have been less than a tenner away from buying Brickbeard's Bounty, which is a far better deal than fifteen minifigures). On the other hand, I was able to buy Soldier's Arsenal easily. (Yes, you could buy a smaller number of figs and eat the delivery charge, but that makes the PaB even smaller a saving. The real issue is that sets like that simply aren't made nowadays.) Didn't Disney create Pirates of the Caribbean? Also, I missed the part when they ruined Star Wars.

When did they make a Ninjago app?

Her microphone should be a separate piece. No need to smush it into her face! Sidebar: wasn't there talk a few years ago about Lego making sets based on several famous musicians? That never came to anything, did it?

This just boils down to different people liking different things though (kids included). As a kid I would have hated the top set entirely because of how hideous the green car looks (and also the one figure, but that's just a grudge I have against that hairpiece mould). The bottom set is more likely to have grabbed kid me because of the pirate minifig. (Of course in reality I'd probably have had no interest in either, and as an adult I'll likely just snag that minifig from Bricklink). As a real unpopular opinion it annoys me when minifigures are produced wearing 'unncessary' facial accessories printed on the heads. I don't dislike glasses or the hearing aids that have recently appeared, because they reflect actual necessities for some people - but every time a head has goggles or a microphone printed on, it just feels like a waste of a perfectly good print.

I get that, but Duplo's size is a product of its relation to Lego's size - therefore it isn't necessarily a copy of Kiddicraft so much as it's the size you get when you upscale Lego. Lego's size being a match for Kiddicraft on the other hand would be more significant (sidebar: are they actually an exact match? I've never seen any Kiddicraft in the flesh but the pictures online look deeper than Lego)

Given that Duplo is specifically sized to be compatible with Lego at a larger scale, isn't it just inevitable? Once Lego's size was standardised, Duplo could only ever be one size.

This is probably why Lego don't try to hype up upcoming reveals too much. A remade Imperial Trading Post would be just as awesome and if anyone's too hyped for Eldorado specifically that's not the fault of Lego

Put On Your White Sombrero? In all seriousness I don't know how Playmobil does their sets. Do they tend to do themes in the way Lego does - with smaller sets, midrange sets and a few big ones - or do they do lots of smaller sets? Maybe it would be possible to do a wave of historical sets, or a theme devoted to different historical periods. My worry would be that you don't have to go very far with any of these periods before you run out of set ideas which would appeal to a wide enough audience. Western is my most-desired returning Lego theme so I would be very curous to know how well the Playmobil stuff is selling relative to their other themes.

I'd guess they can argue plausible deniability though. The redcoats and bluecoats are never explicitly identified as the British and French armies respectively (afaik) and the torsos don't appear to be exact 1:1 matches of any historical uniforms. They're just using the aesthetics of the time period, much in the same way that say the Black Falcons are using Medieval aesthetics without being tied to a specific historical army. (I don't know so much about the Spanish armada sets, but since they date back to the 90s and haven't been brought back I don't think that has too much bearing on Lego's decision making today) The thing with these is how successful would they really be? Unless you're taking the aesthetics and vibe and making an action theme around them, will there be much appeal to kids? I know in the UK at least ancient Greece isn't taught at all, and Egypt is taught at a young enough age that you get a sanitised, potted history; the risk for both of these is that making historically accurate sets would lead to something kids don't know enough about to relate to, and taking historical liberties would open Lego up to the same criticism as making Temple of Doom sets. The Romans are more well-known but again, you don't have to go very far before you run out of things which are going to appeal to kids but that are also Lego-appropriate. Stuff like the Colosseum and the Pyramids are already being made anyway as large sets. Sure, Lego could do stuff like chariots but even things like gladiator fights would be tough to justify without sanitising massively. I'd love a theme like this, just like you, but I struggle to see how viable it is. We've already seen Lego's attempts at full-fledged wild west and viking themes lasting just a short time.