TeriXeri

It kind of surprises me this is listed to retire at the end of this year currently (not final), and the 3-in-1 Pirate Ship at the end of 2025.

3-in-1 Castle now has an end of life of 2024 on a few listings like Brickmerge, or https://www.brickfanatics.com/every-lego-set-retiring-this-year-and-beyond. Lion Knights and Viking Village listed for 2025.

I think that's pretty standard for unreleased sets, but can be adjusted. Just a handful of Castle / Pirate sets here : Eldorado ~~2024 Lion Knights Castle ~~2025. Viking Village ~~2025 3-in-1 Castle ~~2024 3-in-1 Pirate Ship ~~2025 I tend to follow other sources for End of Life if it's closer to happening, like Brickset I believe gets official info from LEGO, and then updates their site.

That looks quite nice, for a cafe / bakery, reminds me of some of the Creator 3-in-1 alternate builds , just with a different color scheme. (mainly the bakery build from 31105: Townhouse Toy Store with the pillars and awning combo) Same logo as 42606: Mobile Bakery Food Cart , which is consistent. Creator or Friends are really saving the day for City which lacks good bakeries imo, there was this City Donut Shop (duke detain's first appearance), or Bakery in that shopping street (road plates 1st year) but Friends or 3-in-1 just have more charm compared to those simpler , back then, City builds (which I did not get at the time as the sets were packed with vehicles taking like 30-40% of the set content) I mean, 41723: Donut Shop was a 4+ Friends set but for 63 pieces, still very nice starting point for a donut shop build, and 2 dolls, a bird , a unique donut dish print, and unique color of vespa scooter, and those hollow 2x2 printed donut tiles first seen in the 20x more expensive Police Station modular.

In this case, I think at a certain scale / proportions, of the same subject, things will look very similar , and I personally think the little details still look different enough here, and especially since this is based on an existing subject matter, both can exist as they are. In the case of a licensed car like this, I'd probably be happy to see someone make a similar build, and perhaps there's a large chance there's actually little differences that might improve a build, or teach techniques I wouldn't have thought of. Other then that, at smaller scales, LEGO is something like art of intepretation, of how a LEGO part would translate to a certain detail on the real thing, and that can vary a lot per person.

Especially love that pizza store, the size of it also makes it fit in a City style scale, which uses 8x16 modules currently. The large building does look nice too of course , the bar interior is nice, and the upper floor stage is a good size for a place like this.

The only build I remember building is the excavator from book 8888, I did recreate it once, but definately not possible from 1 set. And if you try to be authentic and keep the same color, it's not even possible to make that from pure Technic sets from 1980 or before, as the 8x4 blue plate shown, only released in Technic in 1981, but it was in other sets since 1971. I'm sure the build is doable from sets up to 1980, if all themes are taken into account, but you need a few key sets like 856/951 bulldozer for threads as it was the only place to get them. As for this castle build being possible from 1 set, that's a nice find to see it's an alternative build instead of just an idea. As for actual alternate builds from back of box, I made one from 6078: Royal Drawbridge not too long ago as I found the actual back of box cardboard cutout still in my collection (I keep my old LEGO seperate, and most paper instructions are stored in an old lid box from a train set) , but this website has them too : https://www.backoftheboxbuilds.com/set-6078/ For that set, the back of box builds are actually some more castles compared to the main build being a gate/bridge they kind of remind me of simpler Wolfpack Tower styled builds (never had wolfpack sets myself but similar parts are used)

Another Friends Space set this April ? 42602 Space Research Rover 514 pieces

There seems to be more sets, filling gaps between set numbers. 42602 Space Research Rover 514 pc (April ?) 42618 Heartlake City Cafe 426 pc $29.99 (Summer) 42625 Beach Smoothie Stand 213 pc $19.99 (Summer) Also different sets names , like Archery Range, and Castle Bed and Breakfast. A Castle with Friends interior (bedrooms and dining room I assume) does still sound interesting , I do hope the exterior isn't too colorful but actually Castle like.

