Hrw-Amen

I think the thing with ballast is that it holds the track more ridged in place (Just like the real stuff.) which whilst is good for a layout may not be so good for those who put their sets up and take them down again as they do not have room. I fall into that second group, I am trying to ballast three straight lengths at a time to get enough to go around the living room, but yes it is slow progress. It looks a lot better but is a lot of work and slow as it is expensive. I have one length and a siding ballasted properly down all the time behind the chairs as it is hard to get to. Having bits done in three straights though lessens the time needed to set up and take down. The corners are buggers though! Loads of tiles for them! I have done two out of four so far.

Here is a large Raven Clan bird flyer that I built using two of the gliders and a few other bits. I wanted to create a large flyer that had pecking beak biting action as biting seems to be a recurring theme amongst the Chima Clan Vehicles. It has two of the grapples mounted underneath in a similar manner to the original gliders one. It also has a couple of flick fire missiles on the body behind the pilot, (They can be raised / lowered turned so as not to hit the pilot.) not wanting to be outdone by other clans. Then at the front is the thin pointy beak that can snap at the prey as it swoshes its way across the skies of Chima.

Here is a MOC I made using the Lion Clan Speedorz Bike. I figured that the Speedorz would have had an origin some time in the past and as they are fast and agile maybe they were originally designed as the Animal Kingdoms Scout vehicles. Perhaps in times of peace before the tribes are at each other they would have had a combined force which is why the speedorz look so similar? The Lion clan have obviously kept a few of these scout vehicles the Speedorz are based on. They have to go over most terrain types and not just the Sppedorz court and circuits, therefore they are equipped with powerful treads to enable them to go where ever they are needed. (Well on land anyway.)

Yes you can light the engine with PF. You can have up to 8 independent trains running with one PF train controller, assuming you can keep track of that m,any at once.

For my part I am just saving up to get the Goblin king Battle, it is the only one I have not got yet so for completeness I want it. I have to say that it does not look appealing really though. I hate the look of the Goblin king, especially as during the movie my wife leans over and whispers "He looks like you." which annoyingly is probably true! None the less I will get it. I did not get the same feeling for the Moria set that everyone keeps going on about, but I guess maybe as I mounted it on a 48 X 48 base plate and built a bit of extra corridor to go with it for more playability. (Sadly no pictures and the set has been packed away, (Without the base plate and extra wall.)) But I have to say with both of these sets that take place underground it is fairly easy to build other sections as essentially they are grey rock walls. I also think the best Hobbit set so far is the Unexpected Gathering, I have mine on display right now and I have been contemplating building it back a bit with a couple of Bag End corridors and rooms. Maybe a bedroom and kitchen?

Nice to see lots of orcs and from different tribes all fighting together under the dark lord. Perhaps TLG will release one of those little 1X1 round tiles with a red eye on it for then shield centre? That would be a nice touch. Hopefully I will soon complete my LOtR and Hobbit sets with the Goblin Kings Battle and then I can get a load of Orcs together as well. It should be good to get them all in one place lined up. But you are right to keep the Orthanc Uruks Seperate I think, they have their own very uniform feel that is somehow lost in the Mordor hoards.

That looks great! How about one shot of Gollum disappearing under the lava holding the ring up as he goes under, that would be quite scenic especially with your feature of the cliff falling away at the same time!

