Flak Maniak

Is it me or is the #legoleaks tag on Instagram nigh-usless right now, with basically no proper leaked stuff, let alone Ninjago-related? I'm hungry for better pics but this website is too barbaric.

It varies a lot. Sometimes, parts that were in your cart end up backordered. Or just, the stock wasn't what they thought. Things get delayed. Shipping itself can take a long time. Just be patient. Many of my orders have taken well over a month to get here. Some have gotten here somewhat quickly but I always assume they'll take a very long time.

Okay now I want a fantasy-lawyers theme. Imagine it, it'd be about magical law that affects the real world... Like that one Unwinder's Tall Comic. Isn't that just so evocative? But, yes, as you say, perhaps the five-year-olds aren't wowed by such a concept. Well, I'd settle for a proper European/medieval fantasy theme of any sort. But, hopefully they can hook me up with a lawyer-mage, as a bonus!

Put in an order for B&P and some sets... And then I see now the whole order is listed as canceled... Supposedly because I went over an order limit on a set... (So why does the online interface allow me to try to buy that many in the first place? The online interface DOES list limits for sets! Why does it list ones that are wrong?!) But... Shouldn't it ONLY cancel the offending sets, or enough of them to bring me under the order limit? Guess I'll call tomorrow, and they'll tell me "you have to redo it all manually", and some parts I want will be out of stock on B&P... Some day, Lego's website may be well-made. But not today. And this post was just going to say "bought 24 Black Falcon legs to go with the torsos from the other day; this is too many; when will I ever want 36 total Black Falcons?" Edit: Actually since the order was listed with all its components on the website (and the email about the cancellation told me that I'd have to redo it manually), I just redid it manually by copying and pasting. Only one thing was out of stock, the pearl gold back-katana-holder, that I wasn't super attached to anyway. Still, this is a 19th-century website. Many fewer elements on my wanted list now...

I really wish one could order the spongy capes... Or any capes at all really. Those are good builds but don't tempt me, since I was contemplating the part for its intended use.

Were the Tournament Knight's legs and torso on B&P at some point? Also, man, I'm conflicted on these modern lantern pieces ( 37776 ). Yeah sure they look great, but... They don't feel that Lego-y to me, not compared to just putting a transparent 1x1 round brick beneath a 2x2 dish. (And perhaps using the four-prong tree-piece thingy below that, or just a 2x2 round plate below.) I dunno; specialized parts like that just feel like cheating sometimes. I keep being tempted to buy a bunch of these lantern parts but then not doing it for that reason.

Probably the people actually paying the high prices on BL don't know about B&P. You saw for example last year, BL sellers listing just the minifigs from Barracuda Bay for close to $90, ridiculous things like that. When obviously all or almost all the minifigure parts were on B&P. I didn't know about B&P as a separate thing from online pick-a-brick until last year either. (And one might say, upon seeing the cost of all my B&P orders, that it'd have been better if I'd never known!)

I checked BrickLink to see the state of Black Falcon scalper nonsense: Yes, clearly someone bought 200! But, it's not wall-to-wall scalpers with three thousand in stock. I dare say... Maybe the scalpers aren't a huge problem here? Could just be that Lego's extra production for B&P is still slow due to pandemic countermeasures. (Or maybe the scale of production-for-B&P is just really small overall?) Or, I guess the third option is, lots of people were buying 200, but just to stick on a baseplate, not to sell on BL. (I will curse them for buying so many figures for such a boring purpose, as I will curse that guy with ten thousand Exploriens.)

Seems like a lot of parts have gone down in price. The Ninjago Master of the Mountain armor ( 65435 ), in both silver and gold, for example, used to be sixtysomething cents and is now thirtysomething. Might order a pile more... Probably can never have too many of those. I mean, if I were in charge that part would be used for years to come; just seems so perfect for medieval/fantasy sets in general. But if it's NOT in production for years, then having many dozens stashed away will be quite nice... The light bluish gray angled thingy from the Beekeeper ( 6326748 ) is still out of stock; really wish Firefox hadn't crashed the other day when I had some in my cart. Probably it will come back into stock eventually. I ordered some of the trans-bright green canopy from the White Dragon Horse Jet ( 35328 / 6316470 ); should be good. And some of Mei's new face. Also ended up buying more Mei spacesuit torsos and legs (well, a spacesuit is what I'M calling it, at any rate!). I only started using B&P in 2020 so I can't speak to previous eras, but yeah minifigure parts for Ninjago have been pretty capricious in terms of what goes up. Some (like the 2020 orcs) are excluded entirely, sometimes you get torso + legs, sometimes you just get one or the other... I do wish more of the minifigure parts would be more available here; I'd probably buy a dozen of many different figures.

A very charming build; definitely made me smile.

