Spyderlord

In the last two months I bought several sets after more then a year of no-Lego period: *(9492) TIe Fighter from amazon.de for 35,57 euros *(75017) Battle for Geonosis from amazon.co.uk for 31,47 euros *(75016) Homing Spider Droid from amazon.co.uk for 24,13 euros *(9493) X-Wing from amazon.com for 29,89 euros (50+% off) *(75021) Republic Gunship from amazon.co.uk for 79,98 euros (42% off) *(75004) Z-95 Headhunter from amazon.co.uk for 25 euros (50% off) So, intensive two months but couldn't get past such great offers... I am fortunate to have friends in pretty much every amazon country, so no postage fees either

Euuh, not really, it wouldn't. A few to unconditionals and wealthy AFOLs, yes, but never to a larger audience. You can not market a set like that. MF was one of a kind, and more like a demonstration of power after a rough patch TLG hit in 2004. And it didn't sell all that quickly. The fact that now it gained a masterpiece status and is coveted from Alaska to New Zealand is hardly relevant for future sales. I think 400 mark is about what we'll be seeing as a top gun in Lego line. That is unless they decide to make something as far-reaching as Death Star, perhaps a huge Cloud City would push through price-wise, but I don't believe we'll ever be seeing a Lego set pushing 500 mark again.

I see what you mean. Though I can hardly imagine TLG releasing a set like that in 50-100 mark range. A re-run or another UCS (or "UCS") like they did with the X-wing - possibly, but I seriously doubt they'll ever release a stand-alone large system set...

Well, the latest snowspeeder was in 2013 with 75014 Battle of Hoth?! You can hardly complain there

I would love an AT-AT in UCS size (around 400 mark), but according to somewhat substantiated rumor from brickset forum, it will be a system scale *sigh*. I really hope we'll end up getting a nice UCS of AT-AT eventually (2015?), because as much as I love cavegod's one, it's a little too expensive. As far as UCS goes, strongest rumors suggest Sandcrawler and Slave I (in May and September respectively). For AT-AT see above Speaking of Ventress, I get a feeling we haven't seen the last of Clone Wars just yet, we may get her in the second wave of 2014 hopefully...

I just discovered this and it is absolutely fantastic ! Thanks so much for sharing the LXF, I look forward to making a diorama recreating the battle of Endor one day with this model of yours.

Wow, lots of posts in one weekend. To close the previous debate from my side, I'd apologize to fellow forumers for steering the discussion off-topic and to few of you who went to somewhat uncalled extra mile in that debate, I'd just say we would have to agree to disagree and leave it at that. By no means I believe anyone here is a lesser person for his/her affinities but I do stand by other enunciated arguments (that means that no, my kid can like Nindroid MechDragon all he likes, there's no way I'm buying him that God-awful set /*slight sarcasm yet...*end> ) Back to the discussion, I feel your pain Klaus-Dieter, hopefully for the Summer Wave TLG would put creative talents back to SW line after The Lego Movie is over and out and send interns to play with some other theme for a change

Tie Interceptor and Tie Bomber are way overdue, and my feeling is we are going to see one of these in the Summer Wave. Better feeling for the former though, consistent with the RoTJ continuity we've been seeing recently. As for the Tie Advanced, I wouldn't hold my breath, I bought the last one mid-2010 (40 euros in Germany), so it is fairly recent.

I'd guess they are more likely legally bound not to "spoil the surprise"

Amen to that Well, it was kind of a logical conclusion based on the posts some informed people made on brickset forum way back. There should be an AT-AT system set and Sandcrawler and Slave I as UCS sets in May and September respectively.

