fhomess

I can't find what you must be referring to. Can you clarify?

Personally, I never like the raised baseplate. It always felt like a cheap alternative to building up the castle with actual bricks.

The camper guy with the apron looks like he's from Office Space.

Awesome work, everyone. I know this is the first place I come for reviews of new sets.

The escalator in GE is temporarily stairs as the very small sign indicates:

It's called capitalism. If they want to keep the prices at retail, keep producing the sets. I'd love to get Cafe Corner and Green Grocer for the original prices.

On each side of the windows it looks like 3 1x2 rail plates attached to a 1x3 brick (top), 1x2 brick (middle), and 1x2 brick on its side (bottom). The studs are facing out and a 1x6 tile is holding them all together on their stud side. The 1x2 on its side is then attached on the inside to something that looks like a headlight brick without the foot at the bottom. Otherwise, the brown plates that make up the window bench can't sit there. I've just never heard of such a part and it would seem a strange brick to add, but that's my best guess after trying it out. It would also mean that the 1x2 at the bottom is the only thing holding those walls in place other than the frame around them. I'd find that hard to believe, too, as that seems kind of weak, but I can't figure what else it looks like. That dang table and stool are in the way!

1 point all around: 9. Oscar Meyer Wiener by Wachutu Chief (1 vote) 23. Piston Bully by Dr Spock (1 vote) 43. Yellow Submarine by Sebeusl (1 vote) 63. Hippie Bumper Car by Ondrej (1 vote) 100. Chia Van by Brick Laboratory (1 vote) 112. Invisible Campber by Dr Spock (1 vote) 135. Barbecue the Happy Camper by across waves (1 vote) 160. Friendly Butterfly Camper by Kristel (1 vote) 175. Steampunk Camper by aditayam (1 vote)

An updated TV van would be great addition, and it's easy to see how a kid might want to have news footage of the fires and arrests going on in their city. I think a skating park would be cool and doesn't have to be that big. Could be a $30 set with just a ramp and rail or two and a couple skateboarders. I'd love to see another racing set. I played so much with 6381 Motor Speedway and longed for 6395 Victory Lap Speedway.

I hope to buy two of this set, then MOD the second one such that it's a mirror image of the first. Change the color of the second one and put a clothing boutique on the bottom floor with a coffee or ice cream shop upstairs and you've got a nice counterbalance that lets the upstairs seating shine.

I'm not sure that's the safest place for the chicken suit guy to be standing...

No, those are all standard pieces. I'm not sure which one you're asking about. The diagonal bar is held in place with this in white (new color, perhaps). The top of the vertical mast looks like a light saber holder.

I thought it was a squirrel right away. The arm as the tail looks great from this angle.

I saw the Winter Village Cottage at my local Lego Store yesterday.

Chicago's a great city. My wife is from there so I've spent a lot of time there. Uh huh.

Wow. Who knew that EB Mafia success could actually lead to employment with the real mob!

I recently purchased this set and it exceeded my expectations. The main thing for me is that the gatehouse is brick built with no wall panels. The largest components are the gate and the jail cell door. There are a number of arches and masonry bricks. The little catapult is easily replaced as just a window. The dragon catapult is possibly one of the worst I've seen lego produce, but the parts are all useful. I think kids can have a lot of fun with a set like this, but for AFOL's, think of it as an army builder/castle parts pack and you'll be pretty happy with it. As for the color schemes, I find the colors to be a bit more muted in real life than in the photos I've seen, both official and unofficial.

Spectacular. Now you just need to build an appropriately sized castle for them to attack.

I really like the idea of using discolor bricks for a ruined building. I like the little picnic area next to it. It really looks like the type of local tourist spot that you find in small towns. I could see this being used on newer buildings that maybe aren't ruined but simply haven't been maintained as well. There are certainly places in this world where upkeep isn't maintained, and buildings much newer than an abbey might also be a good use of them. Eurotrash's MOC's are a good example of this. Another place I've found that discolored white bricks look great was in a locker room shower sceme I built for a mafia game.