I haven't photographed it yet; I was hoping to show it off only when it was done (and I wasn't sure it would have sails at all), but yeah, probably I ought to show some work-in-progress pictures, if only so that any prospective sailmakers can get a sense of scale... Well, I'll show its current state soon enough...

Were the Vidiyo parts available in all regions? Damn, I wish I'd checked hours ago... Could have gotten a dozen Alien DJs, perhaps.

For once the torso is in stock but NOT the legs... Hilarious. See, I wouldn't be contributing to the scarcity problem at all if there weren't so much scarcity; I have little enough self-control that I ordered 24 torsos this time (I have a dozen from a previous order), since, well... Who knows! But yeah, get 'em while they're hot, and hope that if they sell out in two seconds each time, Lego sees that and decides to make more...

Yes, those were by phone. I haven't seen the sail-set in stock on the website, though I admit I haven't checked for it religiously. This was a couple days before the reports in this thread that phone-backorders were no longer possible, so it might be that I slid in right under the closing door. Or maybe it was and still is very operator-dependent. But, I did manage to order two sail-sets and they did get here. (And that's also how I managed the Black Falcon parts themselves; those were a backorder too.)

Well, my dozen Black Falcons got here... Along with two sets of Barracuda Bay sails. On and another giant order containing various parts including some of the new silver armor from the Blacksmith. But that giant order is a random mishmash. Man these neo-Black Falcons look good... I was never attached to any of the old castle factions so, unclouded by nostalgia, I can tell you they're excellent-looking! Surely I'll order another dozen if not more, if I get the chance... Which I might not! We'll just have to see. But, these twelve should look very nice, in whatever sort of castle I end up building for them. How about dark bluish gray and blue? Black and blue? Not sure; maybe the castle's accent color should contrast against them! Perhaps blue knights in a dark-bluish-gray-and-red castle! Really I've let far too many B&P/BrickLink orders accumulate, sitting there in the living room, nigh-unsorted... Gotta put everything in its proper place, not least so I can see what I have!

If anything I'd say that while I like Ninjago's gimmick waves a lot... Each one leaves me wanting more! If they stayed on one particular subtheme for a bit longer, I'd probably be really into that. But, maybe it's efficient to go through them quickly; we get cool new minifigs and parts each time, and if we want more, well then we must simply... Build from our imaginations!

Well, I ordered some of the cylindrical helmets. Decided against getting more of the shoulder armor; ordered 40 last time which is surely enough for me. Unsure if I'll order more Black Falcon body parts at some point, even if I catch them in stock; the dozen I ordered on the phone might well be enough. Surely a dozen is enough? I keep telling myself that, but... Still, so many other parts that I'd like to see again! Wish I'd ordered more Samurai X torsos and legs; the torso is out of stock now, hopefully not forever. Vidiyo minifigure parts seem to be listed but without prices; I guess that's more remote than out-of-stock but with prices. So, I guess, unclear if they'll become properly available.

The torsos are gone already; the legs are still there, as are the cylindrical helmets. Make some more, Lego! Take notice of our enormous demand!

Sure, if you want "exactly set X", you might pay a lot, because there are probably SOME rare parts in that set. But if you just want bulk parts, and you buy opportunistically... Then BrickLink is very cheap. Sure, you might think "Hmm, part X in color A might be nice" and then find that it's expensive. But if you have vague ideas like "I want to do castle-ish builds in colors ABC", and then just go on BL and look at some of the big sellers... You are going to spend a lot of money, but you are gonna get a LOT of parts for your dollar. I disagree that a "just parts on-demand" service would be easy to run much more cheaply than current services. That's way more SKUs than selling sets. And Lego already does run two of these, and if I'm honest, they ARE quite cheap. (Well, not sure so much about the online pick-a-brick, as I tend to use Bricks & Pieces instead.) When I think about the logistical work required to run it, honestly it's surprising that B&P isn't more expensive than it is. With it and BrickLink I have incredible access to parts, new and old. If another manufacturer wants to snipe Lego on this, they would need an incredibly strong selection, in Lego-matching colors, at a very low price, AND at nigh-indistinguishable quality and plastic finish. If that happens, great; maybe I'll buy from that company. It's not like I'm purist enough to purge the '90s Tyco bricks I have lying around. As for buying used parts on BrickLink, I usually don't bother to check new vs. used. Most sellers will denote if parts are significantly faulty. Yes, some used parts will be a bit nicked, but I don't particularly mind. If I'm doing some Aquazone build, beat-up old bricks from decades ago, that look like the bricks from my childhood? Those fit right in. I guess I'm just not that picky, because dinged-up bricks feel like the authentic Lego experience to me. I don't like significant discoloration, but nicks and scratches are whatever. I guess for me, I tend to play the long game, and just buy a lot of parts when I see something interesting and cheap. Which you can say is either prudent bargain-hunting, or wasteful and extravagant, depending on whether you see how full my parts bins are! But I swear, I'll get around to using all those cool parts eventually!