I have found that in small shunting diesels it is quite easy to fit all the PF stuff, if somewhat of a squeeze, but it is possible. I have three to date that use this, one runs on a M Motor and the other two use the standard PF Train motor (which gives more room to hide stuff.) but I agree the problem is the ability to control speed at the lower end. Either it is so slow (With the M Motor.) that it does not have enough power to actually move the train, then when you go up to the next notch it shoots off at ridiculous speed, or with the two PF Train motors they run around fine on a circuit but trying to actually do any shunting is all but impossible as they just do not go slow enough to not smash the trucks off of the track or into several scattered parts. I don't really see the batteries themselves as being a problem as they last a reasonable time for the amount I get to use the trains and also when I put them away I always remove the batteries and charge them up for next time. I do have quite a large collection of rechargeable batteries. I would like to own the proper LEGO rechargeable packs but they are prohibitive in the cost. I cannot say that I have used the 12V or 9V system (I used to use the 4.5V system.) but looking at it the 12V system track looks very ugly to me with that line in the middle for power and as a result not very real. The 9V sounds like it may have been the best option and it is a shame that they dropped it as I imagine it gave much better control of speed. But there you go, not much we can do about it really. I guess we are stuck with what we have been given for now. As a distraction of sorts, i do find that the couple of 4.5V trains I have running are much more reasonable in low speed running with the PF system. They are nowhere near as fast as the new train motors and as a result the different spots on the 7 stages of the PF controller are not so far apart making running a slower engine for shunting much more easy. The only trouble is that the old 4.5V battery boxes are so big they have to be tender engines to hide it. Whilst it was not unknown for tender engines to be shunters I guess it was not impossible?

Very nice Houses of Parliament but I don't recall them having white roof bricks back then either? If memory serves we could only get them at 45 degres in red or blue?

Very good little ship, I guess we could probably do with a few of these in orbit nowadays to clear up all the junk!

That is a nice lot of engines and trucks there. I especially like the little black one with the tipper trucks. Can I ask what the blue line is that is going from the window across the rest, is it a type of monorail? Can we have some close up pictures of it please?

Nice to read the interview, I also did not know that it was a specific job title. Reading between the lines though there seems to be quite a bit of work that they are prevented from doing due to this. I imagine that would be very frustrating for them and could potentially result in the a lot of lost jobs/contracts.

So if you knew say a thousand people who all wanted a particular set could you phone up Customer Service and get a huge reduction in price for buying in bulk?

Nice to see that, it is a lot bigger than I expected it to be!

Reminds me of an iced purple birthday cake I once had! I bet walking in nothing but socks over all those bricks really hurt that kid's feet!

That is a really nice little train with so much character. It is things like this that help to bring a layout to life.

Looks good, some nice diesel shunters and the steam one looks pretty good for a first attempt.

It certainly looks like that truck in train form. It is obviously that which you have used to base your idea on. Good to see the trailer as well, but as a train it could do with a few more trailers like that, then they could transport even more LEGO boxes to the CITY store! Maybe you could make good ones out of other LEGO sets which would identify with what they originally were?

I do so much prefer diesels to electrics for a modelling project as they can then run around any line regardless of whether you have overhead cables or not.

I have found that generally people think it is a little childish, then when they come around to visit and see some my buildings all fully kitted out inside or some of my railway stuff that loos like the real thing rather than a LEGO Train they are soon convinced otherwise, but it is getting them to see that side of it rather than the kids side of it I find. Having said that I was a bit embarrassed the other day I had to go and see the nurse at my local surgery (To get a dressing changed.) and just in general conversation she asked what my hobbies were. My wife who was with me blurted out before I could say anything, "He likes to play with LEGO." I felt like a silly little boy and went bright red.

Very nice station with lots of little details that make it so interesting.

Two booklets does seem a bit much for such a small set. It does have some nice bits in it though, the printed jagged teeth 1x2 tile for example.

I have a few of this set as I wanted to do some MOCs around it. The only thing I can find fault with the original model is that as soon as the vehicle moves it goes into attack mode with the rotating claws and tracks. I would have liked a way of keeping them up in defence mode until they are needed for an attack. Other than that it is a great little set.

I second the Duck Billed Platypus they would be an excellent choice! If we are looking to insects, how about and Ant or Termite tribe, seeing as those sort of things are in nests and have soldier and a Queen already in the real world!

Well, I did discover that one of my long time work mates collects Mini-figures, whilst not a fully blown AFOL (He just goes for the figures.) it is kind of in a way.