Well, it is your duty as a parent to influence the taste-development of your child. Kids wouldn't be kids if they weren't susceptible to the first flashy thing they see. I am more of an adept of a method where you take time to explain to the kid a shortcoming of a specific set and advantages of others, that's called upbringing. Otherwise your kid grows up to drinking budweiser just because other kids do and preferring going to football matches rather than to opera, theaters or museums. It takes time and a lot of dedication to develop taste for more sophisticated things in your child rather than creating another average consumer. As for your last line, mea culpa, yes I seem to forget it's a kids toy, but that's just because I always considered a SW line with its UCSs (and price premium...) to be more adult-oriented. That is regrettably changing, and unless the trend is reversed and we get more of a Death Star, AT-OT and Battle of Endor sort of sets, and keep getting microfighters, I might just fall back to the dark ages...

Oh, I thought it was a common knowledge by now that it is a Sandcrawler, tired of bringing up arguments from like 10 pages ago...

Funny, I wanted to write exactly the same defense of your post yesterday. The political-correctness zealots are kindly requested give us a break and let us slam TLG especially when there are perfectly valid reasons to slam them. Microfighters are lame, planet series were lame, and you really need to be a blinded fan(atic) to state otherwise especially if you are into Lego for a little while longer then last two years (& are over 21). Both are invented to salvage TLG profits in the midst of a huge economic crisis and are subject to criticism from esthetic, pedagogical, creative and every other point of view. Just how many sets do you need to represent an entry point to Lego? Battle packs in times of normal economy fulfilled that role to the letter for over a decade and there was no need for salvaging profits by introducing low-costers into Lego system line. That said, I completely agree that Microfighters as opposed to the Planets line can be contemplated as a bag of useful parts coupled with an interesting minifigure, it's just that that kind of stunts were usually called polybags or exclusive figures and were distributed as part of marketing strategy, not commercialized for profit. And overall, I am just really curious about the age-distribution statistics on this forum, coz I seriously don't get that of 100 posts, 90% of them are people getting ecstatic regardless of what TLG serves us. One of the forumers summed it in one sentence: The Lego movie is out in February, all the creative talents were dedicated to that project, and it fell to interns to design the SW 2014 Winter wave.

New Palpatine and shock troopers: http://www.hothbricks.com/2013/11/minifigs-star-wars-2014-palpatine-shock-trooper/

Ok, it's official: I have never seen, since my return from the dark ages (2009), a worse, more childish and less inspiring Winter wave of Lego SW. Highly-detailed minifigs aside, this wave seriously degrades the SW line that produced wonders like Battle of Endor, Death Star, Hoth Wampa Cave, Republic Gunship, AAT etc. So much for caring about AFOL community...

It's pretty strange that TLG is still not officially announcing the 2014 Winter wave, it's already November 20th and we still have no high-res pics We should be seeing a preview of sales catalogs with Summer wave sets in few days and still no official announcement for the upcoming wave?! I think we can write off the pre-Christmas release...

Wonderful bomber! Do you have an LDD of it/ feel like sharing it?

I see your point, perhaps a few years from now, when the '90s generation move a bit in their careers. But, I don't know, I'm not a huge fan of PT (blast, I even prefer CW for that matter), but a Jedi Temple is friggin' Jedi Temple. We are talking Taj Mahal of Star Wars. And if Taj Mahal sold in Lego, I can't see why Jedi Temple wouldn't. And IMHO it would put the sales of the Executor to shame (again, it's JEDI Temple ) And no clones, come on Few (many) Council Members? Sorry for double post, I didn't see this. Well, I really don't consider myself rich at all (heck, I'm in very moderate salary range and having expensive hobby ), but with a salary and a little bit of savings for your hobby, 400 mark is not way off-charts like it is for most kids (unless they have SW AFOLs for parents ). Whom was the SSD marketed to in your opinion, speaking of "an awful risk"?

That's why you do not market it to kids. You make a 400$ UCS and market it to the only target group that has the buying power to make it fly off the shelves. And make it fly, they would

No you didn't, this is news and nice news at it . I wonder if a clone like this comes with Tri-fighter or Coruscant Police Gunship...

I wonder what would you call 2009 or 2010 then...

