icm

Thanks. I don't follow Ninjago very closely, so all I was thinking was "blue $19.99 mech."

Pictures of the hydro mech can be found in the catalogs that have been posted already. It's a 4+ set built around the cockpit piece from the 4+ Tie Fighter in blue, with a pair of chunky specialized leg molds slapped on the bottom. Not very exciting.

Edit - forget I said anything. It's Christmas Eve, so Merry Christmas to all.

The only thing that really makes sense to me for this rumor is the Space Shuttle. It's extremely iconic and playable, the old 10213/10231 could easily hit the $200 range if redesigned with modern parts and techniques, there have been two 10k Ideas Space Shuttle models, and Creator Expert/18+ has never yet been used as a label for a creative in-house design of, say, a car, building, or airplane.

Microfighters are an inexpensive minifigure delivery system, is all. I'm happy to get my hands on an ANH Han Solo without breaking the bank thanks to this set.

The problem is mostly that the cancellation of set 42113 was heavily debated in this forum this summer and nobody wants to revisit the topic at the moment. You might try searching for the existing topics on 42113 and reading them in full.

I hear "another Lego X-wing on the shelves," I say "bring it on!" (In 2021 and 2023.)

I agree - the quasi-NASA colors made a lot of sense with the rover, but they don't work with the mining mech. I figure it's just an attempt at some sort of unnecessary quasi-continuity. The minifig in the cyber drone might be left over from excess production for the rover, so they just swapped the head.

Thanks for posting that picture! It's always nice to learn what other AFOLs do for their day job. You've posted about your bus driving job a lot before, but there's something about a nice photograph that really makes it, well, real. Do you drive the scenic monuments route every day? I haven't been to DC to see the monuments since I was 10. Could have gone to Virginia for grad school, but didn't.

I'm happy to have the ANH variant. This will be cheaper than getting ANH Han off Bricklink, and I desperately need a modern Han Solo to go with my TROS Falcon. How does this X-wing improve on the last model? Let me count the ways ... Proper long guns on the wings, for the first time since 2012. Engine cylinders that (for the first time ever) actually stick out in front of the wings the proper distance. A droid station that lets R2-D2 sit with head and shoulders outside, for the first time ever. Proper rear landing gear, for the first time since 1999. A return to the inverted wedge piece used on the lower-fuselage "step" in the 2012 model, after the inaccurate curves used ever since. (Stickered) detailing of the aft half of the wing wedges, for the first time ever. Oh, and did I mention center-pivot wings? Center-pivot wings that attach with Technic pins and don't need rubber bands? That's an epochal improvement, it finally brings the set wing mechanisms into MOC territory. How was the last model better than this one? Let me count the ways ... They looked bad, but the four spring shooters and two stud shooters were really fun for play. I don't like the new nose cone. The new fuselage is slab-sided and boxy, which looks bad. The new cockpit looks more cramped and less detailed, because the canopy is moved forward 1 stud relative to the wedge plate that forms the aft end of the nose. On the whole, then, this new one is a real improvement - even without looking at the lower price. I think I'm gonna buy three, two for myself and one for a friend. Plus one of the TIE fighters and one or two of the Han Solo microfighters. And there's ANH Leia! That's another figure I've been wanting that I now won't need to get from Bricklink for an arm and a leg.

TIE Fighter pictures are up on the US Shop at Home, too. I wasn't planning on getting this before seeing the high-res pics, but now it's back on my list. My ever-growing, much-too-long-to-afford list ....

Holy cow. They did it. They actually did it. CENTER-PIVOT WINGS on the X-wing. I've been wanting those for YEARS. That gets this version an A+++ from me, whatever the other details are. I also like the new 3W engine pieces (borrowed from Minions goggles) that finally have the proper length of the engine cylinders ahead of the wing leading edges.

Oi. That looks straight out of 1999.

The upper body of this is very nice, with texture and angles that bely its construction from Lego. The legs are a bit less convincing, but still better than I could do. My favorite details are the fabric elbow pads. They give the vehicle a unique look, like the walker has fallen on hard times and has to wear patched-up clothes from the secondhand store - which is more or less true!

That's a very interesting picture indeed! How do the sizes of the two stadiums compare in real life? Old Trafford is already a really big set in the 3k parts, 300 buck range, but it really shows that the Colosseum has nearly three times the part count! Sometimes you can compare two sets of similar subjects, one with a much larger parts count, and you can't really tell where all the added parts have gone because the two builds are practically the same size, but not in this case!

@Former Itaria No Shintaku Sorry to see you go. I enjoyed seeing your minifigure posts, even though I never commented on them. Hope things go well for you in the lovely city of Rome!

All of my nieces and nephews have gone through a villain phase starting at about age 3. They all love to play Darth Vader and chop people into chicken nuggets. The most aggressively nerdy of my friends in elementary school and middle school were always into the villains, especially Jango Fett. I was always on Team Good Guy, though.

Jang actually has done vlogs and showed off his city. He does live chats with Patreon supporters and then posts them to his YouTube channel. The guy has enough personality for me without having Personality with a capital P. Not everybody needs Personality. Edit, that was really nice of Ryan to send you the AAT. Good for him and for you.

Not to mention the VW Beetle, VW Microbus, Mini Cooper, Ferrari F40, VW Beetle (again), Ford Mustang, Harley Davidson Fat Boy, Fiat 500 ... those aren't movie licenses, but they are licensed, every last one of them. (Is the London Bus licensed? I don't know. Someone tell me.) Heck, I'd throw in last year's Batmobile in that category too. Neither the Batmobile nor the Ecto-1 are listed under Creator Expert by Brickset, not that it really matters. I'm not going to worry too much about classic-themed 18+ sets for now, I just hope we continue to get things like the PirateShip/PirateTavern/PirateIsland and the MarsRover/MarsBase/VicViper in the Creator 3-in-1 line. (I have the Viper sitting on my desk right now distracting me from work/school.)

It's just another Creator Expert-style car. Licensed Creator Expert-style cars are nothing new. Heck, it doesn't even have the Creator Expert label anymore, just 18+.

What a gorgeous build in every detail. Simply breathtaking. I especially like the 4x4 round tiles giving side texture to the boulder work and the brick built white water of the stream and waterfall. The use of tensegrity to create actual floating islands is inspired, and the fact that there's an entire underground goblin village is amazing too. Thanks for posting!

This really shows how the parts palette has changed to make building mechs and giant robots easier. It's actually a giant walking robot now, not a funny statue on roller skates. Thanks for posting.

I guess in addition to the Great X-wing/Snowspeeder Color Debate, we now have the Great Colosseum Color Debate.

I never build Technic or Creator Expert/Model Team-style MOCs anyway, so my comment isn't as relevant to this specific topic, but for what it's worth: I haven't been building as much in the past year, year and a half, partly because I moved to another state for school and took a 50% pay cut, so I don't have as much money for Lego; partly because the city I moved to is much poorer than the city I moved from, so I'm less comfortable buying Lego at the store anyway; partly because of pandemic and election anxiety; and partly because I've come to the point where building MOCs in Studio without ordering physical parts for them just seems vain, yet I can't bring myself to order the parts because of the previously mentioned reasons.

The lower wings of my 4502 X-wing didn't sag after over 7 years of being assembled nearly the entire time. That model uses six white rubber bands, so their elastic properties may be different. The lower wings of my 9493 X-wing didn't sag after about 2 years of being assembled the entire time, but I mostly kept it sitting on its tail so the rubber bands weren't under as much stress. I haven't kept any newer X-wings assembled for more than a few days at a time, so I don't know how their rubber bands age.