jdubbs

There is at least one other guess you got right in your wishlist. How’s that for positivity?

Do you recall the 300 times I said to lower expectations? There are 6 sets in the wave. 4 out of 6 is still a majority.

Finished minifigs were not shown at the European toy fairs (and none are shown in the retail catalog, other than the one set that already leaked) so they are generally unknown at this point. This may change at Toy Fair New York in another week or so. But given the cost-cutting approach LEGO appears to be taking to the Star Wars line lately, I would not get my hopes up for lots of unique clone variations and characters that have never been released before, especially if new molds are required.

What country do you live in? In the US it is listed as out of stock, and has been since Thanksgiving as far as I know.

You're funny. Changed your mind, then? Good.

Thank you. That sounds pretty reliable.

No. You don't get to call me out on something and then expect me not to respond. I don't expect anything of you that I don't do myself. I may not be able to say "X person told me this" or "I saw this, this and that at Toy Fair" but I do differentiate between when I am assuming or guessing at something versus when I have a basis to believe something to be true, which is all I asked you to do. I do apologize if that came across as patronizing. That is all I will say on the matter.

You don't provide any basis for your assumption, so how is anyone supposed to know what you're basing it on? If you had a tangible reason to believe what you're asserting, you'd only need to say "I can't get into specifics, but I have reason to believe..." and that at least would qualify your post as something more than speculation. You say you're "sure" it's never going to be used again... I have far less certainty about things for which I have loads of evidence, than you seem to have about something for which you've offered zero evidence. Believe what you want. It's a label on a box, with virtually zero significance to anyone other than a few very vocal people who obsess over these kinds of details.

It’s a wild assumption in that you have nothing in the way of evidence or past experience to base it on. If you’d said “I doubt we’ll see more playsets” that at least would have some basis, given they’ve done back-to-back playsets that didn’t appear to sell very well. There’s nothing to suggest they won’t continue to use the MBS label if they do make more playsets, on the other hand. I only mentioned the tantive since it lacked the USC label too, and straddled the line between display piece and playable set (given it had interior spaces, etc.) There’s also no reason the MBS label can’t be applied to a non-playset. It’s Master Builder Series, not Master Playset Series after all.

There is no more secrecy than any other wave. People are just talking about it earlier than usual, because there isn’t much in the April wave to discuss. The summer stuff hasn’t been shown to US retailers yet so fewer people know what’s coming, and those that do aren’t willing or able to reveal things so early. That seems like a pretty wild assumption. Not sure there is much to support it, other than the label not appearing on the Tantive. I would be surprised if the gunship appeared before fall 2021. Even if LEGO had a prototype of the set in development when they ran the poll, it would be a year or more before it would be ready to hit shelves.(Some UCS sets take several years to develop.) The Cloud City D2C set retired earlier than most people would have expected, probably due to poor sales, so it’s doubtful LEGO would have had another playset ready to take its place as early as this May. But if LEGO isn’t completely put off by the reception it and Assault on Hoth received, I would think we get another one before the gunship Very few people outside of LEGO know in advance what the upcoming D2C sets will be because they aren’t (initially) sold at retail stores, featured in retail catalogs or shown at toy fairs, which is where most of the leaks originate.

The likelihood of LEGO doing any Rebels-based set again — let alone a big-ticket set like the Ghost — is slim to none. The sets released during the show's run did not sell well by any account, and without current media supporting additional sets, I just don't see them taking such a large chance where they had previously failed. Your best hope is that the ship shows up in the upcoming followup series... but even that's a stretch given LEGO has not shown a ton of faith in the Star Wars tv-based media over the last few years.

But.. but... space is cold, so it could be a Star Destroyer! And... Leia got all frosty when the Raddus blew up, so it could be the Raddus! And...... :) Most of the time, the simplest answer is the correct answer. (I should have said it was a Hoth Generator with seven dead (correction: sleeping, in LEGOspeak) rebel figs. Then you might have believed me.)

You have guessed correctly. The $140 set is indeed a giant Hoth Generator. Exploding feature, no figs, 3 nodes instead of 4, just as LEGO likes it.

You don't need to apologize. I would love that too, as I'm sure half the people here would. It's just not what LEGO seems to want to put out right now, sadly.