Valid argument ofc, I was just always more brought on logic that figs are great, but Lego isn't Hasbro, and detailed minifigs are a great extra, not an aim in itself. But, don't get me wrong, I fully respect the collector drive. Well, yes and no. It is true that there are more sets, but the upsurge you are talking about occurs mainly in lower-priced category, and that's the issue I'm having with it. First, there was a Planet line few years ago. Needless to say that many people weren't overenthusiastic about it. Now all this microfighters thing and more battle packs then ever. 3 regular ones plus Battle on Saleucami which is supposed to be in Battle of Naboo or Desrt Skiff price range, and what do we get? A speeder, hooray (well and a real hooray from me for introducing a new plant piece that will allow me to finally advance a bit my diorama of Felucia, but that's off-topic). Speeder and this blast-shield or whatever is a shameful lack of content. I would be delighted to see an extra 80-100 set and two extra 100+ sets, but somehow I get the feeling TLG wouldn't really feel like extrapolating its current strategy to these price ranges. Ergo, SW line = more and more kids-oriented . Did I notice like the sixth or seventh Jedi Interceptor, third V-Wing (an extremely prominent vehicle of the SW universe with about 1,5 sec screen time all trilogies confounded), and a droid tri-fighter we had, like, not two years ago? Oh, I noticed them and I better refrain from commenting Kudos only for the Wheel-bike, it was overdue. Oh, I love all things SW, particularly CW, I am not at all the grumpy OT unconditional. This wave isn't a let down because of that, but because of general shift in TLG policy when it comes to this line in particular. Stop paying your engineers and designers to invent 'creative' replacements for flick-fire missiles and put them to designing an Octuptarra droid that wouldn't provoke a massive facepalm when seen under Lego logo. Oh, bad news, it won't be under 20$. Or an AV-7 canon that lends itself to as much similarity with the actual thing from the movie as Ewoks do with the Wookies.

There are few new trends that can be deduced from this new Lego SW lineup. First, economic crisis is beating its best, buying power is at its lowest in years. So much focus on these so-called BPs aka. small sets with figures and random building blocks that don't deserve the name of playsets (Octuppara droid forfeited it) tells you only that Lego puts most focus on the cheapest sets (usually the highest profit margin sets) and count on return on investment through auxiliary buys (the additional box that a grumpy parent puts in its caddy when already at the cashier so he doesn't need to listen to the child's begging and whining anymore, telling himself, ok, it's "only" 15 bucks and the child would be happy). Second, and its ensuing from the logic of the first, Lego shifts focus of the SW line from more AFOL-oriented to exclusively kid-friendly. Another one bites the dust. Therefore, instead of getting more structure sets and faithful display models (and here I'm not talking UCS, mid-scale sets from few years ago were a very nice indicator that Lego catered to its AFOL-community as well) we are getting the bloody pea-shooters as someone here called them. That shift in focus I honestly don't understand, business-wise. Lego SW line has the biggest price premium of all the licensed sets, if I was a parent, I'd be more likely to buy my children larger set from another theme, especially in a period that Star Wars buzz is at its lowest in years (compare to Hobbit, Super Heroes, etc.). So who buys Star Wars in this period (in any period)? Enthusiasts like us. Slightly higher purchasing power than the average kid that's into Lego. And what do they feed us? 'Swooshable' ships? Pea-shooters? Spring shooters? Minifigures for army building? Help me to understand. Especially seeing how everybody is drooling over the minifigs, that are, objectively very detailed and good looking, but wth?! There is like 0.0002% of this community that will use these minifigs for awesome army displays like this one. What about the rest, what's so exciting about having n! minifigures of one kind? While still awaiting Invisible Hand, Separatists Battle-cruiser, C-9979 landing craft (God-forbid Lucrehulk-class), endless great structures and that's without even getting to the famous Cloud City/Mos Eisley OT debate. I just don't seem to follow TLG logic on SW, that's all. It's a 419 euros Death Star that brought me out of my dark ages, not Imperial Dropship battlepack with nice stormtroopers back in the day...

I don't think so. The first thing I mean, I like my old one, not getting philosophical

Oh just few usual angles, I am not that much of a perfectionist Front, front slightly out of axis, canon area, hind legs Thanks!