Yes it seems like a lot of those subjects from those Capital City, Main Square , Town Centre sets are re-appearing in other sets. 2015 City Square : Yellow Truck + possibly LEGO store? (2024) , Tram (2024) 2018 Capital City : Tourist Bus (2024), Mobile Crane (2022+2024) , Hotel (2023) , Skate Park (2021 + 2023) 2020 Main Square : Park (2022) , Burger Stand (2024) , Tram (2024) 2021 Town Centre : Car Wash (2023), Pizzeria (2023) , Garbage Truck (2023) I left out the police, fire, small cars or tuktuk here as they have been in a few recent park/shop sets, the only vehicle that has not really re-appeared recently is a limo (main square 2020 last), would like to see one as a single set at one point , perhaps if City gets a pop star again, currently covered by Friends this year with sets featuring Ley-La, and Andrea's Mansion. And that's not even considering Friends, which has it's own share of parks, bakery stores/vehicles, pizza sets, stage sets, or skate park in recent years. Bike shops seem to be a recurring subject as well (in both City and Creator) but I think with the amount of bicycles , mountain bikes, and little electro scooters in sets recently (especially in sets like the Skate Park and Ski centre), easy enough to make a custom version for that , as simple as an interior swap on something like a 8x16 module from the 2023 appartment building.

For the Car transport I definately can expect some 8 wide trailer as it allows a lot more cargo (unless it's race Karts, 6 wide cars need to fit), but I hope the truck design is at most 8 wide only via bumper or wheel arches (see Stuntz) , and otherwise just 6 wide 60282: Fire Command Unit , or 60313: Space Ride Amusement Truck were good examples how to keep trucks 6 wide. Yellow truck is probably 6 wide unless they really pack it with 6x6 pallets or something. As for Police command trucks, I don't mind 8 wide as much as they allow a lot more interior, and the 2024 truck looks fairly sleek (low profile wheel arches, no wheels sticking out, and the only other things are some tiles and a handle for a play feature hatch (could be left off for display)), and not nearly as crazy as some Friends truck/bus things at 10+ wide.

Yeah this set uses a lot more pieces then it would need for default display, just for the modularity of the rockwork, and then they decided to use this slope piece a lot more compared to 2-3 high slopes :

667xx are bundles, until they run out of them , it's probably 668xx then 66772 is the last City bundle from 2023. Highest number I could find is 66779: Overworld Adventures Pack (a minecraft bundle)

Yeah that exploration pack is definately more then just a people pack, it has double the parts count, but also cheaper, so while it can still have 4+ minifigs, I hope most parts are actually focused around a larger buildable terrain to explore to make it truly some throwback to classic space which came with crater baseplates. Terrain can be built from some larger plates , and then small bits which explains higher parts count. It could still have a small vehicle, or 2 (like another hoverbike or buggy), I doubt the main build will be a larger vehicle.

Was looking again at the police vehicles for this year, and even the small polybag has red/blue lights now. So I gotta say this overall color scheme to me feels like a hybrid between European (Blue/White with Vibrant Yellow) and California police (or other states that use black/white with red/blue lights) (or in LEGO terms World City or LEGO Movie police color scheme of previous sets)

I mostly wanted this set as my only Pirate Soldiers set ever was 2x Sabre Island (I got a bunch of very small sets and Enchanted Island later, but my only other figure was 1 green armada guy) and came back to LEGO in 2016, and by the time I started looking for other themes to collect , 2015 Pirates were mostly retired already, so Barracuda Bay and this, kind of fills the gap of knowing the 1989 big sets from catalogs, but never having them. I did have a recent MOC of like a bigger Sabre Island on top of a rock Cave but that's disasembled already, with no good pics, but I enjoyed it as practice to make rockwork/plants and a simple yellow/white fort tower.

latest magazine has a mention of the Nightmare King's "Monstrous Fortress" , wonder if that will be a set.

Castle Friends ? that's going to be fun.

If it's a full truck with 3-4 race cars like a remake of a classic, could see it being 1000 pieces, or 2 race cars and a pit stop garage / starting line side build. Basicly an upscaled Town set : Yellow Delivery Truck has to be a modern version of a LEGO branded yellow truck (perhaps even a LEGO exclusive if placement of the set number is anything to go by) Space explorers pack sounds very cool , price wise the same as those missions sets, maybe it's something like that, mixed with a smaller people pack, and parts wise, I do hope the Lab has at least 1 module, if not 2, with 500 pieces its possible.