To clarify, I wasn't singling you out... I just meant in general people seem to have been imagining things that weren't realistically going to happen. When I initially said "lower your expectations" it was in response to a string of posts asserting that there were 10 or more sets in the "summer" wave, which of course would leave room for lots of sets from lots of different shows/games/movies/eras, when the reality is that we're only get 6 sets, predominantly small ones, and predominantly from a single era. Later, when Robianco mentioned the prequels, people started imagining all sorts of new ships and sets that had never seen the light of day before and expectations again went way out of whack (someone actually suggest the $140 set could be both the AT-TE and the gunship, in a single box). And I again said, lower your expectations. The point isn't to trash the wave or demotivate people to buy it or be excited about it, but just to keep people grounded (as you say) in their expectations, and think about what LEGO would realistically do. "Safe" to LEGO doesn't mean $140 ARC-170s. It means reliable sellers (think: landspeeders, snowspeeders, etc.), reusing existing builds, basic hero/villain sets, and focusing prequel/CW sets (which LEGO views as kid-oriented) in the smaller end of the wave, where kids can afford them.

Well, we’ve had about 10 pages of posts predicting that the big set was going to be a gunship, arc, at-te, venalor, or sith star destroyer. I’m guessing we’re now about to get another 5 pages of posts from people disappointed that they’re not getting those sets. And like I said, there are a few bright spots in the wave, depending on your own point of view.

I’m also not sure that mold would cut it by today’s standards. I could maybe see them reusing one of the head pieces used in the Fantastic Beasts sets last year? I forget how close a match it was though.

I think your best bet for ever getting a Boga is to find a brick-built MOC. For LEGO to do the new mold(s) required for that creature, this far out from the movie, would take a minor miracle. As for the summer wave, I think it's inevitable that pretty much everyone here will find something they like and simultaneously find something to gripe about. Fans of one era/trilogy will be happy that they got as many sets as they did, but disappointed that the sets aren't what they were hoping for. Fans of other eras will be disappointed they didn't get more sets, but I think pleased by what they do get. And even if you love every set that makes up the wave, there is always the tired tried and true "these prices are absurd!" gripe to fall back on.

I think it boils down to when the next wave is released in stores. If it's April as it has been in the last few years (and as a few have suggested on Instagram), then a NYTF reveal seems more likely. If it's actually May, LEGO may want to hold the official reveal until closer to launch. Bear in mind Toy Fair is primarily for toy retailers, and the major ones at least saw all the April/May sets ages ago, behind closed doors. I would guess the "summer" wave set list appears online fairly soon... by NYTF if not before. Pretty much everything else has leaked at this point. Honestly surprised there haven't been more fake lists circulating about...

Correct. That's all I was hinting at when I said there was a reason this one leaked first. I would not expect any of the summer sets, even Grievous' Starfighter, to be on public display at NY Toy Fair. The April/May wave hasn't even been shown publicly, and that might even be a stretch to appear at NYTF. But, anything's possible.

I only said that maybe he should consider paying for it, rather than spending the considerable effort reverse-engineering it. Saves him time/effort and compensates the original designer. As for "stealing", that may not be what Midlife is doing, but it's kinda what it sounded like he was doing, from the thread title and his first post. Would someone be within their legalistic rights to take a model, reverse-engineer it (even exactly as-is, no mods), and not pay for it? Sure. Would it necessarily be the right thing to do? I would argue, notsomuch. And as I suggested in my subsequent post, there is a big difference between that and referencing an existing design, using it as a starting point, and building something new, which is what it sounds like Midlife is actually doing. (I have certainly done the same).

Dude. No one said anything about demanding payment. The "community would collapse" because someone charges for instructions? Seriously? Might be a tad overdramatic there. That sounds a lot more worthwhile than reverse-engineering with a few mods. Look forward to seeing where you end up.

I don't mean to be rude but have you considered buying the instructions from Richboyjhae and modding them to your taste, rather than effectively stealing his design via reverse-engineering? Given how much effort you're putting into recreating his design, it should be clear to you that he put in exponentially more work to design it from scratch. Work that is worthy of compensation, don't you think?

He did say it was legit at some point, yes. And while you and I may never have believed those rumors, there were certainly a ton of people here who did buy into them, and refused to let go...

Can't answer questions about how I know stuff. Sorry. Trust me, don't trust me, entirely up to you. I don't remember where EU pricing first appeared publicly. I believe Landino posted some or all on Insta, and an Ecuadorian reseller posted prices that were roughly equivalent (though inflated, as most/all their prices are), and maybe there were other EU sites listing them as well. As far as I know they're all pretty consistent and reasonably accurate. But as a US resident I also don't pay that much attention to EU pricing, and even US pricing isn't that interesting to me, so I don't see much point in debating it when it's all subject to change until the sets are officially launched.