So wait, some of you are alluding to the Creator castle having Black Falcons; has that been confirmed? And is there much new info about it at any rate?

I agree with many of you that Ninjago seems to be a vehicle for "sort of do X esoteric theme, for a wave". And... I think that's fine. Probably, we couldn't have seen a legit, fully-realized sky-pirates theme, but we got some from Ninjago. We might not see a theme like Aquazone come back ( ;_; ) but, this new underwater wave... It has my attention. Ninjago-in-space? Sign me up. Sounds cool; we'll no doubt get some interesting aesthetics out of it! It's fine with me if Ninjago waves are more gimmick-oriented now, less Ninjago-fundamentals than they once were; the gimmicks are cool. Unless they totally botch the designs and minifigure aesthetics (lookin' at you, The Lego Ninjago Movie; you lack aesthetic continuity with the rest of Ninjago), as long as they just keep most of the same aesthetic decisionmakers they've had for a long time... Then they're gonna put out sets and parts and minifigs that I will want. Where they go, I'll follow. Most waves have had something for me. If nothing else, I can't get enough of these cool ninja minifigures... I keep checking Instagram and man, what a disorganized mess, just looking at tags like #legoleaks. Are there specific accounts I should follow for reliable images, or perhaps I should say, for images without the tide of irrelevant stuff that pollutes the #legoleaks tag? At any rate, I look forward greatly to this summer wave. If these ninja parts make it on B&P, I will be quite poor indeed!

Is there precedent from previous high-demand parts, of them eventually defeating the scalpers via manufacturing enough? (And, relatedly, do we know if some of the COVID-related manufacturing slowdown is behind us? Are current stock issues [be it on sets or parts] just super-high demand, and no longer reduced supply?) Either way, I guess I'll opportunistically buy more Black Falcons if I catch them, but I won't try TOO hard to catch them. Just, hopefully some other historical/fantasy torsos become available reasonably soon.

Last night I was preparing a big B&P order and Firefox had the audacity to crash... And then the angled handle thingy in light bluish grey from the Beekeeper (65578 / 6326748) was out of stock. But, at least the dark bluish grey hinge bases came back in stock... I really want to know when the VIDIYO parts will be available, if ever. And some of these new Ninjago/Monkie Kid parts/recolors. Seems like the figure parts from The Island aren't listed at all, none of the special stuff basically. We'll see, I guess. The cylindrical knight helmets in flat silver (89520 / 6327809)... Have those been in stock recently? I bought some pearl dark grey ones last year, and I know the flat silver ones are in the blacksmith, and they're listed, with a price... Just out of stock. Still mulling whether to get another dozen Black Falcons if they come back in stock... Breaking my dozen-only rule for interesting figures. I mean, two dozen is in one sense a lot, but it's also really not so many when you think about it. I'm not the type to order 200 to stick on a baseplate, that much I can say. It's certainly too early to talk about summer 2021 parts, so chastise me for this, but... Can't wait to order the summer 2021 Ninjago underwater outfits. The basis for new Aquazone factions, they shall surely be!

I will make note of this for later... Many of these figures, like the Alien DJ, are ones I could use a dozen of...

Correct. I don't care about Black Falcons per se; I might have had a Black Falcon torso or two as a kid, as hand-me-downs from the neighor's kids. But Black Falcons aren't iconic or important to me. What matters is that they're good medieval/fantasy torsos/legs, available straight from Lego, for less than a king's ransom. So I bought a dozen on B&P. I'll make some sort of castle-ish environment for them. Something from my own imagination. It has to have some kind of knights in it, but what kind isn't so important. Well, maybe the fact that these happen to be blue will mean I'll use blue as a big color. Maybe Lego has inspired me that way. But, again, this is just about powering my own creations, about having something that fits well enough with the theme I want to build in. The kids these days care about Black Falcons a lot less than I do, I guarantee you. Whatever logos Lego puts on the torsos will do just fine. And for me, I don't really care if it's new or old factions. So long as the minifigure parts have good designs and a cohesive aesthetic, and they're available on B&P, I'll be quite happy. I care more that they fire up the molding and printing machines through the night, to make enough parts to sate demand on B&P, than whether they put a falcon or a lion or a dragon on those torsos. If the new castle is Black Falcons again, that's fine. If it's some other faction, I suppose that's a little better, because then we've something to contrast with our neo-Black Falcons. If they give us red-and-black knights, well, then I guess I'll build a red-and-black castle to go with them. But, that's easy for me to say, isn't it? I'm not in quite the same castle-fan boat. If you told me that just any underwater minifigures should do, then I would of course tell you to brick off, and that only proper Aquanauts and Aquasharks and Stingrays will do. Because for my dearest Aquazone I'm blinded by nostalgia, I'm picky, I have a very specific notion in my head of what things should be. And many of you no doubt feel that way about castle, there's an incredibly specific thing you want, and nothing else will do.