I agree, the highlight of 2023 for sure was 11030: Lots of Bricks for me (100% basic bricks), and then the pastel/neon versions were nice for their limited color schemes. Now they went back to mixing a lot more colors again, but I also realise that the 2023 sets are still around, so I don't really expect a set like 11030: Lots of Bricks until after it retires. I think the animal set is the most unique , as that's something they haven't done , as it doesn't use the smileys and eye tiles of previous sets, but different prints and parts. The Space Planets set has some glow in the dark pieces which is nice tho.

The thing with Galaxy Explorer or Blacktron , mainly is that those are from a time before any other faces, and only used smileys, so there's no difference between any figure. So basicly you'd end up with orange beards , black moustaches , and basic smileys (as the original set had). It's a very similar situation to what LEGO did with bringing back the 3 Castle factions with Falcons, Lion Knights and Forestmen, the originals mostly used smileys, but also eventually all 3 factions had a set which included a female head or a bearded face (even if in the case of Falcons, it was the other faction in the 1992 set 6057: Sea Serpent) , and forestmen and lion knights had 1 female head each in 1990. But I imagine whatever LEGO did or does, there will probably always be some group that doesn't like a minifig selection, either for gender balance, not being close to the original set, historically accurate, or seeing beards next to smileys as something that leaves out females, or even just being yellow skinned , but I'm not going to take sides here, those are pure theoretical examples.

Not much discussion here, but looks like there will be 3 sets for summer. Sounds a bit like a wave of very succesful and returning subjects, especially the Sea Creatures and Dinosaur set from 2017 and 2019 are still not retired currently. - Sea Creatures (31088: Deep Sea Creatures is still sold since 2019! ) - T-Rex (31058: Mighty Dinosaurs is still sold since 2017!!!) - Modern Beach House (and 31118: Surfer Beach House just retired after 3 full years). Beach houses can have very interesting alternate builds (5 beach house sets since 2008 + 5 more beach related sets with alternate builds of beaches , + lighthouse/alternate lighthouse builds) So only 1 new minifig set for 2024, but some other minifig sets are still around from previous years (all of 2023, and then the Castle and Pirate ship) (and many other non minifig sets from 2022 (Jet , Tiger, Robot , Owl)) Overall I don't think less minifig sets means they are doing bad, or ending, I think they just take into account themes like City/Friends etc, which don't offer buildable objects/animals, and Icons/IDEAS/ART tend to go for larger / AFOL / licensed subjects without 3-in-1. I think once some of the larger sets retire, there will be interesting times ahead to see what will come after for minifigs, and yes that includes a 3-in-1 minifig "retro / sci-fi " Space set I still hope will arrive in 2025.

While I have noticed that City Fire and Police use trans-clear now for the windows of both buildings and vehicles, I have not realized it has not been since like the 1985 when it was the primary window color. 1985 Fire station was the last Fire station until 2024 , and now the Police Prison uses clear windows again as well , last seen in 1993 Police Station) , for vehicles, it changed pretty much since 1986 with a few exceptions like a 1988 fire car. (and then a short period of trans-dark green police , followed by trans-brown police and fire) Medical vehicles still use trans-light blue (exception for the GWP off-road vehicle last year), but I think it still fits with the color scheme of Teal and larger vibrant yellow parts. I assume the main reason is the retirement of what was called trans-black before (or trans-brown), replaced by the darker(bluish) variant seen in the 2024 Space sets. And there's still an option to have some undercover type of car with full black windscreen with the piece found in the road roller (4x5x1 sloped windscreen), or burger truck (1x6x3 rounded flat windscreen panel) Undercover bus , or car : LEGO actually has used full blackened windows for the passenger in Limo in 3222: Helicopter and Limousine but that was way back in 2010

Somehow a user can be immune to the ignore list? (not talking about Admins/Moderators/Special Titles) "You are not allowed to ignore that member."

Yeah, I have a spare tile from the 2019 space set (lunar station), maybe I'll give one of those little robots the little face. And there's a cheese slope with eyes as well from the 2022 City Mars Mission spacecraft set (1+1 spare)