I just picked up each of the 4 smaller Castle sets (all but the castle itself). I finally finished building them all today. I think I want some more of the Gatehouse Raid. That's my favorite of the lot with the barding for the red dragon knights and the useful parts throughout the rest of it.

This isn't new. There were all sorts of vehicle only sets back in the 80's and I'm actually happy to see it continue. What I'd like is a more cohesive system to plug them into. As for road baseplate price, I'm reluctant to buy them at $15 a pair. At $10 a pair, I would probably buy them very regularly. There aren't enough cheaper sets, IMO. You can see this across the lines. The $20 great vehicles are cool, but I'd be happier buying more slighly smaller sets around $10. I think Lego has done a good job with the non-emergency subthemes recently. While the miners didn't appeal to me, it was a nice new theme. The farm theme from a few years ago was just before I came out of my dark ages and I'm sad I missed it. I'm undecided on the cargo theme, but will probably pick up one or two of them. The recent plethora of police sets is unprecedented. Police sets are making up about 20% of City sets each of the past 4 years now. Prior to this run, they were over 20% of Town/City only a couple of times since the invention of the minifig. Fire sets have had a similar increase, although they've alwasy been a little behind police sets. It seems like there are more criminals in prison garb than regular citizens these days (almost!). 60053 Race Car - I always like race themes, but would really like another raceway set 60054 Light Repair Truck - Is this to repair streetlights or a repair truck that isn't heavy? The former was done recently in 3179. 60055 Monster Truck - Could be fun/ 60056 Tow Truck - We just had the 60017 flat bed truck, so this is a nice complement. Hopefully, it'll be big enough to tow semi's. 60057 Camper Van - I like the trend towards more outdoorsy things like the forest police and logging. Maybe lego will create a forest scenery pack of some sort? 60058 SUV with Watercraft - I hope it's not another inflatable boat. Either jet skis or a motorboat would be great. 60059 Logging Truck - Awesome 60060 Auto Transporter - I'm a bit nervous about this due to the size, but I love the concept. I expect it'll only be able to carry 4-wide vehicles, which means it'd be nice to have some more of those. 60061 Airport Fire Truck - Not bad, but will it fit with the recent airport sets?

The dirty white bricks make for a really cool texture on the bed cover. Can you show us some additional pics of this house transforming into a giant robot?

I actually still have the sets built from the Mafia game I hosted for another site and could put together a game with it. Only caveat is that I'll be off camping in the woods over Labor Day weekend, so it wouldn't make sense for me to start it before then.

I actually would welcome a new line of intermediary city buildings. Right now, the modular line is gorgeous but it's very expensive for most buyers. The transition from modular buildings to the other buildings in the city line is pretty jarring. There's not much in between. A line of $50 buildings that bridged the gap somehow would really appeal to me. Even if they were a little less detailed, I think that would be fine, since it would be a cheaper way to expand my city and integrate everything together. If one was released annually, 6 months off from the main modular, that would be great.

I was looking at some old sets and remembering back to when I was a kid and thinking that Lego is really missing the boat on this. I strongly feel that having sets come with road baseplates like 6391 Cargo Center, 6393 Big Rig Truck Stop or 6381 Motor Speedway encourages kids to want to buy additional road plates to connect them up. Things like Fire, Police, and Gas stations that have no road plates with them suggest to kids they don't need road plates. The cost of road plates is pretty steep, so starting with a base of nothing coming in sets makes it seem more daunting to get enough together to create a good little city. If road plates aren't selling the way Lego wants them to, then I think the lack of them in City sets is a leading reason. Then, you've got sets like 7642 Garage and 7208 Fire Station with irregular baseplate orientation making it hard for a kid to figure out how they would even fit that in a 32x32 baseplate/roadplate grid. I like these sets a lot, but Lego isn't helping kids see how these sets can be used together by making it harder for them to be compatible with other Lego sets.